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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists discovered a host of megafauna remains during the construction of a new town in southwest England.</li><li>They included the <keyword id="13117035" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wooly-mammoth" source="Orion">wooly mammoth</keyword>, a wooly rhinoceros, a wolf, and hyena remains.</li></ul><p>Scientists uncovered the remains of several extinct animals, including a wooly mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, and wolf in Devon, southwest England</p><p>Experts said that the findings, estimated to be from the last Ice Age around 30,000-60,000 years ago, are an "exceptional" discovery that sheds light on the megafauna that roamed early <keyword id="11892697" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="britain" source="Orion">Britain</keyword>.</p><p>The well-preserved samples included a tusk, molar tooth, and other bones of a wooly mammoth and the incomplete skull and lower jaw of a wooly rhinoceros, The Sherford Consortium said in a press release.</p><p>Researchers also found a virtually complete wolf skeleton and partial remains of animals including a hyena, horse, and red fox.</p><p>The bones of various small mammals such as bats and shrews were also found. </p><div type="image" title="Woolly mammoth tusk found in Devon, England." height="2592" width="4608" msid="89391455" hostid="261"></div><div type="image" title="Wolf skull found in Devon, Britain." height="2592" width="4608" msid="89391456" hostid="261"></div><p>The team made the discoveries during the construction of new town Sherford, a new 5,500-home community under development on the edge of Plymouth.</p><p>"This is a major discovery of national significance – a once in a lifetime experience for those involved," Rob Bourn, managing director of Orion Heritage and lead archeologist on the project for the Sherford Consortium, said.</p><p>"Construction happening at Sherford is the sole reason these findings have been discovered and it is remarkable that they have laid undisturbed until now."</p><p>Bourn said that it was a "rare and special occurrence" to find artifacts untouched for so long, as well to have so many complete or semi-complete individual animals.</p><p>Researchers said that studying the remains, particularly the herbivores and their food sources, will provide an insight into the plants that may have previously existed in the local environment.</p><p>It is currently unclear whether the animals found at Sherford coexisted around the same time or existed at different points over a more extended time period, researchers said.</p><p>One theory is that some of the creatures fell into a pit and were unable to escape, and carnivorous scavengers followed and were also trapped.</p><p>Another theory is that the animals died elsewhere, and the bones were washed into the area over time.  </p><p>The Sherford Consortium said it would preserve the area where the remains were found.</p>

Remains of a wooly mammoth, a rhino, and a wolf unearthed on a building site

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists sequenced <keyword id="25384" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="DNA">DNA</keyword> from three ancient mammoth teeth found in <keyword id="6367287" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="siberia">Siberia</keyword>.</li><li>Some of the DNA was more than 1 million years old, making it the oldest DNA ever recovered.</li><li><keyword id="6648078" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Genetics">Genetics</keyword> reveal these <keyword id="1247341" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="mammoths">mammoths</keyword> to be ancestors of both <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/woolly-mammoths-arctic-island-last-to-go-extinct-2019-10">woolly mammoths</a> and the mammoths that later occupied North America.</li></ul><p>More than 1 million years ago, mammoths traversed an ice-covered Siberia. The teeth and tusks they left behind were preserved in the region's permanently frozen ground.</p><p>Researchers recently extracted and mapped the DNA preserved in two mammoth molars from the region, with startling results. On Wednesday, they revealed that DNA is more than 1 million years old, making it the oldest DNA ever sequenced.</p><p>Before this finding, that record belonged to an ancient horse with DNA between <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12323">560,000 and 780,000 years old</a>. </p><p>In their <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03224-9">study</a> about the mammoth teeth, the researchers reported that the molars came from two different types of mammoth. One species, the steppe mammoth, is well-known: its descendants were woolly mammoths. The other, according to Love Dalén, a geneticist at the Center for Palaeogenetics in Sweden, is from a "previously unknown mammoth that lived in Siberia around 1.2 million years ago."</p><p>This second species, Dalén told Insider, interbred with woolly mammoths about 420,000 years ago, which gave rise to the Columbian mammoths that went onto occupy North America. </p><h2>Tracing mammoth ancestors using their DNA</h2><div type="image" title="wooly mammoths siberia dna" height="1356" width="1809" msid="81071510" hostid="261"></div><p>The ancient molars themselves aren't new discoveries: Andrei Sher, a Russian paleontologist, found them in the 1970s.</p><p>But the new study, published in the journal Nature, pinpointed how old the teeth are for the first time. To accomplish this, Dalén's team first looked at the age of the rock deposits where Sher collected the teeth. </p><p>The researchers named the molar from the previously unknown mammoth species Krestovka, after the place it was found. The rock there is between 1.1 and 1.2 million years old. The other tooth, which the team named Adycha, was pulled from a rock layer dating back between 500,000 and 1.2 million years. </p><p>The researchers compared this geologic dating information with genetic data.</p><p>Over time, DNA builds up mutations: changes in a species' genetic sequence. Those mutations accrue at a fairly constant rate over time, so researchers can count the number of mutations to figure out how much time has passed since a given evolutionary event, like the point when a species split into two, for example.</p><p>Mammoths and living elephants diverged from a common ancestor around 5.3 million years ago, according to <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/11/E2566">a genetic study from 2018</a>. By calculating the number of mutations in the ancient mammoths' DNA, the study authors could estimate how much time had passed between that separation and the mammoth's birth. </p><p>"The more differences there are between lineages, the more time that has elapsed," Alfred Roca, an animal scientist from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who was not involved in the research, told Insider.</p><p>That method showed that the the Krestova specimen is about 1.65 million years old, while Adycha is around 1.34 million years old. </p><p>Dalén's team also pulled DNA from a third tooth found in Siberia named Chukochya. It was about 870,000 years old, likely from one of the oldest woolly mammoths. </p><div type="image" title="mammoth siberia teeth" height="2999" width="3999" msid="81071518" hostid="261"></div><h2>The benefits of permafrost preservation</h2><p>Dalén has worked with ancient rhino <keyword id="6377866" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossils">fossils</keyword>, too. Two years ago, he co-authored <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/sjcu-rc090619.php">a paper</a> that looked at a 1.7-million-year-old rhino tooth. Although that specimen is older than the mammoth molars, Dalén's team was not able to recover DNA from it - only protein. </p><p>Proteins aren't as informative as DNA, since they only code for a tiny piece of an animal's genetic code. </p><p>However, DNA degrades over time, especially <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/02/dna_testing_richard_iii_how_long_does_dna_last.html">if it's exposed to heat or sunlight</a>. That's why scientists had never previously found genetic molecules more than hundreds of thousands of years old. Siberia, however, offers a resting place for fossils that increases the chances the DNA inside can survive. </p><p>"Cold temperatures keep the DNA from degrading, much as a freezer keeps food from spoiling," Roca said.</p><div type="image" title="wooly mammoths siberia dna" height="1305" width="1744" msid="81071526" hostid="261"></div><p>Even so, the DNA in the mammoth teeth was very fragmented when the researchers pulled it out - "broken into tens of millions of small pieces," according to Dalén.</p><p>So analyzing it was a challenge, but the achievement creates new opportunities to study how ancient species interbred and evolved. Dalén's group showed it's possible to study the genes of creatures far older than scientists previously thought possible.</p><p>The study authors think that based on what they learned from this work, they'll be equipped to extract DNA that's even older from other fossils that may emerge from the permafrost.</p><p>"We haven't reached the limit yet. An educated guess would be that we could recover DNA that is 2 million years old, and possibly go even as far back as 2.6 million," Anders Götherström, a molecular archaeologist and co-author of the study, said in a press release. "Before that, there was no permafrost where ancient DNA could have been preserved."</p>

