DDTea

First of a line or last of a dynasty? Parabos tigneresi and the evolution of eurasian bovinae in the early pliocene

We further explore the possible relationships of Parabos and Alephis within Bovinae, finding that they could either be the earliest European representatives of stem Bovini or among the last surviving members of the Miocene Tragoportacini radiation.

Additionally, the exceptionally preserved skeletons of P. tigneresi provide paleoecological evidence of adaptation to humid, vegetated environments, confirming reconstruction of the paleoenvironment of the Camp dels Ninots maar lake, while also showing traits associated with mixed to open habitats, suggesting potentially broad habitat preferences for P. tigneresi.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0340256&utm_source=pr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=plos006

Dogs respond to human tone without words, hinting at communication older than language

Humans can communicate various instructions to dogs without using actual words—simply by modulating the tone of their voice, a new study from ELTE University's Department of Ethology shows.

By repeating the nonsense syllable 'bü' in different intonations, humans successfully signaled "Yes," "No," "Here," and "There" and, remarkably, dogs responded correctly, despite receiving no prior training.

The findings reveal ancient acoustic codes, interpretable across species, that predate language itself.

https://phys.org/news/2026-06-dogs-human-tone-words-hinting.html

Why do male chimpanzees throw rocks at the same trees for more than a decade? We travelled to remote Guinea-Bissau to find out

Previous research suggests that accumulative stone throwing is likely communicative or may even have a symbolic purpose, with sites marking important locations within the chimpanzees’ territory.

However, we still don’t know what accumulative stone throwing sites might mean to the chimpanzees themselves nor why they do it.

While some primates use stone tools to access food, for instance to crack open nuts, accumulative stone throwing is a rare example of stone tool use in a social context.

It has been observed in only four chimpanzee groups in West Africa to date.

https://theconversation.com/why-do-male-chimpanzees-throw-rocks-at-the-same-trees-for-more-than-a-decade-we-travelled-to-remote-guinea-bissau-to-find-out-279187

How to assemble IKEA furniture - Swedish style

Follow these elaborate instructions to build your very own chair from IKEA, or whatever place for that matter!
Just remember to enter a state of uncontrollable rage, and you'll be just fine! It's good for you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39D-CzzzOQQ

The Gin and Tonic Is a Cocktail With a Storied History. Don't Overlook Scotland's Connection to the Classic

By the 18th century, Edinburgh had emerged not only as a major trading hub, but also as one of Europe’s intellectual capitals during the Scottish Enlightenment. The city’s universities attracted students from across Britain and continental Europe, and physicians and scientists in Scotland were making discoveries that would later impact mixology.

Two Edinburgh doctors in particular—George Cleghorn and James Lind—helped shape medical understandings of ingredients now synonymous with the gin and tonic. “George Cleghorn was the first to scientifically prove the medicinal benefits of cinchona bark [the source of quinine] in preventing malaria,” Kingscott says, “while Lind conducted the first-ever medical trial to prove that citrus fruit could be used to combat scurvy.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/gin-and-tonic-is-a-cocktail-with-a-storied-history-dont-overlook-scotlands-connection-to-the-classic-180988875/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Life in the ancient Arctic: tiny teeth of newly discovered species suggest it was a cradle of mammalian evolution

The Arctic is not an empty landscape now, and nor was it in the deep past. It was a distinctive and demanding biome, with months of winter darkness, freezing temperatures and strong seasonality.

Rivers crossed this landscape. Plants grew through the long light of summer. Dinosaurs lived and thrived there, and evidence suggests they reared their young in the Arctic. There was also a diversity of birds, fish and mammals: tenacious denizens of the polar dark.

https://theconversation.com/life-in-the-ancient-arctic-tiny-teeth-of-newly-discovered-species-suggest-it-was-a-cradle-of-mammalian-evolution-284140?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=The+Conversation+UK&utm_campaign=publer

Cutting a photon in two creates an infinite swarm of particles

Infinite superposition

Rather than producing a photon on one side and a vacuum on the other, the shutter generates something far more strange and complex: a superposition of states containing infinitely many photons simultaneously.

This happens because, in quantum mechanics, empty space isn't truly empty—in reality, it seethes with fluctuations in the electromagnetic field. By rapidly switching the shutter, the team found that these fluctuations are disturbed—and in doing so, they spontaneously create new photons.

