Fossil DNA hints at mysterious Toalean Culture

The 7,000-year-old skeleton of a teenage hunter-gatherer from Sulawesi in Indonesia might be the first remains found from a mysterious, ancient culture known as the Toaleans. Sulawesi has some of the world’s oldest cave art, but ancient human remains have been scarce on the island. The largely complete fossil of a roughly 18-year-old Stone Age woman was found in 2015, buried in the fœtal position in a limestone cave. DNA extracted from the skull suggests that she shared ancestry with New Guineans and Aboriginal Australians, as well with the extinct Denisovan subspecies of ancient human. The Toalean people, known only from scant archæological evidence, such as distinctively notched stone tools, were thought to have lived in Sulawesi at around the same time.

Saturn might have a fluid, sloshy core

Saturn’s core might be a slushy mixture of ice and rock, rather than a compact solid made of mostly one or the other material, as is generally thought. The diffuse core extends to approximately 60% of the planet’s radius — much bigger than the 10–20% of a planet’s radius that would be occupied by the expected core. Researchers gleaned the surprising discovery by analysing gravitational perturbations in the planet’s rings caused by the oscillating core.

Pi calculated to the 62.8 trillionth digit

Researchers have broken a world record by calculating the mathematical constant pi to 62.8 trillion digits, beating the previous record of 50 trillion digits. The calculation took a supercomputer 108 days to complete. Researchers say the effort was an important benchmarking exercise for computational hardware and software.

Baby bats babble like human infants

Pups of the greater sac-winged bat develop their vocal skills by babbling in a similar way to human babies — a discovery that could help researchers to explore the underlying neuroscience of how mammals learn to communicate. Human infants babble to practise speech sounds, which require precise motor control over their voice boxes, research suggests. Young songbirds also babble, but there are very few other recorded examples of babbling behaviour among animals — the bat research is the first to identify baby babble produced by a mammal that isn’t a primate.

Cuttlefish Memory Abilities

Cuttlefish can remember what, when and where information about specific things that happened — right up to their final days. Researchers taught six older common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) that a seafood snack in their tanks changed location depending on the time of day. The old cuttlefish learnt to associate the time and location just as well as six young cuttlefish did.

Mammoth’s epic travels preserved in tusk

Researchers have reconstructed the detailed movements of a single woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) from one of its tusks. Every place on Earth has a distinct chemical signature based on geological differences. The ratios of various isotopes of elements, such as strontium and oxygen in the bedrock and water, create a unique profile specific to that location that remains consistent over millennia, and is incorporated into soil and plants. As mammoths grazed on the Arctic plains, these isotopic signatures were integrated into their ever-growing tusks, creating a permanent record of the animals’ whereabouts from birth to death, with almost daily resolution.

Exotic four-quark particle spotted at Large Hadron Collider

Scientists using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — which memorably revealed the Higgs boson in 2012 — have discovered a previously unknown exotic particle made of four quarks. The new ‘tetraquark’, Tcc+, is extremely unusual: most known hadrons, including protons and neutrons, are made of two or three quarks. This brings the LHC’s bounty of new hadrons — non-elementary particles that are made of quarks — up to 62.

Astronomers detect light behind black hole for first time

Astronomers have detected light behind a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy 245 million parsecs away. As well as spotting bright flares of X-rays bursting from the black hole, telescopes picked up unexpected ‘luminous echoes’, smaller and later X-ray flashes.

Sponge-like fossil could be Earth’s earliest known animal

Most major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion, 541 million years ago. But fossils resembling sponges found in northwestern Canada could be 350 million years older, significantly pushing back the date of Earth’s earliest-known animals.

Massive DNA structures perplex scientists

Scientists analysed samples from muddy sites in the western United States and found DNA structures that seem to scavenge and ‘assimilate’ genes from microorganisms in their environment. These extra-long DNA strands join a diverse collection of genetic structures — circular plasmids, for example — known as extrachromosomal elements.

Dolphins learn their teammates’ names

Male dolphins learn the signature whistles — unique ‘names’ given to dolphins by their mothers — of each member of their extensive, lifelong network of allies. The finding suggests that the cetaceans have a concept of team membership — a first in the animal kingdom. Scientists used underwater sound systems and drones to observe how dolphins responded to each other’s hails. The animals were quickest to heed the call of pals who had helped them in the past.

Extinct beetle species found in coprolite

The only known members of an extinct family of beetles have been found in the fossilised fæces of a Triassic reptile. Several Triamyxa coprolithica were spotted in the coprolite, some still sporting their delicate legs and antennae. Researchers used synchrotron microtomography to construct a 3D image of the interior of dung presumed to have been excreted by Silesaurus opolensis, an ancestor of the dinosaurs.

