Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Barsha for Radio I, and today I
Speaker 1: will be reading National Geographic Magazine dated February twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, Radio E is a reading service intended
Speaker 1: for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
Speaker 1: make it difficult to read printed material. Please join me
Speaker 1: now for the continuation of the article I began last time,
Speaker 1: entitled The Hunt for the Other Humans by Brook Larmer.
Speaker 1: Venturing into the new Laotian cave called tom Nune Suzoni
Speaker 1: and the team of scientists entered the realm of the
Speaker 1: distant past, time collapsed and the remnants of ancient floods
Speaker 1: became apparent. Deep in the cave, Geologist Philippe Duringer trained
Speaker 1: his head lamp on multiple thin layers of limestone and
Speaker 1: casing thick seams of sediment and rock, knowned as brescia.
Speaker 1: That flowstone took thousands of years to form, but the
Speaker 1: sediment flooded in here in a single event, maybe in
Speaker 1: a single day, he said. Near the back of the cave,
Speaker 1: tiny shadows appeared on the wall, silhouettes of bones and
Speaker 1: ancient teeth sticking out of the brescia, still all entombed.
Speaker 1: On that day, more than five five fifty thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: Suzoni wriggled into the cave's deepest chamber on his back,
Speaker 1: his face inches from the fossil encrusted ceiling. Maybe, with
Speaker 1: a little luck, he would make another discovery that would
Speaker 1: change the map of human evolution. Reimagining how humans evolved.
Speaker 1: Homo sapiens are a terminal species, meaning we are the
Speaker 1: only ones left from a group of multiple species that
Speaker 1: occasionally coexisted and sometimes even interbread. These separations and rejoinings
Speaker 1: of our various lineages have led some scientists to think
Speaker 1: of human evolution as less of a traditional family tree
Speaker 1: and more of a meandering, braided stream. Woodland dwellers called ardipiths,
Speaker 1: occasionally bipedal and with opposable big toes, yielded to Australopiths
Speaker 1: as savannahs encroached on forests. Australopiths lived in many habitats,
Speaker 1: stretching from grasslands to forests, and eventually gave rise to
Speaker 1: hominins in the genus Homo robust Australopiths had strong jaws
Speaker 1: and large molars specialized for foods like grasses that were
Speaker 1: available in open habitats. Homo Sapiens are the only remaining
Speaker 1: humans are Genus Homo, features relatively larger brains full by padalism,
Speaker 1: and the ability to make tools. How early humans migrated
Speaker 1: and mixed. Homo sapiens are the only humans left on
Speaker 1: Earth today, but at one point we shared the planet
Speaker 1: with other species of ancestral humans, collectively known as hominins.
Speaker 1: As climates and ecological opportunities shifted, hominins migrated out of Africa,
Speaker 1: reconnecting and inche breeding with the descendants of their relatives
Speaker 1: who had made similar journeys thousands of years before influence Neanderthals.
Speaker 1: Human Neanderthalensis lived and moved in a broad range of
Speaker 1: environments from Europe to Siberia. Evidence in Graut Madarin, a
Speaker 1: cave in the south of France, suggests that they interbred
Speaker 1: with h. Sapiens. African dispersal. A Homo sapien's fossil was
Speaker 1: found at Jabel el Rode, Morocco and dated to around
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand years ago, implying that early populations were
Speaker 1: scattered throughout Africa. Species origin. Haminins originated in Africa, diversifying
Speaker 1: into several species occupying different ecological niches. Most ancient Haminin
Speaker 1: fossils have been found in the Great Rift Valley and
Speaker 1: in Southern Africa Siberian lineage. The Denisovin genome was decoded
Speaker 1: in twenty ten from earlier finds of a finger bone
Speaker 1: and a tooth in Denisova Cave in Russia. West Asian
Speaker 1: adaptation scientists proposed that before Homo sapiens spread across Europe
Speaker 1: and Asia, they might have lingered in the Arabian Peninsula
Speaker 1: and Iranian Plateau for thirty thousand years, slowly adapting to
Speaker 1: the new climate there. Far East. Evidence a skull found
Speaker 1: in Harbin, China in nineteen thirty three, resurfaced in twenty eighteen. Homolonghi,
Speaker 1: or dragon Man, is roughly one hundred forty six thousand
Speaker 1: years old and likely the same species as the mysterious
Speaker 1: Denisovens Island Isolation. Haminin fossils found in Indonesia and the Philippines,
Speaker 1: such as the hobbit like Homo florenciensis and h. Luzonansis,
Speaker 1: suggest that isolation contributed to their small stature. Australian advances.
