Science is much like a mysterious number game, with humanity always being the most curious players.
The mysteries of science possess a strange allure, seemingly born to wait for humanity to achieve enough intellect, in eras with sufficient scientific foundations to provide answers.
Below are some long-standing mysteries that scientists have finally unraveled.
1. The Mysterious Code of the Founder of Rhode Island
Roger Williams.
Roger Williams was the founder of Rhode Island, and in the final days of his life, he filled the cover page of his book “A Letter on the Differences in the Harmony Between the Followers of the Protestant Faith” with notes on various issues.
Strangely, after many attempts, no one could decipher the meaning behind those shorthand lines. This became a source of intrigue for many researchers. Those lines could have contained anything: a confession, treasure directions…
Ultimately, researchers discovered that the codes he wrote were actually a type of shorthand used in English courts that he had learned. They managed to decode many passages about ancient geography, medicine, and infant baptism.
2. The Evolution of the Big Bang
Darwin, the proponent of the theory of evolution, spent considerable time and effort searching for the mystery of the Cambrian explosion, which led to significant biodiversity changes, coinciding with a time when fossils continuously appeared. Darwin described this phase as inexplicable.
In September 2009, Australian scientists found the answer to events described as “The Evolution of the Big Bang.”
The main reason for this phenomenon was that the rate of evolution during the Cambrian was slightly faster than in other periods. The calculated data completely aligned with Darwin’s theory of evolution.
3. The Cannibalistic Susquehannock People
The Susquehannock were a Native American tribe. They were labeled by European settlers as having brutally massacred the neighboring Shenks Ferry tribe and were associated with cannibalistic practices.
Illustration of the Susquehannock People.
April Beisaw, an archaeologist from Vassar College, and her colleagues questioned this issue based on some initial archaeological evidence and sought to find proof to exonerate the tribe.
She and her two associates examined over 2,000 artifacts and records from various museums. The result was that her team found no evidence of any massacre occurring.
This could be a conspiracy to exterminate this tribe by the first American immigrants. With this evidence, she hopes history will be rewritten.
4. Why Do Crustaceans Lack an Adult Form?
Cerataspis monstrosa is the name of a species of crustacean first discovered about 180 years ago. This species is only found in its larval form inside the intestines of fish.
We have never discovered this species in its adult form. This has led scientists to question extensively, proposing numerous hypotheses, but none have provided convincing evidence.
The adult form of this species is actually a shrimp living in deep waters.
It wasn’t until DNA technology advanced that everything became clear. A new technology developed over ten years answered a 200-year-old mystery.
Professor Keith Crandall from George Washington University conducted DNA research on this species and discovered that the larval form we see is actually a completely different species, scientifically named Plesiopenaeus armatus.
The adult form of this species is genuinely a shrimp living in deep waters, looking entirely different from when it was young. Moreover, it is rare to encounter it because this shrimp typically resides very deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
5. The Origin of the Falkland Islands Wolf
According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, the formation of a new species on a remote island is due to geographical isolation. Initially, the island was connected to the mainland, where a group of individuals of a species dispersed on the island.
Location of the Falkland Islands.
When the island separated from the continent, that group of individuals diverged from their species, reproducing generation after generation to adapt to the new environment, eventually forming a new species.
The wolf on the Falkland Islands was the only mammal living on the island when humans discovered it in the 17th century.
The Falkland Islands wolf.
This wolf species went extinct in 1876 due to human hunting. Based on earlier findings, scientists believed this wolf evolved from an ancient wolf species that existed around 330,000 years ago on the mainland, from where the island was separated.
However, recent DNA studies have shown that the island was actually separated much earlier, and this wolf species diverged only about 160,000 years ago during the Ice Age, due to an ice bridge connecting the Falkland Islands to the mainland.
When the ice melted, the wolves that had reached the island were geographically isolated and formed a new species.
