News in Brief
There’s a link between climate change and shrinking human brain
Science Alert – A new study suggests a link between past climate changes and a drop in the size of the human brain – an adaptive response that emerges in an analysis of climate records and human remains over a 50,000-year period.
The research by cognitive scientist Jeff Morgan Stibel from the Natural History Museum in California adds to our understanding of how humans develop and adapt in response to environmental stress.
"Given recent global warming trends, it is critical to understand the impact of climate change, if any, on human brain size and ultimately human behavior.” Stibel writes in his published paper.
The study looked at how the brain size of 298 Homo specimens changed over the last 50,000 years in relation to natural records of global temperature, humidity, and rainfall. When the climate got warmer, the average brain size grew significantly smaller than when it was cooler.
Activists plug holes on 10 Spanish golf courses in water protest
The Guardian – Climate activists in Spain have filled in holes on 10 golf courses to draw attention to the huge amounts of water the “elitist leisure pursuit” uses as a nationwide drought continues in the first heatwave of the year.
Members of Extinction Rebellion (XR) revealed their latest direct-action campaign in a video released on Sunday, saying they had targeted courses in locations including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, the Basque country, Navarra and Ibiza.
Footage showed activists plugging holes with soil and planting seedlings alongside signs reading: “Drought alert. Golf course closed for climate justice.”
In a statement, XR said it had carried out the action to “denounce the wasting of water by golf in the midst of one of the worst droughts in history”. It said golf courses in Spain used more water than the cities of Madrid and Barcelona combined, with each hole requiring more than 100,000 liters of water a day to maintain the greens.