Science & Environment
Discovery of “hobbit” fossils suggests tiny humans roamed Indonesian islands 700,000 years ago
Twenty years ago on an Indonesian island, scientists discovered fossils of an early human species that stood at about 3 1/2 feet tall, earning them the nickname “hobbits.”
Now a new study suggests ancestors of the hobbits were even slightly shorter.
“We did not expect that we would find smaller individuals from such an old site,” said Yousuke Kaifu, co-author of the study, which was published on Tuesday in the journal Nature.
The original hobbit fossils date back to between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago. The new fossils were excavated at a site called Mata Menge, about 45 miles from the cave where the first hobbit remains were uncovered. The fossils were found on the top of a ribbon-shaped, pebbly sandstone layer in a small stream. They included exceptionally small teeth that possibly came from two individuals, researchers said.
In 2016, researchers suspected the earlier relatives could be shorter than the hobbits after studying a jawbone and teeth collected from the new site. Further analysis of a tiny arm bone fragment and teeth suggests the ancestors were a mere 2.4 inches shorter and existed 700,000 years ago.
“They’ve convincingly shown that these were very small individuals,” said Dean Falk, an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University who was not involved with the research.
Researchers have debated how the hobbits — named Homo floresiensis after the remote Indonesian island of Flores — evolved to be so small and where they fall in the human evolutionary story. They’re thought to be among the last early human species to go extinct.
Scientists don’t yet know whether the hobbits shrank from an earlier, taller human species called Homo erectus that lived in the area, or from an even more primitive human predecessor. More research — and fossils — are needed to pin down the hobbits’ place in human evolution, said Matt Tocheri, an anthropologist at Canada’s Lakehead University.
“This question remains unanswered and will continue to be a focus of research for some time to come,” Tocheri, who was not involved with the research, said in an email.
Science & Environment
Creature that washed up on New Zealand beach may be world’s rarest whale — a spade-toothed whale
Wellington, New Zealand — Spade-toothed whales are the world’s rarest, with no live sightings ever recorded. No one knows how many there are, what they eat, or even where they live in the vast expanse of the southern Pacific Ocean. However, scientists in New Zealand may have finally caught a break.
The country’s conservation agency said Monday a creature that washed up on a South Island beach this month is believed to be a spade-toothed whale. The five-meter-long creature, a type of beaked whale, was identified after it washed ashore on Otago beach from its color patterns and the shape of its skull, beak and teeth
“We know very little, practically nothing” about the creatures, Hannah Hendriks, Marine Technical Advisor for the Department of Conservation, told The Associated Press. “This is going to lead to some amazing science and world-first information.”
If the cetacean is confirmed to be the elusive spade-toothed whale, it would be the first specimen found in a state that would permit scientists to dissect it, allowing them to map the relationship of the whale to the few others of the species found and learn what it eats and perhaps lead to clues about where they live.
Only six other spade-toothed whales have ever been pinpointed, and those found intact on New Zealand’s North Island beaches had been buried before DNA testing could verify their identification, Hendriks said, thwarting any chance to study them.
This time, the beached whale was quickly transported to cold storage and researchers will work with local Māori iwi (tribes) to plan how it will be examined, the conservation agency said.
New Zealand’s Indigenous people consider whales a taonga – a sacred treasure – of cultural significance. In April, Pacific Indigenous leaders signed a treaty recognizing whales as “legal persons,” although such a declaration is not reflected in the laws of participating nations.
Nothing is currently known about the whales’ habitat. The creatures deep-dive for food and likely surface so rarely that it has been impossible to narrow their location further than the southern Pacific Ocean, home to some of the world’s deepest ocean trenches, Hendriks said.
“It’s very hard to do research on marine mammals if you don’t see them at sea,” she said. “It’s a bit of a needle in a haystack. You don’t know where to look.”
The conservation agency said the genetic testing to confirm the whale’s identification could take months.
