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Spanish Scientist Suggests Ancient Egyptians Chewed Narcotic Plants

A skull and a foot are seen in the tomb of Amenemhat, south of Cairo. (Reuters file photo)
A skull and a foot are seen in the tomb of Amenemhat, south of Cairo. (Reuters file photo)
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Spanish Scientist Suggests Ancient Egyptians Chewed Narcotic Plants

A skull and a foot are seen in the tomb of Amenemhat, south of Cairo. (Reuters file photo)
A skull and a foot are seen in the tomb of Amenemhat, south of Cairo. (Reuters file photo)

A Spanish researcher suggested that ancient Egyptians chewed narcotic plants after spotting sexual dimorphism in ancient Egyptian skulls unearthed at the Montuemhat necropolis (TT34), in the Assasif region, in Luxor (southern Egypt).

Sexual dimorphism is the systematic difference in form between individuals of different sex in the same species.

Researcher Jesus Lopez, from the biology department at Madrid’s Cantoblanco Universidad, conducted a study involving skulls of 43 women and 41 men.

He found that men had a very wide face, while women had remarkable differences in their zygomatic arch (cheek bone), a bone extending forward from the side of the skull, over the opening of the ear. The zygomatic arch plays a key role in the masticatory system.

In his study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Anthropological Sciences, Lopez seemed surprised to spot differences between men and women faces, but he ruled out a link between these differences and nutrition as both genders consumed the same food.

“You should look for other activities that are not necessarily linked to food; it’s probably related to the mastication system. It could be the mastication of qat and betel (an addictive plant with tobacco-like characteristics), or the use of the mouth as a third hand in some functions,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Lopez also spotted significant fragility in the occipital condyle, the point which connects the head and the spinal cord. This case was widespread in both genders, even in young skulls, but mostly among women, which suggest that both women and men used their heads for work.

“Images from ancient Egypt depict women carrying heavy loads on their heads. Today, we see the same scene in many countries, where women carry loads on their heads, making a lot of efforts to maintain their balance, while performing other tasks. We found the same effects in the skulls of men, which suggests that men also carried heavy loads although this isn’t depicted in ancient Egyptian images,” Lopez explained.

“We cannot differentiate the types of loads, but we know they were heavy,” he added.

Egyptologist Bassam al-Shamaa rejected Lopez’s allegation about the narcotic plant mastication.

“I agree with the Spanish research’s interpretation on the fragility in the occipital condyle based on images showing men carrying heavy loads on their heads like women, but the use of the mouth as a third hand should be the only suggested reason behind differences in the zygomatic arch,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“We have clear evidence from images engraved on temples’ walls that ancient Egyptians used their mouth as a third hand in some professions including shoe manufacturing,” he added.

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Indian Pride as Asiatic Lions Roar Back 

This photograph taken on November 9, 2025 shows a lioness resting after a kill in Gir National Park in India's western state of Gujarat. (AFP)
This photograph taken on November 9, 2025 shows a lioness resting after a kill in Gir National Park in India's western state of Gujarat. (AFP)
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Indian Pride as Asiatic Lions Roar Back 

This photograph taken on November 9, 2025 shows a lioness resting after a kill in Gir National Park in India's western state of Gujarat. (AFP)
This photograph taken on November 9, 2025 shows a lioness resting after a kill in Gir National Park in India's western state of Gujarat. (AFP)

A powerful roar rocked the forest before the silhouette of a lioness appeared at an Indian reserve, a potent image of how conservation efforts have brought the creatures back from the brink.

In Gir National Park, Asiatic lions reign over a 1,900-square-kilometer (735-square-mile) expanse of savannah and acacia and teak forests, their last refuge.

For a few minutes, cameras clicked wildly from safari jeeps, but as night falls and visitors leave, the mighty cat has still not moved a paw.

Gir's success stems from more than three decades of rigorous conservation to expand the lions' range, which now raises questions about the future of coexistence with humans.

