1 . That dinosaurs ate the mammals (哺乳动物) that ran beneath their feet is not in doubt. Now an extraordinary fossil newly described in Scientific Reports, unearthed by a team led by Gang Han at Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology in China, shows that sometimes the tables were turned.

The fossil -dated to about 125 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period-was formed when a flow of boiling volcanic mud swallowed two animals seemingly locked in a life-and-death fight. The one on top is a mammal. This animal is a herbivorous species closely related to the Triceratops (三角恐龙). Animal interactions such as this are exceptionally cam e in the fossil record.

One possibility is that the mammal was eating something already dead, other than hunting live prey. These days it is uncommon for small mammals to attack much larger animals. But it is not unheard of. And Dr. Han and his colleagues point out that those mammals which eat dead bodies typically leave tooth marks all over the bones of the animals. The dinosaur’s remains show no such marks. There is also a chance the fossil could be a fake. More and more convincing fake s have emerged, as this one did -though Dr. Han and his colleagues argue that the complexly connected nature of the skeletons (骨骼) makes that unlikely, too.

Assuming it is genuine, the discovery serves as a reminder that not all dinosaurs were enormous during the Cretaceous and not all mammals were tiny. From nose to tail, the dinosaur is just 1.2 meters long. The mammal is a bit under half a meter in length. Despite being half the size, the mammal has one paw firmly wrapped around one of its prey’s limbs, and another pulling on its jaw. It is biting down on the dinosaur’s chest, and has ripped off two of its ribs. Before they were interrupted, it seems that the mammal was winning.

2 . A previously hidden corridor buried deep in the 4500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt has been mapped in detail for the first time-and researchers have also taken a glimpse inside using tiny camera called endoscopic camera (内窥镜照相机).

The corridor was first discovered in 2016,but researchers didn’t want to damage the monument to gain access. The pyramid is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing, and was, for millennia, the world’s tallest human-made structure at 146 metres. It was built around 2560 BC during the reign of the pharaoh (法老) Khufu.

Using a technique called cosmic-ray muon radiography (宇宙射线μ子成像), an international team of researchers was able to certify that the corridor was 9metres long, with across section of about 2 metres by 2 metres.

Cosmic-ray muon radiography tracks the level of muons (μ介子) passing through the pyramid. In the technique, researchers use muon detectors which are placed at various points around the monument. Muons are partially absorbed by the stone used to build the pyramids, which means the method allows researchers to identify cavities (洞) inside the structure.

This approach has been used to map the internal structures of pyramids since 1971,when it was first used at Giza. Using their precise map of the corridor, the researchers identified an opportunity.

“We knew the cavity was there, but of course it’s totally different when you see it,“ says Procureur. “We felt strange when we saw this.” Still, Procureur was glad of one thing. “It’s a controversial opinion, but I’m relieved the cavity was empty. I wouldn’t have liked to participate in opening a tomb.”

3 . Today, the Vikings are mostly known as violent pirates (海盗). But they were also traders. At their height, the Vikings attacked, settled or traded on four continents.

All of their travel, trade and warfare were made possible by Viking ships, which were far more advanced than anything else sailing around Europe at the time. The most famous, and most feared, was the drekar. At sea, these ships could move quickly thanks to their large sails. The hulls (船体) of the ships were shallow and fat, which made them ride high in the water. The ships were also light enough that they could be carried from one body of water to another over short sections of land. This greatly extended their range.

But Viking ships weren’t just built for warfare. Another type, called the knarr, had cargo (货物) holds built in the hull. One such cargo ship was capable of carrying 24 tons. The knarrs would have looked similar to the drekars except they were longer, fatter and taller. These were the backbones of the Viking empire, which they used to carry everything from gold coins to spices and fine fabrics.

Both the drekar and the knarr were built using the same method. Traditionally, oceangoing ships have used a keel (龙骨), shaped like the fin of a fish. The keel sinks into the water below the hull. It helps the ship maintain a straight line through the water and counters the force of the wind against the sail, which otherwise might blow the ship over. Viking ships had no deep keel. Instead, they were built fat enough to carry lots of soldiers or pieces of cargo whose weight helped keep the ship planted in the water.