Speaker 1: Homosapiens reached Australia around sixty five thousand years ago, while
Speaker 1: lower sea levels connected many islands, including Australia and New Guinea.
Speaker 1: Early humans would have needed watercraft to get there. Homoerectus
Speaker 1: leaves Africa. This hominin species that existed for more than
Speaker 1: a million years, left Africa about one zero point eight
Speaker 1: million years ago. Its descendants eventually became Homo Neanderthalensis in
Speaker 1: the west and diniz evens in the east, Homo sapiens emerges.
Speaker 1: There is evidence that Homo sapiens first radiated out of
Speaker 1: Africa at least two hundred thousand years ago. Scientists believe
Speaker 1: most humans today are related to the last migration of
Speaker 1: as few as a thousand people. Next, finding the face
Speaker 1: of a lost past how a new image of a
Speaker 1: mysterious hominin was made for National Geographic Paleo art breathes
Speaker 1: life into scientific discoveries, giving us a rare glimpse into
Speaker 1: prehistoric times. From Tyrannosaurus Rex's comically short arms to Neanderthal's
Speaker 1: prominent brow, the science based depictions of extinct creatures continue
Speaker 1: to captivate our imaginations, and paleo artist John Gershe is
Speaker 1: one of only a handful of artists of his kind
Speaker 1: who focus on our long vanished relatives, with his sculpture
Speaker 1: work appearing in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural Histori's
Speaker 1: Hall of Human Origins. As scientists continue to uncover more
Speaker 1: human species, their discoveries complicate our image of Homo sapiens.
Speaker 1: Guercio's models, which rely on fossil bones, help bring ancient
Speaker 1: humans into focus. Gruci's goroal was always clear to get
Speaker 1: as close as I could to looking into the eyes
Speaker 1: of these extinct species. He first became enthralled with Denisovans
Speaker 1: several years ago when researchers published a paper speculating on
Speaker 1: the skull features based on recent genetic data from fossil fragments.
Speaker 1: He toiled on a three day model drawing on the
Speaker 1: researcher's projections, but it required a certain amount of guesswork. Then,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, Chinese researchers unveiled the Harbin's skull,
Speaker 1: which some consider to be the most complete Dinizoban fossil
Speaker 1: found to date. Whersche quickly it turned his artistic and
Speaker 1: scientific attention to this fascinating fossil, sporting a brain similar
Speaker 1: in size to a modern human's, but with a wider
Speaker 1: mouth and a more prominent brow. The resulting model based
Speaker 1: on the Harbin skull allows us to see a species.
Speaker 1: As more fossils are found in genetic testing is conducted
Speaker 1: on these new finds, This vision will likely evolved next
Speaker 1: The secret to a long healthy life, Your life span
Speaker 1: is overrated. Its health span that really matters now by
Speaker 1: Dina Fine Marin. We're living much longer than our ancestors,
Speaker 1: but is that always a good thing. More of us
Speaker 1: are also spending a greater portion of our lives, sometimes
Speaker 1: over a decade, saddled with physical and mental health conditions
Speaker 1: that can make it challenging to accomplish the tasks of
Speaker 1: daily life. To make sure we're getting the most out
Speaker 1: of our entire life span, biologists and longevities researchers are
Speaker 1: focusing more and more on ways to boost our number
Speaker 1: of disease free and active years. This idea is formerly
Speaker 1: known as health span. Although it first appeared in medical
Speaker 1: journals more than thirty years ago, the concept has become
Speaker 1: increasingly mainstream among clinicians and patients alike, and its definition
Speaker 1: has broadened to stress adding more quality time to our
Speaker 1: later years when certain health conditions could severely impede routine
Speaker 1: activities treated. Hypertension, for example, wouldn't significantly affect your health span,
Speaker 1: but a stroke or dementia would, says Harvard Medical School Physicians.
