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Phys.org reports that a new analysis of a skull fragment and jaw fragment found in northern China's Xujiayao archaeological site in the 1970s suggests that the fossils belonged to Denisovans. Qiaomei Fu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and her colleagues identified 18 proteins in the fossils. One of the collagen variants is found only in Denisovans, and not in Neanderthals nor modern humans. Then the researchers evaluated the shapes of the fossils and used 3D computer models to reconstruct the bones. These images were compared with fossils from Neanderthals, modern humans, and other hominins. The study suggests that Denisovans...

Well-preserved Neanderthal hand bones containing collagen have been recovered from northern Spain's Abauntz Cave, according to an IFL Science report. The bones have been radiocarbon dated to 46,000 years ago. "The cave's location is important," said Andión Arteaga of the University of Warsaw and the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, and Mikel Arlegi of the Musée de l'Homme. "Abauntz lies along a natural corridor connecting both sides of the Pyrenees. [This makes] it a particularly interesting site for investigating how these late Neanderthal populations moved across the region and how different groups may have interacted," the researchers...

Explanation: “I see” IC 342, the Hidden Galaxy! Today’s image peers through the plane of the Milky Way, through all its gas, dust and stars, to unveil this spiral galaxy. IC 342 (or Caldwell 5) is one of the brightest members of the IC 342/Maffei group of galaxies. Located about 10 million light years away, this group is quite close to the Local Group that includes our Milky Way. Inaccurate accounting of the crowded and dusty Milky Way foreground has led to misunderstandings in IC 342’s history, including the theory that the galaxy was ejected from the Local Group. IC...

KFDA reports that some 3,000 artifacts were recovered from the Schaeffer Shelter in south-central Texas. Situated on private property in Ceta Canyon, the rock shelter, discovered in 1949 by Stanley Schaeffer, measures about 20 square feet. Archaeologist Brandon Tully said that different groups of people likely returned to the site over thousands of years, and he estimates that some of the recovered artifacts are between 8,000 and 10,000 years old. "We really don't have a lot of information about archaic period sites in the Texas Panhandle, especially rock shelters," Tully said. "Almost all of our rock shelters are from about...

Phys.org reports that stenciled rock art has been identified in South Africa, which is known for rock art painted with brushes and fingers. "I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at for a while," said David Pearce of the University of the Witwatersrand. "Then they popped into focus, a bit like optical illusions do," he explained. The two human-like figures were discovered in the La Rochelle rock shelter in eastern South Africa, where few paintings have been found on the region's steep cliffs. Pearce said that brush-painted images of hartebeest, eland, and humanoid beings had previously been identified in...

SciNews reports that a team of researchers including Philippe Walter and Yohan Boulard of Sorbonne University have examined the 37,000-year-old artworks inside Chauvet Cave with ultraviolet fluorescence spectroscopy. Located in southeastern France, the cave contains more than 1,000 drawings and engravings depicting horses, cave lions, mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, bears, and bison. By shining ultraviolet light on the cave paintings from about eight feet away, Walter and his colleagues observed that some materials absorbed the light, while others gave off a visible glow. The color of the glow allowed the researchers to identify the materials on the cave walls and any...

The Oman Observer reports that burial chambers containing human remains and pottery have been excavated in northwestern Oman by archaeologists from Oman's Department of Heritage and Tourism. The burials have been dated to the third millennium B.C. and attributed to Mesopotamia's Jemdet Nasr civilization. Walid bin Hamad al Ghafri of the Department of Heritage and Tourism said that the excavation uncovered many beads, in addition to bronze arrowheads, axes, and daggers. Archaeological sites in the region are in danger of destruction due to rapid urban development, he concluded. To read about how people lived in the Omani desert some 5,000...

Reuters reports that archaeologists have uncovered a wooden cupboard discovered in a house on Via dell'Abbondanza in central Pompeii. Inscriptions in the house suggest that it belonged to Cornelius Maximus. "We cannot reconstruct with certainty the identity of whoever lived in the house, but these fragments bring us closer to their daily life," said Gabriel Zuchtriegel of Pompeii Archaeological Park. Researchers determined that before it was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the cupboard held a necklace made up of at least 24 crepundia, or amulets crafted from bone, glass paste, earthenware, and rock crystal. Some...

Explanation: Did this meteor come from that comet? Probably not. Although many meteors do originate from comets, there are thousands of comets that have visited the inner Solar System recently, and matching meteors to them can be tricky. And to be clear, the pictured comet is far behind the streaking meteor. Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) was captured from Hautacam, France in April when the giant space iceberg sported impressive ion (blue) and dust tails. Sand-sized rocky debris that enters Earth’s atmosphere typically appears as meteors, while the colorful foreground streak here may indicate a complicated composition. This month three notable...

