Who Were the Ancestors of the Neanderthals?

It's complicated. But researchers are gaining some clarity in the vast web of early-human species that preceded modern humans.

By Connor Lynch

Dec 17, 2021 

(Credit: LegART/Shutterstock)

In the genus Homo, us sapiens stand alone today. Once we had an abundance of cousins: Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus and others.

Our isolation makes it easier to assume that hominin history has led up to us — that various lines of human-like primates have evolved, had their chance in the sun and perished, leaving their more human-like descendants to approach the form of modern humans. Rudolph Zalliger’s infamous artwork The Road to Homo Sapiens, now more commonly known as The March of Progress, is commonly blamed for creating this perception in the minds of the public, though that was not what Zalliger himself intended.

But when paleontologists and anthropologists look back at the history of hominin evolution, they find a veritable Gordian Knot, one that weaves back into itself, with innumerable dead ends. For a clear example, consider our quest to learn who the ancestors of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, were.

One Web, Many Threads

The Neanderthals are probably our most famous cousins: short, stocky humans who went extinct around 40,000 years ago, with some surprising theories as to why. Less-well known but equally relevant are the Denisovans. Remains were discovered in Denisova Cave (also called Aju-Tasch) in Russia in 2008, and genetic analysis revealed them to be very close relatives of Neanderthals. Closer than us, in fact. It turned out we had not one, but two closest relatives.

But who were the hominins that gave rise to the Neanderthals and the Denisovans? University of Utah anthropologist Alan Rogers, who specializes in population genetics and evolutionary ecology, has been working on this problem for over a decade. But a paper he published in 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) led him down a new, unexpected course.

The paper analyzed all the new genetic data available on Neanderthals and Denisovans to advance our understanding of humanity’s demographic history. In the process, the researchers identified a bottleneck in the population of the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans. Some researchers disagreed with those findings, arguing the paper had left out important data. That kicked off a back-and-forth through the pages of PNAS, Rogers says: “The result of it all was that it became pretty clear, once you added the additional pieces of data, that nobody’s models fit very well, neither ours nor theirs.”

Rogers wouldn’t have a satisfactory resolution to that puzzle until 2020. The models improved some after adding in various supplementary factors — such as the gene flow from older hominins, known as “super-archaics." Also, evidence of Acheulean hand-axes, which first appeared in Africa nearly 2 million years ago and then spread to Eurasia, suggested another possible explanation. What if ancient hominins, likely H. erectus, had colonized Eurasia as early as 2 million years ago — not just traveling there and dying out, but forming sustainable populations? Then the ancestors of the Neanderthals and Denisovans, the “Neandersovans,” as Rogers calls them, interbred with those hominins around 750,000 years ago. “Suddenly everything fit,” he and his co-authors wrote in their paper.

Tracking the Neandersovans

These Neandersovans, the researchers say, spread from Africa around 750,000 years ago and encountered their cousins, the super-archaics, likely descendants from Homo erectus. The groups interbred before dispersing across the continent, with Neanderthals later emerging in the West, and the Denisovans emerging in the East. “Exactly like what happened 50,000 years ago,” Rogers says, “when modern humans expanded, interbred, and separated into eastern and western populations.”

But nailing down who these earlier hominins were, or what they looked like, is extraordinarily difficult, for a number of reasons.

The single greatest problem is time. The oldest hominin DNA ever retrieved was 450,000 years old. Some research suggests that the upper-limit to retrieve sequenced DNA is somewhere in the range of 400,000 years to 1.5 million years. And while we know a fair bit about H. erectus, which likely formed some, if not all, of Eurasia’s super-archaic population 2 million years ago, those hominins had over a million years to evolve before they interbred with the Neandersovans.

And there are other basic questions that remain to be answered in this quest. For instance, where did the Neandersovan lineage branch off from the rest of the hominins in the first place? Was it in Africa? Or Eurasia?

The simplest answer, and the one that best fits the available evidence, says Rogers, is that they branched off in Africa. “It’s a story I can tell without too much moving back and forth between Africa and Eurasia,” he says. The genetic evidence supports this as well, since it appears that the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans split off from the lineage that leads to modern humans, and modern humans are believed to have evolved in Africa.

While there are hominins that are good candidates to be representatives of Neandersovans after they interbred with the super-archaics of Eurasia, nailing those down is simply impossible, he says. Homo antecessor, a hominin that lived in what’s now Spain around 800,000 to 1.2 million years ago, could be one. “I would like to think it’s the hominin fossil that interbred with these Neandersovans. But I can’t know that. So there’s this ambiguity about the relationship between the genetics and the fossil record,” he says. Though, a protein analysis of the 800,000-year-old tooth enamel of a H. antecessor published last year lends his theory credence.

