New DNA technology confirms Aboriginal people as first Australians

A new look at ancient bones with the latest DNA technology has confirmed Aboriginal Australians as the continent's first people. Researchers say the findings overturn a 2001 paper that argued the oldest known Australian human remains found near Lake Mungo in New South Wales were from an extinct lineage of modern humans that occupied the continent before Aboriginal Australians.

Dark radiation may be causing universe to expand faster than expected

The universe is expanding 5 to 9 per cent faster than expected and scientists speculate the finding may be explained by a mysterious force called dark radiation.

Madagascan ancestors crossed Indian Ocean from South-East Asia

Ancient charred grains of rice and mung beans excavated from Madagascar provide the first archaeological evidence that ancestors of people living on the East African island known as Malagasy came from South-East Asia.

Asteroids delivered bulk of the Moon's water

Water-rich asteroids that bombarded the Moon between 4.5 billion and 4.3 billion years ago were the main source of water in the Moon's interior.

Mars is emerging from an ice age

Mars is at the tail-end of an ice age that would have seen large swathes of the dusty red planet covered with ice.

Neanderthals built mystery underground circles 175,000 years ago

Archæological evidence now suggests Neanderthals were capable of symbolic thought, had a basic knowledge of chemistry, medicine and cooking, and perhaps some capacity for speech. They may even have taught modern humans new artisanal skills when the two species met and interbred.

A reassessment of evidence from Bruniquel cave, near Toulouse in south-west France, suggests even more Neanderthal sophistication. In one chamber, 336 metres from the cave entrance, are enigmatic structures – including a ring 7 metres across – built from stalagmites snapped from the cave floor.

Monkey seen caring for dying mate then grieving after she dies

The alpha male of a group of snub-nosed monkeys and his dying partner spent a final, tender hour together beneath the tree from which she had fallen minutes earlier, cracking her head on a rock. Before she succumbed, he gently touched and groomed her. And after she was dead he remained by her side for 5 minutes, touching her and pulling gently at her hand, as if to try and revive her.

Trees observed resting branches while ‘asleep’

For the first time, trees have been shown to undergo physical changes at night that can be likened to sleep, or at least to day-night cycles that have been observed experimentally in smaller plants.  Branches of birch trees have now been seen drooping by as much as 10 centimetres at the tips towards the end of the night.

Fossils push back date of large multi-celled life by 1 billion years

Seaweed-like fossils found in rocks in China dated to around 1.56 billion years ago are the earliest known examples of larger organisms made up of many cells.

World's oldest fossil micrometeorites hint of oxygen in early Earth's atmosphere

The oldest fossils of cosmic dust ever discovered provide a glimpse into atmospheric conditions above the Earth more than 2.7 billion years ago and could do the same on other planets.

Do newborn babies imitate adults?

Newborn babies do not imitate us.  It is a skill they have to learn — likely by us imitating them, rather than the other way around.

World's oldest known ground-edge stone axe fragments found in Western Australia

A fragment of the world's oldest known ground-edge axe has been found in the remote Kimberley region of northern Australia. The discovery pushes back the technological advance to between 45,000 to 49,000 years ago, and coincides with the arrival of people in Australia. The fragment is 10,000 years older than the previous oldest known fragments found in northern Australia in 2010.

Ancient bubbles in Pilbara rock show Earth had thin atmosphere 2.7b years ago

Air bubbles trapped in 2.7 billion-year-old lava flows in the Pilbara suggest the Earth's atmosphere weighed less than half that of today and was far thinner than previously thought. The discovery has forced a rethink of how the Earth managed to stay relatively ice-free during that period, despite the Sun being much cooler than it is today.

Evidence that early humans in North Africa were eaten by other animals

A large carnivore — most likely a hyena — ate an ancient human 500,000 years ago, according to the discovery of teeth marks on a thighbone found in a Moroccan cave. The fossilised femur provides the first definitive evidence that carnivores ate early humans in North Africa during the Middle Pleistocene era.

Three planets discovered orbiting nearby cool small star TRAPPIST-1

Astronomers have discovered three planets orbiting the habitable zone of an ultra-cool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth. The discovery is the first evidence supporting the hypothesis that these very low-mass and low-temperature stars should have Earth-sized or smaller planets orbiting them.