Mysterious skull fossils expand human family tree

Fossils found in Israel hint that a previously unknown group of hominins — the Nesher Ramla people — were the direct ancestors of Neanderthals. And researchers have suggested that an ancient human skull found in China in the 1930s could belong to a new species, Homo longi (Dragon Man), which might be an even closer relative of modern humans than are Neanderthals. But both findings have sparked debate among scientists. The studies are based on analyses of the size, shape and structure of fossilised bones — methods that are subject to individual judgement and interpretation. As is often the case for fossil finds, there is no DNA evidence.

Ancient Siberian cave hosted Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans—possibly at the same time

In the past decade, a mere eight human fossils unearthed in the Denisova Cave in southern Siberia have rewritten the human story, from the tiny finger bone that revealed the extinct human Denisovans, to the discovery of a first-generation Neanderthal–Denisovan hybrid. Now a study of DNA in the cave’s soil reveals the complex history of human and animal habitation there. Hundreds of soil samples show a cycle of inhabitants, starting with Denisovans about 300,000 years ago. Different groups of Denisovans and Neanderthals left their marks on the cave, and modern humans appeared about 45,000 years ago.

Neolithic Diets Before The Domestication Of Crops

The people who built the ancient monumental structures at Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe were fuelled by vat-fulls of starchy porridge and stew, not just meaty feasts. Archæologists are uncovering evidence that ancient people were grinding grains for hearty, starchy dishes long before we domesticated crops. These discoveries shred the long-standing idea that early people subsisted mainly on meat.

Giant rhino unearthed in China

A new species of ancient giant rhino, Paraceratherium linxiaense, weighed about 21 tonnes and could reach up to 7 metres high. But they wouldn't have had the rhino’s namesake horn — which evolved later — and would have looked more like a really, really big horse.

Quantum microscope can examine cells in unprecedented detail

A microscope that harnesses quantum entanglement can image biological structures with unprecedented sharpness. The technique ‘squeezes’ light to produce correlations between photons in one of the lasers used by an optical imaging method called stimulated Raman scattering gain microscopy. The squeezed light suppresses noise in the microscope’s signal, improving the sensitivity.

Mysterious fast radio bursts come in two distinct flavours

A bumper crop of fast radio bursts (FRBs) shows that the mysterious signals come in two distinct types. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope has detected 535 FRBs — quadrupling the known tally of these powerful cosmic flashes, which flare for just milliseconds. Most of them are one-offs, but a minority repeat periodically and last at least ten times longer than average. The findings suggest that FRBs might originate from at least two astrophysical phenomena — bringing us a step closer to solving one of astronomy’s biggest puzzles.

Microfossils reveal mysterious shark die-off

Up to 90% of the global shark population was wiped out in a mass extinction around 19 million years ago. Researchers identified the disappearance by studying microfossils in deep-sea sediment cores collected in the North and South Pacific oceans. After thriving for some 40 million years, shark numbers and diversity suddenly dropped and have not recovered since.

Radioactivity May Fuel Life Deep Underground and Inside Other Worlds

Scientists have long puzzled over how microbes living deep underground feed themselves without sunlight or heat. Now, two studies suggest that these organisms could feed off the radioactive decay of hydrogen and other elements. The findings open up new possibilities for life on other worlds — and could shed some light on our planet’s own history.

How Slime Moulds Remember Where They Ate

The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has no brain or nervous system — yet it somehow ‘remembers’ the location of food that it ate. Slime moulds are simple organisms made up of interlacing tubes — but previous research has shown they can solve complex problems, such as finding the shortest path through a maze. Scientists found that when parts of P. polycephalum come into contact with a food source, they release a substance that softens the gel-like walls of its tubes, making them widen. The slime mould moves by expanding along wider tubes and pruning narrower ones, so the enlarged tubes effectively record past food sites.

Prehistoric carvings of red deer found in Scottish neolithic tomb

Rock carvings depicting red deer have been found in a Bronze Age burial mound in Scotland. Archaeology graduate Hamish Fenton discovered the carvings by chance while visiting Kilmartin Glen in Argyll, an area known for Neolithic and Bronze Age sites. They are between 4,000 and 5,000 years old, the oldest known carvings of this type in the United Kingdom.