Speaker 1: Scientists share in Inoe, who studies aging issues. The targets
Speaker 1: of researchers like Inoe are numerous, understanding the underlying mechanisms
Speaker 1: of aging, working to identify health promoting genes, and zeroing
Speaker 1: in on steps to take in our daily lives to
Speaker 1: improve health span. But the overall data shows a fairly
Speaker 1: simple conclusion. It is absolutely possible to live healthier even
Speaker 1: as we live longer. Just look at the centenarians that
Speaker 1: researcher Near Barzilai works with at the Albert Einstein College
Speaker 1: of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. In academic parlance,
Speaker 1: his healthy study participants have what's called compression of morbidity.
Speaker 1: They're sick for a very small portion of their lives.
Speaker 1: They don't just live longer, they live much healthier, says Barzilai.
Speaker 1: They got diseases fifty years after their friends and thirty
Speaker 1: years after their children's friends. Some centenarians thrive through sheer
Speaker 1: good luck. They were likely born with envy worthy genes,
Speaker 1: but pinpointing which of those genes are like are linked
Speaker 1: to aging related disorders could lead to drugs that mimic
Speaker 1: their effects for people who were just lucky in the
Speaker 1: genetic lottery. Barzilai's research has concentrated on the genes that
Speaker 1: modulate our good cholesterol to help us a healthier in
Speaker 1: a variety of ways. His study participants are much more
Speaker 1: likely to have a specific variant of the cholesterol controlling
Speaker 1: CETP gene. Those patients tend to live longer with better
Speaker 1: brain function, he says, emulating that gene's effects is now
Speaker 1: a target of ongoing research with such drugs in our
Speaker 1: arsenal in the future. Barsli says humans can and will
Speaker 1: improve their health span, particularly if they follow current recommendations
Speaker 1: for modifying diet, exercise, and social interactions. Over All, the
Speaker 1: most cutting edge developments when it comes to health span
Speaker 1: depend on your perspectives, says Inoe, who also directs the
Speaker 1: Aging Brain Center at the Harvard affiliated nonprofit Hebrew Senior Life.
Speaker 1: If you talk with the longevity researcher, they will wax
Speaker 1: eloquent on the latest drugs being studied to enhance longevity,
Speaker 1: mostly in non human models or animals at this stage,
Speaker 1: she says. But to her, the most important work in
Speaker 1: health span focuses on prevention. That includes, she says, eating
Speaker 1: a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in carbs,
Speaker 1: avoiding tobacco and excess alcohol, and keeping mentally active and
Speaker 1: socially engaged with activities like volunteering and regular aerobic exercise.
Speaker 1: Recent research published in JAMMA Internal Medicine, where Anoa serves
Speaker 1: as editor in chief, shows that diet, exercise, brain games,
Speaker 1: and other steps can significantly help preserve brain health. Barcela agrees,
Speaker 1: right now, without taking any drugs, we can basically maximize
Speaker 1: our exercise, our nutrition, our sleep, and our social connectivity.
Speaker 1: He says, those are the four things that anybody who
Speaker 1: wants to can do. Good sleep is essential, even if
Speaker 1: it's something you need to continually work on, advises longevity
Speaker 1: researcher Matt caber Line of the University of Washington and
Speaker 1: CEO of Seattle based optis Span, a biotech company that
Speaker 1: specializes in identifying health span improvements. Getting less than seven
Speaker 1: hours a night as an adult in increases the risk
Speaker 1: of developing numerous disorders, including type two diabetes. High blood pressure,
Speaker 1: heart disease, poor mental health, and even early death. According
Speaker 1: to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
Speaker 1: broad strokes of a healthy diet are well documented, but
Speaker 1: different strategies work for different people. Caber Line says, whether
Speaker 1: it's a Mediterranean diet which is high in fruits, veggies,
Speaker 1: and whole grains, or approaches such as intermittent fasting or
Speaker 1: a low carb, high fat catogenic diet, he says, there
Speaker 1: always should be a focus on what feels right for you.