From mammoth teeth, scientists just pulled DNA that's more than 1 million years old - the oldest DNA ever found

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>After digesting <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-q1-earnings-2015-1">Apple's historic earnings report</a>, investors have decided to buy more Apple stock.</p>
<p>Apple is up 9% in pre-market trading. It was only up 5% after hours last night, so investors have clearly gotten more excited about Apple's potential.</p>
<p>Apple is now trading at ~$119, which puts it in range of its all-time high, which is $119.75, <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL">per Yahoo Finance</a>.</p>
<p>The company reported 74.5 million iPhones sold during the holiday quarter, a 46% jump year-over-year, well ahead of expectations that the company would sell 65 million units. </p>
<p>We'll keep an eye on the stock all day and update this post.</p>

Apple Is Trading Near Its All-Time High After A Mammoth Earnings Report

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Researchers are studying a 44,000-year-old mummified wolf found in the permafrost in Russia.</li><li>The wolf may tell scientists what its lifestyle and diet were like during the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/extinct-giant-mammals-pleistocene-megafauna-ice-age-north-america">Pleistocene era</a>.</li></ul><p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-ancient-intact-wolf-pup-mummy-yukon-permafrost-2020-12">wolf looks pretty good</a> for its age, considering it's 44,000 years old.</p><p>In 2021, residents of Yakutia in eastern Russia found the wolf in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/forty-six-thousand-year-old-worm-found-siberian-permafrost-brought-back-to-life-2023-7">thick permafrost</a> — soil that normally remains frozen year-round, but in many places has begun to thaw as average global temperatures rise.</p><p>Now, researchers at North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia, are studying the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-egyptian-didnt-intend-preserve-mummy-bodies-say-scientists-2022-12">mummified remains</a> to learn more about the animal.</p><p>The frozen conditions helped mummify and perfectly preserve the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fires-may-have-caused-la-brea-tar-pit-extinctions-thousands-of-years-ago-2023-8">Pleistocene predator</a>. Its teeth and much of its fur are still intact, as are some of its organs.</p><div type="image" title="mummified wolf on a table close up of its head with matted fur and complete teeth bared with someone wearing protective gear and gloves writing a note beside it" height="1500" width="2250" msid="111350430" hostid="261"></div><p>"It's shocking, actually," Robert Losey, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta who wasn't involved in the research, told Business Insider.</p><p>"It's the only complete adult Pleistocene wolf that's ever been found, so that in itself is really remarkable and completely unique," he added.</p><p>There's a lot to learn from such a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gold-miner-discovers-mummified-squirrel-mangled-fur-ball-yukon-2023-4">well-preserved ancient animal</a>, including its genetics, lifestyle, diet, and even what kind of ancient bacteria and viruses it had.</p><p>"<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-revived-frozen-zombie-virus-48000-years-infects-other-cells-2023-3">Living bacteria can survive</a> for thousands of years, which are a kind of witnesses of those ancient times," Artemy Goncharov, a researcher at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, said in a translated <a target="_blank" href="https://www.s-vfu.ru/news/detail.php?SECTION_ID=25&amp;ELEMENT_ID=238886">statement</a>.</p><h2 id="734c7516-2f1b-4e9b-b497-8b3cd03e4cfc">The wolf's stomach may hold its last meal and much more</h2><div type="image" title="people in protective white coveralls and masks and gloves hold open the stomach of a mummified animal while one reaches long tweezers inside" height="1500" width="2250" msid="111350428" hostid="261"></div><p>This 44,000-year-old wolf likely belongs to an extinct species and was probably larger than <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/colorado-has-released-10-gray-wolves-into-the-wilderness-2023-12">modern wolves</a>, Losey said. Studying the animal's genome will help reveal where it fits into the canine family tree.</p><p>After examining one of its teeth, the scientists believe the wolf was an adult male. It probably hunted in a flat, cold environment full of mammoths, wooly rhinoceroses, extinct horses, bison, and reindeer.<br /><br />Remains of some of those animals might even be left in the wolf's gut. Researchers took samples of its stomach and digestive tract to learn more and are awaiting results.