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Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 

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Schaeffler, a billion-dollar German company which supplies bearings and other components to the automotive and aerospace industries, has signed an agreement to acquire all of the shares of Melior Motion.

The acquisition of this supplier of precision gearboxes for robotics and other applications in automation expands the robotics portfolio of the Schaeffler Group’s industrial division.

As automation of simple, repetitive tasks as well as complex mounting and manufacturing processes is progressing rapidly, Schaeffler’s industrial division is expanding its position as a supplier for robotics components and systems. [Read more…] about Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 

Ancient DNA reveals the world’s oldest family tree

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Analysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family.

By analysing DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals entombed at Hazleton North long cairn in the Cotswolds-Severn region, the research team was able to detect that 27 of them were close biological relatives.

The group lived approximately 5700 years ago – around 3700-3600 BC – around 100 years after farming had been introduced to Britain. [Read more…] about Ancient DNA reveals the world’s oldest family tree

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    Ancient Islamic tombs cluster like galaxiesSudanese Islamic burial sites are distributed according to large-scale environmental factors and small-scale social factors, creating a galaxy-like distribution pattern, according to a study published July 7, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stefano Costanzo of the University of Naples "L'Orientale" in Italy and colleagues. The Kassala region of eastern…
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Researchers identify record number of ancient elephant bone tools

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Ancient humans could do some impressive things with elephant bones.

In a new study, University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist Paola Villa and her colleagues surveyed tools excavated from a site in Italy where large numbers of elephants had died.

The team discovered that humans at this site roughly 400,000 years ago appropriated those carcasses to produce an unprecedented array of bone tools – some crafted with sophisticated methods that wouldn’t become common for another 100,000 years.

“We see other sites with bone tools at this time,” said Villa, an adjoint curator at the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History. “But there isn’t this variety of well-defined shapes.” [Read more…] about Researchers identify record number of ancient elephant bone tools

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  • Neanderthal ancestry identifies oldest modern human genome
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    Neanderthal ancestry identifies oldest modern human genomeAncient DNA from Neandertals and early modern humans has recently shown that the groups likely interbred somewhere in the Near East after modern humans left Africa some 50,000 years ago. As a result, all people outside Africa carry around 2% to 3% Neandertal DNA. In modern human genomes, those Neandertal…
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Dog coat patterns have ancient origin

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Dogs come in all shapes and sizes, but variations in color patterns provide some of their most distinctive characteristics. A newly released study sheds light on a subset of these patterns, unexpectedly leading to new questions about long-held tenets of dog evolution.

The study, co-authored by Professor Danika Bannasch, the Maxine Adler Endowed Chair in Genetics at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, was published Aug. 12 in Nature Evolution and Ecology. It reveals structural variants that control expression of the agouti signaling protein, or ASIP, gene at two separate locations to produce five distinctive dog color patterns. These different patterns are widespread, occurring in hundreds of dog breeds and hundreds of millions of dogs around the world.

The question of when these changes arose surprised the group of international researchers. [Read more…] about Dog coat patterns have ancient origin

A long day for microbes, and the rise of oxygen on Earth

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Virtually all oxygen on Earth was and is produced by photosynthesis, which was invented by tiny organisms, the cyanobacteria, when our planet was still a rather uninhabitable place.

Cyanobacteria evolved more than 2.4 billion years ago, but Earth only slowly transformed to the oxygen-rich planet we know today.

“We do not fully understand why it took so long and what factors controlled Earth’s oxygenation,“ said geomicrobiologist Judith Klatt. “But when studying mats of cyanobacteria in the Middle Island Sinkhole in Lake Huron in Michigan, which live under conditions resembling early Earth, I had an idea.” [Read more…] about A long day for microbes, and the rise of oxygen on Earth

Early Earth was bombarded by series of city-sized asteroids

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Scientists know that the Earth was bombarded by huge impactors in distant time, but a new analysis suggest that the number of these impacts may have been x10 higher than previously thought.