Perhaps H. heidelbergensis was modern humanity’s last common ancestor with Neanderthals. As Rogers put it, paraphrasing a colleague arguing with some paleontologists years ago, “paleontologists never know whether any fossil had descendants; but geneticists always know the fossils had ancestors.” There’s no guarantee the organism you’re looking at had any descendants at all, he explains, or that its species didn’t go extinct before any other species split off from it.

Further complicating the picture are discoveries of yet more hominins, and long-standing debates about how to even classify them. Some anthropologists argue that what is commonly called H. sapiens is actually composed of a number of different species. What makes us human has become as much a taxonomic problem as a philosophical one, especially for the time period 400,000 to 700,000 years ago. Rogers believes that is around when the Neandersovans would have interbred with the super-archaics and then branched off into Neanderthals and Denisovans. “The taxonomy of that time, I think, is confused,” he says. “Maybe I’m just confused. But I’m not comfortable with the taxonomy of that given part of history.”

'MAYBE' TECH

Giant Kite Will Pull a Ship Across the Ocean Next Month

A boat being propelled by the wind may sound familiar, but next month's test could help the shipping industry in its quest to clean up carbon emissions.

By Molly Taft

A rendering of an Airseas Seawing being deployed.Gif: Airseas

Starting in January, a huge boat will attach itself to an enormous kite in a first-of-its-kind test to try and alleviate harmful carbon emissions from toting stuff to and fro across the high seas.

Emissions from shipping are a huge problem. About 80% of all the world’s goods are transported on around 50,000 ships, which use a particularly dirty fuel known as “bunker fuel.” It’s estimated that this cheap fuel is responsible for more than 2% of global carbon emissions, and between 10% to 15% of the world’s sulfur oxide and nitrous oxide emissions, both major public health menaces.

Enter the humble kite. The parafoil kite that will be used is made by a company called Airseas. It measures around 5,380 square feet (500 square meters) and will be attached to a ship 505 feet (154 meters) in length called the Ville de Bordeaux. The ship is a “roll on/roll off” vessel, which refers to the fact that these ships usually carry wheeled cargo. (The shorthand term for this type of ship is, incredibly, a “Ro-Ro.”) This particular boat carries airplane parts between France and the U.S. The ship will test out the sail—er, sorry, kite—technology for six months before being used for its regular route.

Airseas said it “was founded out of the need to act urgently for our planet and climate” and is “committed to provide all ships with the means to harness free and unlimited wind energy.” That sounds an awful lot like a fancy way of saying “sailing,” which, in case you were unaware, is something we used to use a lot back in ye olden days to get our stuff around.

It’s important to note that unlike the cargo sailing ships of old that relied on their big sails, the Airseas kite isn’t meant to be the sole source of power for ships. The Ville de Bordeaux will still use its engine. But the kite, which Airseas calls a Seawing, is meant to reduce fuel use on the journey.

Airseas has promised a super-sized version of the Seawing that measures 3,280 square feet (1,000 square meters) and flies 984 feet (300 meters) above the boat on a figure-8 track, has the potential to reduce emissions on shipping trips by up to 20%. Computer technology helps the kite move around to maximize the carbon-free wind energy being used to propel the ship.

What’s more, the company says the installation process is pretty easy. You basically mount the kite to the ship’s deck, where it can pop out into the air with the touch of a button. The company says the kite kit can be retrofitted to basically any type of ship type.

A 20% cut to emissions might sound small, but the shipping industry has been really struggling to figure out how to clean up its act. Some of the alternative fuels that the industry has developed that are intended to lower emissions have raised new environmental questions. Shipping products for just four companies alone—Amazon, Walmart, Target, and IKEA—accounted for 20 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the past two years being dumped into the atmosphere. Emissions could rise even more sharply in the coming decades; some analyses predict that cargo volumes could grow by as much as 130% by 2050 as online shopping becomes more and more popular.

Simply buying less stuff might be one of the best options, but obviously that’s a lot harder on a larger scale than attaching an enormous kite to a boat. In lieu of larger-scale solutions, if that big kite is going to help cut emissions, even just a little, fly away, sailors.

How bad is cryptocurrency for the environment?

Crypto mining has come under scrutiny

Cryptocurrency, often just called crypto, is any form of currency that exists digitally or virtually and uses cryptography to secure transactions.Cryptocurrencies are popular because they don’t have a central issuing or regulating authority, instead using a decentralised system to record transactions and issue new units.

They have soared in popularity – and volatility – over the past few years, but the environmental consequences of the phenomenon has come under scrutiny.