</p><p>The researchers may<strong> </strong>also be able to tease out what functions ancient <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boost-improve-gut-health-simple-effective-methods-2024-1">microbes performed</a> in the wolf's gut, and whether it had parasites, Losey said. If any of the microorganisms are unknown to science, they could play a role in the development of future medicines, the researchers said in the statement.</p><p>This discovery is just part of a larger collaboration to study other ancient animals, including fossil hares, a horse, and a bear. The researchers previously studied a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40000-year-old-severed-wolfs-head-was-discovered-in-siberia-2019-6">wolf head</a> from the Pleistocene era and have another wolf fossil awaiting dissection.</p><h2 id="250b2f60-7497-4526-9685-dc6cfbb60b63">Ancient animals and infectious agents are thawing</h2><div type="image" title="illustration of an anthrax virus" height="2160" width="3840" msid="111350422" hostid="261"></div><p>As the world's permafrost thaws due to rising global temperatures, more ancient creatures like this are re-emerging. In the Yukon, for example, paleontologists are still fawning over an impeccably preserved baby mammoth discovered in 2022.</p><p>Not everything in the permafrost is so harmless, though.</p><p>In 2016, thawing in Siberia's Yamal Peninsula released anthrax from a once-frozen reindeer carcass, causing an outbreak that infected 36 people and killed one child.</p><p>Researchers fear that other <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-viruses-may-reemerge-as-permafrost-melts-climate-change-study-2023-8">pathogens may slumber in the tundra</a>, with the thaw of a warming world slowly creeping toward them.</p><p>Last year, researcher Jean-Michel Claverie announced that he had revived a 48,000-year-old virus they found in the Siberian permafrost. It could still infect single-celled amoebas.</p><p>"We view these amoeba-infecting viruses as surrogates for all other possible viruses that might be in permafrost," Claverie told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/world/permafrost-virus-risk-climate-scn/index.html">CNN</a> at the time. "We see the traces of many, many, many other viruses. So we know they are there. We don't know for sure that they are still alive."</p><p>Any ancient viruses or bacteria in the guts of the Yakutia wolf could help researchers better understand the microbes hiding inside permafrost creatures.</p>

A mummified 44,000-year-old wolf is so perfectly preserved its stomach could contain remnants of its last meal

<ul class="summary-list"><li>OpenAI has launched a new tool, Sora, that generates AI videos based on user text.</li><li>It's currently in beta with safety experts and a limited group of creators.</li></ul><p>AI-created images are about to get a lot more real-looking.</p><p>On Thursday, OpenAI showed off a new tool called Sora that can generate strikingly realistic videos based on users' prompts.</p><p>The videos created by Sora can be up to a minute long, and can consist of "complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details," <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/sora">the company announced</a>.</p><p>In addition to text, Sora can also generate videos from still images and "extend" existing videos — including the ability to "fill in missing frames," according to OpenAI.</p><p>The product is initially rolling out to <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/blog/red-teaming-network">red teamers</a> (experts in fields like misinformation, hate, and bias,  who work with OpenAI to improve product safety) as well as "a number of visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to gain feedback," according to the company. </p><p>(Star YouTuber MrBeast seemingly joked about being <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/MrBeast/status/1758194696034365674">concerned by the tech</a>, and asked whether he was going to lose his job)</p><p>OpenAI shared several impressive examples of Sora's capabilities, including a video of a woman walking in the neon glow of Tokyo streetlights, wooly mammoths galloping through the snow, an aerial view of a church on the Amalfi Coast, and a cartoon monster curiously kneeling before a melting candle.</p><p>That said, the company also acknowledged the nascent tool's weaknesses, including faultiness when "simulating the physics of a complex scene" and not understanding "cause and effect" — like, for instance, a cookie that appears whole after someone's taken a bite.</p><p>The model also mixes up left and right and struggles with descriptions of events that take place over time, OpenAI said.</p><p>Before rolling out widely, OpenAI also said it's drilling down on safety by building tools to detect videos that Sora generated, and rejecting prompts that request violence, sex, hateful imagery, celebrity likeness, and third-party-owned IP.</p><p>"We'll be engaging policymakers, educators, and artists around the world to understand their concerns and to identify positive use cases for this new technology," the company said.</p>