Park chief Ramratan Nala celebrates the "huge success": lion numbers have risen by a third in five years, from 627 to 891.

"It's a matter of pride for us," Nala said, the head of government forests in the sprawling Junagadh district of the western state of Gujarat.

The Asiatic lion, slightly smaller than their African cousins, and identified by a fold of skin along its belly, historically roamed from the Middle East to India.

By the early 20th century, only about 20 remained, nearly wiped out by hunting and habitat loss.

"They've been resurrected from the brink of extinction," said wildlife biologist Meena Venkatraman.

- 'Our lions' -

After India broke free from British rule in 1947, a local prince offered "his" lions sanctuary.

In recent decades, the authorities have invested heavily by protecting vegetation, securing wells and roads, and even building a hospital.

"The thing about lions is that if you give them space, and you protect them and you give them prey, then they do extremely well," said Andrew Loveridge, from global wild cat conservation organization Panthera.

In 2008, they were removed from the IUCN Red List of species threatened with extinction, and moved to the category of merely "endangered".

Unlike in Africa, poaching is virtually absent.

"The local people support the conservation of Asian lions," Nala said, reporting zero cases of poaching for more than a decade.

"These are our lions," his deputy Prashant Tomas said. "People are very possessive about them".

- 'Secret to success' -

Local communities fiercely protect the lions for cultural, religious and economic reasons, because they attract tourists.

Loveridge said that people accepted some livestock would be lost.

"In general, they're less likely to kill the lions in retaliation for livestock losses, which is something that is very prevalent in many sites in Africa," he said.

"Indian wildlife managers have managed to contain that conflict, to a large degree -- in many ways, that's their secret to success."

But rising numbers mean lions now roam far beyond the park.

About half the lion population ranges across 30,000 km2, and livestock killings have soared, from 2,605 in 2019-20 to 4,385 in 202324.

There are no official figures on attacks on humans, though experts estimate there are around 25 annually.

Occasionally, an attack hits the headlines, such as in August, when a lion killed a five-year-old child.

- 'Spread the risk' -

As lions move into new areas, conflicts grow.

"They are interacting with people... who are not traditionally used to a big cat," said Venkatraman.

And, despite their increasing population, the species remains vulnerable due to limited genetic diversity and concentration in one region.

"Having all the lions in a single population may not be a good idea in the long term," she added.

Gujarat has resisted relocating some lions to create a new population, even defying a Supreme Court order.

Nala pointed out that Gir's lions are separated into around a dozen satellite populations.

"We cannot say that they are all in one basket," he said.

Loveridge accepted that it "is starting to spread the risk a little bit".

But he also warned that "relatively speaking, a population of 900 individuals is not that large", compared with historic numbers of tens of thousands.

Long-term security of the species remains uncertain, but momentum is strong -- and protection efforts are having a wider impact on the wildlife across the forests.

Venkatraman described the lions as a "flagship of conservation".

"That means because you save them, you also save the biodiversity around."

Varieties

16,000 Fossil Footprints in Central Bolivia Reveal Dinosaur Behavior 

Park ranger José Vallejos stands next to petrified dinosaurs footprints in Carreras Pampa in Toro Toro National Park, north of Potosi, Bolivia, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP) 
Park ranger José Vallejos stands next to petrified dinosaurs footprints in Carreras Pampa in Toro Toro National Park, north of Potosi, Bolivia, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP) 
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16,000 Fossil Footprints in Central Bolivia Reveal Dinosaur Behavior 

Park ranger José Vallejos stands next to petrified dinosaurs footprints in Carreras Pampa in Toro Toro National Park, north of Potosi, Bolivia, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP) 
Park ranger José Vallejos stands next to petrified dinosaurs footprints in Carreras Pampa in Toro Toro National Park, north of Potosi, Bolivia, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP) 

Legend once had it that the huge, three-toed footprints scattered across the central highlands of Bolivia came from supernaturally strong monsters — capable of sinking their claws even into solid stone.

