China Jurassic fossil discovery sheds light on bird origin

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters

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video: 

3D Reconstruction of Baminornis zhenghensis.

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Credit: Video by Ren Wenyu

A research team led by Professor WANG Min from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered two bird fossils in Jurassic-era rocks from Fujian Province in southeast China. These rocks date back approximately 149 million years. The fossils fill a spatiotemporal gap in the early evolutionary history of birds and provide the evidence yet that birds were diversified by the end of the Jurassic period. 

This study was published in Nature.

Birds are the most diverse group of terrestrial vertebrates. Certain macroevolutionary studies suggest that their earliest diversification dates back to the Jurassic period (approximately 145 million years ago). However, the earliest evolutionary history of birds has long been obscured by a highly fragmentary fossil record, with Archaeopteryx being the only widely accepted Jurassic bird. 

Although Archaeopteryx had feathered wings, it closely resembled non-avialan dinosaurs, notably due to its distinctive long, reptilian tail—a stark contrast to the short-tailed morphology of modern and Cretaceous birds. Recent studies have questioned the avialan status of Archaeopteryx, classifying it as a deinonychosaurian dinosaur, the sister group to birds. This raises the question of whether any unambiguous records of Jurassic birds exist.

In this study, the researchers named one of the two fossils Baminornis zhenghensis. This fossil displays a unique combination of features, including derived ornithothoracine bird-like shoulder and pelvic girdles, as well as a plesiomorphic hand structure resembling that of non-avialan dinosaurs. These characteristics highlight the role of mosaic evolution in early bird development. Notably, Baminornis zhenghensis has a short tail ending in a compound bone called the pygostyle, a feature also observed in living birds.

"Previously, the oldest record of short-tailed birds is from the Early Cretaceous. Baminornis zhenghensis is the sole Jurassic and the oldest short-tailed bird yet discovered, pushing back the appearance of this derived bird feature by nearly 20 million years," said Prof. WANG, the lead and corresponding author of the study. 

The researchers used several methods to explore the position of Baminornis zhenghensis in the evolutionary tree of birds. The results showed that Baminornis zhenghensis was only just derived than Archaeopteryx and it represents one of the oldest birds.

“If we take a step back, and reconsider the phylogenetic uncertainty of Archaeopteryx, we do not doubt that Baminornis zhenghensis is the true Jurassic bird,” said Dr. ZHOU Zhonghe from IVPP, co-author of the study.

The second fossil is incomplete, consisting solely of a furcula. The researchers performed geometric morphometric and phylogenetic analyses to explore its relationship with other non-avialan and avialan theropods. Interestingly, the results supported the referral of this furcula to Ornithuromorpha, a diverse group of Cretaceous birds. Given its poor preservation, however, the team refrained from naming a new taxon based on this single bone, and its placement within birds needs further fossil evidence.

Figure 1. Photograph and interpretive line drawing of the 150-million-yaer-old bird Baminornis zhenghensis

The evolutionary tree showing the position of Baminornis zhenghensis, and the morphometric space illustrating the modular evolution of different body parts 

Figure 2. The evolutionary tree showing the position of Baminornis zhenghensis, and the morphometric space illustrating the modular evolution of different body parts

Figure 3. A possible Jurassic ornithuromorph furcula from the 150-million-yaer-old Zhenghe Fauna

Credit

Image by WANG Min

Figure 4. Life reconstruction of the Jurassic bird Baminornis zhenghensis from the Zhenghe Fauna

Credit

Image by ZHAO Chuang

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08410-z 

Article Title

Earliest short-tailed bird from the Late Jurassic of China

Article Publication Date

12-Feb-2025

 PROBIOTICS NATURALLY

Long-term yogurt consumption tied to decreased incidence of certain types of colorectal cancer

Mass General Brigham researchers found that higher yogurt intake was associated with lower rates of Bifidobacterium-positive proximal colon cancer

Mass General Brigham

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Yogurt, which contains live strains of bacteria, is thought to protect against many types of diseases, with some reports indicating it could reduce risk of colorectal cancer. A new study led by investigators from Mass General Brigham finds that yogurt consumption over time may protect against colorectal cancer through changes in the gut microbiome. Using data from studies that have followed participants for decades, researchers found that long-term consumption of two or more servings per week of yogurt was tied to lower rates of proximal colorectal cancer positive for Bifidobacterium, a bacterial species found in yogurt. The study showed that the bacterial species was quite common: about 30 percent of patients with colorectal cancer had detectable Bifidobacterium in their tumor tissue. Their results are published in Gut Microbes.

