Myths Current in the Sahara Desert

A Prehistoric Solar Observatory in the Middle of Sahara Desert

The prehistoric stone funerary monuments of the Sahara desert, distributed in a huge geographical area, had been created in several different shapes. Some of them have a design that looks like a keyhole, and therefore are known as keyhole tombs. Since they are facing the sunrise, these tombs were also considered as places for the worship of the sun. In this paper, we show that one of them, in A...

Verification of Sciamachy’s Polarisation Correction over the Sahara Desert

The justification for doing the work presented in this paper lies in the recent and disturbing rumours regarding the reflectivity of the current SCIAMACHY Level 1b product. The reflectivity was claimed to show an overall 20-percent loss in magnitude compared to GOME. We will show that the reported discrepancy in the reflectivity is indeed not a fictional one, but that it is certainly not caused...

Modelling the atmospheric controls and climate impact of mineral dust in the Sahara Desert

Ancient watercourses and biogeography of the Sahara explain the peopling of the desert.

Evidence increasingly suggests that sub-Saharan Africa is at the center of human evolution and understanding routes of dispersal "out of Africa" is thus becoming increasingly important. The Sahara Desert is considered by many to be an obstacle to these dispersals and a Nile corridor route has been proposed to cross it. Here we provide evidence that the Sahara was not an effective barrier and in...

Heat shock protein synthesis and thermotolerance in Cataglyphis, an ant from the Sahara desert.

The ant Cataglyphis lives in the Sahara desert and is one of the most thermotolerant land animals known. It forages at body temperatures above 50 degrees C, and the critical thermal maxima are at 53.6 +/- 0.8 degrees C for Cataglyphis bombycina and 55.1 +/- 1.1 degrees C for Cataglyphis bicolor. The synthesis and accumulation of heat shock proteins (HSPs) were analyzed in Cataglyphis and compar...