It took “many years and a mammoth amount of effort by researchers and local people” to identify the “incredibly cryptic” mammals, Kirsten Young, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter who has studied spade-toothed whales, said in emailed remarks.
The fresh discovery “makes me wonder – how many are out in the deep ocean and how do they live?” Young said.
The first spade-toothed whale bones were found in 1872 on New Zealand’s Pitt Island. Another discovery was made at an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were found on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island in 1986. DNA sequencing in 2002 proved that all three specimens were of the same species – and that it was one distinct from other beaked whales.
Researchers studying the mammal couldn’t confirm if the species went extinct. Then in 2010, two whole spade-toothed whales, both dead, washed up on a New Zealand beach. Firstly mistaken for one of New Zealand’s 13 other more common types of beaked whale, tissue samples – taken after they were buried – revealed them as the enigmatic species.
New Zealand is a whale-stranding hotspot, with more than 5,000 episodes recorded since 1840, according to the Department of Conservation.
Science & Environment
Earth will get a second “mini-moon” for 2 months this year
Earth will get a second moon for about two months this year when a small asteroid begins to orbit our planet. The asteroid was discovered in August and is set to become a mini-moon, revolving around Earth in a horseshoe shape from Sept. 29 to Nov. 25.
Researchers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, an asteroid monitoring system funded by NASA, spotted the asteroid using an instrument in Sutherland, South Africa and labeled it 2024 PT5.
Scientists from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid have tracked the asteroid’s orbit for 21 days and determined its future path. 2024 PT5 is from the Arjuna asteroid belt, which orbits the sun, according to their study published in Research Notes of the AAs.
But Earth’s gravitational pull will draw 2024 PT5 towards it and, much like our moon, it will orbit our planet — but only for 56.6 days.
While other non-Earth objects, or NEOs, have entered Earth’s orbit before, some don’t complete full revolutions of Earth. Some, however, do and become so-called mini-moons.
An asteroid called 2020 CD3 was bound to Earth for several years before leaving the planet’s orbit in 2020 and another called 2022 NX1 became a mini-moon of Earth in 1981 and 2022 and will return again in 2051.
2024 PT5, which is larger than some of the other mini-moons, will also return to Earth’s orbit — in 2055.
Earth’s gravity will pull it into its orbit and the asteroid will have negative geocentric energy, meaning it can’t escape Earth’s gravitational pull. It will orbit around Earth in a horseshoe shape before reverting back to heliocentric energy, meaning it will rotate around the sun again, like the other planets and NEOs in our galaxy.
Even after it leaves orbit, it will stay near Earth for a few months, making its closest approach on Jan. 9, 2025. Soon after, it will leave Earth’s neighborhood until its path puts it back into our orbit in about 30 years.
The study’s lead author Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told Space.com the mini-moon will be too small to see with amateur telescopes or binoculars but professional astronomers with stronger tools will be able to spot it.
CBS News has reached out to Marcos for further information and is awaiting response.
Science & Environment
Climate change is making days longer, according to new research
Climate change is making days longer, as the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets causes water to move closer to the equator, fattening the planet and slowing its rotation, according to a recent study.
Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used both observations and reconstructions to track variations of mass at Earth’s surface since 1900.
In the 20th century, researchers found that between 0.3 milliseconds per century and 1 millisecond per century were added to the length of a day by climate-induced increases. Since 2000, they found that number accelerated to 1.3 milliseconds per century.
“We can see our impact as humans on the whole Earth system, not just locally, like the rise in temperature, but really fundamentally, altering how it moves in space and rotates,” Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich in Switzerland told Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “Due to our carbon emissions, we have done this in just 100 or 200 years, whereas the governing processes previously had been going on for billions of years. And that is striking.”
Researchers said that, under high greenhouse gas emission scenarios, the climate-induced increase in the length of a day will continue to grow and could reach a rate twice as large as the present one. This could have implications for a number of technologies humans rely on, like navigation.
