October 29, 2015
The world of anthropology is experiencing some tumultuous upheavals these days. First, a trove of ancient bones uncovered in South Africa threatened to rewrite human evolution, and now a Chinese academic believes his research shows the modern day residents of southern China, most of Southeast Asia and eastern India are descended from a common patriarchal figure who once lived in what is today Yunnan province.
Professor Su Bing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming Institute of Zoology, had his findings published earlier this month in the journal
Scientific Reports. The article, which posits a backward migration west and south out of Yunnan, is entitled
Credit: Dr Sebastian Rosier
Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level.
Pine Island Glacier is a region of fast-flowing ice draining an area of West Antarctica approximately two thirds the size of the UK. The glacier is a particular cause for concern as it is losing more ice than any other glacier in Antarctica.
Currently, Pine Island Glacier together with its neighbouring Thwaites glacier are responsible for about 10% of the ongoing increase in global sea level.
Credit: Carl Buell
A new study shows that the similarly smooth, nearly hairless skin of whales and hippopotamuses evolved independently. The work suggests that their last common ancestor was likely a land-dwelling mammal, uprooting current thinking that the skin came fine-tuned for life in the water from a shared amphibious ancestor. The study is published today in the journal
Current Biology and was led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History; University of California, Irvine; University of California, Riverside; Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics; and the LOEWE-Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (Germany). How mammals left terra firma and became fully aquatic is one of the most fascinating evolutionary stories, perhaps rivaled only by how animals traded water for land in the first place or by the evolution of flight, said John Gatesy, a senior research scientist in the American Museum of Natural History s Division of Verte
In an analysis of thousands of fossil pollen and leaves spanning the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary, researchers found that the cataclysmic asteroid impact that resulted in the destruction of nearly 75% of all terrestrial life on Earth drastically restructured tropical forests, setting the stage for the evolution of what has become one of the planet s most diverse ecosystems - the neotropical rainforest.