People are totally going to be fooled by OpenAI's new video tool 'Sora'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Human bones in a German cave place Homo Sapiens in Europe 7,500 years earlier than experts thought.</li><li>The findings suggest Homo sapiens lived near Neanderthals for millennia, which is a new revelation.</li></ul><p>Researchers on the hunt to settle a long-standing debate ended up rewriting the timeline of ancient human history in the process.</p><p>For years, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/creepiest-archaeological-finds-discoveries-this-year-2023">archaeologists have argued</a> over an ancient culture with the unwieldy title: the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician technocomplex. Even scientists know that’s a mouthful, so they call it the LRJ for short.</p><p>The LRJ is characterized by the creation of specific blades and leaf points, which share aspects of both <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neanderthals-humans-belong-to-same-species-could-rewrite-history-evolution-2023-12">Neanderthal and Homo sapien</a> craftsmanship.</p><div type="image" title="Ancient stone flints against a black background" height="2481" width="2363" msid="107638696" hostid="261" sizebytes="111870"></div><p>The debate is over who made them, and the answer could help offer clues as to what happened about 45,000 years ago  — when Neanderthals, one of our closest human relatives, mysteriously went extinct across Europe while Homo sapiens, ultimately, thrived.</p><p>“The usual wisdom was to consider that they were made most likely by late Neanderthals,” said study co-author Jean-Jacques Hublin, a professor of paleoanthropology at the College of France. </p><p>But Hublin and his colleagues wanted to settle the debate once and for all.</p><p>This led them to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40000-year-bone-hints-humans-neanderthals-shared-cave-culture-2023-8">Ilsenhöhle cave</a> in Ranis, Germany, one of several sites across Northwestern Europe where LRJ artifacts have been found.</p><div type="image" title="The opening of Ilsenhöhle cave in Ranis, Germany" height="2848" width="4288" msid="107638697" hostid="261" sizebytes="1477158"></div><p>Besides solving the mystery they sought, the researchers wound up discovering so much more. </p><h2>Mining ancient DNA</h2><p>When they excavated the cave, the researchers uncovered more than just LRJ artifacts — they came upon tiny bone fragments, too. </p><p>Most of the bones were too small to identify what animal they came from based on looks, alone. </p><p>But thanks to a revelatory new analysis called zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry, or ZooMS, the researchers were able to determine that 13 of the roughly 2,000<strong> </strong>bone fragments they analyzed belonged to early humans. </p><div type="image" title="A scientist loads a specimen into a isotope ratio mass spectrometer." height="1999" width="2999" msid="107638699" hostid="261" sizebytes="271266"></div><p>The next step was determining which species of ancient human they were from. If the team could figure that out, then it would likely point them to who made the LRJ artifacts in the cave, thus solving the mystery, Hublin said.</p><p>To that end, they <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/museum-traces-skull-pillaged-german-colonizers-back-descendant-africa-tanzania-2023-9">extracted DNA</a>, which confirmed the bones belong to Homo sapiens, providing strong evidence that they were responsible for the LRJ artifacts. “Voila!” Hublin said triumphantly.</p><p>But they weren’t done, yet. </p><div type="image" title="A scientist uses a pipetted from behind a glass shield." height="1643" width="3834" msid="107638702" hostid="261" sizebytes="101272"></div><p>The team also used <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-sands-human-footprints-ancient-dated-new-evidence-2023-10">radiocarbon dating</a> to date the bones, and were surprised by what they discovered.  </p><p>According to their data, Homo sapiens were present in Ranis 47,500 years ago — thousands of years earlier than previously thought.</p><h2>Unlikely neighbors</h2><p>Until this discovery, archaeologists believed Homo sapiens did not arrive in Western Europe until 42,000 years ago, contributing to the extinction of Neanderthals. </p><div type="image" title="Archaeological dig shaft" height="3024" width="4032" msid="107638704" hostid="261" sizebytes="1051412"></div><p>A growing library of evidence has been pushing this timeline back more and more. Hublin and the team's discoveries are the latest series of studies adding to the mounting pile.