This week, a fossil of dinosaur skin has revealed it had both scales and feathers, a new study could explain why hundreds of stars have vanished without a trace, and a 1-million-year-old skull from China may belong to the “dragon man” lineage. Finally, we explore the global impact of “dark extinctions”.
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We Now Know Exactly When Humans And Neanderthals Hooked Up
Despite disappearing around 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals continue to live on in the DNA of most modern humans. The persistence of these ancient genes indicates that our distant ancestors had a thing for stocky, big-nosed hominids, and new research has revealed exactly how these interspecies sexy times played out. Read the full story here
“Hidden Gem” Fossil Of Dinosaur Skin Preserved Like Glass Reveals It Had Scales And Feathers
A new fossil of the partially feathered dinosaur Psittacosaurus has revealed that these animals had bizarre skin that included both bird-like feathers and reptile-like scales. The first-of-its-kind fossil provides new insights into the evolution from scales to feathers, demonstrating that these animals exhibited “zoned development” in their skin. Read the full story here
Hair-Raising Human Head Transplant Machine Concept Unveiled By Startup – But Is It Realistic?
This week, startup BrainBridge unveiled its concept for a world-first head transplant system, promising to combine artificial intelligence with the latest in robotics to literally remove a human head and put it on a new body. If everything works as intended, once the head is in place, the person will apparently be able to get up and go about the rest of their life with a brand-new set of healthy limbs and organs. Sounds fantastical? Right now, science says it probably still is. Read the full story here
Hundreds Of Stars Have Vanished Without A Trace. A New Study Could Explain Why
In 2019, the Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project attempted to catalog how many stars have seemingly disappeared in the last 70 years and found around 100 that had gone missing without a concrete explanation. Now, new observations could help explain what happened. Read the full story here
Mysterious 1-Million-Year-Old Skull From China May Belong To “Dragon Man” Lineage
In 1989 and 1990, a pair of 1-million-year-old skulls belonging to an unknown human species were unearthed in Yunyang District of Hubei province, Central China. A third similar skull was found nearby in 2022, but the mystery didn’t become any less hazy; were they Homo erectus or early Homo sapiens? Might they even be related to the elusive Asian “Dragon Man” lineage? Read the full story here
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Feature of the week:
How “Dark Extinctions” Are Silently Erasing Life On Earth
There’s something missing on our planet, but we don’t know what it is. Like trees that fall in the silence of an empty forest, entire species are vanishing with no one to witness or record their existence – or their demise. It’s a phenomenon known as “dark extinction”, and it severely undermines our ability to catalog the world’s biodiversity or to fully understand our own impact on the web of life. Read the full story here
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Source Link: We Now Know When Humans And Neanderthals Hooked Up, Human Head Transplant Machine Concept Unveiled By Startup, And Much More This Week