Did you know that one of the most important cities of the Roman Empire is in Germany? In Trier, ancient gates, imperial baths and a Roman bridge stand alongside cafés, students and modern city life. Join us as we explore Germany's oldest city! Trier: Where Roman Emperors Once Ruled | 6:15 DW Travel | 432K subscribers | 69,118 views | November 1, 2026

Science Alert reports that Alexander Ioannidis of Stanford University and his colleagues analyzed the genomes of more than 1,000 people who live in French Polynesia; 12 genomes from individuals on the island of Rapa Nui; and the genomes of people native to Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti. First, the researchers isolated segments of Polynesian ancestry with machine learning, and then they applied an identity by descent method, which can identify common ancestors of living people and people from the past. The study shows that people traveled across Polynesia in small populations, sometimes resulting in a genetic bottleneck of reduced genetic...

La Brújula Verde reports that 4,000-year-old paw prints have been found in adobe brick at Tavşanlı Höyük, a settlement mound in western Anatolia that dates back some 8,000 years. The sun-baked bricks were part of a wall that collapsed during a fire in the Bronze Age. Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, said that the prints had been made by a dog. Erkan Fidan of Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University and his excavation team have also uncovered ceramics, adobe, bone, burnt wood, and flint at the site. To read about other ancient canine prints preserved in brick, go...

Explanation: What’s causing this unusually long cloud on Mars? Known as the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC) and first recorded by NASA’s Viking Orbiter 2 in 1977, the strange cloud has been imaged in greater detail more recently by ESA’s robotic Mars Express spacecraft. The featured image is from 2018. The cloud forms only during spring and summer seasons and then only during morning hours. Made of water-ice, the most familiar process that causes cloud crystals to form around bits of dust would fail due to the thinness and lack of dust high in the Martian atmosphere. Leading speculation holds...

It looks like Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s getting a wish-granted monkey-paw style: MTA buses are now de-facto free — at the price of making them increasingly dangerous and blowing a disastrous hole in the agency’s finances. Not to mention the larger consequence of surrendering to farebeating. MTA chief Janno Leiber last week suspended the EAGLE fare-verification program after a couple of ugly incidents, presumably under political orders not to upset the anti-policing left. And NYPD flacks say the cops have “no plans” to step in; officers haven’t been issuing more than handful of farebeating summonses for some time, and the city’s...

Hoping FR will take the hint... Latency, in the realm of technology and network communication, is a critical factor that influences the time delay between input and output. This article explores the concept of latency, its real-world implications, common reasons for latency, and methods to reduce it. Whether you're a gamer, a streamer, or simply looking to optimize your internet experience, understanding and managing latency is key to a smoother digital journey.

With behind the scenes access at the British Museum, this series follows passionate metal detectorists as their incredible, and often valuable, discoveries make their way through the fascinating world of the museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme. 3,000-Year-Old Gold Pendant Unearthed in Extraordinary Find Great British History Hunters | 14:06 Journal - History Documentaries | 157K subscribers | 70,522 views | June 23, 2026

Three minor earthquakes jolted across California overnight right along the San Andreas Fault. The quakes registered in the mid-magnitude 2 range across Northern and Southern California on Sunday. A small 2.7 magnitude earthquake was detected in Petrolia at around 4:31 a.m., followed by a 2.6 magnitude shake in Santa Barbara near 4:39 a.m, according to a USGS Latest Earthquakes Interactive Map. Westley was also rattled with a magnitude 2.5 quake on Saturday night. The red lines on the interactive map represent major tectonic plate boundaries across the world, with the line through California tracing the San Andreas Fault.

Explanation: What color is the Moon? It depends on the night -- and the time. Outside of the Earth's atmosphere, the dark Moon, which shines by reflected sunlight, appears a magnificently brown-tinged gray. The featured image highlights a collection of apparent colors of the full moon on Earth, documented by one astrophotographer over 10 years from different locations across Italy. A red- or yellow-colored moon usually indicates a moon seen near the horizon. There, some of the blue light has been scattered away by a long path through the Earth's atmosphere, sometimes laden with fine dust. A blue-colored moon is...

A historian makes a stunning discovery -- a 1,000-year-old sword buried for centuries. This rare find offers a glimpse into a forgotten past and could reshape what we know about the era it came from. The Remarkable Find Of A 1,000-Year-Old Sword Great British History Hunters | 12:37 Journal - History Documentaries | 157K subscribers | 351,181 views | August 9, 2026

On the surface, Uranus looks calm. And yet, we've suspected for a long time that inside there must be something very weird going on. So, in 1986, when NASA was finally able to probe Uranus for the first time with its Voyager 2 mission, what they found was nothing short of incredible. While most people probably think that Uranus is filled with gas, we are now realizing that it's actually full of something massive - a strange combination of forces that appears to defy all logic. And it's taken NASA scientists more than 40 years just to get to the...