</p><p>The research was published in three papers in the peer-reviewed journals <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=ceaa0e7743ba048950e781ae0e3844e825af8f782cdc13dfa6dbbc0655d789db&amp;postID=65c66cac236d0f5affdf1a73&amp;postSlug=homo-sapien-neanderthal-bones-german-cave-early-human-history-timeline-2024-2&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41586-023-06923-7%3Futm_medium%3Daffiliate%26utm_source%3Dcommission_junction%26utm_campaign%3DCONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PHSS_ALWYS_DEEPLINK%26utm_content%3Dtextlink%26utm_term%3DPID100052172%26CJEVENT%3D08b9c570c11a11ee818e00a50a82b832"><u>Nature</u></a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=6a079e96b2f06555cf8b563113f79ea5c48cbb37cabb314245b0d32aea5dedb8&amp;postID=65c66cac236d0f5affdf1a73&amp;postSlug=homo-sapien-neanderthal-bones-german-cave-early-human-history-timeline-2024-2&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41559-023-02318-z%3Futm_medium%3Daffiliate%26utm_source%3Dcommission_junction%26utm_campaign%3DCONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PHSS_ALWYS_DEEPLINK%26utm_content%3Dtextlink%26utm_term%3DPID100052172%26CJEVENT%3Dcffd3067c11c11ee80fd00970a82b821"><u>Nature Ecology and Evolution</u></a> and paints a very different picture of history.</p><p>It suggests there were small “pioneer” groups of Homo sapiens living in Europe with Neanderthals for thousands of years before the species went extinct.</p><p>Whether these two groups ever interacted during that time remains unclear. </p><p>“It’s not at all the picture we had years ago of this wave of Homo sapiens moving into Europe and replacing the Neanderthals,”  said Hublin. “What we see now is that it was not a wave, it was several wavelets,”</p><p>Moreover, the research suggests these early Homo sapien “pioneers” were more hardcore than we’ve given them credit for.</p><h2>Hardcore humans</h2><p>Previous research asserted that Homo sapiens were only able to enter Europe during warmer time periods because they were adapted to the warm climate of Africa, where they originated from. </p><p>But the specimens and artifacts found at Ranis suggest they actually entered directly through the chilly Northwest, and that this region was much colder than previously thought.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tooth-enamel-suggests-great-white-sharks-megalodons-competed-for-food-2022-5">Analysis of animal teeth</a> collected at the site revealed the climate was 7 to 15 degrees Celsius colder than it is today, similar to that of northern Scandinavia or parts of Siberia, said Hublin.</p><p>Additionally, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/25-mesolithic-pits-found-in-bedfordshire-england-stun-archaeologists-2023-7">analysis of animal remains</a> revealed that mammals adapted to extreme cold were present at Ranis, including wooly mammoths, reindeer, and wolverines.</p><div type="image" title="On the left: animals bones against a black background. On the right: zooarchaeologist Geoff Smith examines one of these bones with a magnifying glass." height="2250" width="4000" msid="107638706" hostid="261" sizebytes="372572"></div><p>Questions remain about how warm-weather-adapted Homo sapiens survived such a dramatic transition. But they likely made warm clothing out of furs from these animals, explains study co-author Geoff Smith, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Kent. </p><h2>Rewriting prehistory</h2><p>Together, these findings paint a picture of human prehistory that is very different from the one we had before. But there are still questions to be answered.</p><p>The researchers have no plans to excavate Ranis further, and the cave has been closed off for safety reasons. But they will continue to study the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prehistoric-native-american-artifacts-found-in-mississippi-alligator-stomach-2021-9">specimens and artifacts</a> from this last dig to dive deeper into interactions between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals during this time.</p><p>“I think we have more to discover,” Hublin said. “What’s ahead of us is understanding what was going on among the late Neanderthals. To what extent have they been penetrated by these newcomers? What <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-humans-interbreed-with-mysterious-population-2020-2">kind of interactions</a> do they have with them? But I think it’s a great step to have resolved the LRJ story.”</p>