Speaker 1: Caber Line argues that a lot of progress in health
Speaker 1: span could be made by better monitoring of baseline health
Speaker 1: data such as vitamin hormone and blood sugar levels. Asking
Speaker 1: your doctors to measure those indicators in your thirties or
Speaker 1: forties could inform what actions to take later in life
Speaker 1: and let you know if urgent interventions are needed, though
Speaker 1: caver Line notes that often such testing isn't covered by
Speaker 1: health insurance in the United States. At the same time,
Speaker 1: simply popping a daily multivitamin to stave off or address
Speaker 1: unknown vitamin deficiencies is not a good idea, he cautions,
Speaker 1: since it doesn't allow people to know if they truly
Speaker 1: have deficiencies, and if they do, multivitamins may not have
Speaker 1: the appropriate level of supplements to treat an individual's specific need.
Speaker 1: The key pillar of connecting with other people to expand
Speaker 1: your health span sounds easy, but it's something many tend
Speaker 1: to neglect. This can cause issues over time because people's
Speaker 1: friend circles naturally tend to shrink as they age. Even
Speaker 1: if you retenely interact with at least one person you
Speaker 1: live with like a spouse. Other social relationships and experiences
Speaker 1: remain important in old age because they can offset loneliness
Speaker 1: and keep you mentally sharp for a sum that may
Speaker 1: still require working on yourself first. If you struggle with
Speaker 1: interpersonal relationships, Caterbine says you can focus on inner peace
Speaker 1: and wellness, such as meditation and mindfulness practices, which you
Speaker 1: should still try to make friends because the benefits often
Speaker 1: compound in other healthy ways. Once you get started, joining
Speaker 1: a group focused on in activity you already enjoy walking,
Speaker 1: for instance, can make you healthier, according to the National
Speaker 1: Institute on Aging. Unsurprisingly, the benefits are myriad for mental
Speaker 1: and physical health, and may include lowering risks of dementia,
Speaker 1: heart disease, and stroke. Being out in the world. The
Speaker 1: benefits just walking a dog has also been shown to
Speaker 1: provide exercise and broost your overall happiness. Helping in the community, tutoring,
Speaker 1: or other meaningful pursuits that keep our brains active and
Speaker 1: involve social interactions can be personally fulfilling, and their linked
Speaker 1: to improved memory and reduce stress. It turns out that
Speaker 1: the secret to living a long, healthy life is also
Speaker 1: the secret to living a good one. Next The Mystery
Speaker 1: of the Rings by Veronique Greenwood. When hundreds of eerily
Speaker 1: perfect circles were discovered on the ocean floor, theories abounded
Speaker 1: about what they could mean. Four years of underwater research
Speaker 1: revealed a lost world. On a bright, hot day in
Speaker 1: mid September twenty eleventh, a marine biologist named Christine pegant
Speaker 1: Martini was hunkered down inside the cabin of a small
Speaker 1: research vessel, a ninety seven foot long catamaran, cruising through
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean Sea about twelve miles off the coast of Corsica.
Speaker 1: Outside the ship's windows, the sun glinted off the dark
Speaker 1: blue water, but pegant Martini ignored the waves. She was
Speaker 1: more interested in what lay beneath them. A monitor in
Speaker 1: front of her displayed images from the vessel's on board
Speaker 1: sonar system, which was omitting a series of short acoustic
Speaker 1: pulses to reveal the underwater topography about four hundred feet below.
Speaker 1: The ocean scientist was nearing the last day of a
Speaker 1: month long mission with a small all crew, including her husband,
Speaker 1: oceanographer Gerrard Peargent, and a graduate student from the University
Speaker 1: of Corsica, Pascual Pioli. Hergent Martini had been mapping the
Speaker 1: seafloor in this region. The seemingly simple goal actually targeted
Speaker 1: one of oceanography's major blind spots. The Mediterranean Sea covers
Speaker 1: about a million square miles, stretching from the Strait of
Speaker 1: Gibraltar in the west to Lebanon in the east. While
Speaker 1: its surface has been traversed since ancient times by everything
Speaker 1: from Greek trirems to Etruscan warships, its depth are mysterious
Speaker 1: to modern science. Much of its sea floor exists in
Speaker 1: something of a liminal zone, too shallow and close to
Speaker 1: the shore to draw interest from deep sea mining companies,
Speaker 1: but still too deep to be reachable by conventional scuba divers.