The most detailed 3D map of the Universe ever made

A survey of the southern sky has reconstructed how mass is spread across space and time in the biggest study of its kind. Cosmologists observed the sky between 2013 and 2019 using a 570-megapixel camera at the Víctor M. Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The resulting 3D cosmic map provides a record of the Universe’s history. By tracking how galaxies spread out over time, researchers can measure the forces at play. These include the gravitational pull of dark matter — the invisible stuff that constitutes some 80% of the Universe’s mass — and dark energy, the mysterious force that appears to be pushing the Universe to accelerate its expansion.

‘Entire’ human genome sequence unveiled

An international team of scientists claims to have sequenced the entirety of the human genome, including parts that were missed in the first sequencing of the human genome 20 years ago. That historic draft, and subsequent sequences, have all missed about 8% of the genome. The most recent effort fills in these gaps using new sequencing technologies. It has different limitations, however, including the type of cell line used. The work is described in a preprint, and has not yet been peer reviewed.

Injection of light-sensitive proteins restores blind man’s vision

After 40 years of blindness, a 58-year-old man can once again see images and moving objects, thanks to an injection of light-sensitive proteins into his retina. The trial is the first successful clinical test of a technique called optogenetics, which uses flashes of light to control gene expression and neuron firing. In this case, the person’s damaged photoreceptor cells were supplanted by light-sensitive bacterial proteins, delivered by a virus into cells on his retina. Special goggles simplified incoming visual information from the real world into monochromatic images, to make it more easily detected by the bacterial proteins.

Voyager 1 captures hum between the stars

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has detected persistent ripples in interstellar plasma, through which it has been travelling since it left the Solar System in 2012. By measuring these waves, astrophysicists have made the first continuous measurements of the density of interstellar plasma, the rarefied medium between the stars.

New Brain Implant Turns Visualised Letters into Text

A brain–computer interface for typing could eventually let people with paralysis communicate at the speed of their thoughts. The device was able to decode, in real time, signals from electrodes implanted in the brain of a 65-year-old man with full-body paralysis as he imagined writing. He was able to mentally type 90 characters per minute — not far from the speed at which the average person that age can type on a smartphone.

‘Spectacular’ Neanderthal find in Italy

The remains of 9 Neanderthals who died between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago have been unearthed in a cave outside Rome. According to archæologists, the Neanderthals were killed by hyenas and dragged into the cave to be devoured. The bones were found in the Guattari Cave, the site of an earlier Neanderthal discovery in 1939.

Minuscule drums push the limits of quantum weirdness

By playing two tiny drums, physicists have provided the most direct demonstration yet of quantum entanglement on larger scales. The aluminium drums are each around 10 micrometres long — barely visible to the naked eye, but enormous by quantum standards. Physicists hit the drums with microwave photons and observed that the membranes moved with such a high degree of correlation that they could no longer be described separately: they were in a quantum-entangled state. In another tiny drum experiment, physicists linked the drums’ properties — although not in perfect sync — to get around some of the measurement restrictions defined by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The findings provide evidence that quantum laws still apply in the big world and open the door to future technology built with entangled macroscopic parts.

Arabian structures predate the pyramids

More than 1,000 ancient stone structures dating back 7,000 years have been located in the north-west corner of Saudi Arabia, more than twice the number thought to exist in the area. Mustatil monuments — named after the Arabic word for rectangle — were first identified in the 1970s, but received little academic attention at the time. The structures are between 20 and 600 metres long and might have been used for rituals. If so, the area is the oldest large-scale ritual landscape in the world, predating both Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids by thousands of years.

Migration routes of ancient Australians

Scientists have traced the paths that ancient Indigenous Australians probably took as they moved through the mega continent of Sahul some 60,000 years ago. Their models suggest that the first visitors arrived on the shores of western Australia and, within 6,000 years, settled across the entire continent — from the tropical north, now Papua New Guinea, to as far south as Tasmania. Many of the ancient migration routes they modelled seem to match up closely with nineteenth century stock routes and Aboriginal trade lines.

Cellular clocks help explain why elephants are bigger than mice

Biologists are uncovering how tiny ‘clocks’ in our cells might help govern body size, lifespan and ageing. (Mouse cells seem to run faster than human cells, which tick faster than whale cells.) A wave of research is starting to yield answers for one such timepiece: the ‘segmentation clock’. It helps developing embryos to form repeating body segments, such as vertebrae. Researchers want to understand how differences in developmental pace give rise to organisms with such different bodies and behaviours.