“Our study provides unique evidence about the potential benefit of yogurt,” said corresponding author Shuji Ogino, MD, PhD, the chief of the Program in Molecular Pathological Epidemiology in the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. Ogino is also an American Cancer Society Professor, a Professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an Affiliate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “My lab’s approach is to try to link long-term diets and other exposures to a possible key difference in tissue, such as the presence or absence of a particular species of bacteria. This kind of detective work can increase the strength of evidence connecting diet to health outcomes.”

Ogino and colleagues – team OPTISTIMISTICC – are funded by Cancer Research UK through Cancer Grand Challenges, a research initiative co-founded by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the United States.  OPTIMISTICC aims to transform the understanding of how the microbiome contributes to disease development, progression and response to treatment. As part of this, Ogino’s team aims to define the risk factors and environmental exposures that individuals encounter through life which are behind the rise of early-onset colorectal cancer and ultimately develop strategies to reduce the burden of this type of cancer.

To conduct their study, the researchers used data from two U.S.-wide prospective cohort studies known as the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). The studies have followed more than 100,000 female registered nurses and 51,000 male health professionals, respectively. Participants have been followed since 1976 for the NHS and 1986 for HFPS, answering repeated questionnaires about lifestyle factors and disease outcomes, including questions about average daily intake of plain and flavored yogurt, as well as other dairy products. The researchers also assessed tissue samples for participants with confirmed cases of colorectal cancer, measuring the amount of Bifidobacterium DNA in tumor tissue.

The researchers found 3,079 documented cases of colorectal cancer in the two study populations. Information on Bifidobacterium content was available in 1,121 colorectal cancer cases. Among those, 346 cases (31%) were Bifidobacterium-positive, and 775 cases (69%) were Bifidobacterium-negative. The researchers did not observe a significant association between long-term yogurt intake and overall colorectal cancer incidence, but they did see an association in Bifidobacterium-positive tumors, with a 20 percent lower rate of incidence for participants who consumed two or more servings of yogurt a week. This lower rate was driven by lower incidence of Bifidobacterium-positive proximal colon cancer—a type of colorectal cancer that occurs in the right side of the colon. Studies have found that patients with proximal colon cancer have worse survival outcomes than patients with distal cancers.

“It has long been believed that yogurt and other fermented milk products are beneficial for gastrointestinal health,” said co-senior author Tomotaka Ugai, MD, PhD, of the Department of Pathology at the Brigham and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our new findings suggest that this protective effect may be specific for Bifidobacterium-positive tumors.”

The researchers hypothesize that long-term yogurt intake may reduce risk of proximal colon cancer by changing the gut microbiome, including Bifidobacterium, but they note that further research that brings together both basic science and population health studies is needed to draw a definitive conclusion.

“This paper adds to the growing evidence that illustrates the connection between diet, the gut microbiome, and risk of colorectal cancer,” said co-author Andrew T Chan, MD, chief of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system and co-lead for Cancer Grand Challenges team PROSPECT addressing causes of cancer in young adults. “It provides an additional avenue for us to investigate the specific role of these factors in the risk of colorectal cancer among young people.”

 

Authorship: In addition to Ogino, Ugai and Chan, Mass General Brigham authors include Satoko Ugai, Hidetaka Kawamura, Kota Arima, Kazuo Okadome, Qian Yao, Kosuke Matsuda, and Yuxue Zhong. Additional authors include Li Liu, Keisuke Kosumi, Tsuyoshi Hamada, Kosuke Mima, Hiroki Mizuno, Wendy S. Garrett, Mingyang Song, Marios Giannakis, Edward L. Giovannucci, and Xuehong Zhang.

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Journal

Gut Microbes

DOI

10.1080/19490976.2025.2452237 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Long-term yogurt intake and colorectal cancer incidence subclassified by Bifidobacterium abundance in tumor

Article Publication Date

12-Feb-2025

COI Statement

Giannakis receives research funding from Janssen, and consulting fees from Nerviano Medical Sciences. Song is a consultant for Etiome Inc.

 

Brown astronomers create new technique to eliminate signals disrupting sensitive radio telescopes

An unexpected television signal traced to an airplane led to a new method for pinpointing unwanted radio signals, as growing satellite activity threatens the future of radio astronomy

Brown University

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Astronomers sifting through data from the Murchison Widefield Array, a radio telescope in Western Australia, found themselves confronting an unexpected mystery.