Speaker 1: Hergent Martini and her colleagues wanted to learn more about
Speaker 1: what lived on the bottom at these depths. At first,
Speaker 1: the day was no different from any other. As the
Speaker 1: boat moved across the water, the scientists watched a series
Speaker 1: of predictable, grainy, black and white images appear on screen. Sand,
Speaker 1: small rocks, more sand. It was all stuff they'd seen before.
Speaker 1: But then something truly bizarre scrolled into view. A perfect circle,
Speaker 1: then another, then another. They were all about the same size,
Speaker 1: around sixty seven feet in diameter, with a distinct outline
Speaker 1: in striking symmetry. Weirder still, almost every ring had a
Speaker 1: dark spot directly in the center. They looked like fried eggs,
Speaker 1: per Gent Martini thought, and there appeared to be several
Speaker 1: dozen of them. The scientists looked at each other. We
Speaker 1: had no idea what it was, Pergent Martini says. Her
Speaker 1: team carefully logged their location and used a remotely operated
Speaker 1: vehicle to gather images. Still, the mystery only deepened. They
Speaker 1: captured video footage of the circles, but the view was
Speaker 1: too murky to confirm much more than the fact that
Speaker 1: this wasn't sunk in cargo. When the researchers presented their
Speaker 1: findings at a twenty thirteen scientific meeting, they were still
Speaker 1: in search of answers about the nature of the rings.
Speaker 1: Even a follow up study with a submarine in twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen didn't answer all their questions. In time, researchers would
Speaker 1: count more than thirteen hundred of these circles over a
Speaker 1: nearly square six square mile area. After years of applying
Speaker 1: for grants to study the rings more closely, the parshens
Speaker 1: reached a dead end. It was very difficult to obtain money.
Speaker 1: Piergant Martini said, the presents are specialists in seagrass meadows
Speaker 1: and this was a bit outside their focus. We had
Speaker 1: no way to go farther than just the right person
Speaker 1: got in touch. In the world of under sea exploration,
Speaker 1: Lorent Bellesta is known for going to extremes. A photographer,
Speaker 1: marine biologists, and technical diver, he co runs and Ramday Oceanalogi,
Speaker 1: a company that leads scientific missions to document some of
Speaker 1: the world's most inaccessible places. These undertakings often reach choir,
Speaker 1: specialized equipment and elaborate dive plans. In Antarctica, for instance,
Speaker 1: he once used a bespoke system of cables to photograph
Speaker 1: the underside of an iceberg. In South Africa. He has
Speaker 1: explored deep underwater caves to capture images of rare cologuts,
Speaker 1: which were thought to be extinct for millions of years
Speaker 1: before small fragile populations were rediscovered, and in French Polynesia,
Speaker 1: he's used to customized customize rebreather system to stay underwater
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours of a time to observe the
Speaker 1: hunting habits of gray reef sharks. As chronicled in a
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen story for National Geographic, Blesta and his team
Speaker 1: are always on the hunt for their next target. He
Speaker 1: also had a connection to the pear gents. He'd studied
Speaker 1: under them while working towards his master's degree, so when
Speaker 1: he read his former teacher's scientific paper about the mysterious
Speaker 1: pock marked sonar scans, he was riveted. Some organisms have
Speaker 1: been known to to grow in circular formations corals make atolls,
Speaker 1: for example, but these rings repeated with an eerie regularity.
Speaker 1: How is this possible? He remembers, thinking perhaps they were
Speaker 1: craters caused by erupting underwater vents or a strange geological formation.
