Cave excavations shed light on the disappearance of Neanderthals

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Some chapters of human history are more worth revisiting than others.

The Battle of Waterloo ended a 23-year war, but thousands were killed on June 18, 1815, when allied armies led by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and his forces south of Brussels.

Paintings, books, and eyewitness accounts have preserved details of the conflict for more than two centuries. Until recently, only two complete skeletons from the battle had been found, leaving gaps in the grim story of the horrors that took place during and after the clash.

Now, archaeologists and veterans have found the remains of amputated limbs and horses at the site, helping tell the story of what happened after the battle.

But other chapters, such as those describing the loss of our ancient ancestors, are harder to recover over time. And the chance discovery of bones in a cave has revealed clues to a much older, tragic mystery.

Five teeth discovered in a rock shelter in France’s Rhone Valley in 2015 may explain why Neanderthals disappeared from the face of the Earth 40,000 years ago.

The once-in-a-lifetime discovery, named Thorin after a character in the movie “The Hobbit,” has puzzled researchers for nearly a decade. While genetics suggested the Neanderthal was 105,000 years old, archaeological context suggests he lived 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

New research has found that Thorin belonged to a Neanderthal lineage that was isolated from other groups that lived unexpectedly close to him for 50,000 years, making his DNA appear older than it is.

This isolation put Neanderthals at an evolutionary disadvantage and could have led to their extinction.

When scientists observed sleeping fish in the dark devouring young Japanese sea snakes, some of the snakes were able to escape through the predator’s gills within minutes.

To get a look inside, the researchers used an X-ray video system and observed sea snakes emerging from the fish’s stomach.

“Before the first X-ray images were taken, we never imagined that sea snakes could escape from the stomach of a predatory fish,” said Yuha Hasegawa, an assistant professor at Nagasaki University in Japan.

“Watching the sea snakes desperately escape from the predator’s stomach to the gills was truly amazing for us.”

Colorful aurora over New Zealand’s mountains, the shimmering Dolphin Head Nebula, and the sunlit shadows of the International Space Station are some of the winning images in this year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

The overall winner of the competition was photographer Ryan Imperio for his image taken during the annular solar eclipse in October 2023.

The image captures the development of Baily’s beads. This phenomenon can be seen for brief moments during an eclipse when sunlight shines through the Moon’s valleys and craters, creating glowing drops of light.

Separately, SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn crew made history this week after successfully completing the first commercial spacewalk and setting other space exploration records ahead of its expected return in the coming days.

The world’s most devastating mass extinction wiped out more than 90% of all life on the planet some 252 million years ago – and now, scientists believe they have discovered a climate phenomenon that played a pivotal role.

Previously, scientists thought that carbon dioxide released by volcanic activity caused sudden global warming, acid rain, and ocean acidification.

But an intense, prolonged El Niño event lasting years and originating in an ancient water mass much larger than today’s Pacific Ocean would have enhanced the effects of volcanic activity.

It is possible that both phenomena together caused the Great Dying, and that catastrophic extinctions began on land before they occurred in the ocean.

Some scholars have long believed that the population of Rapa Nui experienced a devastating decline hundreds of years ago. Also known as Easter Island, the island is known for its hundreds of carved stone statues.

But a new analysis of ancient DNA from 15 former islanders who lived there within the past 400 years tells a different story.

Genetic analyses indicate that the island’s small population actually increased until the 1860s, and that islanders reached the Americas in the 14th century, long before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492.

Meanwhile, the search for the origin of the mysterious central altar stone at Stonehenge has intensified, with researchers ruling out a possible ancient site as the source of the massive stone.

Take a closer look at these new results:

—The physics breakthrough means scientists are closer than ever to creating a nuclear clock that runs so consistently that it wouldn’t lose a single second even if it ran for a billion years.

– Lab-grown cocoa and fermented beans could be used to create the guilt-free chocolate of the future, avoiding high cocoa prices and the harmful effects of cocoa farms.

Rare new fossils have revealed that some species of huge ancient flying reptiles called pterosaurs soared like eagles, while others had a different flight style.

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore believes he and fellow astronaut Sonny Williams could have returned to Earth aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which returned empty last week, “but we simply ran out of time,” he said.

Did you like what you read? Oh, but there’s more. Register here To receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers. Ashley Strickland and Katie HuntThey find wonders in planets outside our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.