Crucially though, if you were to look only at the region immediately either side of where the shutter operated, the state would appear deceptively normal: indistinguishable from a single photon on one side, and a simple vacuum on the other.

https://phys.org/news/2026-06-photon-infinite-swarm-particles.html

Rediscovered Late Upper Palaeolithic Painted Imagery at Bacon Hole, Gower Peninsula, South Wales

Recent and ongoing fieldwork at Bacon Hole, located on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales, is being conducted by an international team of researchers. This work includes pigment analysis and a chronometric dating programme focused on a vertical painted surface within a side chamber.

The painted surface is considered a product of human agency, specifically applied haematite.

Originally identified in 1912 by Professor William Sollas and Henri Breuil as Palaeolithic cave art, the painted panel was dismissed by 1928. In September 2022, the painted surface, along with other potential paintings, was rediscovered.

In April 2023, the First Art team sampled the pigments for organic residues, while a team from the University of Southampton collected samples from several calcite flows overlying the painted surface for uranium–thorium dating.

As a scientific control for the initial dating programme, the First Art team, in collaboration with scientists from Nanjing Normal University, conducted a second round of sample collecting and analysis in May 2024.

This paper presents a discussion of the history and archaeological significance of the site, along with the results of the pigment and dating analysis carried out in April 2023 and May 2024.

https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/9/3/43

A Kohl Bottle from Tanner Row?

At that time, the population of York included many people from distant places. Claudius Hieronymianus, the commanding officer of the legion in the AD 190s who dedicated a temple to Serapis, has an eastern name. There were also the legionary potters of the early third century making north African style pottery. They would have been of Tunisian extraction. Then there was the court with the Emperor Septimius Severus present between AD 209-211. An Egyptian in York then would not have been exceptional.

In Egypt both men and women wore kohl eyeliner. The rubbish dumps outside forts there often have many discarded bottles, showing that soldiers did as well. The York example may well suggest that, on its streets at that time, you might have encountered a soldier with kohl-rimmed eyes like this early third century man from Hawara (fig. 3).

https://research.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/a-kohl-bottle-from-tanner-row/

A True Bug with a True but Unique Chela in 100 Million-Year-Old Amber

In insects, grasping legs are usually like jackknives, with one part moving back against another part.

Only few insects have legs working like a forceps (called chelate appendages); such legs occur in some species of thrips (Thysanoptera), solitary wasps (Hymenoptera), and true bugs (Heteroptera). In this study, we present a new insect preserved in amber from Kachin, Myanmar (ca. 100 million years old).

This find appears to represent the first fossil insect with a forceps-like leg. It is only the fourth time that such a structure evolved independently in an insect.

We compared the shapes of over 2000 grasping structures. We found out that in the forceps-like leg of the new fossil, the part closer to the body has a shape unknown from any other fossil or modern representative.

The shape is also different in some other newly reported fossils. On the head, the new fossil with the unique forceps-like leg possesses a distinct short beak.

This characteristic, together with some others, allows us to identify it as a true bug, most likely a true water bug (Nepomorpha).

In many other aspects the fossil is not well preserved but, overall, it looks similar to toad bugs (Gelastocoridae), which are terrestrial predators.

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/17/4/431

Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 4: We Owe Dust Our Lives

Without dust, the cloud can't cool. Without cooling, the cloud can't collapse. Without collapse, no stars. Without the shielding, the molecules dissociate. Without the molecules, you don't have the structure that fragments and forms stellar nurseries. Galaxies would still exist, technically, but they'd be unrecognizable. Smooth, hot, diffuse, dim. No spiral arms. No bright young clusters. No us.

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/is-dust-the-best-thing-in-the-universe-part-4-we-owe-dust-our-lives

Evidence for mirror self-recognition in beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas)

Tests of mirror self-recognition (MSR) have provided behavioral evidence of a high level of self-awareness in humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, bottlenose dolphins, Asian elephants, magpies, and to some extent in the cleaner wrasse.

We conducted the standard mirror test with a social group of four beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), one subadult and three adult females, housed together at the New York Aquarium of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

We exposed the whales to a two-way plexiglass mirror and a transparent control surface during baseline and post-mirror sessions and recorded and analyzed their behavioral responses in the three conditions.

