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At 152 years old‚ Yellowstone National Park is the oldest US national park. It was established in 1872 under a set of unique circumstances‚ but it has since set the precedent for the creation of dozens of other national parks in the US.Some people say that Hot Springs in Arkansas was the first national park‚ but that’s not strictly true. However‚ it is the nation’s oldest national reservation‚ set aside for preservation in 1832. It then became a national park in 1921.Likewise‚ Yosemite is occasionally cited as the oldest national park. While it did receive protection in 1864‚ this was only as a state park. It was eventually established as a national park in 1890. The history of YellowstoneYellowstone National Park encompasses around 890‚000 hectares (2.2 million acres) of land in the northwest corner of Wyoming and parts of Montana and Idaho. Famed for its biodiversity‚ the region is home to 300 species of birds‚ 16 species of fish‚ five species of amphibians‚ six species of reptiles‚ and 67 species of mammals‚ including black bears‚ grizzly bears‚ bobcats‚ lynx‚ cougars‚ coyotes‚ wolves‚ red foxes‚ wolverines‚ bison‚ and seven native ungulate species.Yellowstone was not "discovered" in recent history. Archaeological discoveries and oral histories suggest that Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for up to 11‚000 years‚ utilizing its abundance of wildlife and geothermal springs to build a rich variety of cultures. At least 27 current tribes have deep historic and cultural ties to the region. European-American colonizers began exploring the land in the 19th century. Daring visitors would return from their expeditions with scientific reports‚ journal entries‚ paintings‚ and photography‚ all of which built up a mystique around Yellowstone. It became clear this was a beautiful and fascinating pocket of North America that needed to be preserved.Sitting on top of a dormant volcano‚ Yellowstone National Park has more geysers and hot springs than any other place on Earth.Image credit: Meina Yin/UnsplashHow national parks came to beOne of the most significant expeditions to Yellowstone was the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition in 1870. Upon their return‚ Nathanial Langford and his co-explorers headed to Washington in late 1871 and early 1872 to promote a bill that ensured the Yellowstone region acquired a special status. Their motives were not purely idealistic and altruistic‚ however. Langford has been described as "a man with clear political aspirations" who utilized the Yellowstone region to enhance his image (and perhaps his bank account). He had personal and financial ties to Jay Cooke‚ the CEO of Northern Pacific Railroad‚ who saw the allure of Yellowstone as a possible way to bolster support for his planned rail extensions through Montana.To convince lawmakers‚ Langford and his crew drew upon the precedent of the Yosemite Act of 1864‚ which reserved the Yosemite Valley under the care of California. The Yellowstone legislation was slightly different though. Instead of giving public lands to a state‚ the land would be managed by the Department of the Interior‚ an arm of the federal government.Yellowstone was formally recognized as the first national park in the US by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1‚ 1872. The act reads as follows: “The headwaters of the Yellowstone River […] is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement‚ occupancy‚ or sale […] and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”Langford was given the honor of becoming the park's first superintendent‚ although he was kicked out of the position in 1877 after being accused of neglecting his duty to protect and promote the park. The darker side of Yellowstone National ParkThe establishment of Yellowstone National Park was an unpleasant event for the Native American tribes who had lived here for thousands of years. After 1872‚ Native Americans were deterred from using the land and many were relocated from their home to reservations outside the park’s boundaries. “Before the park was created‚ people hunted for food. After the park was created‚ that became an illegal act called poaching. And that changed the whole tenor of life in neighboring communities‚” Patricia Limerick‚ director of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Applied History Initiative‚ told History. “Yellowstone National Park is surrounded by Indian reservations. And their creation was directly related to the creation of the Yellowstone National Park boundary‚” added Mark Fiege‚ professor of History at Montana State University.Since the creation of Yellowstone National Park‚ Congress has assigned dozens of national parks‚ bringing the total number to 63. The National Park Service also operates 434 so-called "units"‚ including National Battlefields and National Historic Sites.One of the most recent additions is the Amache National Historic Site in Colorado‚ the site of a sprawling concentration camp used to detain Japanese Americans during World War II following the attack of Pearl Harbour.