What is cryptocurrency mining and why does it have such a large carbon footprint?

Cryptocurrency mining is the process of generating new units of cryptocurrency by solving complex puzzles.

Critics say the process is environmentally unsound because the process of mining uses a lot of computer equipment and is highly energy-intensive.

According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, this mining consumes about 110 Terawatt Hours of power per year, or 0.55 per cent of the world’s energy production.

The centre estimates a single cryptocurrency transaction uses the same amount of energy that an average American household uses in one month, with an estimated level of global energy usage equivalent to that of the country of Sweden.

The majority of Bitcoin is mined in China and is largely fuelled by cheap coal power in the Xinjiang region, according to reports.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have said almost two-thirds of Bitcoin generation as of April 2020 took place in China, with one-third of that being done in Xinjiang.

Even crypto enthusiast Elon Musk has sounded the alarm bell. In May he tweeted: “We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment,” he added.

Are regulators cracking down?

In May, New York state put forward a bill seeking to shut crypto mining down until its impact on the environment has been assessed – which it says will take three years.

The New York State Senate bill, introduced by Senator Kevin Parker, would require a study on the greenhouse gas emissions caused by cryptocurrency mining, as well as its effects on air, water, and wildlife. In the meantime, no mining would be allowed.

“Cryptocurrency mining threatens not only New York’s climate goals, under the CLCPA, but also global energy policy, such as the Paris Agreement,” Senate Bill S6486 says.

Accordingly, “there shall be a three-year moratorium on the operation of cryptocurrency mining centers in the state, including, but not limited to cryptocurrency mining centers located in converted fossil fuel power plants.”

Can crypto be mined ethically?

High energy use does not necessarily mean high greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Harvard Business Review, the carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining really depends on which energy sources are used.

Bitcoin miners have embraced renewable energy, often because it is cost-effective.

Iceland, for example, is a cryptocurrency mining hub thanks to its cheap geothermal energy and cold climate, which helps cool the machines.

Meanwhile, hydropower resources in Quebec and British Columbia in Canada and windpower in Texas have also attracted miners.

Miners have even resurrected defunct hydroelectric plants in the US to generate energy to mine cryptocurrency.

'MAYBE' TECH

World’s First Offshore Hydrogen Storage Concept Unveiled

December 17, 2021, by Adnan Durakovic

Tractebel and partner companies have developed what they describe as the world’s first offshore infrastructure and processing facilities concept for the storage of hydrogen in offshore caverns

.

Source: Tractebel

The design study, unveiled by Tractebel Overdick GmbH, is said to outline an innovative solution for large-scale hydrogen storage on the high seas: a scalable offshore platform for the compression and storage of up to 1.2 million cubic metres of hydrogen.

Underground salt caverns will be used as storage and buffer for the hydrogen produced offshore, before the gas is transported via the pipeline network to the onshore grid and finally to consumers and customers, Tractebel said

.

Source: Tractebel

Green hydrogen from offshore wind energy is becoming an important component of the global energy transition, but current hydrogen production technologies will only make an effective contribution if production rates reach an industrial scale.

Enormous amounts of hydrogen (H2) from renewable sources will be required to supply future H2 energy demands and offshore sites are key to industrial-scale production, according to Tractebel.

In response, Tractebel developed an offshore hydrogen platform concept in 2019, followed by an optimised, scalable version the following year.

RELATED ARTICLE
Tractebel Unveils Hydrogen-Producing Offshore Platform
Posted:over 2 years ago

And now, the company is said to be breaking new ground with the design of the world’s first offshore infrastructure and processing facilities concept for the storage of hydrogen in offshore caverns.

The Infrastructure

This offshore platform complex consists of a wellhead platform for the operation of the caverns and a series of compression platforms that enable a staged increase in capacity.

If required, the plant can also be expanded in the future by additional modules. The study assumes a capacity equivalent to converting 2 GW of green offshore wind power into hydrogen. Extensions and individual adaptations are possible at any time.

Offshore compression and storage hubs such as these can further increase the flexibility of upcoming offshore hydrogen production. As the compression effort decreases at the wind farms’ electrolysis plants, so too shall the cost for offshore hydrogen production sites in general, Tractebel said.

”Centralised offshore hydrogen hubs also facilitate the integration of smaller-scale hydrogen production, which is to be expected within the scope of capacity expansions while re-powering offshore wind farms in the future. At the same time, they offer an economically viable option, as the export and compression of hydrogen produced offshore can be bundled. This significantly reduces the overall costs for future projects,” said Klaas Oltmann, Director Business Development at Tractebel Overdick GmbH.