Speaker 1: Pergent Martini and her husband had a different hunch. Based
Speaker 1: on their submersible explorations. They believed the rings were coraline algae,
Speaker 1: algae growing in a previously unknown shape. Another theory put
Speaker 1: forth by some scientists was that they were craters left
Speaker 1: by unused World War Two bombs jettisoned by US plains
Speaker 1: returning to their bases on Corsica. With the Peargent's approval,
Speaker 1: Bollesta decided to pick up where they'd left off in
Speaker 1: hopes of solving the mystery, using their data to locate
Speaker 1: the rings. In July twenty twenty, Billesta and two other
Speaker 1: divers from Andromeday Oceanalogy arrived above the rings in their
Speaker 1: own research vessel and donned scuba gear to descend into
Speaker 1: the abyss. While they quickly sank to the bottom, they
Speaker 1: stayed there only about thirty minutes because they had to
Speaker 1: account for at least several hours of decompression time on
Speaker 1: the way back to the surface. Equipped with a waterproof
Speaker 1: camera and lights, the team swam down through the bright
Speaker 1: upper waters of the ocean, the daylight gradually dimming to twilight.
Speaker 1: In less than two minutes, they were approaching their destination,
Speaker 1: nearly four hundred feet below the waves. I stopped before
Speaker 1: I reached the bottom some twenty or thirty meters up,
Speaker 1: says Bullesta, because I saw the rings. They loomed out
Speaker 1: of the darkness, alien enormous. They'd resembled gigantic platters etched
Speaker 1: onto the seafloor. After he snapped some photos, Bilesta dived
Speaker 1: to the bottom and approached one ring. At its center
Speaker 1: was a large knob made by redc Calcarrius algae, measuring
Speaker 1: around three feet high and several feet across, with swaying
Speaker 1: fanlike growths atop it. The knob was surrounded by a
Speaker 1: fast wasteland of pale, scream like debris, and slightly downhill.
Speaker 1: About thirty feet beyond the center was the dark outer ring,
Speaker 1: a circular perimeter that appeared to be made up of
Speaker 1: rodoliths a collection of craggy, firm, pebble sized algae. Looking
Speaker 1: at the structure, Bilester realized that the Parsians were right.
Speaker 1: It was alive, he says. After twenty minutes on the bottom,
Speaker 1: Bilesta and his crew spent nearly five hours gradually rising
Speaker 1: to decompress safely, allowing their bodies to equalize to the
Speaker 1: shifting pressure. Long before he got back to the boat,
Speaker 1: Bilesta was convinced he had to return. I didn't need
Speaker 1: twenty seven minutes, he says about his time on the seafloor.
Speaker 1: After the first minute, I knew. Julie Deeter, a marine
Speaker 1: ecologist who was waiting for the team back on the
Speaker 1: ship deck, saw the excitement on their faces the moment
Speaker 1: they surface. Usually, by the time divers complete their long,
Speaker 1: monotonous ascent, the thrill has faded, but they were still
Speaker 1: very marked by what they had seen. She says. There
Speaker 1: was still no explanation for why the rhodoliths would have
Speaker 1: formed such perfect circles so many times over. Bileesta decided
Speaker 1: he needed to spend more time among the rings, which
Speaker 1: would require a way to stay longer in the depths.
Speaker 1: In July twenty twenty one, Bilesta returned to the waters
Speaker 1: north of Corsica with three divers, Roberto Rinaldi, teboat Robi
Speaker 1: and Antonine Guibert, and a bold plan that would give
Speaker 1: them more time for exploration on the seafloor. They were
Speaker 1: inspired by divers on oil rigs who can quickly travel
Speaker 1: back and forth to the ocean bottom at the surface.
Speaker 1: Those rig divers live in sealed, pressurized chambers that match
Speaker 1: the conditions beneath the sea where the pressure can increase
Speaker 1: by ten or more times. They can then rapidly ascend
Speaker 1: and descend in a diving bell without having to slowly
Speaker 1: adjust to the change in pressure inside their own chamber.
Speaker 1: At the surface, Blesta and the others would live a
Speaker 1: bit like astronauts. Food would be passed in through an
Speaker 1: air lock. When they were ready to descend, they'd suit
Speaker 1: up in sik squeeze into the diving bell that would
Speaker 1: take them down to the sea bed. The team had
Speaker 1: expected to spend three weeks exploring the rings and nearby reefs,
Speaker 1: but the weather turned against them. Heavy wind and rays
Speaker 1: rocked the boat, leaving the chamber dangerous on several occasions.