The cumulative acquisition of knowledge through culture was once thought to be unique to humans – but now‚ new research has shown that it's a trait that may extend to invertebrates. Sending a bunch of bumblebees on a quest to learn how to reach a reward in a puzzle box has shown that they too can train one another‚ demonstrating an unprecedented degree of social learning in a non-human species.The task at hand was a complicated one‚ chosen specifically because it was something that a bee would never come up with on its own. That meant it had to first be trained how to complete the task by a human‚ and so bee school was in session.The bee had to learn how to push a tab out of the way so that it could use a second tab to expose a patch of delicious sucrose reward. It sounds simple to us‚ but getting a bee to do it is impressive because the first step – moving that pesky tab out of the way – doesn’t result in a reward‚ which is typically what it takes to get an animal to do something.Untrained bees weren’t able to solve the puzzle‚ but those that were trained picked it up after two days. Then‚ the student became the master as the 15 trained demonstrator bees were paired up with observer bees‚ who had received no training and hadn’t flown around the puzzle box before.          Of those 15 observers‚ five successfully completed the box challenge‚ receiving their sugary prize with the shifting of a few tabs. Footage shows the first successful attempt‚ followed by rapturous applause and calls of “well done‚ bee!”. IFLScience doesn’t have a dedicated research site‚ but if it did‚ we’d sure like it to be like bee lab. The capacity to inherit knowledge and pass it down through a community over time is referred to as culture‚ something that has not been demonstrated in invertebrates before. This new research therefore raises a lot of interesting questions – as‚ if bees are capable of spreading knowledge‚ it’s possible they’re capable of the transmission of culture.“We used to think that humans were the only species where someone might head out on a quest [and] learn something so complicated that when they bring it back to their village‚ the others don’t believe it could have come from anywhere but the gods‚ and [then] pass that on to other generations‚” said postdoctoral researcher Alice Bridges.“It now seems at least plausible that a similar quest is going on in social insects‚ and that changes everything‚” concluded Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology Lars Chittka.The study is published in the journal Nature.

People across North America will experience a total solar eclipse on April 8. Going from the west coast of Mexico diagonally towards the east coast of Canada‚ the spectacle is expected to be seen by millions. And those lucky observers might see more than they were expecting. As the sky darkens during the minutes of totality‚ a comet may appear.The comet in question is called 12P/Pons–Brooks‚ which was discovered in July 1812 by Jean-Louis Pons. It was later rediscovered in 1883 by William Robert Brooks‚ before realizing it was the same comet as the 1812 one. It goes around the Sun every 71 years‚ and this year is the year that it once again gets close to our star.The perihelion‚ the closest point to the Sun in its orbit‚ is going to happen on April 21 so it is going to be bright – hopefully bright enough to be visible to the naked eye after sunset in those weeks‚ and potentially bright enough to be visible during the eclipse.If you are among those lucky ones who are seeing the eclipse‚ as the Moon and the Sun meet in the sky you will have four minutes to admire the event‚ so you might also have a look around. The activity of the solar corona may become more obvious‚ especially due to the approaching solar maximum.To the west‚ there will be Venus‚ to the east Mercury and Jupiter should be spotted by observers‚ and between the two planets‚ you should be able to see comet 12P/Pons-Brooks. The comet is currently at the very limit of visibility to the naked eye. With a few more weeks of approach to the Sun‚ it might have enough time to begin to show off a bit more.The eclipse will start from Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa‚ where the path of totality will be about 200 kilometers (124 miles) across‚ shrinking to 160 kilometers (100 miles) by the time it gets to Newfoundland. In the US alone‚ there are 31 million people already living in the path of totality and it will pass from Texas to New York state via Tennessee.If you fancy seeing the eclipse and the comet‚ you better start planning 'cause time is running out – and please wear appropriate eyewear for it!If you'd like to see the comet ahead of time you will still need a telescope‚ or you can watch it online with the Virtual Telescope team who have an observing event coming up this Sunday.