Human bones unearthed from a German cave have altered the timeline of ancient human history

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists revived a 48,500-year-old 'zombie' virus from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alaska-lakes-belching-damaging-methane-after-ice-melt-nasa-expert-2022-9">permafrost</a> and found it was still infectious.</li><li>The virus was tested on amoebae but could indicate more dangerous viruses are lurking in permafrost.</li></ul><p>From a horror movie plot to real life: Scientists have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animal-revived-after-24000-years-in-ice-could-reproduce-2021-6">revived</a> ancient "zombie" viruses from permafrost and discovered they could still infect living single-celled amoebae. The chances of these viruses infecting animals or humans are unclear, but the researchers say permafrost viruses should be considered a public health threat. </p><p>Permafrost is a layer of soil that remains completely frozen year-round — at least it used to, before human activities started <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/arctic-regions-changing-to-rainfall-instead-of-snow-2022-12">raising global temperatures</a>. It covers 15% of land in the Northern Hemisphere.</p><p>Because of climate change, though, permafrost is thawing rapidly, unearthing a host of ancient relics from viruses and bacteria to wooly mammoths and an impeccably <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-cave-bear-carcass-siberia-permafrost-intact-organs-nose-2020-9">preserved cave bear</a>.</p><div type="image" title="ice age bears siberia" height="721" width="960" msid="98526515" hostid="261" sizebytes="44730"></div><p>According to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/world/permafrost-virus-risk-climate-scn/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN</a>, French professor Jean-Michel Claverie found strains of the 48,000-year-old frozen virus from a few permafrost sites in Siberia. The oldest strain, which dated back 48,500 years, came from a sample of soil from an underground lake, while the youngest samples were 27,000 years old. One of the young samples was discovered in the carcass of a wooly mammoth.</p><p>Some scientists fear that as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/beavers-invade-alaska-arctic-tundra-photos-satellite-images-damage-2023-1">climate change warms the Arctic</a>, thawing permafrost could release ancient viruses that haven't been in contact with living things for thousands of years. As such, plants, animals, and humans might have no immunity to them.</p><p>"You must remember our immune defense has been developed in close contact with microbiological surroundings," Birgitta Evengård, professor emerita at Umea University's Department of Clinical Microbiology in Sweden, told CNN.</p><p>"If there is a virus hidden in the permafrost that we have not been in contact with for thousands of years, it might be that our immune defense is not sufficient," she added. "It is correct to have respect for the situation and be proactive and not just reactive. And the way to fight fear is to have knowledge."</p><h2>How 'zombie' viruses could infect hosts once they emerge</h2><p>This isn't the first time Claverie has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-giant-viruses-waking-up-ice-2017-5?r=US&amp;IR=T">revived ancient viruses</a>, or "zombie viruses" as he calls them. He's been publishing research on this topic since 2014 and says that beyond his work, very few researchers are taking these viruses seriously.</p><p>"This wrongly suggests that such occurrences are rare and that 'zombie viruses' are not a public health threat," Claverie and his colleagues report in their latest paper <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/15/2/564" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> February 18 in the journal Viruses.</p><p>In that study, Claverie and his team were able to revive several new strains of "zombie" viruses and found that each one could still infect cultured amoebas — a feat, Claverie said, that should be regarded as both a scientific curiosity and a concerning public health threat.</p><div type="image" title="gravel road abruptly ends crumbling into running water two feet below in rural setting with a few homes" height="1498" width="1997" msid="98526517" hostid="261" sizebytes="358852"></div><p>"We view these amoeba-infecting viruses as surrogates for all other possible viruses that might be in permafrost," he told CNN. "We see the traces of many, many, many other viruses. So we know they are there. We don't know for sure that they are still alive. But our reasoning is that if the amoeba viruses are still alive, there is no reason why the other viruses will not be still alive, and capable of infecting their own hosts."</p><p>The current research on frozen viruses like Claverie's 'zombie' virus is helping scientists understand more about how these ancient viruses function and whether, or not, they could potentially infect animals or humans.</p><h2>Ancient bacteria like anthrax may already be thawing back to life</h2><p>It's not just viruses. Ancient bacteria, too, could be released and reactivated for the first time in up to two million years as permafrost thaws.</p><p>That's what happened, scientists think, when <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8463397/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">outbreaks</a> of the bacterial infection anthrax appeared in humans and reindeer in Siberia in 2016.</p><p>That may be a "more immediate public health concern," according to Calverie's paper.</p>

Scientists revived a 'zombie' virus frozen for 48,500 years in ice. They learned it could still infect other cells.

