Bodies Keep Shrinking on This Island, and Scientists Aren’t Sure Why

Posted on August 2, 2018May 25, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, August 2, 2018

In 2003, researchers digging in a mountain cave on the Indonesian island of Flores discovered astonishing fossils of a tiny, humanlike individual with a small, chimp-sized brain. They called the species Homo floresiensis.

These relatives of modern humans stood just over three feet tall. Several villages in the area, scientists noted, are inhabited by people whose average height is 4 feet 9 inches.

Was this the result of interbreeding long ago between taller modern humans and shorter Homo floresiensis? Fifteen years after the bones’ discovery, a study of the DNA of living people on Flores has delivered a verdict.

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Was a Tiny Mummy in the Atacama an Alien? No, but the Real Story Is Almost as Strange

Posted on March 22, 2018May 25, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, March 22, 2018

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Nearly two decades ago, the rumors began: In the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, someone had discovered a tiny mummified alien.

An amateur collector exploring a ghost town was said to have come across a white cloth in a leather pouch. Unwrapping it, he found a six-inch-long skeleton.

Despite its size, the skeleton was remarkably complete. It even had hardened teeth. And yet there were striking anomalies: it had 10 ribs instead of the usual 12, giant eye sockets and a long skull that ended in a point.

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Neanderthals, the World’s First Misunderstood Artists

Posted on February 22, 2018May 25, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, February 22, 2018

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It’s long been an insult to be called a Neanderthal. But the more these elusive, vanished people have been studied, the more respect they’ve gained among scientists.

On Thursday, a team of researchers offered compelling evidence that Neanderthals bore one of the chief hallmarks of mental sophistication: they could paint cave art. That talent suggests that Neanderthals could think in symbols and may have achieved other milestones not preserved in the fossil record.

“When you have symbols, then you have language,” said João Zilhão, an archaeologist at the University of Barcelona and co-author of the new study.

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‘Cheddar Man,’ Britain’s Oldest Skeleton, Had Dark Skin, DNA Shows

Posted on February 7, 2018May 28, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, February 7, 2018

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LONDON — He had dark skin, brown curly hair and blue eyes, DNA tests suggest, upending a common assumption that Britain’s indigenous populations were all pale skinned with fair features.

He is “Cheddar Man,” Britain’s oldest complete skeleton, which was discovered in 1903 in Gough’s Cave near the village of Cheddar in Somerset, in southwest England. He lived about 10,000 years ago in the Mesolithic period, the middle part of the Stone Age.

Scientists have now reconstructed his features, demonstrating that he was part of a population of ancient Western Europeans that, scientists have shown in recent years, had dark skin.

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In the Arctic, More Rain May Mean Fewer Musk Oxen

Posted on January 18, 2018May 25, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, January 18, 2018

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It’s hard to miss a musk ox: It looks like a buffalo decked out in a hairy fur coat. And yet this easy-to-spot giant, which lives on tundras from Siberia to Greenland, is still surprisingly mysterious.

“Here is the largest land mammal of the polar zones, but we hardly know anything about musk oxen,” said Joel Berger, a wildlife biologist at Colorado State University and a senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Dr. Berger has studied musk oxen in Alaska for nearly a decade, and on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, he and his colleagues reported a disturbing finding: Musk oxen are unexpectedly vulnerable to rapid climate change in the Arctic.

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