Two of the four whales, the subadult and her mother, exhibited a rich suite of self-directed behaviors at the mirror and subsequent mark and control sham-mark tests were conducted with both whales.

The adult female showed mark-directed behavior at the mirror and passed one of the initial mark tests in a series of tests given.

The self-directed behaviors exhibited by both whales and mark directed behavior by the adult female provides evidence for the capacity of MSR in the beluga whale.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0348287

Did modern human carpal morphology evolve from knuckle walking traits?

We analyse the overall carpal morphology of anthropoids, including fossil hominins, using spherical harmonics and use classification methods to characterize fossil hominins within the context of extant taxa.

Results show that hominins share with African apes derived carpal morphology possibly related to knuckle walking.

Furthermore, unique modern human carpal morphology appears to have evolved from these possible knuckle-walking features and in a piecemeal manner, causing some hominin capitates to resemble those of palmigrade monkeys.

Striking variation in biomechanically relevant carpal morphology and retention of potentially ancestral features persists as late as Homo naledi, suggesting that most hominins probably neither knuckle walked nor extensively used stone tools.

These results indicate that the hominin carpus evolved from an African ape-like wrist, with radial-side reorganization related to manipulation occurring only recently.

Although it remains unclear whether the LCA knuckle walked, our results suggest that this is the most likely existing hypothesis.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/293/2071/20260556/481780/Did-modern-human-carpal-morphology-evolve-from

Cows visually discriminate and cross-modally recognise familiar and unfamiliar human faces in videos

These two results show that cows are able to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar individuals and form cross-modal representations of these people.

Based on these results, future research should explore whether cows can adjust their behaviour depending on the person they are interacting with – a capacity that may reflect their agency in human-animal relationships.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0329529&utm_source=pr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=plos006

Drivers and mechanisms of convergent forelimb reduction in non-avian theropod dinosaurs

Here, we provide a novel quantification of forelimb reduction across Theropoda, and create and implement a cranial robusticity scoring system, and analyse this dataset using bivariate and comparative phylogenetic analyses.

Results indicate that forelimb reduction is strongly correlated with cranial robusticity and gigantism. Reduced/vestigial forelimbs evolved in at least five theropod lineages in concert with increased cranial robusticity and gigantism.

Abelisaurids, carcharodontosaurids and tyrannosaurids show the greatest forelimb reduction relative to the skull.

Repeated forelimb reduction across theropods was facilitated by increased cranial robusticity and greater body size that was potentially influenced by an upward trend in prey body size.

These events resulted in a shift from subduing prey using grasping forelimbs to using powerful bites and robust skulls.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/293/2071/20260528/481779/Drivers-and-mechanisms-of-convergent-forelimb

Discovery of stromatolite formation in post-impact hydrothermal lacustrine environments and its implications for early Earth

Here, we demonstrate that stromatolites—the oldest fossil evidence of oxygen-producing microbial life on early Earth—could have developed within impact craters, based on a detailed investigation of stromatolites and lake sediments in the Hapcheon impact crater, Korea.

Our study revealed that the Hapcheon impact event occurred 42,300 ± 1000 years before the present (cal yr BP) from radiocarbon ages of charcoals included in the impact breccias at 100 ~ 140 m depth underground, and stromatolites formed at the lake margin under the post-impact hydrothermal conditions, as indicated by positive Europium anomaly in the stromatolites.

Furthermore, significantly depleted Osmium isotope ratios in the stromatolites support the possible meteoritic influence.

Considering the frequency of asteroid collisions during the early Earth, stromatolite blooms in impact craters could be one of the active oxygen oases that led to the creation of habitable environments on the early Earth.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03206-7

Seabed life triples after bottom trawling ban in Scotland protected area

Europe’s seabeds are the most trawled in the world. Heavy fishing gear has been dragged along the seafloor there since at least the mid-14th century, destroying those ecosystems. Approximately ”86% of the assessed seabed in the Greater North Sea and Celtic Sea” showed “evidence of physical disturbance by bottom-touching fishing gear,” the European Environment Agency previously reported.