Heat transfer is among the oldest known laws of physics. First formalized by Netwon and then generalized by Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier‚ the eponymous Fourier’s Law has been unrivaled for centuries to explain how heat diffuses through a solid object. However‚ researchers have now discovered that the laws are definitely not complete.It had been established that at the nanoscale Fourier’s law doesn’t explain all the transfer of heat. But still‚ the law could be seen as a generalization that works on the macroscale. Yet researchers were curious to see if those exceptions could also happen in something big – and it turns out they do under the right conditions.“This research began with a simple question‚” Steve Granick‚ Robert K. Barrett Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the paper’s senior author‚ said in a statement. “What if heat could be transmitted by another pathway‚ not just the one that people had assumed?”Their simple idea was that heat can transfer through conduction in a solid but if that solid was transparent it could also transfer by radiation. They tested this in translucent polymers and inorganic glasses.They placed these materials in a vacuum so air transfer didn’t play a role‚ and they heated up one side of these materials with a laser and measured with thermal cameras the diffusion of heat. Fourier’s Law alone could not explain what the team was able to observe.“No one has tried this before‚” added lead author Kaikai Zheng also from UMass Amherst. “There’s something unexpected happening within translucent polymers.”“It’s not that Fourier’s Law is wrong‚” Granick was quick to stress‚ “just that it doesn’t explain everything we see when it comes to heat transmission. Fundamental research like ours gives us an expanded understanding of how heat works‚ which will offer engineers new strategies for designing heat circuits.”The team believes that the translucent materials allow for energy to radiate internally. And this radiation heats up imperfections in the material which become secondary heat sources that also radiate through the material. This is why opaque materials do not show such a deviation from Fourier’s law.The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

An unexpectedly controversial post popped up on social media platform X on Tuesday‚ stating that the island nation of Kiribati is the only country that sits in all four hemispheres. People in the replies had a lot to say (which isn’t exactly an unusual thing on this particular site) – but what kind of claims were they making‚ and who was right?     IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Some people took issue with there being four hemispheres‚ with many pointing out that “hemi” indicates something is split into half or two. However‚ in this case‚ the original poster (OP) is right.The Earth can be split in half in more than one way. In fact‚ you can divide it in any number of the infinite ways that might tickle your fancy (we are simply making imaginary lines on a floating orb in the never-ending abyss of space‚ after all)‚ but the generally accepted way splits the globe into North and South‚ and East and West – in other words‚ four different hemispheres. The North-South divide uses the equator‚ running horizontally‚ which people in the replies also mistook for the country of Ecuador. Don’t worry though‚ this South American nation hasn’t magically been transported to the Pacific Ocean – the image used by OP featured Spanish text‚ and “Ecuador” just so happens to be the Spanish word for “equator”.As for the Eastern and Western hemispheres‚ though some geographers like to split them a little differently‚ in this case they are separated vertically by the 180th meridian or antemeridian. This is opposite the prime meridian‚ where longitude is set at 0‚ and forms the basis of the International Date Line (more on that later).If you put lines representing both sets of hemispheres on the globe at the same time‚ bits of Kiribati could be found in all four – but is it the only country that does this? Several users were quick to pipe up claiming that it isn’t‚ pointing out that the United Kingdom and France have overseas territories that would also make them eligible – though given their dodgy history‚ not everyone thinks they count.Its hemisphere-straddling abilities aren’t the only thing that makes Kiribati unique. Remember the International Date Line? Kiribati used to straddle it‚ meaning that some neighboring islands had a time difference of 23 hours between them.That was something of an administrative nightmare apparently‚ so in 1995‚ authorities announced they’d swing the date line significantly eastward so that all 33 islands had the same date.“We just did it and told the world‚” said Michael Walsh‚ the Kiribati Honorary Consul to the UK‚ speaking to the BBC in 2011.Efficient.

