A child’s skeleton, found nearly a century ago in Skhul Cave on Mount Carmel in Israel, has taken on new meaning after a modern re-analysis. A fresh look at the skull and jaw, dated to roughly 140,000 years ago, suggests that the remains show a blend of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal traits. The authors say this specimen is …
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Researchers think that members of the most recently identified “hominin” group (the Denisovans) mixed with early modern humans and passed along parts of their DNA. Evidence points to several separate interbreeding events, each leaving a genetic imprint that influenced the course of human history. In 2010, scientists released the first draft of the Neanderthal genome. Comparing it with modern human …
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Meet the potato’s unexpected ancestor: the tomato. That’s right, a fruit. Potatoes and tomatoes don’t look alike, smell alike or taste alike, but in a study published Thursday in the journal Cell, scientists said that the potato evolved from a tomato ancestor around 9 million years ago. “We’ve finally solved the mystery of where potatoes came from,” corresponding author Sanwen …
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When the first Neanderthal bones were uncovered in 1856, they sparked a flood of questions about these mysterious ancient humans. Were they similar to us or fundamentally different? Did our ancestors cooperate with them, clash with them, or even form relationships? The discovery of the Denisovans, a group closely related to Neanderthals that once lived across parts of Asia and …
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