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Meet Homo bodoensis, New Species of Human Ancestor

Homo bodoensis had a pan-African distribution with the peripheral range extending into the eastern Mediterranean (Southeast Europe and the Levant) from which it could have contributed to the repopulation of European (and possibly Central and East Asian) demographic sinks after the glaciations. Image credit: Ettore Mazza.
Oct 29, 2021 by News Staff

Homo bodoensis lived in Africa during the early Middle Pleistocene, around 500,000 years ago, and was the direct ancestor of the Homo sapiens lineage; however, this species was not the most recent common ancestor of Eurasian (Neanderthals and Denisovans) and African (Homo sapiens) hominins. Homo bodoensis had a pan-African distribution with the peripheral range extending into the eastern Mediterranean (Southeast Europe and the Levant) from which it...

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True’s beaked whales (Mesoplodon mirus). Image credit: Roland Edler, Duisburg Zoo.

Marine Biologists Identify New Species of Beaked Whale

Oct 27, 2021 by Natali Anderson

The newly-identified species, named the Ramari’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon eueu), occurs throughout temperate southern hemisphere waters, with reports...

The 2,000-year-old amethyst seal found in Jerusalem, Israel. Image credit: Israel Antiquities Authority.

2,000-Year-Old Amethyst Seal Found in Israel

Oct 27, 2021 by News Staff

An amethyst gemstone seal from the Second Temple period has a unique engraving: a bird and a branch with five fruits, according to the Israel Antiquities...

LiDAR Reveals 478 Olmec and Maya Ceremonial Complexes in Mexico

Oct 26, 2021 by News Staff

Using a revolutionary technology known as LiDAR (laser imaging, detection and ranging), an international team of archaeologists has discovered 478 rectangular...

An artist’s impression of the Proxima Centauri system. Image credit: Lorenzo Santinelli.

Signal of Interest from Proxima Centauri Was Not Alien Technosignature, Astronomers Say

Oct 26, 2021 by Natali Anderson

In 2019, astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen project observed Proxima Centauri using CSIRO’s Parkes ‘Murriyang’ radio telescope. They detected...

Super-Jupiter Found Circling Very Young, Very Low Mass Star

Oct 25, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The discovery of a super-Jupiter exoplanet around the M-type dwarf star 2MASS J04372171+2651014 challenges models of planet formation by either core accretion...

Kuitems et al. provide evidence that the Norse were active on the North American continent in the year 1021 CE. Image credit: Oscar C.R.

New Research Provides Evidence that Vikings were Present in Newfoundland 1,000 Years Ago

Oct 22, 2021 by News Staff

The Vikings (or Norse) were the first Europeans to cross the Atlantic, confirms a new study published in the journal Nature. Kuitems et al. provide evidence...

Reconsturction of Mussaurus patagonicus herd. Image credit: Jorge Gonzalez.

Early Jurassic Herbivorous Dinosaurs Lived in Age-Segregated Herds

Oct 22, 2021 by News Staff

Paleontologists have analyzed an exceptional fossil assemblage from the Laguna Colorada Formation in Patagonia, Argentina, that includes 193-million-year-old...

Human-mediated selection for tusklessness in African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) during the Mozambican civil war appears to be driven by recent selection on at least one X-linked locus (AMELX) and one autosomal locus (MEP1a). Image credit: Benh Lieu Song / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Study: Intense Ivory Poaching Resulted in Rapid Evolution of Tusklessness in African Elephants

Oct 22, 2021 by News Staff

In response to heavy poaching by armed forces during the 20-year Mozambican civil war, populations of African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) in...

This artistic conception illustrates large asteroids penetrating Earth’s oxygen-poor atmosphere. Image credit: SwRI / Dan Durda / Simone Marchi.

Archean Asteroid Impacts Delayed Evolution of Earth’s Atmosphere, Study Suggests

Oct 21, 2021 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the United States and Austria has analyzed remnants of ancient asteroids and modeled the effects of their violent collisions...

Librado et al. pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Image credit: Devanath.

Horses Were First Domesticated in Western Eurasian Steppes More Than 4,000 Years Ago

Oct 21, 2021 by News Staff

In a study published this week in the journal Nature, scientists analyzed ancient horse genomes from all suspected domestication centers, including Iberia,...

Cretapsara athanata, a modern-looking eubrachyuran crab in Burmese amber. Image credit: Luque et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abj5689.

99-Million-Year-Old Modern-Looking Crab Found in Burmese Amber

Oct 21, 2021 by News Staff

The new fossil from the Cretaceous of Myanmar preserves large compound eyes, delicate mouthparts, and even gills. Cretapsara athanata, a modern-looking...

The decay of a B0 meson into a K0 and an electron-positron pair in the LHCb detector, which is used for a sensitive test of lepton universality in the Standard Model. Image credit: CERN.

Novel Tests of Lepton Universality Boost Evidence for ‘New Physics’

Oct 21, 2021 by News Staff

Physicists from CERN’s LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty) Collaboration have carried out new tests of lepton universality, one of the basic principles...

A trio of woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) trudges over snow covered hills; behind them, mountains with snow covered peaks rise above dark green forests of fir trees. Image credit: Daniel Eskridge.

Rapid Climate Change Wiped Out Woolly Mammoths, Study Confirms

Oct 20, 2021 by News Staff

In a large-scale environmental DNA metagenomic study of ancient plant and mammal communities, an international team of researchers have analyzed 535 permafrost...

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Records Martian Sounds

Oct 20, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover carries two microphones which are directly recording sounds on Mars, including wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel,...

An artist’s impression of a white dwarf -- in this case a white dwarf in the MV Lyrae system -- accreting as it draws in material from a companion star. Image credit: Helena Uthas.

TESS Finds Pulsating White Dwarf in TW Pictoris System

Oct 19, 2021 by News Staff

The white dwarf observed by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a member of the binary system TW Pictoris and is known to be accreting...

This WISE multicolor image shows NGC 1605, a binary open cluster located 8,480 light-years away in the constellation of Perseus. It was first discovered on December 11, 1786 by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel. Image credit: NASA / WISE / Camargo, arXiv: 2109.14664.

Astronomer Discovers Ancient Binary Open Cluster in Milky Way

Oct 18, 2021 by Sergio Prostak

An open cluster called NGC 1605 is in fact two merging open clusters with evidence of tidal streams, according to new research by Professor Denilso Camargo...

This illustration shows NASA’s Lucy spacecraft passing one of the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.

NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Launches to Study Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids

Oct 18, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft was launched on October 16, 2021, at 5:34 a.m. EDT aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket out of Space Launch Complex...

An artist’s rendition of the MOA-2010-BLG-477Lb exoplanet and its white-dwarf host. Image credit: W.M. Keck Observatory / Adam Makarenko.

Jupiter-Mass Exoplanet Found Orbiting White Dwarf

Oct 15, 2021 by News Staff

Using a technique called gravitational microlensing, which occurs when a star close to Earth momentarily aligns with a more distant star, astronomers have...

Water vapor is present in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. da Silva.

Hubble Finds Water Vapor on Trailing Hemisphere of Europa

Oct 15, 2021 by News Staff

Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in far-ultraviolet light of Jupiter’s icy moons were used in the past to detect molecular oxygen...

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