In 1997‚ IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer made artificial intelligence (AI) history‚ becoming the first machine to beat a reigning world champion –  Garry Kasparov – at the game of chess.Though Kasparov went on to draw two other games with Deep Blue‚ and won a further three‚ it was an impressive achievement for AI. Chess‚ though less complex than Go‚ is a complicated game with a ridiculous number of possible games.             Defeating humans with a machine took decades of developments in computing‚ followed by‚ in the case of Google's AlphaZero‚ four hours of learning the rules and learning to play.So‚ in 1770‚ when one Wolfgang von Kempelen presented a human-defeating chess automaton to the world‚ perhaps people should have been a little more skeptical than they were. Von Kempelen first unveiled the machine to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. It comprised of a large cabinet supposedly filled with cogs and other mechanical parts‚ a chess board on top‚ and a mechanical clockwork humanoid to shift around the chess pieces.Before the show‚ von Kempelen turned the cabinet to show that it was empty but for machinery‚ and lifted the humanoid's clothes to prove that there wasn't a human or other trickery under there. He then made a big show of winding the automaton up like a clock‚ before it sprung into action and began to move pieces around the board.It won its first game‚ impressing and confusing the court in attendance. Though there were skeptics in the crowd‚ and some sort of trickery suspected‚ Empress Maria Theresa and others were impressed and delighted with the chess "machine" (the workings of which we will get to shortly).         Von Kempelen toured the chess machine over the next few weeks‚ causing a stir around Vienna. Before long‚ he was asked to tour the machine around Europe‚ meeting and playing chess against famous figures of the time. Like an 18th Century steam punk Forrest Gump‚ the "Mechanical Turk" played against Napoleon Bonaparte‚ Charles Babbage (often hailed as the "father of computing")‚ and Benjamin Franklin‚ beating them all.For two decades‚ though many suspected it was a hoax‚ nobody could figure out how it was performed. There were plenty‚ too‚ who believed that the "Mechanical Turk" was as mechanical as its name suggested. The "machine" was a decent chess player‚ but could be defeated‚ including by chess champions. It knew the rules‚ which would be more than impressive for a machine at the time‚ and played tactically. In fact‚ it played as well as you'd expect a decent chess player crammed inside a cabinet to perform under said conditions.The machine was passed around owners‚ and continued to play players‚ before‚ in 1857‚ the son of its final owner revealed all in a series of articles for Chess Monthly. The machine was operated by a chess player concealed nicely within the cabinet. The chess pieces were magnetic‚ and corresponded to a chess board on the underneath‚ allowing the operator to know what move had been played. It was then up to their chess skill to defeat their opponent."To execute the Turk’s moves‚ the player engaged a pantograph‚ which positioned the Automaton's mechanical arm over the playing board and operated its grasping hand‚" Dan Flannigan explained in his book Legend and Lore: Jefferson Medical College. "In the center of each square of the hidden chess board‚ a hole had been drilled to receive the point of the pantograph. By inserting this point into the desired location‚ the player could execute his moves without being in visual contact with the actual playing board."And that's how Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon lost at a board game‚ not to a machine‚ but to a chess player crammed inside a cabinet operating a big metal puppet.

The computer scientist who popularized the term artificial general intelligence (AGI) believes that it could arrive as early as 2029.Ben Goertzel‚ who founded SingularityNET‚ which aims to create a "decentralized‚ democratic‚ inclusive and beneficial Artificial General Intelligence"‚ gave a talk at the Beneficial AGI Summit 2024. In the talk‚ he told the audience that we could reach a point where artificial intelligence is capable of improving itself.Though such a point may seem far off‚ he lists a number of reasons why he believes it could happen so quickly. According to Goertzel‚ the reason for this is because we are in a period of exponential rather than linear growth‚ which can be more difficult to wrap your head around and comprehend the speed of change."In the next decade or two [it] seems likely an individual computer will have roughly the compute power of a human brain by 2029‚ 2030‚" Goertzel said in his talk. "Then you add another 10/15 years on that‚ an individual computer would have roughly the compute power of all of human society."        Goertzel cites large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT as waking the world up to the potential for AI‚ but does not believe that LLMs themselves are the path towards AGI‚ as they do not demonstrate genuine understanding of the world‚ operating more like a spicy autocomplete.However‚ he believes that LLMs could be a component of AGI that moves us towards the singularity‚ perhaps in his company's own OpenCog Hyperon."One thing we can plausibly teach a Hyperon system to do is design and write software code‚" Goertzel wrote in an unreviewed preprint paper posted to arXiv. "LLMs are already passable at this in simple contexts; Hyperon is designed to augment this capability with deeper creativity and more capable multi-stage reasoning. Once we have a system that can design and write code well enough to improve upon itself and write subsequent versions‚ we enter a realm that could lead to a full-on intelligence explosion and Technological Singularity."Goertzel has concerns about this‚ as well as excitement for it. Proper safeguards would need to be in place before we let Pandora out of the box‚ something which we have not yet got a handle on. If the singularity is as close as Goertzel and other computer scientists believe (and that's still a ginormous "if") we're under a lot of pressure to get things right fast."My own view is once you get to human-level AGI‚ within a few years you could be at radically superhuman AGI‚ unless the AGI threatens to throttle its own development out of its own conservatism‚" Goertzel added in his talk. "I think once an AGI can introspect its own mind‚ then it can do engineering and science at a human or superhuman level. It should be able to make a smarter AGI‚ then an even smarter AGI‚ then [there would be] an intelligence explosion. That may lead to an increase in the exponential rate beyond even what [computer scientist Ray Kurzweil] thought."[H/T: Live Science]