PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Ancient tooth enamel proteins reveal hidden diversity in African Paranthropus

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

2025-05-29
(Press-News.org)  

Analysis of ancient proteins preserved in fossilized tooth enamel reveals insights into the elusive nature of Paranthropus robustus, researchers report. The findings, which challenge long-held assumptions about this early human relative, suggest greater diversity within Paranthropus than previously recognized and support the possibility of multiple distinct species within the genus. While advances in ancient DNA (aDNA) sequencing have enabled valuable insights into the evolutionary relationships of Middle to Late Pleistocene hominins, understanding of earlier Pliocene-Pleistocene species, like Paranthropus, remains limited. This is largely because aDNA does not survive well in African hominin fossils older than 20,000 years of age. Paranthropus, which lived between 2.8 and 1 million years ago alongside other early hominins like Australopithecus and Homo, has traditionally been viewed as a single evolutionary group. However, overlapping traits between Paranthropus robustus and Australopithecus africanus have raised questions about their potential evolutionary relationship. Moreover, variation in tooth structure suggests either hidden diversity within P. robustus or the presence of multiple separate species.

 

In lieu of aDNA, Palesa Madupe and colleagues used ancient proteins – which can persist far longer – to investigate variation within this ancient hominin species. Using high-resolution mass spectrometry and paleoproteomics techniques, Madupe et al. analyzed dental enamel proteins from four P. robustus fossils found in South Africa’s Swartkrans cave. These fossils, dated to between 1.8–2.2 million years ago, represent some of the earliest known of this species. Protein sequence analysis revealed molecular-level variation among the P. robustus individuals, including evidence of both male and female specimens – challenging the reliability of tooth-size-based sexing and suggesting that sexual dimorphism alone cannot account for the observed diversity in the fossil record. Notably, one individual appears genetically distinct from the others, which may indicate the presence of a different Paranthropus group or reflect substantial intraspecific variation. According to the authors, these findings align with recent morphological evidence pointing to previously unrecognized taxonomic diversity within the genus, including the proposed species P. capensis.

 

For reporters interested in research integrity issues, study lead author Palesa Madupe notes, “Paleoanthropology has a history of being dominated by scholars from predominantly White, Western institutions. This imbalance reproduces colonial dynamics, where foreign researchers often act as custodians of African sites, specimens (hoarding them), data and narratives, marginalizing local scholars and communities in both practice and recognition. We have worked to recenter knowledge production by including a large and diverse group of Africans right from the conceptualization stage of the research, in both lead and support roles, including reproducing analyses in South Africa (with a long-term goal of moving portions of the workflow to the continent). Our hope is that future research in the discipline will move away from helicopter research and towards more ethical and socially responsive science that centers African knowledge and uplifts the communities who are custodians of our fossil heritage.”

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Developmental and environmental factors early on may contribute to anxiety in adolescence

2025-05-29
In a Perspective, Mark Hanson and Peter Gluckman explore how maternal stress, caregiving quality, and early environmental conditions can shape the development of executive functions and emotional regulation in children, and how these factors contribute to the emergence of anxiety disorders in young people. Mounting evidence reveals a significant rise in anxiety disorders among adolescents ages 12 to 19, especially in developing countries like the United States, which cannot be fully explained by contemporary stressful events like the COVID-19 pandemic. This pattern suggests that broader longer-term societal or developmental factors ...

Quantum visualisation techniques to accelerate the arrival of fault-tolerant quantum computers

2025-05-29
A research study led by Oxford University has developed a powerful new technique for finding the next generation of materials needed for large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing. This could end a decades-long search for inexpensive materials that can host unique quantum particles, ultimately facilitating mass production of quantum computers. The results have been published today (29 May) in the journal Science. Quantum computers could unlock unprecedented computational power far beyond current supercomputers. However, the performance of quantum computers is currently limited, due to interactions with the environment degrading the quantum ...

Listening to electrons talk

2025-05-29
Quantum electrodynamics – a competition area for precision Quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the fundamental theory describing all electromagnetic phenomena including light (photons). At the same time, it is the most precisely tested theory in physics at all. It has been stringently tested in various ways up to 0.1 parts per billion. But it is just the very strength of this theory that drives physicists to test it even more rigorously and to explore its possible limits. Any significant deviation would be a hint for new physics. QED understands the electromagnetic interaction among charged particles as the exchange of “virtual” photons – ...

Ancient genomes shed light on human prehistory in East Asia

2025-05-29
Newly sequenced ancient genomes from Yunnan, China, have shed new light on human prehistory in East Asia. In a study published in Science, a research team led by Prof. FU Qiaomei at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed data from 127 ancient humans, dating from 7,100 to 1,400 years ago. The results show that this region is pivotal to understanding the origin of both Tibetan and Austroasiatic (i.e., ethnic groups with a shared language group in South and Southeast Asia) population groups. The team found that a 7,100-year-old individual from Yunnan was as genetically distinct from most present-day ...