Muon results throw theories into confusion

The news earlier this month that the magnetic moment of muons seems to be larger than predicted by the standard model has thrown particle physics into a tizzy. If the discrepancy pans out, it would be the first time that the theory has failed to account for observations since its inception five decades ago. The finding might breathe new life into the theory known as supersymmetry, or SUSY. It could also provide evidence of either a leptoquark or a Z’ boson — hypothetical particles that could, in different ways, help mesh the results with other measurements by the Large Hadron's Collider LHCb detector. In any case, physicists are cautiously excited.

Little Foot fossil shows early human ancestor clung closely to trees

An analysis of the shoulder girdle of a human ancestor that lived millions of years ago suggests that Australopithecus afarensis retained features that helped it to climb in trees, even after developing the ability to walk on two legs. The shoulder blades belong to a near-complete fossil of a specimen dubbed Little Foot, discovered in South Africa in the 1990s.

First flight on Mars

Ingenuity has made the first powered flight on another world. Today, the robot rotorcraft — part of NASA’s Perseverance mission — lifted off from the surface of Mars for 40 seconds. Ingenuity’s counter-rotating carbon-fibre blades spun at more than 2,400 revolutions per minute to lift the craft 3 metres into the air. The US$85-million drone hovered there, and then, in a planned manœuvre, turned 90 degrees and descended safely back to the Martian surface. Software issues that kept the helicopter from transitioning into flight mode had delayed the flight from 11 April.

How many T. rex ever existed?

Over the 2 million or so years during which the species existed, 2.5 billion Tyrannosaurus rex roamed Earth. Palaeontologists used a method employed by ecologists studying contemporary creatures to estimate the population density of T. rex during the late Cretaceous period. The figure has allowed researchers to estimate just how exceedingly rare it is for animals to fossilise.

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If this speculation did not take into account ecological factors such as the different potential numbers of carnivores vs herbivores, then it is a gross exaggeration.

Oldest DNA from a Homo sapiens reveals surprisingly recent Neanderthal ancestry

Scientists have sequenced the oldest Homo sapiens DNA on record, which showed that many of Europe’s first humans had Neanderthals in their family trees. All present-day people whose ancestry isn’t solely African carry Neanderthal DNA, but there are questions about when and how the genetic mixing occurred. Three individuals found in Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria, dated to between 45,900 and 42,600 years old, had “huge chunks” of Neanderthal DNA and probably had Neanderthal ancestors as recently as the past six or seven generations. A woman found in the Zlatý kůň cave in the Czech Republic is thought to be well over 45,000 years old and has Neanderthal ancestry going back considerably longer: 70–80 generations. None of the individuals are related to later Europeans, but the Bacho Kiro people shared a connection with contemporary East Asians and Native Americans. The research adds to growing evidence that modern humans mixed regularly with Neanderthals and other extinct relatives.

Muon result shakes up physics

Muons — massive, unstable cousins of the electron — seem to be more magnetic than the standard model of particle physics predicts. If this result holds up, it could ultimately force major changes in theoretical physics and reveal the existence of completely new fundamental particles. The Muon g – 2 experiment upheld sensational findings, first announced in 2001, that showed the muon’s magnetic moment — a measure of the magnetic field it generates — is slightly larger than theory had predicted.

Scientists Get Closer To Redefining The Length Of A Second

A new generation of atomic clocks are helping scientists to measure time more accurately than ever before. Standard atomic clocks use the oscillation of caesium atoms to measure seconds with great precision. Now, physicists have built a network of clocks based on elements with faster oscillations — aluminium, strontium and ytterbium — to get even closer to a true second.

Artificial life made in lab can grow and divide like natural bacteria

Scientists have identified seven genes that are essential for minimal cells to reproduce like bacteria in the wild. Minimal cells are made in the laboratory and carry only the essential genes needed for cells to function. Biologists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they’d created a line of minimal cells in 2016, but later realised that these didn’t divide symmetrically like bacteria do. Reintroducing seven genes into the minimal-cell genome fixed the issue, providing further insight into how life works on a molecular level.

Long-awaited muon experiment nears moment of truth

A result that has been 20 years in the making could reveal the existence of new particles and upend fundamental physics. Physicists have high hopes that the magnetism of muons, measured in the Muon g – 2 experiment and scheduled to be released on 7 April, will uphold sensational findings first announced in 2001. The project’s earlier results hinted that the muon’s magnetic moment — a measure of the magnetic field it generates — is slightly larger than theory had predicted. If that finding is ultimately confirmed, it could help to reveal what kinds of ephemeral, unknown ‘virtual particles’ swirl in the vacuum.