The newly designed storage and compressor platforms process 400,000 Nm3/h of hydrogen, which is stored in underground salt caverns at a pressure of up to 180 bar. These storage facilities are said to buffer production peaks, optimise flow rates, and therefore enable a more economical design of the export pipeline.

An important contribution to the sustainability of large underground hydrogen storage facilities is that existing offshore infrastructures can directly use green hydrogen instead of other energy sources for their operations, contributing to the decarbonization of the entire offshore industry, according to Tractebel.

North Sea Primed For New Concept

The North Sea is well suited for the solution due to its geological conditions and underground rock salt formations. Caverns are leached in these formations to create large storage volumes. The study assumes a total storage volume of up to 1.2 million cubic metres as a starting value for efficient peak coverage of offshore H2 production rates.

Source: Tractebel

”This storage is also necessary in the long term, because it will be an essential building block for the success of the energy transition,” said Oltmann.

”Offshore caverns can buffer the renewable energy produced in the form of hydrogen and therefore balance out the divergence between energy production and demand profiles. In this case, the proposed size of the offshore storage facility is merely a starting point.”

In addition to Tractebel’s renewable energy and offshore experts, the engineering teams of DEEP.KBB GmbH and PSE Engineering GmbH were also involved in the design study, facilitating the concept’s complete development, from geology to processing equipment. This bundled know-how is the foundation for further optimizations of the offshore hydrogen hub and future H2 projects, Tractebel said.

THE BIG THINK INTERVIEW
The 3 ancient demons that bend and break the laws of nature
Darwin, Descartes, and Maxwell all believed in these science ‘demons.’

7 min

Jimena Canales

WHO'S IN THE VIDEO

Jimena Canales is an expert in 19th and 20th century history of the physical sciences, working for a better understanding of science and technology in relation to the arts 

If one opens any dictionary and you go to the entry of demon, one of the entries refers to the scientific demons. Descartes’ demons, Laplace’s demon, Maxwell’s demon, they’re not considered to be real when they’re first mentioned, they’re considered to be possibly real.

 
They’re trying to find a hole in theories. What they are, in the most literal sense, are little creatures that are concocted by scientists. When they’re confronted with something that they don’t really understand, these creatures that we have always thought of as little entities that can bend or break the laws of nature continue to be very useful and very common ways of thinking in advancing our knowledge and understanding of the natural world.

These demons share similar characteristics to those other demons in the past, like Beelzebub and Lucifer. They can break the laws of nature, they’re not necessarily evil, but they create power imbalances. They can be helpful or they can be mischievous to science.

 

Why “carbon dioxide + water → glucose + oxygen” is the most important equation in biology

Life largely owes its existence to this equation.
Be sure to hug your house plant today.

Credit: Jackie DiLorenzo / Unsplash

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Every living creature needs three things: a source of energy, a source of carbon, and a source of electrons.

Photosynthesis is the ultimate form of self-sufficiency.

It also provides energy-hungry lifeforms with the oxygen we need to survive, along with solid, carbon-containing molecules that we consume for energy and growth.

Alex Berezow

Recently, my colleague Dr. Ethan Siegel wrote an article explaining why F = ma — that is, force = mass x acceleration — is the most important equation in physics. That seemingly humble equation, known as Newton’s second law of motion, is useful to physicists at all levels and even gives hints about special relativity.

That got me thinking: Does every scientific field have an equation like this? An equation so important, that the topic or field itself couldn’t exist without it? I pondered this as a microbiologist and came to the conclusion that, yes, there is such an equation for biology: CO2 + H2O → C6H12O6 + O2. (This is the unbalanced version. The balanced version is: 6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2.)

In simple terms: carbon dioxide + water → glucose + oxygen. This is photosynthesis, and without it, there likely would be no plants or animals.

Why photosynthesis dominated the world

For reasons that I will describe in more detail later, every living creature needs three things: a source of energy, a source of carbon, and a source of electrons. Plants (and microbes that photosynthesize) get their energy from sunlight, their carbon from CO2, and their electrons from H2O. Yet, as important as photosynthesis is, note that it is not necessary for life itself. Microorganisms have found a way to survive just about anywhere on Earth. For example, some survive in the deep ocean (where there is no light), getting their energy from sulfurous chemicals. Light is nice to have but not necessary for life to evolve.

While photosynthesis is not especially energy efficient, it is the ultimate form of self-sufficiency. The first complex cells (called eukaryotes) to evolve the ability to photosynthesize gobbled up bacteria that already had that ability, forming a mutually beneficial relationship — the smaller, photosynthesizing cell got a nice home inside of a larger cell that got “rent” in the form of food and energy. The relationship worked out wonderfully, as these ancestral amalgamations eventually evolved into the wide diversity of plants we have today. As a result, all plants photosynthesize (with the exception of some parasitic ones).