This translates into a barrage of collisions, similar in scale to that of the asteroid strike which wiped out the dinosaurs, on average every 15 million years between 2.5 and 3.5 billion years ago. Some of these individual impacts may have been much bigger, possibly ranging from city-sized to small province sized.

Researchers are also considering what effect the impacts may have had on the Earth’s evolving near-surface chemistry. This work is presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference. [Read more…] about Early Earth was bombarded by series of city-sized asteroids

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    Dinosaurs were in decline before the end, according to new studyThe death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was caused by the impact of a huge asteroid on the Earth. However, palaeontologists have continued to debate whether they were already in decline or not before the impact. In a new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, an international…
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    Water on ancient MarsThere's a long-standing question in planetary science about the origin of water on Earth, Mars and other large bodies such as the moon. One hypothesis says that it came from asteroids and comets post-formation. But some planetary researchers think that water might just be one of many substances that occur…
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How long can a person live? The 21st century may see a record-breaker

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The number of people who live past the age of 100 has been on the rise for decades, up to nearly half a million people worldwide.

There are, however, far fewer “supercentenarians,” people who live to age 110 or even longer. The oldest living person, Jeanne Calment of France, was 122 when she died in 1997; currently, the world’s oldest person is 118-year-old Kane Tanaka of Japan.

Such extreme longevity, according to new research by the University of Washington, likely will continue to rise slowly by the end of this century, and estimates show that a lifespan of 125 years, or even 130 years, is possible. [Read more…] about How long can a person live? The 21st century may see a record-breaker

Dinosaurs were in decline before the end, according to new study

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The death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was caused by the impact of a huge asteroid on the Earth. However, palaeontologists have continued to debate whether they were already in decline or not before the impact.

In a new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of scientists, which includes the University of Bristol, show that they were already in decline for as much as ten million years before the final death blow.

Lead author, Fabien Condamine, a CNRS researcher from the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier (France), said: “We looked at the six most abundant dinosaur families through the whole of the Cretaceous, spanning from 150 to 66 million years ago, and found that they were all evolving and expanding and clearly being successful. [Read more…] about Dinosaurs were in decline before the end, according to new study

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    Early Earth was bombarded by series of city-sized asteroidsScientists know that the Earth was bombarded by huge impactors in distant time, but a new analysis suggest that the number of these impacts may have been x10 higher than previously thought. This translates into a barrage of collisions, similar in scale to that of the asteroid strike which wiped…
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Five million years of climate change preserved in one place

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Five million years of climate change have been preserved in one place.

Paleo researcher Charlotte Prud’homme, who until recently worked at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and is now a researcher at the Université Lausanne, explains: “The 80-meter-thick sedimentary sequence we found at Charyn Canyon in southeast Kazakhstan provides us with a virtually continuous record of five million years of climate change.

“This is a very rare occurrence on land!” [Read more…] about Five million years of climate change preserved in one place

An unbroken record of climate during the age of dinosaurs

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A scientific drilling project in China has retrieved a continuous history of conditions from Earth’s most recent “greenhouse” period that may offer insights about future climate scenarios.

In the Cretaceous period, 100 million years ago give or take a few tens of millions, Earth was a very different place than today. Flowering plants and trees had only recently evolved to coexist with conifers, ferns, cycads, and other groups, while a diverse array of dinosaurs was the dominant form of megafauna on land.

The global climate in which these plants and animals lived was also very different: warmer, steamier, and virtually devoid of ice. [Read more…] about An unbroken record of climate during the age of dinosaurs

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  • Fossil trees on Peru's Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental change
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    Fossil trees on Peru's Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental changeOn an expedition to the Central Andean Plateau, researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and colleagues were astounded to find a huge fossil-tree buried in the cold, grassy plain. The plant fossil record from this high-altitude site in southern Peru contains dramatic reminders that the environment in the…
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