“All the data centers that run the internet, communications and financial transactions, they are based on precise timing,” Soja said. “We also need a precise knowledge of time for navigation, and particularly for satellites and spacecraft.”
Science & Environment
The Buck Moon is almost here. Here’s when and where to see July’s full moon.
The next full moon is arriving just in time for the weekend. According to NASA, the Buck Moon will make an appearance for three days, from Friday evening to Monday morning, reaching its peak at 6:17 a.m. EDT on Sunday.
The moon is also known as the Thunder Moon, given its overlap with thunderstorm season.
NASA advised viewers to stay safe from the lightning that comes with the storms, but also to indulge in a little fun as the Buck Moon arrives: “As usual, the wearing of suitably celebratory celestial attire is encouraged in honor of the full Moon.”
Why is it called the Buck Moon?
The name stems from a tradition established by the Maine Farmers’ Almanac in the 1930s, according to NASA, when the publication started listing the names of full moons. The Algonquin tribes of the Northeast reportedly called this month’s moon the Buck Moon – a nod to the deer that emerge this time of year.
“Early summer is normally when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur,” NASA said.
Other monikers for July’s full moon include Thunder Moon, Asalha Puja, Guru Full Moon, Hay Moon. and Mead Moon.
When will the next full moon take place?
August’s full moon — known as the Sturgeon Moon, according to the almanac.com — will peak on Monday, Aug. 19. This will be the first supermoon of the year, which means it will appear brighter and larger than other full moons.
Another event for stargazers to look forward to is a meteor shower on Saturday, July 31. Those on the East Coast will have to rise early if they want to catch the spectacle of light. According to NASA, the best time to see the shower from Washington, D.C., will be around 2 a.m.
Science & Environment
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Science & Environment
“Cocaine sharks”: Predators off coast of Brazil test positive for drug, scientists say
Sharks in the waters off Brazil have tested positive for cocaine, marine biologists said in a new study, marking the first time the drug has been found in the free-ranging predators.
Thirteen sharpnose sharks were taken from the coast off of Rio de Janeiro and tested for the cocaine and benzoylecgonine, the primary molecule in cocaine. Each shark’s liver and muscles tested positive for high levels of cocaine, the study found, and the female sharks tested had higher concentrations of cocaine in their muscles than male sharks.
The scientists — who dubbed the study “Cocaine Shark” — posited that this may show a correlation between a shark’s weight and size and how it metabolizes cocaine, but the study noted that more research was necessary.
CBS News partner BBC News reported that experts have multiple theories on how the illicit substances are entering the water. It’s possible that illegal labs where cocaine is manufactured could be to blame. Scientists also said that it could be entering the waterway through the excrement of drug users. A less likely theory is that packs of cocaine lost or dumped at sea could be to blame. Cocaine and other illicit drugs have previously been found in water drainage systems and in rivers.
It’s the first study to show levels of cocaine and benzoylecgonine in free-ranging sharks. More research is necessary to see how cocaine consumption affects sharks and other wildlife, the scientists said.
It’s not clear how the cocaine consumption affects the sharks, the study said. Some of the female sharks were pregnant at the time of the study, and it remains unclear how the illicit drugs may have affected the fetuses.
The findings are “very important and potentially worrying,” marine eco-toxicologist Sara Novais, from the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre of the Polytechnic University of Leiria, told Science magazine.
Researchers have tried to study the impact of illicit drugs on sea life in other parts of the world. Last year, Discovery TV aired a show called “Cocaine Sharks” (which was also the title of a 2023 horror movie) that used experiments to show how sharks might be affected by cocaine. Tracy Fanara, an environmental engineer who worked on the show, told CBS News that the experiments and their results were preliminary, but said it’s likely that sharks are coming in contact with the illicit drug.
“My goal of this experiment was to shed light on the real problem of chemicals in our waterways and impacting our aquatic life and then eventually impacting us,” Fanara said in 2023. “But the goal of the study was basically to see if this is a research question worth exploring more. And I would say, yes, it is.”
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