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

Archaeologists find oldest evidence of humans on ‘Hobbit’s’ island neighbor – who they were remains a mystery

2025-08-06
(Press-News.org) Recent findings, made by Griffith University researchers, show that early hominins made a major deep-sea crossing to reach the Indonesian island of Sulawesi much earlier than previously established, based on the discovery of stone tools dating to at least 1.04 million years ago at the Early Pleistocene (or ‘Ice Age’) site of Calio.

Budianto Hakim from the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN) and Professor Adam Brumm from the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University led the research published today in Nature.

A field team led by Hakim excavated a total of seven stone artefacts from the sedimentary layers of a sandstone outcrop in a modern corn field at the southern Sulawesi location.

In the Early Pleistocene, this would have been the site of hominin tool-making and other activities such as hunting, in the vicinity of a river channel.

The Calio artefacts consist of small, sharp-edged fragments of stones (flakes) that the early human tool-makers struck from larger pebbles that had most likely been obtained from nearby riverbeds.

The Griffith-led team used palaeomagnetic dating of the sandstone itself and direct-dating of an excavated pig fossil, to confirm an age of at least 1.04 million years for the artefacts.

Previously, Professor Brumm’s team had revealed evidence for hominin occupation in this archipelago, known as Wallacea, from at least 1.02 million years ago, based on the presence of stone tools at Wolo Sege on the island of Flores, and by around 194 thousand years ago at Talepu on Sulawesi.

The island of Luzon in the Philippines, to the north of Wallacea, had also yielded evidence of hominins from around 700,000 years ago.

“This discovery adds to our understanding of the movement of extinct humans across the Wallace Line, a transitional zone beyond which unique and often quite peculiar animal species evolved in isolation,” Professor Brumm said.

“It’s a significant piece of the puzzle, but the Calio site has yet to yield any hominin fossils; so while we now know there were tool-makers on Sulawesi a million years ago, their identity remains a mystery.”

The original discovery of Homo floresiensis (the ‘hobbit’) and subsequent 700,000-year-old fossils of a similar small-bodied hominin on Flores, also led by Professor Brumm’s team, suggested that it could have been Homo erectus that breached the formidable marine barrier between mainland Southeast Asia to inhabit this small Wallacean island, and, over hundreds of thousands of years, underwent island dwarfism.

Professor Brumm said his team’s recent find on Sulawesi has led him to wonder what might have happened to Homo erectus on an island more than 12 times the size of Flores?

“Sulawesi is a wild card – it’s like a mini-continent in itself,” he said.

“If hominins were cut off on this huge and ecologically rich island for a million years, would they have undergone the same evolutionary changes as the Flores hobbits? Or would something totally different have happened?”

The study ‘Hominins on Sulawesi during the Early Pleistocene’ has been published in Nature.

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Novel microwave dielectric ceramics enable high-performance 5G/6G communication devices

2025-08-06
With the global rollout of 5G networks and the onset of 6G research, the need for advanced materials that enable faster and more reliable wireless communication has never been greater. Microwave dielectric ceramics, key components in devices like resonators, filters, and antennas, must meet strict criteria: low signal delay, low loss, and stable performance across temperatures.   A research team from Guilin University of Technology in China has risen to this challenge by developing a novel garnet-type ceramic, YMAG. Synthesized using a solid-state reaction method, YMAG exhibits impressive microwave properties: a permittivity (εr) of 9.86, a quality factor ...

Revealed: New vaccine target to block malaria transmission

2025-08-06
Australian researchers have visualised a key protein complex in malaria parasites for the first time, uncovering a new target for next-generation vaccines that could help stop the disease from spreading. Using cutting-edge cryo-electron microscopy, the research team from WEHI captured the first detailed structure of a protein complex essential for malaria parasite fertilisation. The discovery published in Science has led to the development of a promising new mRNA vaccine candidate that stops the malaria parasite from reproducing inside mosquitoes, breaking the cycle of transmission ...

Air purifiers may reduce heart risks for people exposed to traffic pollution

2025-08-06
WASHINGTON (August 6, 2025) — Using portable high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifiers at home can significantly lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) in adults with elevated baseline readings — even in areas with relatively low overall air pollution levels, according to a study published today in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology.   Particulate matter (PM) is a major contributor to air pollution and is strongly associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). People ...

Effective therapy for MDS is vastly underused, especially in female and non-white patients

2025-08-06
(WASHINGTON – August 6, 2025) – Most patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) do not receive guideline-recommended treatment with hypomethylating agents (HMAs), according to results published in Blood Neoplasia. The findings suggest that underuse of these drugs may help explain why MDS outcomes have not improved over the past two decades since these life-extending medications became available.   The study is the largest analysis of MDS treatment patterns in the United States to date and the most comprehensive study of real-world use of HMAs, which are highly effective in improving outcomes. HMAs are the best available ...

Genetic rescue of endangered species may risk bad mutations slipping through

2025-08-06
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The established conservation practice of relocating animals from large, genetically diverse populations to small communities of inbred endangered species may risk introducing more damaging than beneficial gene variants into the threatened group, a new study suggests. Analysis of genomes of Eastern massasauga rattlesnakes showed that, by the numbers, more deleterious than adaptation-enabling mutations were present in the more genetically diverse donor animals selected in a hypothetical scenario to join a small, isolated population. Because donor relocation, known as ...

