Plus, Greenland shark found in Caribbeen
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY PAOLO VERZONE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION
| | The three cousins were looking for a lost goat. Instead, they stumbled upon a 2,000-year-old treasure trove of Biblical texts in caves near the Dead Sea, including the oldest written version of the Ten Commandments.
Since the 1946 blockbuster find, scholars have shifted ideas about the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which include all but one of the books of the Hebrew canon (Christian Old Testament). At first, most scholars thought reclusive monks living nearby wrote them, but later researchers suggest at least some texts were spirited to the caves from Jerusalem before Romans destroyed the great temple in A.D. 70.
New testing shows the scrolls may have been written over a 275- to 465-year period, Nat Geo reports.
Read the full story here.
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY RAFAEL BEN-ARI, ALAMY
| | This mikveh (or ritual bathing pool), uncovered in the Qumran settlement, is believed by some to be evidence that the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls were from a reclusive breakaway order known as the Essenes. Pictured at top, a Dominican priest reconstructs the text of a fragment of the Great Psalms Scroll at the French École Biblique in Jerusalem. Read more.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANCO BANFI, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY FRANK DRAKE | | Are we alone in the universe? It’s a question we’ve been asking for millennia. Now, we’re on the cusp of learning the answer. Frank Drake (pictured above)—one of the most vocal (and brilliant) askers—has spent six decades inspiring others to join him in this quest. Now, a new generation of scientists is carrying his work forward, our Overheard podcast discovers. They’re finally being taken seriously, and they’re about to change the way we think about our place in the cosmos.
Related: ‘My dad launched the search for alien intelligence. It changed astronomy.’
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| ‘A fairy tale’: That’s what Nat Geo Explorer Prasenjeet Yadav calls these living root bridges. He photographed 30 over the course of a year. Found in the Khasi Hills of northeast India, these sturdy pedestrian bridges are created by local tribes using the roots of a Ficus elastica, or rubber fig, tree. These wonders of bioengineering are more suitable than concrete bridges, Yadav says, because they can withstand constant rains, landslides, earthquakes, and floods.
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 | | The global impact will come, if you make sure you’re having an impact at community level. | | | | Diego Ponce de Léon Barido | Sustainability scientist and engineer, Nat Geo Explorer
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHNNY GASKELL | | What does the stingray say? Dog goes woof, cat goes meow. How about the stingray? Until recently, scientists thought the flat fish had nothing to say. But a recent video captures two species making striking click sounds. “I dive a lot with some other species of rays, and now I’m second guessing myself. Could I have missed this?” one marine ecologist says to Nat Geo. To hear them beneath the water, listen here. (Pictured above, a cowtail stingray along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.)
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| Today’s newsletter was edited and curated by David Beard, Heather Kim, and Monica Williams. Miss yesterday’s newsletter? Find it here. Write to us at david.beard@natgeo.com. Have a good week ahead! | | | |
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