The telescope, which consists of 4,096 spider-like antennas designed to detect radio wave signals from more than 13 billion years ago, appeared to have stumbled upon something far more local: a television broadcast. This was puzzling, given that the telescope is located in a designated radio quiet zone, where the Australian government regulates signal levels from all radiocommunication equipment — including TV transmitters, Bluetooth devices, mobile phones and more — to minimize interference with the telescopes in the area. Even more perplexing, the television signal was streaking across the sky.

"It then hit us," said Jonathan Pober, a physicist at Brown University and the U.S. research lead for the Murchison Widefield Array project. "We said, 'I bet the signal is reflecting off an airplane.' We'd been seeing these signals for close to five years, and several people had suggested they were airplanes reflecting television broadcasts. We realized we might actually be able to confirm this theory for once.”

To do this, Pober enlisted Brown Ph.D. student Jade Ducharme for some astronomical detective work. The findings from the pair, published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, not only supported the airplane hypothesis but have now also provided astronomers with a new method to identify and filter out unwanted radio frequencies — a goal becoming increasingly important as Earth's skies grow noisier with the deployment of more satellites.

“Astronomy is facing an existential crisis," Pober said. “There is growing concern — and even some reports — that astronomers may soon be unable to carry out high-quality radio observations, as we know it, due to interference from satellite constellations. This is particularly challenging for telescopes like the Murchison Widefield Array, which observes the entire sky simultaneously. There's no way to point our telescopes away from satellites.”

Traditionally, when unwanted signals — known as radio frequency interference (RFI) — are detected in radio telescope data, those data are discarded as contaminated. This is because these signals are unpredictable, and without a clear model of their origin, it's nearly impossible to subtract them from the data, Ducharme explained.

"It ends up being insane amounts of data being thrown out to not have any part of the observation contaminated,” Ducharme said.

For Ducharme and Pober, the new study was about laying the framework to help solve this massive problem by developing a new method to trace RFIs from nearby objects. To do so, the pair combined two existing tracking techniques used in the field. The first, known as near-field corrections, adjusts the telescope to focus on objects closer to Earth, which normally cause interference. Telescopes are designed to look deep into space, but near-field corrections allow them to track nearby objects more accurately. The second technique, beamforming, sharpens the focus of an object by creating a more precise “beam” that pinpoints where the interference is coming from — in this case, bouncing off an airplane.

By combining the two methods, the researchers tracked the plane and analyzed how the reflected radio waves curved off of its surface. That allowed them to calculate that the airplane was flying at around 38,400 feet and moving at approximately 492 miles per hour. They also found that the RFI signal that bounced off the plane came from a frequency band associated with Australian digital TV Channel 7.

The team was unable to identify the specific flight due to incomplete publicly available flight logs, but Pober said the successful combination of the two techniques opens new doors for the field of radio astronomy.

“This is a key step toward making it possible to subtract human-made interference from the data," he said. “By accurately identifying and removing only the sources of interference, astronomers can preserve more of their observations, reduce frustrating data loss and increase the chances of making important discoveries.”

Next steps in the project involve trying to actually remove broadcast RFI signals from the data they looked at so that it remains useful for the MWA team. The scientists then hope to refine the method further and extend it to filter out interference from satellites and other space-based objects. The researchers note, however, that while the technique worked well for tracking airplanes, applying it to other sources of interference, like satellites, will be more challenging.

The study also highlights how rapidly the issue of RFI is growing. According to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, 11,330 satellites were orbiting Earth as of June 2023, a nearly 40% increase from January 2022. 

This satellite boom is only expected to expand in the coming decades, posing a major challenge for radio astronomy's ability to study phenomena such as black holes, galaxy formation and the origins of the universe. Science leaders have already taken some action. For example, since 2019, the National Science Foundation's National Radio Astronomy Observatory and SpaceX have been working together to develop real-time data-sharing systems to try to minimize satellites from interfering with telescope observations.

Still, the debate continues on whether any action will be enough as the world is increasingly filled with artificial signals. Some, like Pober, wonder if the best course of action is to escape the noise by going beyond it — and building radio telescopes on places like the Moon. 

"If we can't find a quiet sky on Earth, maybe Earth isn't the place to be," Pober said. "No matter what we do, we have no choice but to invest in better data analysis techniques to identify and remove human-generated interference.”