Viking ships were so advanced for their time that they often were the biggest, tallest and most striking ships many people had ever seen. A monk at the St. Omar Monastery, in Franco, wrote this description of a royal Viking ship in 1013.

“On one side lions molded in gold were to be seen on the ships, on the other birds on the tops of the poles indicated by their movements the winds as they blew…”

The Vikings built a wealthy empire through trade as well as robbery and used their wealth to continuously improve their ships.

4 . A new study analyzing stone tools from southern China provides the earliest evidence of rice harvesting, dating to as early as 10，000 years ago. The researchers identified two methods of harvesting rice, which helped start rice domestication(家庭种植).

To harvest rice, some sort of tools would have been needed. “For quite a long time, one of the puzzles has been that harvesting tools have not been found in southern China from the early Neolithic period or New Stone Age (10，000－7，000 Before Present)—the time period when we know rice began to be domesticated” says lead author Jiajing Wang, an assistant professor of anthropology at Dartmouth.

“However, when archaeologists (考古学家) were working at several early Neolithic sites in the Lower Yangtze River Valley, they found a lot of small pieces of stone, which had sharp edges that could have been used for harvesting plants.”

“Maybe some of those small stone pieces were rice harvesting tools, which is what our results show.”

In the Lower Yangtze River Valley, the two earliest Neolithic culture groups were the Shangshan and Kuahuqiao.

The researchers examined 52 flaked (成薄片的) stone tools from the Shangshan and Hehuashan sites, the latter of which was occupied by Shangshan and Kuahuqiao cultures.

To determine if the stone flakes were used for harvesting rice, the team conducted use­wear and phytolith residue (植物石残渣) analyses.

For the use­wear analysis, micro­scratches (划痕) on the tools’ surfaces were examined under a microscope. The results showed that 30 flakes have use­wear patterns similar to those produced by harvesting siliceous (silica­rich) plants, likely including rice.

Through the phytolith residue analysis, the researchers analyzed the microscopic residue left on the stone flakes known as “phytoliths” (silica skeletons of plants). They found that 28 of the tools contained rice phytoliths.

“What’s interesting about rice phytoliths is that rice husk and leaves produce different kinds of phytolith, which enabled us to determine how the rice was harvested,” says Wang.

The findings from the use­wear and phytolith analyses illustrated that two types of rice harvesting methods were used—“finger­knife” and “sickle” techniques. Both methods are still used in southern China today.

5 . Personally, there is nothing I love more than asking “stupid” questions, especially the ones that have no right answers. I remember once asking some kids what time it was, at home, in Singapore, and finally on the Moon. After a long giggling silence, finally a shy girl ventured (试探地说) to say that it was “every time” followed by an energetic Einstein who shouted it was “no time”. Both kids shared that week’s Noble Prize, because no humans live in that distant world and time is a human construct.

As a matter of fact, we are all good at asking questions by nature, but sadly as we age, we get accustomed to the world around us and take things for granted. We became more results-oriented (注重结果的) and concentrate our efforts on success. If something is working, don’t fix it or worry about the cause; just relax and go with the flow. Conventional wisdom may work well, but that does not mean it is always right. Throughout history, it has been those who have questioned conventional wisdom and those who have challenged our common-sense notions of the world that have been the ones to have ushered in (开) the major advancements of human civilization.

In 500 BC, the ancient Greeks wondered whether the Earth was round because sailors on the sea had noticed that the farther south they went, the more different stars they saw in the sky. Why was the sky changing? Nearly 2,000 years later, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei became interested in this question and ended up demonstrating the “crazy” concept of heliocentrism (日心说), in which the Sun lies at the center of the universe while the Earth revolves (旋转) around it at 30 kilometers per second. But if the Earth is spinning around so quickly, why aren’t we being thrown off of the surface of the planet? The answer to this question would not end up being revealed to us for another century.