480 macrofungal species discovered in southeast Xizang, China: 8 new species, 115 edible, and 53 poisonous fungi

2025-08-06
The research group of fungal diversity and molecular evolution at Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted in-depth research on more than 1,600 samples of macrofungi collected from 2019 to 2024 by means of species identification combining morphology and molecular systematics. The results showed that there were 480 species of macrofungi in this area, covering 7 classes, 17 orders, 67 families, and 158 genera of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, and 8 new species were described.   Fungal diversity patterns revealed taxonomic dominance at both family and genus levels. Among the 67 documented families, 15 were dominant (≥10 species each), collectively representing ...

New study on hope among U.S. youth reveals key to safer schools this fall

2025-08-06
Given the current youth mental health crisis in the United States, many adolescents report experiencing low levels of hope – a longstanding concern that is even more pressing as the new school year begins. Substantial research over decades has established that higher levels of hope are linked with greater academic achievement, as well as improved emotional and physical health. Now, a new study shows that hope does even more: it acts as a powerful protective force in the lives of children, helping to reduce both bullying and cyberbullying. The study by Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, surveyed a nationally representative ...

AI chatbots can run with medical misinformation, study finds, highlighting the need for stronger safeguards

2025-08-06
New York, NY [August 6, 2025] — A new study by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai finds that widely used AI chatbots are highly vulnerable to repeating and elaborating on false medical information, revealing a critical need for stronger safeguards before these tools can be trusted in health care. The researchers also demonstrated that a simple built-in warning prompt can meaningfully reduce that risk, offering a practical path forward as the technology rapidly evolves. Their findings were detailed in the August 2 online issue of Communications Medicine ...

Nanoparticles for rheumatoid arthritis prevention, flare control

2025-08-06
As a chronic condition, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can’t be cured, so treatment focuses on managing the disease and controlling its progression. Although current treatments help control RA symptoms in most people, they cannot prevent the onset of RA or painful flare-ups. Now, researchers publishing in ACS Central Science have developed nanoparticles that could slow disease progression and reduce flare severity, based on results from tests with human blood and mice models with RA-like disease. For a person diagnosed with RA, their immune system attacks tissue that makes up the joints, causing inflammation, swelling and pain. ...

Small-world networks can mitigate ESG controversies for multinationals, suggests new study

2025-08-06
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can negate supplier-induced environmental, social and governance (ESG) controversies by setting up ‘small-world’ networks, according to new research co-authored by Bayes Business School. Globalising supply chains has become a dominant strategy for MNEs. Benefits include lower costs of labour and distribution, and greater scope for innovation. However, long-distance operations also carry associated risks. Contrasting ethical standards of suppliers in different areas of the world can lead to ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Participation of women in cardiovascular trials from 2017 to 2023

Semaglutide and tirzepatide in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction

Changes in biology of internal fat may be the leading cause of heart failure

Transcatheter or surgical treatment of patients with aortic stenosis at low to intermediate risk

Promising new drug for people with stubborn high blood pressure

One shot of RSV vaccine effective against hospitalization in older adults for two seasons

Bivalent RSV prefusion F protein–based vaccine for preventing cardiovascular hospitalizations in older adults

Clonal hematopoiesis and risk of new-onset myocarditis and pericarditis

Risk of myocarditis or pericarditis with high-dose vs standard-dose influenza vaccine

High-dose vs standard-dose influenza vaccine and cardiovascular outcomes in older adults

Prevalence, determinants, and time trends of cardiovascular health in the WHO African region

New study finds that, after a heart attack, women have worse prognosis when treated with beta-blockers

CNIC-led REBOOT clinical trial challenges 40-year-old standard of care for heart attack patients

Systolic blood pressure and microaxial flow pump–associated survival in infarct-related cardiogenic shock

Beta blockers, the standard treatment after a heart attack, may offer no benefit for heart attack patients and women can have worse outcomes

High Mountain Asia’s shrinking glaciers linked to monsoon changes

All DRII-ed up: How do plants recover after drought?

Research on stigma says to just ‘shake it off’

Scientists track lightning “pollution” in real time using NASA satellite

Millions of women rely on contraceptives, but new Rice study shows they may do more than just prevent pregnancy

Hot days make for icy weather, Philippine study finds

Roxana Mehran, MD, receives the most prestigious award given by the European Society of Cardiology

World's first clinical trial showing lubiprostone aids kidney function

Capturing language change through the genes

Public trust in elections increases with clear facts

Thawing permafrost raised carbon dioxide levels after the last ice age

New DNA test reveals plants’ hidden climate role

Retinitis pigmentosa mouse models reflect pathobiology of human RP59

Cell’s ‘antenna’ could be key to curing diseases

Tiny ocean partnership between algae and bacteria reveals secrets of evolution

[Press-News.org] Archaeologists find oldest evidence of humans on ‘Hobbit’s’ island neighbor – who they were remains a mystery