Explaining “carbon dioxide + water → glucose + oxygen”

The equation that represents photosynthesis is deceptively simple: Give a plant CO2 and water and it creates food (sugar) and oxygen. But behind the scenes is a mind-bogglingly complex series of biochemical reactions, and perhaps even a dash of quantum mechanics.

Let’s start with water. Water is the source of electrons that plants need to get the process started. When light (the source of energy) hits chlorophyll (inside of a complex structure known as a photosystem, which is itself embedded in a membrane called a thylakoid), the molecule gives up electrons — which go on to accomplish some amazing things. But chlorophyll wants its electrons back, so it steals them from a water molecule, which then disassembles into two protons (H+) and an oxygen atom. This makes the oxygen atom lonely and unhappy, so it partners up with another oxygen atom, forming O2, the molecular form of oxygen that we breathe.

Credit: Rao, A., Ryan, K., Tag, A., Fletcher, S. and Hawkins, A. Department of Biology, Texas A&M University / OpenStax

Now, back to those amazing electrons. Like a game of “hot potato,” electrons are passed from protein to protein. As they travel, they cause protons (H+) to be pumped to the other side of the membrane, creating a powerful electrochemical gradient, akin to a battery. When this “battery” discharges, it creates an energy-rich molecule called ATP. If cells had money, ATP would be that money.

But that’s not the only thing those traveling electrons do. When they are finished playing hot potato, they jump aboard a molecule called NADPH, which can be thought of as an electron shuttle. Essentially, NADPH is a molecule than can carry electrons somewhere else, usually for the purpose of building something.

Let’s pause to summarize what the plant has accomplished so far: It absorbed light and used that energy to rip electrons away from water, producing oxygen (O2) as a side product. It then used those electrons to generate “money” (ATP), after which the electrons boarded a bus (NADPH). Now, it’s time to spend that money and put those electrons to use one more time in a process called the Calvin cycle.

Credit: Credit: Rao, A., Ryan, K., Tag, A., Fletcher, S. and Hawkins, A. Department of Biology, Texas A&M University / OpenStax

The Calvin cycle is the point at which carbon dioxide (CO2) enters the scene. This is the process that “fixes” carbon dioxide into a solid form by combining it with a five-carbon sugar to create a six-carbon sugar. (The enzyme that carries out this reaction, called rubisco, is likely the most abundant protein on Earth.) Notice that the cell has to use the ATP and the NADPH that it generated earlier to keep the cycle going. The ultimate output of the cycle is a molecule called G3P, which the cell can use for a variety of things — from making food (like the sugar glucose) to building structural molecules so the plant can grow.

Thank you, photosynthesis!

Every part of the photosynthesis equation now has been accounted for. A plant cell uses carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) as inputs — the former so that it can convert carbon into a solid form and the latter as a source of electrons — and creates glucose (C6H12O6) and oxygen (O2) as outputs. Oxygen is sort of a waste product in this process, but not really. After all, the plant needs to “eat” the glucose it just made, and it requires oxygen to do so.

Credit: Credit: Rao, A., Ryan, K., Fletcher, S., Hawkins, A. and Tag, A. Texas A&M University / OpenStax

Even though some microbes live without light or photosynthesis, most of the life on Earth is completely dependent on it. Photosynthesis provides energy-hungry life forms with the oxygen we need to survive, along with solid, carbon-containing molecules that we consume for energy and growth. Without photosynthesis, we would not be here. As a corollary, planets that don’t get enough sunlight to support photosynthesis almost certainly don’t host complex life forms.

Life and the field of biology largely owe their existence to photosynthesis. Hug your house plant today.

Theropod Dinosaur Jaws Evolved To Become Stronger – Allowing Them To Consume Tougher Food

By UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM DECEMBER 16, 2021

Theropod dinosaurs evolved more robust jaws through time allowing them to consume tougher food, a new study reveals.

Researchers used digital modeling and computer simulation to uncover a common trend of jaw strengthening in theropods — expanding the rear jaw portion in all groups, as well as evolving an upturned jaw in carnivores and a downturned jaw in herbivores.

Publishing their findings today (December 16, 2021) in the journal Current Biology, scientists revealed that biomechanical analysis showed these form changes made jaws mechanically more stable when biting — minimizing the chance of bone fracture.

