Image: First glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS from Juice science camera - Phys.org

"All flybys are risky, requiring very careful planning and continuous monitoring."

New research reveals Denisovan fossils in southwestern China alongside stone tools and animal bones, offering the first glimpse into how these mysterious ancient humans lived, hunted and used their environmentDr. Yonat Eshchar, Davidson Institute of Science Education|In 2019, a reforestation project was underway in southwestern China, aimed at restoring an area where trees had been cut down. During the work, one of the workers came across an abandoned quarry and discovered a "suspiciously large number" of animal bones. He alerted the authorities, and researchers who arrived to investigate discovered a cave containing more than 60,000 fossils and fossil fragments. Most of the finds were animal bones, as the worker had suspected, but among them were stone tools and human bones. GalleryDenisovan holding a stone tool (Illustration: Liat Peli, using ChatGPT)The layers containing the human bones were dated to approximately 134,000 to 167,000 years ago, but it was unclear which human species they belonged to. At the time, several different human populations lived in East Asia, including Neanderthals, Denisovans and the earlier Homo erectus.