<p>Hello,</p><p>Welcome to <keyword id="11894896" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="insider-healthcare" source="Orion">Insider Healthcare</keyword>. I'm Lydia Ramsey Pflanzer, and this week in <keyword id="11897506" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="healthcare" source="Orion">healthcare</keyword> news:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/analysis-upstart-insurers-alignment-bright-and-clover-are-employing-doctors-2021-7"></a>We're reaching <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-needs-covid-19-booster-when-how-debate-got-confusing-2021-9">a critical moment in the debate over COVID-19 booster shots</a>;</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/commure-raised-500-million-valuation-2021-9">We got the scoop that Commure has raised $500 million </a>as digital-health <keyword id="6362513" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="startups" source="Orion">startups</keyword> continue to raise massive rounds;</li><li>Big corporations like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-healthcare-business-shuffles-top-leadership-2021-9">Walmart</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-people-leading-google-biggest-healthcare-projects-bets-2021-9">Google</a> are shaking up their healthcare teams in different ways.  </li></ul><p>If you're new to this newsletter, <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/insider-healthcare">sign up here.</a> Tips, comments? Email me at <a href="mailto:lramsey@insider.com">lramsey@insider.com</a> or tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/lydiaramsey125">@lydiaramsey125</a>. Let's get to it...</p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-needs-covid-19-booster-when-how-debate-got-confusing-2021-9"></a></h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-needs-covid-19-booster-when-how-debate-got-confusing-2021-9">Vaccine boosters are facing a critical test</a></h3><p>It's a big week in the conversation around <keyword id="11893994" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19" source="Orion">COVID-19</keyword> booster shots. </p><p>The Food and Drug Administration's expert panel is meeting today to evaluate the evidence around Pfizer's <keyword id="11896085" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="booster-shot" source="Orion">booster shot</keyword>. The panel will vote on whether to recommend the booster.</p><p>On Wednesday, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fda-pfizer-covid-19-booster-shot-data-panel-review-2021-9">the FDA released documents that gave us our most comprehensive look at the case for booster shots,</a> including what <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pfizer-covid-booster-shot-side-effects-most-common-2021-9">side effects to expect with a third dose</a>. </p><p>In the documents released that day, the FDA avoided taking a firm stance on boosters, and noted that Pfizer didn't evaluate how effective the boosters are. </p><p>The evidence around booster shots keeps unfolding in real time. Later on Wednesday, the New England Journal of Medicine published findings from an observational study of boosters in use in Israel. The results <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-study-covid-19-booster-vaccine-lowers-risk-severe-illness-2021-9">suggested older adults were far less likely to develop severe COVID-19 after a booster shot</a>.</p><p>We'll be tuning in this week and next as the Biden administration's September 20 deadline for booster shots approaches, and as officials at the FDA and the CDC make their considerations.</p><p>But as Andrew Dunn writes, it sounds as if boosters are coming our way no matter what. </p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-needs-covid-19-booster-when-how-debate-got-confusing-2021-9">Read on&gt;&gt; </a></h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-needs-covid-19-booster-when-how-debate-got-confusing-2021-9">The COVID-19 booster debate is a mess. Here's why we'll probably get extra shots anyway.</a></h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/see-womens-health-startup-tia-series-b-pitch-deck-2021-9"><div type="image" title="Tia cofounders Felicity Yost and Carolyn Witte stand in front of a wall that says &quot;Finally. Care for the whole you.&quot; A plant is in the foreground." height="3724" width="4966" msid="86294805" hostid="261"></div></a></h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/see-womens-health-startup-tia-series-b-pitch-deck-2021-9">Startups are raising hundreds of millions</a></h3><p>After what felt like a quieter summer, startups are back to raising money hand over fist.</p><p>Blake Dodge on Thursday broke the news <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/commure-raised-500-million-valuation-2021-9">that digital health startup Commure has raised $500 million and now has a a $3.5 billion valuation as it looks to unlock healthcare data.</a></p><p>Meanwhile, George Church has cofounded a startup looking to bring back the wooly mammoth. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/george-church-startup-colossal-bring-back-woolly-mammoth-crispr-2021-9">The startup, Colossal, has raised $15 million.</a></p><p>And Megan Hernbroth got a look at the presentation that women's healthcare startup <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/see-womens-health-startup-tia-series-b-pitch-deck-2021-9">Tia</a> used to raise $100 million in its latest round.</p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/see-womens-health-startup-tia-series-b-pitch-deck-2021-9">Check it out&gt;&gt;</a></h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/see-womens-health-startup-tia-series-b-pitch-deck-2021-9">See the 30-slide presentation a women's healthcare startup used to raise $100 million one year after losing all its revenue 'overnight' because of COVID-19</a></h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-people-leading-google-biggest-healthcare-projects-bets-2021-9"><div type="image" title="headshots of Shwetak Patel, Aashima Gupta, James Park, and Karen DeSalvo on top of a light blue and pink gradient background with subtle google logos tiled over it" height="1134" width="1512" msid="86294806" hostid="261"></div></a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-people-leading-google-biggest-healthcare-projects-bets-2021-9">We're keeping tabs on leadership changes within corporations' health bets</a></h3><p>This week, we chronicled the leadership changes inside two big companies' health bets.</p><p>First, Shelby Livingston had the scoop that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-healthcare-business-shuffles-top-leadership-2021-9">Walmart's healthcare team is shaking up its leadership amid a slow rollout of health clinics</a>. Two top leaders are switching to other roles.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-healthcare-business-shuffles-top-leadership-2021-9">Reaad the full story here&gt;&gt;</a></strong></p><p>Then, Blake, Hugh Langley, and Jade Khatib teamed up to pull together a list of the healthcare leaders still with Google <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-health-shutting-down-david-feinberg-leaves-2021-8">in the wake of the tech giant dismantling its health group.</a></p><p>After Google Health's chief, Dr. David Feinberg, left for a role as Cerner's CEO, here's who's still in charge of some of Google's key health projects. </p><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-people-leading-google-biggest-healthcare-projects-bets-2021-9">Get the full list&gt;&gt;</a></h3><h3><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-people-leading-google-biggest-healthcare-projects-bets-2021-9">Meet the 20 people leading Google's most promising health bets as the company overhauls its plan to take on healthcare</a></h3><p><strong>More stories that kept us busy this week:</strong></p><ul><li>We took a closer look at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-biotech-surge-history-implications-and-future-2021-9">how China quietly grew into a biotech powerhouse that will shape the future of the drug industry</a>.</li><li>Megan Hernbroth <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oura-smart-ring-review-why-wont-solve-back-to-work-2021-9">reviewed the Oura smart ring.</a> (What do you guys think of product reviews? Should we review more products/services? It's been a while!) </li><li>Andrew wrote about the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/future-of-healthcare-mrna-uses-beyond-covid-19-vaccines-2021-9">potential for mRNA beyond vaccines</a>. </li><li>Shelby found that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unitedhealthcare-is-underpaying-for-pediatric-covid-19-vaccines-doctors-say-2021-9">health-insurance giant UnitedHealthcare is paying doctors less than their costs to give COVID-19 vaccines to kids</a>.</li><li>Allison reports that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amylyx-to-file-for-fda-approval-of-als-drug-2021-9">Amylyx, the company helmed by two of biotech's youngest execs, are pressing the FDA to approve their promising drug for a fatal brain disease</a>.</li></ul><p>- Lydia</p>