The international team, led by scientists at the University of Birmingham, created digital models of more than 40 lower jaws from five different theropod dinosaur groups, including typical carnivores like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, and lesser-known herbivores like ornithomimosaurs, therizinosaurs, and oviraptorosaurs.

Fion Waisum Ma, PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, who led the study, said: “Although theropod dinosaurs are always depicted as fearsome predators in popular culture, they are in fact very diverse in terms of diets. It is interesting to observe the jaws becoming structurally stronger over time, in both carnivores and herbivores. This gives them the capacity to exploit a wider range of food items.

Life reconstruction of the Late Cretaceous Iren Dabasu Formation fauna, showing theropod dinosaurs of various diets. Such dietary niche partitioning could have contributed to the diversification of theropod dinosaurs, which eventually led to the evolution of modern birds. Depicted species: Gigantoraptor, Garudimimus, Neimongosaurus and Velociraptor. Credit: Gabriel Ugueto

“Theropod dinosaurs underwent extreme dietary changes during their evolutionary history of 165 million years. They started off as carnivores, later on evolved into more specialized carnivores, omnivores and herbivores. Studying how their feeding mechanics changed is key to understanding the dietary transitions in other vertebrate animals too.”

For example, in carnivores like tyrannosauroids, an early form like Guanlong had a relatively slender and straight jaw. But later forms such as Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus evolved deeper jaws with the front portion bending upward, which increase jaw strength.

Having a strengthened jaw is especially important to herbivorous theropods, as their jaws experience considerable stress from repetitive plant cropping. Herbivores like Erlikosaurus and Caudipteryx have extremely downward-bending jaws that could help dissipate such stress.

Dr. Stephan Lautenschlager, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham and senior author of the study, said: “It is fascinating to see how theropod dinosaurs had evolved different strategies to increase jaw stability depending on their diet. This was achieved through bone remodeling — a mechanism where bone is deposited in regions of the jaw that experience high stresses during feeding.”

The researchers studied the feeding mechanics of tyrannosaurids through growth and observed that the deeper and more upturned jaws of adult theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus, are structurally stronger compared to those of their juvenile forms.

Dr. Lautenschlager further explained: “The similarity between jaw strengthening through growth and through time suggests that developmental patterns in juvenile dinosaurs ultimately affected the evolution of the whole group. This likely facilitated the jaw evolution of theropod dinosaurs and their overall success for over 150 million years.”

Reference: “Macroevolutionary trends in theropod dinosaur feeding mechanics” by Waisum Ma, Michael Pittman, Richard J. Butler and Stephan Lautenschlager, 16 December 2021, Current Biology.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.11.060

We recommend

ALBERTA UCP SNAFU
Only 400 rapid kits sent to the Hat

BY MEDICINE HAT NEWS ON DECEMBER 18, 2021.

A man leaves the Alberta Health Services community health centre on Dunmore Road at 8:45 a.m. having been informed all 400 rapid antigen test kits at the facility had been given out to the public.--News Photo Collin Gallant

https://www.medicinehatnews.com@MedicineHatNews

Rapid COVID tests offered by the province went rapidly out the door of the Dunmore Road community health centre on Friday morning as distribution of the antigen tests was opened across the province.

Officials stated that 400 of the kits, each containing five rapid tests, were claimed on a first-come-first-serve basis on the first day, though more are expected next week.

By 8:30 a.m. Friday a sandwich board at the building stated supply of the self-test kits had run out.

Alberta Health Services confirmed via social media by 9 a.m. that volumes had run out in Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Coaldale and Pincher Creek.

Albertans can claim one kit per household within a 14-day period when they present an Alberta Health card.

AHS directed all questions to the provincial health ministry, including an inquiry into the apparently small number (400) allotted to Medicine Hat, a city of 68,000 people in about 27,000 households.

Alberta Health officials told the News that the South zone of health (comprising all areas south of but not including Calgary) was given 4,000 kits for distribution on Friday, deliveries are dependent on weather, and having tests available at each distribution point was a priority.

“We have worked hard to make sure supply is distributed throughout the province for Albertans,” read the statement. “However, as there are initially only 500,000 kits available in total, we can expect demand will exceed supply. Locations and communities will inevitably go through their supply.

“This is why we continue to work with the federal government to secure additional rapid test kit supply as quickly as possible.”

Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Michaela Frey, along with several other government MLAs and ministry press officials, stated on social media they would like to see the federal health authorities approve more kinds of tests to ease supply issues.

A further 50,000 kits from the provincial stockpile were being shipped on Friday, according to Alberta Health, to locations across Alberta.

The kits are available at some select pharmacies in Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer, and at AHS facilities in other locations.

In the southeast, those include community health centres in Bow Island, Brooks, Taber, Vauxhall, Oyen and Milk River.