Then scientists came here in the 1960s and dispelled children's fears, determining that the strange footprints in fact belonged to gigantic, two-legged dinosaurs that stomped and splashed over 60 million years ago, in the ancient waterways of what is now Toro Toro, a village and popular national park in the Bolivian Andes.

Now, a team of paleontologists, mostly from California’s Loma Linda University, have discovered and meticulously documented 16,600 such footprints left by theropods, the dinosaur group that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex. Their study, based on six years of regular field visits and published last Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, reports that this finding represents the highest number of theropod footprints recorded anywhere in the world.

“There’s no place in the world where you have such a big abundance of (theropod) footprints,” said Roberto Biaggi, a co-author of the study led by Spanish paleontologist Raúl Esperante. “We have all these world records at this particular site.”

The dinosaurs that ruled the earth and roamed this region also made awkward attempts to swim here, according to the study, scratching at what was squishy lake-bottom sediment to leave another 1,378 traces.

They pressed their claws into the mud just before water levels rose and sealed their tracks, protecting them from centuries of erosion, scientists said.

“The preservation of many of the tracks is excellent,” said Richard Butler, a paleontologist at the University of Birmingham who was not involved in the research. He said that, to his knowledge, the number of footprints and trackways found in Toro Toro had no precedent.

“This is a remarkable window into the lives and behaviors of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous,” Butler added, referring to the period around 66 million years ago at the end of which an asteroid impact abruptly extinguished all dinosaurs and 75% of living species along with them, according to scientists.

Footprints face preservation threats

Although they've survived for millions of years, human life has threatened these traces. For decades, farmers threshed corn and wheat on the footprint-covered plateaus. Nearby quarry workers didn’t think much of the formations as they blasted rock layers for limestone. And just two years ago, researchers said, highway crews tunneling through hillsides nearly wiped out a major site of dinosaur tracks before the national park intervened.

Such disturbances may have something to do with the area's striking absence of dinosaur bones, teeth and eggs, experts say. For all of the footprints and swim traces found across Bolivia’s Toro Toro, there are virtually no skeletal remains of the sort that litter the peaks and valleys of Argentine Patagonia and Campanha in Brazil.

But the lack of bones could have natural causes, too. The team said the quantity and pattern of tracks — and the fact they were all found in the same sediment layer — suggest that dinosaurs didn’t settle in what is now Bolivia as much as trudge along an ancient coastal superhighway stretching from southern Peru into northwest Argentina.

The range in footprint sizes indicated that giant creatures roughly 10 meters (33 feet) tall moved in a herd with tiny theropods the size of a chicken, 32 centimeters (1 foot) tall at the hip.

In presenting a snapshot of everyday behavior footprints “reveal what skeletons cannot,” said Anthony Romilio, a paleontologist at the University of Queensland in Australia who also did not participate in the study. Just from footprints, researchers can tell when dinosaurs strolled or sped up, stopped or turned around.

But the reason they flocked in droves to this wind-swept plateau remains a mystery.

“It may have been that they were all regular visitors to a large, ancient, freshwater lake, frequenting its expansive muddy shoreline,” offered Romilio.

Biaggi suggested that they were “running away from something or searching for somewhere to settle.”

What's certain is that research into this treasure trove of a dinosaur tracksite will continue.

“I suspect that this will keep going over the years and many more footprints will be found right there at the edges of what’s already uncovered,” Biaggi said.