In fact, Europe’s seabeds are so extensively destroyed that to find a reference for a healthy seabed ecosystem, researchers turned to historical records. There are no surviving seabeds that meet the old descriptions.

https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/seabed-life-triples-after-bottom-trawling-ban-in-scotland-protected-area/

Enamel proteins from six Homo erectus specimens across China

Here we successfully extracted and analysed ancient enamel proteins from five male and one female Middle Pleistocene H. erectus specimens from approximately 0.4 million years ago, from the Zhoukoudian, Hexian and Sunjiadong sites.

All specimens from all three sites share two amino acid variants. Of these, A253G in AMBN is previously unknown and has not been identified in other human lineages, including H. erectus from Dmanisi (Georgia), Homo antecessor from Atapuerca (Spain), Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans.

The other variant, AMBN(M273V), has previously been identified in Denisovans, and our evidence now indicates it may have been introduced through populations related to these Middle Pleistocene H. erectus.

The regions in the Denisovan genome attributed to super-archaic introgression, some of which later passed to modern humans, are likely to have originated from H. erectus.

Late Middle Pleistocene H. erectus may have coexisted with Denisovans in parts of East Asia, where these interactions are presumed to have occurred.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10478-8

How a Revolutionary Cancer Treatment Could Reset the Immune Systems of Patients With Autoimmune Diseases

Originally designed to target and wipe out cancer by reprogramming the patient’s immune cells, CAR T is now being offered to patients in hundreds of clinical trials for autoimmune conditions like multiple sclerosis, lupus, Graves’ disease, vasculitis and many others.

The hope is that CAR T can duplicate the success it has demonstrated in a range of blood cancers by hunting down and eliminating cells that target the self in autoimmune diseases.

This would essentially reset the body’s defenses to a state like the one that existed before the disease took hold.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-a-revolutionary-cancer-treatment-could-reset-the-immune-systems-of-patients-with-autoimmune-diseases-180988753/

Study reveals one of world’s first cities prospered as wealth-gap shrank

For decades, historians have generally agreed that the progress of small villages as they evolved into cities came at the price of widening inequality. A small group of leaders, Kings and priests, would inevitably seize control of the wealth and the gap between rich and poor would grow.

But a new study at the University of York delves into the archaeology of Mohenjo-daro, the Indus civilisation’s largest city, and shows the opposite was true. By analysing house sizes across the ancient city, researchers found that Mohenjo-daro was not only more equal than its neighbours in Mesopotamia and Greece, but it actually became more egalitarian over time.

https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2026/research/world-first-city-prospered-wealth-gap-shrank/

Evolution of the vertebrate retina by repurposing of a composite ancestral median eye

We suggest that bipolar cells predate the retina and have dual evolutionary origins: Off bipolar cells deriving from a ciliary ‘effector’ lineage and rod-On bipolar cells deriving from a chimeric sensory cell.

This model explains key similarities between the retina and the pineal gland and supports a scenario in which vertebrate vision emerged by integrating and repurposing preexisting circuits.

It reframes the retina not as a de novo innovation, but as a modified and lateralized solution to sensory challenges faced by early chordates.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01676-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982225016768%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Enamel proteins from six Homo erectus specimens across China

Here we successfully extracted and analysed ancient enamel proteins from five male and one female Middle Pleistocene H. erectus specimens from approximately 0.4 million years ago, from the Zhoukoudian, Hexian and Sunjiadong sites.

All specimens from all three sites share two amino acid variants. Of these, A253G in AMBN is previously unknown and has not been identified in other human lineages, including H. erectus from Dmanisi (Georgia), Homo antecessor from Atapuerca (Spain), Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans.

The other variant, AMBN(M273V), has previously been identified in Denisovans, and our evidence now indicates it may have been introduced through populations related to these Middle Pleistocene H. erectus.

The regions in the Denisovan genome attributed to super-archaic introgression, some of which later passed to modern humans, are likely to have originated from H. erectus.

Late Middle Pleistocene H. erectus may have coexisted with Denisovans in parts of East Asia, where these interactions are presumed to have occurred.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10478-8

Meerkat is Watching

The asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk was only about 20 metres across so modest by astronomical standards, but it didn't need to be large to cause chaos.

The shockwave from its atmospheric disintegration shattered windows across an enormous area, and more than 1,600 people were injured.

The energy released was equivalent to roughly 500 kilotons of TNT, that’s around 33 Hiroshima bombs from an object that not a single monitoring system on Earth had spotted in advance.