People like routine, but past performance is no guarantee of future results. While those who challenge conventional wisdom tend to be subjected to abuse, the progress of humankind would have otherwise been impossible without these persistent people and their “stupid”questions.

8 . There’s a popular local saying that links orange carrots to the Dutch royal family. In the late 1500s, the Dutch were ruled by Spain. Then came William, Prince of Orange, who was largely credited as the country’s founding father. The republic was later abandoned in favor of a home-grown monarchy(君主制), which still exists today.

According to the story, Dutch farmers at that time began to develop and plant orange carrots as a mark of respect for William’s House of Orange. The carrots then grew in popularity and spread around the world to become the vegetable’s standard color. This is only an interesting story, but not true.

“Though the development and stabilization of the orange carrot root does appear to date from around that period in the Netherlands,” said John Stolarczyk, an expert at the World Carrot Museum, “there is no documentary evidence that the Dutch invented orange carrots to honor their royal family.”

Wild carrots started off as either white or pale yellow but changed to purple and yellow when people first raised the vegetable almost 5,000 years ago. These carrots were later divided into two main classes: the Asiatic group and the Western group. Yellow carrots in the Western group probably became more orange, which farmers then selectively planted. “There are documents in Spain that show the growing of orange carrots as far back as the 14th century”, Stolarczyk said.

Flash forward a couple of centuries and the Dutch were one of the main agricultural forces in Europe in the 16th century. This know-how allowed them to plant orange carrots in large numbers, which seemed to grow really well in the Netherlands’ mild, wet weather. “The orange variety grew very well in its climates and environments, better than purple and yellow carrots, and was more productive, stable, and reliable,” Stolarczyk said. Dutch businessmen then spread the orange produce across the continent.

“Orange carrots were later used by the Netherlands to strengthen the nation’s national color,” said Stolarczyk, “which could explain where the strange connection between William of Orange and the carrot comes from. But it seems that the carrot came first and the independent country second”.

10 . Women were less likely than men to support the Vietnam war, the Gulf war, or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They commit far fewer murders. They are less likely to favor strikes. For some scholars, these are grounds for thinking that a world run by women would be more peaceful.

But European history suggests otherwise, according to political scientists Oeindrila Dube and S. P. Harish. They studied how often European rulers went to war between 1480 and 1913, and found that states ruled by queens were 27% more likely to get involved in wars than those ruled by kings.

This was not all the queens’ fault: men, seeing them as soft targets, tended to attack them. Frederick the Great of Prussia once declared: ”No woman should ever be allowed to govern anything.“ Shortly after becoming king, he attacked the newly crowned Archduchess of Austria, Maria Theresa, and seized Silesia province. Despite years of war, she never recovered it.

But perceived weakness is not the whole story. Queens, the researchers found, were more likely to gain new territory. Catherine the Great expanded her empire by some 200,000 square miles. And married queens were more aggressive than single queens or kings, whether single or married.

The authors suggest several reasons for this. First, married queens may have been able to form more military alliances(联盟),making them confident enough to pick fights. Their husbands had often served in the army before they married, and were well placed to strengthen military ties between their homelands and their wives’ states.

Second, unlike most kings, queens often gave their husbands a lot of power,putting them in charge of foreign policy or the economy. During the 1740s, Maria Theresa’s husband, Francis I, reformed the Austrian economy and raised money for the armed forces while his wife ruled much of central Europe. Prince Albert was Queen Victoria’s most trusted adviser, shaping her foreign policy until his death in1861. This division of labor, the authors suggest, freed up time for queens to pursue more aggressive policies.

The modern era, too, has witnessed female leaders in wars: Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur war, or Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands. The number of countries led by women has more than doubled since 2000, but there is plenty of room for improvement: the current level of 15 represents less than 10 % of the total. A world in which more women took power might be more equal. Whether it would be more peaceful is a different question.