We're reaching a critical moment in the debate over COVID-19 booster shots

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A photo of a cold-looking <keyword id="6656369" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bernie-Sanders">Bernie Sanders</keyword> swiftly became a meme after the <keyword id="6363817" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Inauguration">inauguration</keyword>.</li><li>A website allows users to place the photo anywhere in the world using Google Maps. </li><li>The internet quickly sent Sanders on a global tour from the Eiffel Tower to Trump Tower. </li></ul><p>A photo of <a href="https://www.insider.com/bernie-sanders-photo-sitting-inauguration-best-nyc-meme-2021-1">Sen. Bernie Sanders</a> at President <keyword id="99719" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Joe-Biden">Joe Biden</keyword>'s inauguration immediately caught the attention of the internet on Wednesday, and a <a href="https://bernie-sits.herokuapp.com/">website</a> now allows users to place the photo anywhere in the world.</p><p>The website, created by Nick Sawhney, a master's student at NYU studying computer science, asks for a zipcode or address and then puts Sanders in that neighborhood using Google Maps. </p><p>People quickly sent Sanders on a global tour everywhere from the Eiffel Tower to the streets of Dublin and their own front doors. One Twitter user sent Sanders to Ireland's Great Blasket Island. </p><p>Another sent Sanders to a beach in San Francisco's Bay Area. </p><p>This Twitter user found out the coordinates for what looks like a snow cave with a wooly mammoth inside. </p><p>People were also quick to stick the sitting Sanders at popular Donald Trump-related locations, including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-what-a-post-election-trump-tower-might-look-like-2020-11">Trump Tower</a> and the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/four-seasons-total-landscaping-joins-the-philadelphia-tourist-trail-2020-12">Four Seasons Total Landscaping</a> in Philadelphia. </p><p>Others enthusiastically sent Sanders to their front lawns. </p><p>Sanders looks particularly unimpressed by the Eiffel Tower in this picture. </p><p>Sawhney, 22, told Insider he came up with the idea for the site after exchanging Sanders <keyword id="1605152" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Memes">memes</keyword> with his friends in a group chat after President Joe Biden's inauguration. </p><p>"My friends and I were just sending silly memes to each other that we were making and sending to our group chat of like, 'Oh, look ay Bernie Sanders on the F train, Bernie Sanders in front of the library, our old school,' that kind of stuff," Sawhney said. "I asked my friend for one of the little cutouts he was making of Bernie on his phone and I was just like, 'Yeah, this probably could be a website pretty easily.'"</p><p>Sawhney told Insider he's "overwhelmed" with the response to his site but pleased that so many people are finding enjoyment from it. Because of the increased volume in traffic, Sawhney said he stayed up all night improving the site's server and troubleshooting bugs to make sure it ran smoothly.</p><p>He's also had to deal with the cost. Anytime someone enters a location into the search bar, Sawhney is charged for the resulting image. As of Thursday morning, he'd amassed a bill just short of $1,400. But after having his link featured in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/politics/bernie-sanders-meme.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytimesimes">New York Times</a> article, Sawhney said he awoke to donations of around $2,600.</p><p>He said he will keep the site up as long as the donations allow him to, which he hopes will be a long time.</p><p>"If there's something to go <keyword id="54320" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Viral">viral</keyword> for, I feel like something silly like this is probably the best way," he said.</p>

Someone created a website that lets you place the Bernie Sanders inauguration meme anywhere in the world

<p>Whales are the largest animals to ever exist on this Earth, outweighing even the dinosaurs. These titans roam the oceans in search of food, but that wasn't always the case. Millions of years ago they used to be land dwellers. Here is how whales ended up becoming the biggest of them all.  <span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Following is a transcript of the video.</span></span></p><p>Whales are the biggest animals of all time. Heavier than elephants, wooly mammoths, and even dinosaurs!</p><p>But they weren't always the titans of the sea. Let's rewind the clock around 50 million years. No, you won't find any whales here. You have to go ashore. Meet Pakicetus. The very first whale.</p><p>Life on Earth spent millions of years clawing its way out of the oceans. But whales took all that effort and threw it out the window. From 50 to 40 million years ago they traded in their four legs for flippers. In fact, some whales today still have leftover bones of hind legs!</p><p>Once submerged, their weight under gravity no longer mattered so they could theoretically grow to enormous proportions. And they did. Today, a blue whale is 10 THOUSAND times more massive than the Pakicetus was.</p><p>But this transformation wasn't as gradual as you might think. In fact, over the next 37 million years or so whales grew increasingly diverse but their size remained small. And were only 18 feet long. Making them easy prey for predators, like giant sharks.</p><p>It wasn't until around 3 million years ago that an ice age tipped the scales in the whales' favor. Ocean temperatures and currents shifted sparking concentrated swarms of plankton and plankton-seeking krill. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet for the baleen whales, who grew larger as a result. And the larger they became, the farther they could travel in search of more food to grow even more. You can probably see where this is going.</p><p>3 million years later, humpbacks, for example, have one of the longest migrations of any mammal on Earth, traveling over 5,000 miles each year. As a result, modern whales are the largest they've ever been in history.</p><p>Take the biggest of the bunch the blue whale. It weighs more than a Boeing 757. Has a belly button the size of a plate. And its network of blood vessels, if you laid them out in a line, could stretch from Pluto to the sun and back over two and a half times!</p><p>In fact, the largest blue whales are so huge that scientists think they may have hit a physical limit. When they open their wide mouths to feed they engulf enough water to fill a large living room. So it can take as long as 10 seconds to close them again.</p><p>Scientists estimate once a whale is 110 feet long it can't close its mouth fast enough before prey escapes. So it's possible we're living amongst the largest animal that will ever exist. Lucky for us, they mostly just eat krill.</p><p>This was made in large part thanks to Nick Pyenson and the information in his new book, "Spying on Whales."</p>

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