Speaker 1: For multiple days, the four men were trapped, unable to
Speaker 1: see out of their increasingly humid chamber, which barely held
Speaker 1: their small beds in the dining table. Bilesta's voice turns
Speaker 1: bitter as he recalls this period. Time for exploration was precious,
Speaker 1: and they were spending it reading novels. Finally, the weather shifted,
Speaker 1: offering them the chance to drop down through the elevator chamber.
Speaker 1: We found ourselves in another universe, says Guibert. This time
Speaker 1: the crew could spend hours exploring it all around. The
Speaker 1: divers marveled at the abundance of life. As they made
Speaker 1: more dives when weather conditions allowed. They found rarely seen
Speaker 1: yellow corals in the deep canyons. There were also squat
Speaker 1: lobsters and colorful small fish hiding among pale, pink gorgonians,
Speaker 1: the sort of fan like soft corals that are usually
Speaker 1: seen in deep Mediterranean canyons. At one point, Blest spotted
Speaker 1: a blue sea slug wandering about and took a photo.
Speaker 1: It was the first still photograph taken of this species
Speaker 1: by a diver. Bilesta invited the Parshents to monitor their
Speaker 1: progress aboard this support ship. They looked very happy and
Speaker 1: touched that their discovery made this project happen, he says,
Speaker 1: because of the Pargans work, He and his colleagues were
Speaker 1: exploring a christine and unusual ecosystem. But Bilesta knew this
Speaker 1: little universe was in a precarious position. It existed under
Speaker 1: shipping lanes and commercial ships. Dropping anchor could pulverize everything.
Speaker 1: Anchors can destroy all the rings very easily. Billsta says
Speaker 1: the threat fueled a sense of urgency. The more they
Speaker 1: could learn about the rings, the better chance Bilesta might
Speaker 1: have of getting French authorities to protect them. Bilesta and
Speaker 1: his team made a total of six descents from their
Speaker 1: pressurized chamber to the rings. They focused their attention on
Speaker 1: drilling cores of the rings central knobs, which were then
Speaker 1: sent for carbon dating analysis. The hope was that knowing
Speaker 1: the rings age could help solve the mystery of what
Speaker 1: formed them and how. When the results came back, the
Speaker 1: team was shocked. The most ancient material deep in the
Speaker 1: center of the knobs was about twenty one thousand years old.
Speaker 1: For those who studied climate history, that particular era represents
Speaker 1: a moment of profound planetary change. It's the last glacial maximum,
Speaker 1: says paleoclimatologist Eduard Barde of the Correege de France, who
Speaker 1: organized the carbon dating. That was the peak of the
Speaker 1: Last ice Age. Back then, the Mediterranean was colder and
Speaker 1: far shallower, and the place where the rings are today
Speaker 1: would have been less than sixty five feet from the surface,
Speaker 1: bathed in sunlight. In the summer of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the lest A return to the rings, this time with
Speaker 1: a support wart vessel capable of launching two submarines to
Speaker 1: allow ocean and climate experts, including Bard, to make their
Speaker 1: own extended voyages into the ecosystem. The effort, which received
Speaker 1: funding from the National Geographic Society, was intended to form
Speaker 1: a scientifically rigorous hypothesis of exactly how the circles emerged.
Speaker 1: On one dive, Bollsta swam alongside the submersible as it
Speaker 1: scooted above the seabed. Acting as a tour guide. He
Speaker 1: showed the scientists inside various aspects of the rings and
Speaker 1: their surroundings. There were underwater caves nearby set into a
Speaker 1: small cliff. The divers had found several caverns with layers
Speaker 1: of sediment that confirmed the area had once been situated
Speaker 1: above the ancient coastline. The voids may have been first
Speaker 1: cut through erosion as water washed against the cliffs some
Speaker 1: twenty one thousand years ago. This concludes readings from National
Speaker 1: Geographic Magazine for today. Your reader has been Marcia. If
Speaker 1: you have enjoyed hearing this content, please give us a
Speaker 1: call at eight five nine four two two six three
Speaker 1: nine zero. Thank you for listening, and have a great day.