Save twice the ice by limiting global warming

2025-05-29
In brief: Even if the rise in global temperatures were to stabilise at its current level, it is projected that the world would lose around 40 per cent of its glaciers. If global warming can be limited to +1.5 °C, it may be possible to preserve twice as much glacier ice as in a scenario where temperatures rise by +2.7 °C. This conclusion was reached by a research team with participation of ETH Zurich researchers, based on a new, multi-centennial analysis of global glacier evolution. The findings, published today in the prestigious journal, Science, are striking. Even ...

UCC scientists develop new quantum visualization technique to identify materials for next generation quantum computing

2025-05-29
Scientists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland have developed a powerful new tool for finding the next generation of materials needed for large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing. The significant breakthrough means that, for the first time, researchers have found a way to determine once and for all whether a material can effectively be used in certain quantum computing microchips. The major findings have been published today in the academic journal Science and are the result of a large international collaboration which includes leading theoretical work from Prof. Dung-Hai Lee in University of California, Berkeley, and material synthesis from professors Sheng Ran and Johnpierre ...

Study finds birds nested in Arctic alongside dinosaurs

2025-05-29
Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a paper featured on the cover of this week’s edition of the journal Science. The paper documents the earliest-known example of birds nesting in the polar regions. “Birds have existed for 150 million years,” said lead author Lauren Wilson, a doctoral student at Princeton University who earned her master’s degree at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “For half of the time they have existed, ...

The plague bacillus became less virulent, prolonging the duration of two major pandemics

2025-05-29
Scientists at the Institut Pasteur and McMaster University have discovered that the evolution of a gene in the bacterium that causes bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, may have prolonged the duration of two major pandemics. They have demonstrated that modifying the copy number of a specific virulence gene increases the length of infection in affected individuals. It is thought that this genetic change may prompt longer periods of contagiousness in less densely populated environments, in which the time of transmission from one individual to another is inevitably longer. This genetic variation has been observed in strains of each of the two major plague pandemics, ...

Revelations on the history of leprosy in the Americas

2025-05-29
Long considered a disease brought to the Americas by European colonizers, leprosy may actually have a much older history on the American continent. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, the CNRS, and the University of Colorado (USA), in collaboration with various institutions in America and Europe, reveal that a recently identified second species of bacteria responsible for leprosy, Mycobacterium lepromatosis, has been infecting humans in the Americas for at least 1,000 years, several centuries before the Europeans arrived. These findings will be published in the journal Science on May 29, 2025. Leprosy is a neglected disease, ...

Leprosy in the Americas predates European contact, new study finds

2025-05-29
Leprosy has been present in the Americas for more than 1,000 years, long before the arrival of European settlers, according to a groundbreaking new finding published this week in the journal Science. The major international study was co-led by scientists at Colorado State University and the Institut Pasteur in France, in collaboration with Indigenous communities and more than 40 scientists from institutions across the Americas and Europe. The study reframes the history of leprosy in the Americas and has implications for better understanding how infectious diseases spread, persist and evolve in human and animal populations over time. “This ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Scientists glimpse how enzymes “dance” while they work, and why that’s important

California partnership aided COVID-19 response and health equity, report finds

University of Oklahoma secures $19.9 million for revolutionary radar technology

Study finds restoring order to dividing cancer cells may prevent metastasis

High-accuracy tumor detection with label-free microscopy and neural networks

Wayne State research reveals fetuses exposed to Zika virus have long-term immune challenges

Researchers deconstruct chikungunya outbreaks to improve prediction and vaccine development

Study finds one-year change on CT scans linked to future outcomes in fibrotic lung disease

Discovery of a novel intracellular trafficking pathway in plant cells

New tool helps forecast volcano slope collapses and tsunamis

Molecular coating cleans up noisy quantum light

From Parkinson's to rare diseases, discovered a key switch for cellular health

Tiny sugars in the brain disrupt emotional circuits, fueling depression

Mini-organs reveal how the cervix defends itself

Africa, climate, and food: How to feed a continent without increasing its carbon footprint

Researchers demonstrates substrate design principles for scalable superconducting quantum materials

How better software choices could cut US health care costs

Concussion history in NCAA athletes yields mixed health outcomes

Counting plastic reveals hidden waste and sparks action

Warming oceans may pose a serious threat to American lobsters

Deaths from drug-induced unintentional injury rise across the US

In car crashes with pedestrians, age and zip code may predict extent of traumatic injuries

AI optimizes evacuation, diagnosis, and treatment of wounded soldiers in Ukraine

Mastectomy linked to worsened sexual health, body image after surgery

Drop in credit score after cancer diagnosis linked to increased mortality, study shows

Use of weight loss drugs before bariatric surgery has soared in recent years, study finds

EMS call times in rural areas take at least 20 minutes longer than national average

Rectal bleeding in young adults linked to 8.5 times higher risk of colorectal cancer

Hospital closures disproportionately affect socioeconomically disadvantaged communities

Global disparities in premature mortality

[Press-News.org] Ancient tooth enamel proteins reveal hidden diversity in African Paranthropus
Summary author: Walter Beckwith