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The oldest genetic data of a human relative found in 2 million year old teeth

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Skull of Australopithecus (Paranthropus) robustus.

A Paranthropus robustus skull.Credit: Sabena Jane Merlo/Alamy Human hominids and their ancient relatives emerged in Africa about seven million years ago. Now researchers have gathered genetic information from an African hominid who lived two million years ago, the oldest data ever recovered. The protein sequences, described in a preprint posted on the bioRxiv server on … Read more

Antarctic sea ice has been at historic lows for most of this year

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Map of the sea ice surrounding Antarctica

Something strange is happening to Antarctic sea ice. The areal expanse of drift ice surrounding the continent is not only at an all-time low for this time of year, surpassing a record just set in 2022, but ice extent has reached all-time lows throughout the year. What happened here is different than the Arctic sea … Read more