Tag Archives: Oldest

The skull of a small child who lived and died many millennia ago represents the oldest direct evidence to date of the prolonged mingling between anatomically modern humans and our closely related cousins, the Neanderthals. Clearly showing features of both groups, the skull has been dated to around 140,000 years ago; more than 100,000 years older than the only other …

Tank-like physique, bristling with body armour and a collar of spikes the length of golf clubs, Spicomellus afer looks more like a Pokémon creation than a living creature. This bizarre dinosaur roamed the flood planes of what is now north Africa 165m years ago, palaeontologists have revealed. The fossil, the oldest known ankylosaur specimen, was unearthed near the central Moroccan …

In 2016, geologists discovered an extraordinary phenomenon deep beneath a Canadian mine—a water source trapped in rock for over 2.6 billion years. This discovery, published in Nature, has provided unprecedented insights into the survival of ancient microbial life and the water’s ability to exist without exposure to sunlight for such vast periods of time. What’s more, the water is still …

Back in 2016, deep inside a Canadian mine, geologists stumbled upon something extraordinary. At nearly 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) below the surface, they found water that had been sealed away for up to 2.64 billion years, the oldest known water on Earth. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full …

QUICK FACTS Name: Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul) Where it lives: Steppes and high-elevation grasslands in Central Asia, particularly Mongolia and China What it eats: Small rodents, including gerbils, hamsters and pikas, small lizards and birds Pallas’s cat, also known as a manul, is a feline from Central Asia that yelps like a small dog and has such short legs that …

A groundbreaking discovery in Israel reveals the first evidence of biological and social ties, including interbreeding, between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, dating back 140,000 years. The find, a five-year-old child’s skeleton unearthed 90 years ago in Sefunim Cave on Mount Carmel, shows a blend of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens traits, marking it as the world’s oldest human fossil with such …

Witthaya Prasongsin/Getty Images The early universe is perhaps one of the biggest mysteries of our time, and while we’ve come close to unraveling some of those earliest mysteries thanks to advancing tech like the James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories, scientists have still found themselves scratching their heads about how our universe …

The early universe is perhaps one of the biggest mysteries of our time, and while we’ve come close to unraveling some of those earliest mysteries thanks to advancing tech like the James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories, scientists have still found themselves scratching their heads about how our universe formed and which molecules helped fuel the first star formations. Many …

A fossil unearthed two decades ago in northeastern China has captured renewed scientific attention this summer after researchers confirmed it as the oldest known case of polycephaly—a congenital condition where an animal is born with more than one head. Published in the journal Biology Letters by the Royal Society in 2006, and recently revisited in several scientific outlets, the fossil …

Fossilized teeth discovered in Ethiopia have revealed a new-to-science species of Australopithecus, a genus of early hominins that lived from the Pliocene to the Early Pleistocene. Not only does it add to our busy human family tree, but the discovery proves they were living alongside the oldest specimens of Homo, the genus of early humans that includes our species, Homo …