Gene transfer from plant to insect

A pernicious agricultural pest owes some of its success to a gene pilfered from its plant host millions of years ago. The finding is the first known example of a natural gene transfer from a plant to an insect. It also explains one reason why the whitefly Bemisia tabaci is so adept at munching on crops: the gene that it swiped from plants enables it to neutralise a toxin that some plants produce to defend against insects. Early work suggests that inhibiting this gene can render the whiteflies vulnerable to the toxin, providing a potential route to combating the pest.

New picture of famous black hole reveals its swirling magnetic field

This swirling version of the now-iconic black hole at the centre of the M87 galaxy reveals the nature of the region’s magnetic field. The image was produced by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — which in 2019 produced the first-ever image of a black hole. It shows polarised light emitted by jets hurled by the black hole, accelerating along magnetic fields as they go.

3,000-year-old treasures of Sanxingdui

Archæologists in China have unveiled more than 500 artefacts from six ‘sacrificial pits’ in Sanxingdui dating back more than 3,000 years. The site in southwestern Sichuan province provides a glimpse into an ancient civilisation at the heart of what is thought to be the Shu kingdom. The findings include artistic carvings on a bean-sized piece of ivory, and fragments of a golden mask.

Scientists discover why the human brain is the largest ape brain

Scientists have identified a molecular switch that controls brain growth, making human brains three times larger than those of the other great apes. In studies on mini-brains grown in a dish, they were able to tinker with the mechanism to make gorilla brain tissue larger and human brain tissue smaller.

LHC finds tantalising hints of new physics

Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have seen early hints of an undiscovered particle or interaction. More research is needed, but the results suggest an imbalance in how subatomic beauty quarks decay into two flavours of leptons: electrons and muons. If confirmed, that’s a violation of lepton flavour universality as described by the standard model of particle physics.

How the World’s Oldest Wooden Sculpture Is Reshaping Prehistory

The world’s oldest wooden sculpture is even older than previously thought. A new study suggests that the 2.7-metre-tall Shigir Idol was carved more than 12,000 years ago from a tree that was already more than 150 years old. The relic was preserved in a peat bog in the Ural Mountains and is the world’s only surviving Stone Age wood carving. Its complex iconography of geometric patterns and human faces suggests that the region’s ancient societies were more sophisticated than previously thought.

Mars becomes the first inner planet after Earth to have its core measured

NASA’s InSight spacecraft has revealed the size of Mars’s core by listening to seismic energy ringing through the planet’s interior. InSight’s measurement, taken from the Martian surface, suggests that the radius of the Martian core is 1,810–1,860 kilometres — roughly half of Earth’s. That’s larger than some previous estimates, meaning the core is less dense than had been predicted. The only other rocky planetary bodies for which scientists have measured the core are Earth and the Moon. Adding Mars will allow researchers to compare and contrast how the Solar System’s planets evolved.

Archaea fold, twist and contort their DNA in extreme ways

Single-celled archaea wrap their DNA into flexible, Slinky-like coils that open and close like a clamshell does, possibly providing easy access to their genes. Researchers used computer simulations and electron microscopy to observe this genetic contortion in Methanothermus fervidus for the first time.

Evidence of elusive Majorana particle dies

A study that was once trumpeted as evidence for the existence of an exotic quantum state that could revolutionise computing has turned out to be anything but. A 2018 Nature paper, based on work led by researchers at a Microsoft laboratory in the Netherlands, has now been officially retracted owing to what the authors call “insufficient scientific rigour” in the original data analysis. The retraction is a setback for this approach to quantum computing, but some scientists say it should still be possible to create and study the exotic states, known as Majorana fermions, that were the subject of the research.

Giant ice cube hints at the existence of cosmic antineutrinos

A huge neutrino detector in the Antarctic ice sheet might have seen the first evidence of a rare neutrino-interaction process called the Glashow resonance. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, buried in the deep ice near the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, observes eye-wateringly powerful neutrinos produced by sources such as active galactic nuclei and supernovae. The observatory detected a shower of secondary particles that look likely to have been caused by a collision between an electron antineutrino travelling close to the speed of light and an electron in the ice. If confirmed by more observations, the finding provides further confirmation of the standard model of particle physics, proves the existence of cosmic antineutrinos and opens the door to a better understanding of the wild stuff going on in the cosmos.

Gravity measured on the smallest scale ever

Physicists have measured the infinitesimal gravitational force between two tiny gold spheres, each about the size of a sesame seed, separated by a few millimetres. Researchers reduced interference by using a Faraday shield between the masses, and the experiment was performed in a vacuum during the least seismically active time of year. The work could pave the way to a better understanding of fundamental interactions and the quantum nature of gravity.