Adult-like proportions may have given baby titanosaurs an advantage when they hatched

Unlike some types of dinosaurs that were reliant on their parents after they hatched, the offspring of the world's largest vertebrates to have ever walked the Earth were probably independent soon after birth.

Monster black hole 3 billion times the mass of the sun formed by trio of colliding galaxies

Three colliding spiral galaxies 1.8 billion light years from Earth have produced a monster black hole weighing in at 3 billion times the mass of the Sun.

Oldest ever human genome sequence may rewrite human history

The oldest ever human nuclear DNA to be reconstructed and sequenced reveals Neanderthals in the making – and the need for a possible rewrite of our own origins.  The 430,000-year-old DNA comes from mysterious early human fossils found in Spain’s Sima de los Huesos, or “pit of bones”.

Insects may have had basic 'consciousness' more than 500 million years ago

Recent neuro-imaging suggests insects are fully hardwired for both consciousness and egocentric behaviour, providing strong evidence that organisms from flies to fleas exhibit both. Consciousness comes in many levels, and insects have the capacity for at least one basic form: subjective experience.

Saharan silver ant's hairs reflect light to beat the desert heat

Saharan silver ants (Cataglyphis bombycina) grow flashy body hairs that cause total internal reflection of light like a prism, a technique also used in manmade fibre optics.

Did the Sun eat a primordial super-Earth?

At least one super-Earth — a planet that is larger than Earth, but smaller than Neptune — could have formed close to the Sun, suggests a new study.

Giant prehistoric bears evolved to fill scavenger gap

Ancient bears evolved to become giants so they could scavenge prey killed by others, a new study suggests.

Blogger Comments:

Note that this reporting misconstrues evolution in terms of purpose instead of cause and result.

Dolphins have a language that helps them solve problems together

Bottlenose dolphins have been observed chattering while cooperating to solve a tricky puzzle – a feat that suggests they have a type of vocalisation dedicated to cooperating on problem solving.

South America's prehistoric people spread in two waves

When the first prehistoric people trekked into South America toward the end of the Ice Age, they found a wondrous, lush continent inhabited by all manner of strange creatures like giant ground sloths and car-sized armadillos.

Supernovae may have played a role in Earth's evolution

The Earth was bombarded by debris from a series of stellar explosions with the closest supernova occurring about 2.3 million years ago.

Monster black hole discovered in an unlikely galaxy

Astronomers have found a monster black hole, some 17 billion times more massive than the sun, in a modestly sized galaxy, raising suspicions supermassive black holes may be more common than originally thought.

Missing Y chromosome kept Sapiens apart from Neanderthals

Modern humans diverged from Neanderthals some 600,000 years ago – and a new study shows the Y chromosome might be what kept the two species separate.

It seems we were genetically incompatible with our ancient relatives – and male fetuses conceived through sex with Neanderthal males would have miscarried. We knew that some cross-breeding between us and Neanderthals happened more recently – around 100,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Neanderthal genes have been found in our genomes, on X chromosomes, and have been linked to traits such as skin colour, fertility and even depression and addiction. Now, an analysis of a Y chromosome from a 49,000-year-old male Neanderthal found in El Sidrón, Spain, suggests the chromosome has gone extinct seemingly without leaving any trace in modern humans.

This could simply be because it drifted out of the human gene pool or, as the new study suggests, it could be because genetic differences meant that hybrid offspring who had this chromosome were infertile – a genetic dead end.

Modern men have no traces of Neanderthal DNA on their Y chromosome, the first-ever analysis of the male Neanderthal sex chromosome has revealed.

Human sacrifice may have helped build and sustain social class systems

Elaborate ritual killings such as being crushed under a newly built canoe and decapitation after being rolled off a house laid the foundations of class-based structures in modern societies, a new study of Austronesian cultures suggests.

Blogger Comment:

In terms of Joseph Campbell's four functions of mythology, this is the sociological function: justifying and maintaining the social order.  The other functions are the pedagogical, cosmological and mystical.

Exoplanet 55 Cancri e has solid and liquid surfaces

Astronomers have, for the first time, mapped a nearby "super-Earth" exoplanet to find that one hemisphere is almost completely molten rock, while the other half is almost completely solid.

Ancient 'Kite Runner' carried its young attached to its body by threads

A tiny arthropod from 430 million years ago, Aquilonifer spinosus, had a novel way of hauling around its young: it stashed them in individual capsules tethered to its body, like kites at the end of a piece of string.

