The key to discovering the secrets of life at the bottom of the ocean 150 million years ago has been discovered, and it was trapped inside ancient salt formations this whole time. Experts have been able to uncover the Earth's geological history y studying tiny water particles which have been preserved in crystals for millions of years. It’s all to do with analysing the amount of lithium which is trapped in samples rock salt. As it turns out, the level of lithium can tell us far more about atmospheric conditions in the oceans over the ages than most of us previously realised. Geochemists Mebrahtu Weldeghebriel of Princeton University and Binghamton University and Tim Lowenstein of Binghamton University have published their findings in a new study. The rock salt they studied, known as marine halite, came from across the world including the US, Europe, Asia and Africa. A total of 639 samples were taken from 65 halite crystals dating back to 150 million years ago. "There is a close link between ocean chemistry and atmospheric chemistry," Weldeghebriel said. “Whatever changes happen in the ocean also reflect what's happening in the atmosphere." "The oceans and atmosphere are connected to one another, and how they change is related," Lowenstein added. "Everything is connected." Most notably, their findings have helped to create a better understanding of tectonic movement on the seafloor. The reason the presence of lithium was so important is due to what it tells us about hydrothermal activity. The amount in the water indicates the levels of chemicals and heat which was being released into the oceans by vents between tectonic plates. As tectonic plate activity declined, there was a global drop in lithium levels. Instead, it was replaced by a rise in magnesium and calcium. The reduction in activity would also have meant less carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, which could potentially have been a factor in the temperature drop which resulted in the ice age. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Look out ChatGPT. Apple is reportedly working on a generative AI tool in the same

Three graphic designers are suing Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein over what they allege is "egregious" copyright infringement and racketeering.

Thousands of dead fish have mysteriously washed up on the Texas coast as a result of 'low-dissolved oxygen' in the water. According to Texas Parks & Wildlife, low oxygen levels are common in the summer when temperatures rise, making it so the fish can't 'breathe'. However, the footage looks like something out of a horror movie, with piles of silver carcasses lining the sand, 65 miles south of Houston. Most of the fish are thought to be Gulf menhaden, which are often used for bait. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Elon Musk may face legal difficulties after rebranding Twitter to X, trademark experts have warned, with tech rivals Meta and Microsoft both owning intellectual property rights for the letter. The tech billionaire renamed the social network on Monday, nine months after taking over the company in a $44 billion deal. The name change forms part of his plan to turn the platform into an “everything app”, which will offer services akin to China’s WeChat and India’s PayTM. X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said the company wanted to “transform the global town square” to integrate payments, banking and create a “global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities”. Before achieving this goal, however, IP lawyers claim Mr Musk’s firm may face challenges from its competitors. “There’s a 100 per cent chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” US trademark lawyer Josh Gerben told Reuters, noting that there are nearly 900 active US trademark registrations that already cover the letter X. These include Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns a federal trademark for a blue-and-white letter ‘X’ relating to “social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development”. Microsoft also has registered trademarks for the letter ‘X’ relating to its Xbox video game console. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Mr Musk first owned the X.com domain in 1999, when he founded a financial services company that later went on to become PayPal. He reacquired the domain in 2017 after making a deal with his former company, before tweeting in October 2022 that buying Twitter was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”. It is not clear whether Mr Musk has applied for a trademark for X, but if he succeeds he may still face difficulties in protecting the registered rights against other brands using the letter. “The very essence of trade mark registration is obtaining an exclusive right to the brand that is registered,” Matthew Harris, a trademark lawyer with Pinsent Masons, told The Independent. “It may be difficult to obtain for Elon Musk under the ‘X’ rebrand, not to mention the difficulty, should he obtain registered protection, in trying to enforce any registered rights in ‘X’ against other brands using a similar name.” Read More What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? Twitter to X: Why Elon Musk rebranded the social networking platform Twitter rebrands to X as Elon Musk loses iconic bird logo What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X?

Ron DeSantis continues to defend newly approved curriculum guidelines in Florida instructing students to learn that enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit”. “That means they developed skills in spite of slavery, not because of slavery,” the governor told NBC News in a recent interview that aired on 7 August. “It was them showing resourcefulness and then using those skills once slavery ended,” he added. Mr DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024, has dismissed criticism from Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic and Republican members of Congress urging Florida officials to amend the state’s African American history standards and reflect an honest history of race and racism in school curricula. The vice president has also rejected an invitation from Mr DeSantis to “discuss” the standards, telling a crowd in Orlando earlier this month that “there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery.” Mr DeSantis had previously stated he “wasn’t involved” with the guidelines approved by the state’s appointed Board of Education. He said the standards are “probably going to show some of the folks” – enslaved people – “that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” The development of such “skills” would not have benefited the millions of enslaved people in the US in the decades before slavery’s abolition. Another controversial guideline instructs high schoolers to be taught that a massacre in the state led by white supremacists against Black residents to stop them from voting in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” “Adults know what slavery really was. It involved rape, it involved torture, it involved taking a baby from their mother, it involved some of the worst examples of depriving humanity of people in our world,” Ms Harris said in her remarks in Jacksonville last month. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, echoed Ms Harris in his criticism of the standards, stressing that slavery was defined by “separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives”. “It was just devastating,” said Mr Scott, who is also seeking the 2024 Republican nomination. “So I would hope that every person in our country – and certainly running for president – would appreciate that.” Mr DeSantis told NBC in response: “Don’t take that side of Kamala Harris against the state of Florida. Don’t indulge those lies.” The new standards join the governor’s overhaul of public education and a “parents’ rights” agenda that targets honest lessons on race and racism and gender and sexuality, which the governor told NBC amounts to “indoctrination”. “Those standards were not political at all,” he added. “The legislature didn’t dictate any of that. [The] governor’s office didn’t dictate anything of that.” Last week, before thousands of high school students enrolled in advanced placement courses begin classes for the 2023-2024 school year, the DeSantis administration criticised the College Board’s warning that Florida education officials had “effectively banned” AP Psychology courses in the state under the Parental Rights in Education Act, what opponents have derided as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Read More Ron DeSantis admits ‘of course’ Donald Trump lost the election DeSantis blasted for ‘un-American’ restrictions on AP psychology course under ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law Why Florida’s new curriculum on slavery is becoming a political headache for Ron DeSantis

By Stamos Prousalis and Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS (Reuters) -Wildfires burned for a third day west of the Greek capital Athens

MOBILE, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 31, 2023--

WASHINGTON Billionaire Elon Musk said on Wednesday he has advocated for artificial intelligence regulations and oversight, including in

FRISCO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 20, 2023--

Several U.S. government agencies have been hit in a global hacking campaign that exploited a vulnerability in widely

The UK is set to have less coal-fired electricity available this winter as two operators have started to