Varieties

Huge Rotating Structure of Galaxies and Dark Matter Is Detected

A figure depicting the rotation of neutral hydrogen in galaxies residing in an extended filament, where the galaxies exhibit a coherent bulk rotational motion tracing the large-scale cosmic web, is seen in this undated illustration obtained by Reuters on December 4, 2025. (Lyla Jung/Handout via Reuters)
A figure depicting the rotation of neutral hydrogen in galaxies residing in an extended filament, where the galaxies exhibit a coherent bulk rotational motion tracing the large-scale cosmic web, is seen in this undated illustration obtained by Reuters on December 4, 2025. (Lyla Jung/Handout via Reuters)
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Huge Rotating Structure of Galaxies and Dark Matter Is Detected

A figure depicting the rotation of neutral hydrogen in galaxies residing in an extended filament, where the galaxies exhibit a coherent bulk rotational motion tracing the large-scale cosmic web, is seen in this undated illustration obtained by Reuters on December 4, 2025. (Lyla Jung/Handout via Reuters)
A figure depicting the rotation of neutral hydrogen in galaxies residing in an extended filament, where the galaxies exhibit a coherent bulk rotational motion tracing the large-scale cosmic web, is seen in this undated illustration obtained by Reuters on December 4, 2025. (Lyla Jung/Handout via Reuters)

Scientists have observed the largest-known rotating structure in the cosmos - a gargantuan thread-like assemblage of hundreds of galaxies, gas and dark matter that makes up a filament in the macrostructure of the universe called the cosmic web.

The filament, located about 140 million light-years from Earth, was observed by scientists primarily using the MeerKAT radio telescope located in South Africa, an array of 64 interlinked satellite dishes.

The rotating filament is astonishingly large, measuring about 50 million light-years long and 117,000 light-years wide. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). By way of comparison, our Milky Way galaxy, which itself is part of a filament in the cosmic web, measures roughly 100,000 light-years in diameter.

"We believe that the universe on very large scales is made of a network-like distribution of galaxies, gas and dark matter," said University of Cambridge astrophysicist Madalina Tudorache, co-lead author of the study published this month in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

"This network is called the cosmic web, and it is formed of clusters, which are very dense clumps of matter, often formed of many groups of galaxies; voids - which are empty or almost empty regions of space; and filaments, which are strand-like structures which connect the very dense regions and border the voids," Tudorache said.

The rotating filament described in the new study is populated by nearly 300 galaxies of various sizes as well as gas and dark matter, the mysterious invisible stuff estimated to make up 27% of the cosmos.

Everything visible in the universe is made of ordinary matter - stars, planets, moons and all the stuff on Earth. It can be seen in wavelengths from infrared to visible light and gamma rays, but comprises only about 5% of the universe. Dark matter, on the other hand, does not absorb or reflect or emit light, but its presence is known through its gravitational effects on large scales.

The researchers determined that the filament is spinning by observing that the galaxies on either side of its central axis are moving through space in opposite directions, with the whole thing having a rotational velocity of about 246,000 miles (396,000 km) per hour.

"This is the largest individual spinning structure so far detected. Statistically, we believe there are other spinning structures, some of which could be larger. However, we have not been able to detect them directly with our current data and telescopes," said University of Oxford astrophysicist and study co-lead author Lyla Jung.

The researchers likened what they see in this filament to the amusement park attraction called a teacup ride.

"The teacup ride analogy explains the two levels of spinning motion that make this object unique," Jung said.

"First, each galaxy in the filament spins on its own. The gas and stars in each galaxy orbit around the galaxy center, like each teacup on the ride spins individually. Second, the entire cosmic filament also rotates. The filament is made of many galaxies, and this study demonstrates that the entire structure is rotating, like the teacup platform spins as a whole," Jung added.

In studying the cosmos, astrophysicists examine it at the smallest and largest scales. They look at tiny fundamental particles such as neutrinos. They look at objects such as comets, asteroids, moons, planets and stars that make up solar systems. They look at galaxies comprised of billions of stars and at clusters of galaxies. And then on the largest scales they look at filaments and other components of the cosmic web.

This study looks at the large end of things.

"This is a very exciting time to work in this field, as our capacity of discovering such structures is increasing with the advent of better radio and optical surveys. It will deepen our understanding of the universe," Tudorache said.