Homo floresiensis disappeared when Homo sapiens arrived

The disappearance of Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores has been pushed back to 50,000 years ago after excavations revealed flaws in the original dating of the controversial species of primitive humans.

Blogger Comment:

We didn't eat them.  No.

Planet Nine might be an exoplanet stolen by the sun

The hypothetical ninth planet at the fringes of our solar system might have been captured from a star passing by long ago.

Genetic map reveals impact of interbreeding with ancient Denisovans and Neanderthals

Researchers have analysed the DNA of 257 individuals from 120 different non-African populations around the world to look for traces of ancestry from Neanderthals and Denisovans — another group of ancient humans that lived at the same time — in the modern human genome.

Previous studies have shown that almost all present-day non-African people possess some Neanderthal DNA, while some people, particularly people from Oceania, also have Denisovan DNA.

The new analysis indicated that modern humans interbred with Denisovans around 100 generations after their trysts with Neanderthals.

Map showing proportion of the genome inferred to be Denisovan in ancestry in diverse non-Africans (with red the highest proportion.

Volcanoes may have caused the Moon's poles to wander

Ice deposits that formed in craters on opposite sides of the Moon three billion years ago indicate it may have once spun on a different axis.

Pluto may have an underground ocean

Despite being so far from the sun, tiny Pluto, which is smaller than Earth's moon, has had an active geologic life from the start, one that continues to present day.

Astronomers see supernova shockwave for first time

The shockwave generated by the explosion of an ageing giant star has been observed by an international team of astronomers.

What do chimp ‘temples’ tell us about the evolution of religion?

Biologists working in the Republic of Guinea found evidence for what seemed to be a “sacred tree” used by chimps, perhaps for some sort of ritual.

Pregnant T rex discovery sheds light on evolution of egg-laying

The fossil of a pregnant teenage Tyrannosaurus rex has been found, shedding light on the evolution of egg-laying as well as on gender differences in the dinosaur.

'Fairy Circles' Explained

The chance discovery of 'fairy circles' in Western Australia's Pilbara region is providing new insight into one of nature's enduring puzzles.  The circles are regularly spaced patches of bare soil that form in uniform hexagonal patterns throughout arid grasslands.

GN-z11: the most remote galaxy ever seen

Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that formed just 400 million years after the Big Bang explosion — the most distant galaxy found to date.

Female neriid flies may seek out semen to nurture another male's offspring

A male's seminal fluid can influence the size of a female's future offspring even when he's not the father, a study of neriid flies has found.

Mercury's carbon-rich crust is surprisingly ancient

Before its planned crash into Mercury last year, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft gave scientists a parting gift. In its final orbits, MESSENGER not only confirmed Mercury's dark hue is due to carbon, but also revealed the carbon was not deposited by impacting comets. Instead, scientists now believe they are seeing remnants of the planet's primordial crust, which likely formed when a global ocean of super-heated magma cooled, allowing minerals to solidify.

The oldest-known fossil of a land-dwelling organism is a fungus

The beautifully preserved filaments from a fungus that lived 440 million years ago are the oldest-known fossils of a land-dwelling organism yet found.

Swallowtail butterfly holds record number of photoreceptors

A species of swallowtail butterfly found in Australasia holds the record for having the largest number of different photoreceptors in its eyes for any insect. The butterfly, known as the common bluebottle (Graphium sarpendon), has no less than 15 classes of photoreceptors.

Ancient volcanic upheaval on Mars

A massive volcano on Mars spewed so much lava 3.5 billion years ago that the weight displaced the Red Planet's outer layers, according to a study that reconstructed the planet's geologic history.

A new particle that dwarfs even the Higgs boson?

It looks like the LHC may have found a surprise massive particle that gives a glimpse into a better – and entirely unexpected – theory of reality.

Nervous system found preserved in 520-million-year-old crustacean-like animal

A fossil of a 520-million-year-old animal is so well preserved that its individual nerve fibres are still visible. The fossil represents the oldest and most detailed central nervous system ever found.

Astronomers trace source of massive energy explosion to distant galaxy

A rare burst of energy lasting less than a millisecond that happened around six billion years ago in a galaxy far, far away has been tracked to its source by scientists for the first time.  The event — known as a fast radio burst (FRB) — is a relatively newly discovered phenomenon with the latest discovery, FRB150418, just the 17th to be found.