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Journal

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia

DOI

10.1017/pasa.2024.123 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Altitude estimation of radio frequency interference sources via interferometric near-field corrections

Article Publication Date

12-Feb-2025

 

Adults can learn absolute pitch: new research challenges long-held musical belief

University of Surrey

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It’s been a long-held belief that absolute pitch - the ability to identify musical notes without reference  - is a rare gift reserved for a select few with special genetic gifts or those who began musical training in early childhood. However, new research from the University of Surrey challenges this, demonstrating that adults can acquire this skill through rigorous training. 

The study involved a diverse group of 12 adult musicians, with varying levels of musical experiences, who participated in an eight-week online training program. Unlike previous studies, this training encouraged learning the pitch class - what absolute pitch is really about - rather than specific pitch heights. It also minimised the reliance on relative pitch strategies, such as comparing notes mentally with external cues and feedback during tests, to determine the correct answers. Additionally, to minimise the chance of accidental success, participants were required to complete the final level of training multiple times. 

Despite the widespread belief that absolute pitch is impossible to learn in adulthood, participants made significant progress, learning to identify an average of seven musical pitches with 90% accuracy or higher. Notably, two participants achieved fast and accurate performance with all twelve pitches comparable to those naturally possessing this skill in the real world. 

Dr Yetta Wong, principal investigator and lecturer and the University of Surrey said: 

"Our findings provide compelling evidence that absolute pitch is not limited to a select few. With focused training, adults can acquire this remarkable skill, much like how they learn other complex cognitive skills.” 

Dr Alan Wong, co-author of the paper and senior lecturer at Surrey’s School of Psychology added: 

"This research has sigificant implications for our understanding of musical cognition and learning and opens doors for musicians of all ages to explore and develop their musicality to its fullest potential." 

[ENDS] 

• The full paper will be available at Psychonomic Bulletin & Review https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02620-2

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Journal

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

DOI

10.3758/s13423-024-02620-2 

ALIENATION

Loneliness and social isolation linked to increased risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, study finds

 News Release 12-Feb-2025
Health Data Science

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Loneliness and social isolation were associated with an elevated risk of NAFLD, independent of other important risk factors.

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Credit: Jiaqi Huang, Ya Miao, Xiaoke Kong, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University

Loneliness and social isolation have been linked to an elevated risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), according to a groundbreaking study conducted by researchers from Central South University and the Army Medical University in China, in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Published in Health Data Science, the study analyzed data from over 400,000 participants in the UK Biobank, shedding light on the far-reaching impacts of social factors on liver health.

The research team, led by Professor Jiaqi Huang and Professor Jin Chai, sought to explore whether loneliness and social isolation—two critical but distinct social determinants of health—are associated with NAFLD risk. This chronic liver disease, affecting roughly 30% of the global population, has become a significant public health concern, driven by rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and aging populations. However, the role of psychosocial factors in NAFLD has remained unclear until now.

Using detailed assessments of participants' social connections and emotional well-being, the study found that loneliness increased the risk of developing NAFLD by 22%, while social isolation raised the risk by 13%, independent of traditional risk factors such as obesity, diabetes, and lifestyle behaviors. Remarkably, the associations persisted after adjusting for mutual influences between loneliness and social isolation, highlighting their independent effects.

The study’s mediation analysis revealed that unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, depression, and inflammatory responses partially explained these associations. Specifically, lifestyle factors like obesity, smoking, and irregular physical activity accounted for up to 30% of the observed risk linked to loneliness, while depression contributed an additional 33%. These findings underscore the importance of addressing both psychological and behavioral factors to mitigate NAFLD risk.

“Our findings provide robust evidence that loneliness and social isolation are not just mental health issues but also critical factors in the development of metabolic diseases like NAFLD,” said Professor Huang. “Interventions that target these social determinants, alongside promoting healthier lifestyles, could be transformative for public health.”

The researchers emphasize the need for further studies in diverse populations and longitudinal settings to confirm and expand these findings. They also call for integrated prevention strategies that address both the social and biological dimensions of health, highlighting the importance of community engagement, mental health support, and lifestyle interventions.

As the burden of NAFLD continues to grow, this study sheds new light on how fostering stronger social connections and addressing loneliness could play a pivotal role in liver disease prevention. The authors hope that their work will inspire public health initiatives aimed at alleviating the health impacts of loneliness and social isolation.

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Journal

Health Data Science

DOI

10.34133/hds.0220 

Article Title

Loneliness and Social Isolation with Risk of Incident Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, UK Biobank 2006 to 2022