The origin of domestic cats has been a prominent topic amongst researchers. Their emergence has been linked to the Neolithic period, where they accompanied the farmers while spreading across Europe, along with the agricultural adaptation. However, further investigations have been conducted wherein the significance puzzled the archaeologists. Recently, two large-scale investigations were conducted by the University of Rome Tor Vergata and 42 institutions, and another by the University of Exeter and contributors from 37 institutions, pointing out that Tunisia could be the place of the origin of the domestic cat.

The Tor Vergata Study on Cats

The expert team of researchers from the University of Rome Tor Vergata conducted paleo-genomic analyses, where they analyzed the specimens of cats from 97 archaeological sites across Europe and Anatolia. Likewise, they also took samples from North Africa, Bulgaria, and Italy.

According to the study published on bioRxiv titled “The dispersal of domestic cats from Northern Africa and their introduction to Europe over the last two millennia”, the researchers analysed a total of 70 low-coverage ancient genomes, 37 radiocarbon-dated cat remains, and 17 modern and museum genomes.

The Tor Vergata Study Results

The Tor Vergata Team, as a result of the nuclear DNA analyses, identified felines embedded by domestic ancestry that appeared from the first century CE onwards in Europe. The team also identified two introductory waves — one from the second century BCE, where wildcats were brought from Northwest Africa to Sardinia, raising the current island population, whereas the other wave belonged to the Roman Imperial period, where the cats genetically sounded similar to domestic cats in Europe. Here, Tunisia was observed as the base for early domestication.

The University of Exeter Study

According to a reprint titled, “Redefining the timing and circumstances of cat domestication, their dispersal trajectories, and the extirpation of European Wildcats,” the collaborative study by the University of Exeter shed light on a distinct timeline. They analysed 2,416 archeological field bones around 206 sites and cross-referenced morphological data, accompanied by genetic findings.

The key findings of this collaborative study defined that domestic cats first appeared in the early first millennium BCE in Europe. Their existence occurred before Roman expansion.

The Egyptian Connection

According to mythological theories, the emergence of domestication of cats was related to religious and cultural dimensions. In Egypt, the cats were considered holy. Also, in Greek culture, these creatures became religious symbols of Artemis and Diana — a multifaceted divinity.

Although the two studies offer different understandings, the results indicate that cats appeared in Europe after moving from North Africa as a result of cultural practices, religious reverence, and trade networks.

A new study published on March 26 in the Nature journal revealed that the magma ocean formation near Earth’s core started around 4.4 billion years ago. It might be impacting the Earth today as odd mantle anomalies. Discoveries suggest that Earth inevitably sheltered a deep basal magma believed to have existed at the boundary between the mantle and core. This helped the scientists explain the baffling structure of the mantle, such as the Large Low-Velocity (LLVPS) discovered with the help of seismic imaging. This event has played a crucial role in Earth’s shape with thermal and tectonic evolution.

Discovery and Implications

Assistant Professor Charles-Édouard Boukaré of York University, Toronto, who led this study, told Live Science that these magma oceans could affect thermal communication between the mantle and core, further affecting the tectonic plates’ location.

A new model proposed by his team combines geochemical and seismic data to help researchers explore how early crystallisation could lead to the persistent molten layer formed deep inside the planet. Boukaré, James Badro, and Henri Samuel are affiliated with the French Research Institutions and played a major role in the study published in the Nature journal.

Formation of Basal Magma Ocean

The team discovered that the magma ocean formation is inevitable, irrespective of the direction of Earth’s mantle solidification, either from core to surface or vice versa. In each case, the new Earth model proposes that dense iron oxide-rich solids sank near the Earth’s core and remelted (iron has a low melting point) due to the high temperature and pressure conditions, causing a permanent ocean of magma. Boukaré emphasised that a basal melt would be formed despite the least conducive scenarios.

Lasting Effects and Geological Memory

This study shows that the deep magma ocean left a lasting imprint on the interior of Earth around a few hundred million years ago. In a statement given to the publication, Boukaré said that there is a memory, explaining that Earth’s internal structure was shaped very early in the past and still plays a significant role in bringing geological processes such as tectonic movement and mantle convection. Dating back around 4.4 billion years, LLVPS may be the remnants of this ancient primordial layer.

Looking to Other Planets

Boukaré is seeking to expand the model with further trace elements and practice it on other planets made of rocks. He said that maybe this basal magma ocean event is not so unique to the Earth. This research could open new doors into comprehending the planetary formation across the solar system.

Researchers have found an odd Milky Way planet orbiting over and under the poles of two failing stars. Star systems arise from flattened, spinning disks of gas and dust, with materials gathering along the plane of the disk, forming planets, moons, and asteroids around a newborn star. Only sixteen exoplanets had ever been verified to circle a binary pair; all of those planets orbit in the plane of the stars’ orbits of one another, not over the poles. The elusiveness of these planets makes this find very fascinating.

Researchers knew of the two objects this odd planet orbits before they came upon it. They originally identified the do-si-doing pair using the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory in Chile in 2018, only to find they were brown dwarfs, failed stars insufficient in mass to ignite. The system began to look stranger once they zoomed in on the binary pair with the Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Scientists Find First Polar Planet in Bizarre Double-Brown-Dwarf System

According to the report, scientists have found the strangest planetary system yet observed, featuring the first-ever “polar planet” and a planet that orbits two stars. Better known as “failed stars,” brown dwarfs—stellar bodies that fail to gather enough materials to attain the mass required to start the fusion of hydrogen to helium in their cores—are the parent stellar bodies of exoplanet 2M1510 (AB). This discovery is the first solid evidence of such a fully formed system.

Exoplanet 2 M1510 (AB) b is a stellar body known as a “failed star” because it fails to gather enough matter to reach the mass needed to start the fusion of hydrogen to helium in its core. The chance of stellar bodies having a binary partner increases with mass, making a double-brown-dwarf star system pretty surprising.

Rare Eclipsing Brown Dwarf Pair Hosts First Known Polar-Orbit Planet

This is only the second pair of eclipsing brown dwarfs ever discovered, meaning one of the brown dwarfs eclipses the other, as seen from Earth’s vantage point. Team member Amaury Triaud of the University of Birmingham said that “a planet orbiting not just a binary, but a binary brown dwarf, as well as being on a polar orbit, is rather incredible and exciting.”

The discovery was incidental, since the observations were not aimed at such a planet or orbital arrangement. This realization usually helps one to understand what is sensible on the interesting planet we live on.