In Saskatchewan, a take-home test distribution program that began earlier this month allows residents to pick up test kits at health facilities, municipal buildings, chambers of commerce and through a partnership with regional Co-ops.

In the southwest of that province, tests are available at four locations in Maple Creek, as well as single locations at Burstall, Leader, Sceptre, Consul, Eastend, Shaunavon, Thompkins and Gull Lake.

 BC

Many areas slated for old-growth protection are not old-growth forests: Syilx Okanagan Nation

ONA slams old-growth plan

Colin Dacre - Dec 17, 2021 / 5:21 pm | Story: 354951

Photo: Flickr / Dru

The Okanagan Nation Alliance is formally opposing the B.C. government’s old-growth deferral plan, declaring that many of the areas mapped for protection in their territory are simply not old-growth forests.

In November, the province announced it would be protecting 2.6 million hectares of Crown forest from logging, giving First Nations 30 days to provide feedback on the plans.

On Friday the Syilx Okanagan Nation, the tribal council representing seven area First Nations, said they are rejecting the process the province has used to identify old-growth forests.

ONA tribal chair Clarence Louie slammed the province’s consultation process as “inadequate and superficial,” noting all of the Syilx community forestry companies have been left out, despite the economic impacts the deferrals have to the companies’ bottom lines.

“BC must step back and enter into a meaningful collaborative process. This begins with co-development of the concept, and collaboration throughout the development process; as opposed to production of a provincial document for review and ‘comment’” Louie said.

The ONA says the old-growth areas that have been mapped by B.C. are inaccurate. Burn areas, second-generation plantations and recent clear cuts are all being considered “old-growth.”

The old-growth maps created by a panel of appointed advisors detailing proposed deferral areas are built on top of a data set many foresters consider unreliable, the “Vegetation Resources Inventory.”

The VRI includes data going back to the 1980s and relies entirely on satellite imagery, aerial photography, forest licensee submissions and growth projections. Updates are not routine.

It’s not uncommon for a forester to arrive at a planned cutblock expecting to see mature century-old trees, but find something else like a dead forest or young pine stand.

Due to the provincial scale of the deferral maps proposed by the government, old-growth areas are also proposed for protection in unnatural 100x100 metre blocks across the landscape.

Syilx forest working group chair Dennis McDonald said that type of a “postage stamp approach” to conservation is not meaningful. He called the “total inaccuracy” of the deferral areas frustrating.

“If BC genuinely wanted to protect Old Growth stands, they would engage with the experts on the land base. The Syilx Forestry Working Group have a collective knowledge of the forests that is unmatched — many of us are foresters within their communities,” said McDonald.

“We have meaningful partnerships with major licensees, with whom we work closely and regularly. The fact that this group was not part of the development of these deferrals, and all of the other policy and legislation that BC is pushing through as part of the forest policy modernization process, is deeply disconcerting.”

It is expected the old-growth deferrals will result in job losses of between 4,500 and 18,000 jobs, depending on the estimate.

Conservation groups, meanwhile, have been pushing the government to rush to enforce old-growth deferral areas. Some areas slated for protection have since been logged since the deferrals were proposed.

Photo: BC Gov

Back to Homepage

When humans are gone, what animals might evolve to have our smarts and skills?

By Joanna Thompson

Is this a "Planet of the Apes" situation?

Chimpanzees are one of nature's most adept tool-users (Image credit: Getty Images)

Humans are pretty unique among life on Earth. As far as we know, we're the only living species to evolve a higher intelligence, wear clothes, cook our food, invent smartphones and then get locked out of them when we forget our passwords.

But what if humans suddenly went extinct? What other animals might evolve to have the smarts and skills to create large, complex societies like we have?

With modern gene-sequencing technology and our understanding of evolution, "we're pretty good at making short term predictions," Martha Reiskind, a molecular ecologist at North Carolina State University, told Live Science. For example, we can predict that if humans were to suddenly go extinct tomorrow, climate change would continue to drive many species toward drought resiliency in order to survive. Cold-specialized species will continue to struggle as well, meaning that, sadly, polar bears and penguins are unlikely to thrive in the millennia after humans are gone.

"A big thing will be the concept of convergence," Dougal Dixon, a geologist, science writer and author of the speculative book "After Man: A Zoology of the Future" (St. Martin's Press, 1998), told Live Science. Convergence is an evolutionary process by which two unrelated organisms end up developing similar traits in order to succeed in a particular environment or fill a particular niche.