It was a wake up call that shook the planetary defence community to its core, and directly motivated the development of a new generation of asteroid warning systems.
One of them, it turns out, is named after a small African mammal famous for standing guard.

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/meerkat-is-watching

Human brain changes after first psilocybin use

Psychedelics have robust effects on acute brain function and long-term behavior but whether they also cause enduring functional and anatomical brain changes is largely unknown.

In an exploratory, placebo-controlled, within-subjects, electroencephalography (EEG), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study in 28 healthy, entirely psychedelic-naive participants, anatomical and functional brain changes are detected from one-hour to one-month after a single high-dose (25 mg) of psilocybin.

Increases in cognitive flexibility, psychological insight, and well-being are seen at one-month.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71962-3

Moroccan dinosaur’s fearsome tail spikes evolved much earlier than we thought – new discovery

These fossils show that this ankylosaur was covered in spikes. These spikes were not just part of the outer covering; some were fused directly to its skeleton.

The findings also show that the tail weapons characteristic of ankylosaurs evolved much earlier than scientists had previously believed.

The research also suggests that ankylosaur armour may have served a dual purpose early in the group’s evolutionary history: as a defensive shield and as a means of display.

The tail: defence and display

Spicomellus had a stiffened tail with fused vertebrae. This likely served as a defensive shield against predators. Its body spikes added protection and made it a formidable target.

These features push back the origin of ankylosaur tail weapons by millions of years. This evidence shows that complex defensive adaptations evolved much earlier than previously thought.

The tail and armour may also have functioned in display or social signalling. So, defence and communication may have shaped its evolution.

https://theconversation.com/moroccan-dinosaurs-fearsome-tail-spikes-evolved-much-earlier-than-we-thought-new-discovery-264394

Embryo fossil found in South Africa is world’s oldest proof that mammal ancestors laid eggs

In our new paper we describe, for the first time, the embryo-containing fossilised egg of a 250 million-year-old mammalian ancestor.

It finally shows that therapsids were indeed egg-laying (oviparous). This discovery sheds new light on the reproduction and survival strategy of that group of animals.

https://theconversation.com/embryo-fossil-found-in-south-africa-is-worlds-oldest-proof-that-mammal-ancestors-laid-eggs-277673

A matter of taste: did Neanderthals really like Sapiens women?

When two closely related groups interbreed, the sex chromosomes do not behave like the others. They are often more sensitive to incompatibilities and to natural selection.

Take the case of a Neanderthal father and a Sapiens mother. Their child does indeed receive Neanderthal DNA in many of its chromosomes.

But the father’s X chromosome is not passed on to sons, only to daughters. It therefore circulates less easily from one generation to the next. In addition, in hybridizations between closely related groups, males are often biologically more fragile, with greater problems of survival or fertility.

This is why the sex chromosomes, and the X chromosome in particular, can eliminate DNA from the other group more quickly.

A depletion of Neanderthal DNA on the X chromosome may, therefore, reflect a classic biological phenomenon, not the lingering trace of an erotic choice.

https://theconversation.com/a-matter-of-taste-did-neanderthals-really-like-sapiens-women-279905

The One Arm an Octopus Will Never Risk in a Fight—Its Sex Arm

Better Safe Than Sorry
To test exactly how far males will go to protect this anatomical treasure, Haruki and his colleagues turned to the Japanese pygmy octopus, Octopus parvus. They collected 32 males and 41 females from the wild.

Life in the ocean is perilous, and 78% of the captured octopuses were missing at least one arm due to encounters with predators. However, the location of those missing arms revealed a pattern. Thirteen of the females had lost their right third arm. Among the males, only one individual was missing his hectocotylus.

https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/the-one-arm-an-octopus-will-never-risk-in-a-fight-its-sex-arm/

DNA study uncovers continental origins of Britain’s bronze age population

We then compared the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, which track the male and female lines of descent, respectively. The Y chromosomes in the Belgian remains were all characteristic of hunter-gatherers, but three-quarters of the mitochondrial DNA lineages had come from Neolithic farmers living further south. The implication was clear: farming know-how had been imported into the “waterworld” hunter-gatherer communities by women.

https://theconversation.com/dna-study-uncovers-continental-origins-of-britains-bronze-age-population-276540