The classic example, Dixon said, is the fish shape. With their sleek, torpedo-like bodies and stabilizing fins, fish are optimized for life in water. However, dolphins have evolved a very similar body plan — and unlike fish, they are warm-blooded, air-breathing mammals with a totally different evolutionary background.

One feature that makes humans uniquely good at building and spatial reasoning is our dexterous hands, according to research from the University of Manchester. In order to fill the same ecological role as humans — that is, building cities and heavily modifying our environment — another species would need to develop a similar capacity to manipulate objects. In other words, they would need opposable thumbs — or at least thumb equivalents.

Other primates, like chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus), our closest living relatives, already have opposable thumbs that they use to make tools in the wild. It's possible that if humans go extinct, these hominids might replace us hominins, à la "Planet of the Apes." There is precedent for that kind of overlap — after all, our species managed to outlast the intelligent Neanderthals during the most recent ice age 40,000 years ago, according to a 2021 study published in the journal Nature. That said, it would probably take hundreds of thousands or even millions of years of evolution for other apes to develop the ability to create and use sophisticated, human-like tools. To add context to this scenario, the common ancestor of modern humans and chimpanzees lived about 7 million years ago, Live Science previously reported.

But any disaster potent enough to wipe out humans is also likely to wipe out chimps, which leaves another tool-using candidate to fill humans’ niche: birds.

When non-avian dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago, mammals rose to fill many of their vacant niches. If humans were to disappear, it's possible that birds, the only surviving dinosaurs, could fill our roles as the smartest and handiest land animals. Despite stereotypes to the contrary, birds are very brainy: Some birds, such as crows and ravens, have intellects that rival even chimps, according to research published in 2020 in the journal Science. And some birds can use their dexterous feet and beaks to fashion wire into hooks, according to a famous 2002 study published in Science. Meanwhile, trained African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) can learn upward of 100 words and do simple math, including understanding the concept of zero, Live Science previously reported.

Birds can flock together in large groups, and some, such as sociable weavers (Philetairus socius), even build communal nesting sites. Some sociable weaver nests remain occupied by birds for decades, according to research published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. However, these arboreal dwellings wouldn't look much like human metropolises.

But there is another group of animals that is extremely adept at manipulating objects with their limbs — all eight of them.

"Intelligence is modifying your behavior as a result of influence from your environment," Jennifer Mather, a cephalopod intelligence researcher at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, told Live Science. By that measure, octopuses are probably the smartest non-human animals on Earth. They can learn to distinguish between real and virtual objects, according to 2020 research published in The Biological Bulletin, and they can even engineer their environment by removing unwanted algae from their dens and barricading the entrance with shells, according to a study in the journal Communicative and Integrative Biology. They're even known to live in communities, of sorts, as shown by the discovery of "Octlantis" off Australia.

Related: How would Earth be different if modern humans never existed?

However, octopuses would be hard-pressed to adapt to life on land. Vertebrates have iron in their blood cells, which binds to oxygen very efficiently. In contrast, octopuses and their relatives have copper-based blood cells. These molecules still bind to oxygen, but less readily, and as a result octopuses are confined to oxygen-saturated waters as opposed to thin air. "They've taken an inefficient metabolism as far as they can go," Mather said.

Because of this, Mather thinks that octopuses and other cephalopods are unlikely to make the transition to land and take over humanity's mantle as the smartest and most ecologically impactful land animal. Her money is on social insects, like ants and termites. "I think that the insects are tougher than us," Mather said. "Unfortunately, they're tougher than cephalopods as well."

Here's why: Insects are incredibly adaptable to different types of environments. They have been around for 480 million years, according to the Natural History Museum in London. In that time, they've evolved to fill almost every niche imaginable, from flying to burrowing to swimming and even building elaborate city-like towers. The organization of ant and termite colonies probably resembles human civilization more than any other non-human species on Earth. Ants are known to farm fungi, according to research published in 2017 the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and termites can communicate over long distances inside their colonies using vibrations, according to a 2021 study in the journal Scientific Reports. If humans go extinct, it's possible that these insect colonies might take over the world — assuming they survive climate change.

Of course, all of this is speculation; it's virtually impossible to truly predict how evolution will unfold on a geologic time scale. "As you go further and further out, your precision is less clear, because there's all these other wonderful things that cause variation," Reiskind said. Those factors include random mutations, sudden extinction events and population bottlenecks, in which a species pulls itself back from the brink of extinction but loses much of its genetic diversity.

And it's even more difficult to predict whether another species will develop human-level intelligence or the desire to build cities. Mather thinks that it could happen, but not without millions of years of the right selective pressure. Dixon, however, is less optimistic. "I don't think nature will make that mistake twice," he said.

Originally published on Live Science.