Ancient Dragon Man of China

The DNA of China’s ancient ‘Dragon Man’ puts a face to a mysterious group of ancient humans.

A skull was recovered from the bottom of a well in Northeastern China in 2018. It didn’t match any previously known species of prehistoric human. Scientists now say they have evidence where the fossil fits.

After several attempts, researchers finally extracted genetic material from the fossilized cranium, which had been nicknamed ‘Dragon Man’. It has now been linked to a group of early humans known as Denisovans. Several Denisovan fossilized bone fragments had already been found but offered little idea what these ancient hominins looked like. The group had never been assigned an official scientific name.

Skulls are usually considered the best type of remains to understand the appearance of extinct hominin species. This new finding could put a face to the Denisovans.

Denisovans were first discovered in 2010 from a fossilized pinkie found in Denisova Cave in Russia. Additional remains in the cave and elsewhere in Asia have added to the picture.

The new findings could fill in some gaps about the time when Homo sapiens weren’t the only humans on the planet. For tens of thousands of years, our species coexisted and interbred with both Denisovans and Neanderthals.

The Dragon Man skull was discovered in 1933 in northeastern China. A laborer was constructing a bridge when he discovered the skull. He took it home and stored it at the bottom of a well for safekeeping. The cranium remained hidden for decades until his relatives learned about it and donated it to the Hebei GEO University. Studies published in 2021 stated the skull was at least 146,000 years old.

Researchers argued over whether the fossil was of a new species. Some thought it might be Denisovan, and others lumped it in with a cache of hard-to-classify fossils found in China.

Based on the molecular evidence linking the skull to Denisovans, it will be easier for paleoanthropologists to classify other potential Denisovan remains. It also makes it more evident what Denisovans might have looked like: very strong brow ridges, brains about the same size at in Neanderthals and modern humans, with large teeth. They would have had a blocky and robust appearance.

If dressed in modern attire, they would be recognizable as ‘human’.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/dragon-man-dna-revelation-puts-a-face-to-a-mysterious-group-of-ancient-humans/ar-AA1GXZKS?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=44c63277a1b1486092eb1af40fb6912d&ei=90

Science Quiz

For 7 years, I’ve tried to ‘update my science [knowledge].’ I’ve always wanted to write science fiction, but my last science class was a quarter century ago, the one before that in 1970. I’d been busy working full time, raising kids, and so on. So when I retired and started writing science fiction, I found the vast research I did – and the results produced – shot huge holes in my time, the story background, and the plot I had picked.

Therefore, I subscribed to magazines, watched science and history documentaries, did other ‘educational’ things. I love to learn but… have I caught up? Am I ready to write science fiction?

Last week, I received the Jan/Feb 2017 issue of Discover. It includes a list of the ‘Top 100 Stories of 2016’. As I read through some of this list and the entry for each article, I realized I was not familiar with everything listed. Have I failed?

I decided to keep track of which stories I had and had not already heard about. Now, I don’t get to read a magazine in one sitting, so as of today, I’ve only gotten to #40. Don’t worry, I will finish this issue, but in the meantime, how many of these 40 items had I already learned about before this issue?

First, the ones I had no knowledge of:

#4. Oldest Human DNA Revises Our Family Tree (I’d heard of Neanderthals & Denisovans, but not this particular story)

#5. Biologists Create Organism with Smallest Genome

#9. New Particle Fizzles, Leaving Physicists to Soul Search

#10. Did Lucy Fall and Not Get Up? (I knew about Lucy, but this was a new hypothesis that she died by falling out of a tree.)

#11. Bangladesh Sits Atop Potential Major Quake Zone

#12. Big Data May Lead to Earlier Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

#18. Electrons ‘Split’ in New Form of Matter

#19. Science in a Post-Brexit World

#22. NIH Proposes Lifting ‘Chimera’ Research Ban

#23. Picky Primes (Prime numbers are not as random as believed.)

#24. Finding China’s Great Flood

#27. Battle for Access (Should scientific papers be available to all, or only those who can afford to subscribe to scientific journals?)

#28. A Bone to Pick about Philistines

#29. Go, Go AlphaGo (Computer learns game, beats human champion.)

#31. Pushing the Limits of Life in the Lab

#32. Disrupting Dopamine Dogma

#35. Mathematicians Find the Answers (I was unaware of this question.)

#36. T. Rex Evolution: Smarts First, Size Second

#37. The Rise and Fall of Theranos (Fake medicine exposed)

#39. Plenty of Room at the Bottom (Saving data with chlorine and copper)

#40. Pluto’s Hidden Ocean (I knew it had one, but this article is about how it’s freezing, breaking Pluto apart.)

And the ones I was familiar with:

#1. Einstein’s Ripples in Space-Time

#2. Earth’s Surprise Neighbor Hints at Exoplanet Abundance (planets of Proxima Centauri)

#3. A New Enemy Emerges (zika and mosquitoes)

#6. The Pace – and Problems – of Climate Change Accelerate

#7. Can America Avoid Another Flint?

#8. Looking for Planet Nine

#13. Persistent Heat Decimates Coral Reefs

#14. The Ozone Hole is Finally Healing (Still has a long way to go.)

#15. More Hobbitses, Prescious! (More remains of hobbit-sized hominids found.)

#16. We Are All Africans

#17. The Falcon Has Landed, Now SpaceX is Eyeing Mars

#20. Ceres Hosts an Ice Volcano

#21. Regulating the Brave New World of Human Gene Editing

#25. The End of the Periodic Table? (How many more elements can scientists make?)

#26. Drug Couriers for Brain Injuries

#30. Crowdsourced Study Pinpoints Depression Genes

#33. Planets of the Milky Way

#34. Superbug Arrives in the US (Bacteria not deterred by any known medicine.)

#38. A Sharp Find (Ancient sword found in Denmark)

How did I shape up? Hmm, 21 stories I did not know; 19 I was semi-familiar with. If I were in school, that would be less than 50%, a solid F. But, I can’t know everything, so I don’t feel bad. Besides, some of these articles have hinted at background knowledge or even a story plot. I am stoked!

What have you learned in the past 7 years? I bet it’s a lot, whether science or not.

Nomads

One of the panels I’ve given at several conventions this year has been “Where did the first Americans Come From?” In that panel, we discuss 6 different theories held by various scientists, from the one most of them agree is most likely to the one most people ridicule.

In doing my research for that panel-and just generally reading up on science subjects that spark my interest-I have arrived at one conclusion about humans and our ancestors... We have been nomads pretty much as long as we’ve been hominins. An article I read this past week has done much to confirm that, in my mind.

The article was actually about the Tibetan people and how they can thrive in the rarified atmosphere of the high altitudes where they live. Genetic studies have shown that most Tibetans (and a much lower percentage of the Han people in China) have an archaic gene. Not a mutant gene. An archaic gene inherited from a type of human that no longer exists.

This dead species of human is called the Denisovans. They are believed to have been related to-but distinct from-The Neanderthals (also extinct). And scientists probably would not know anything about the Denisovans at all, if someone had not found a single finger bone and 2 teeth in a Siberian cave. DNA study of those 41,000-year-old bones showed they belonged to people who were not Neanderthals, but definitely not modern human, either.

A genetic study of the Tibetan and Han people revealed they had inherited just enough Denisovan genetics to have the ability to up the production of hemoglobin in their blood. This increases their ability to get enough oxygen to their cells in an environment where most of us would have a tough time, due to lack of oxygen.

So, in order for the more modern humans to have bred with Denisovans (or the Neanderthals, for that matter) those earlier versions must have not just left Africa at some earlier time, but spread out across all of Eurasia. After all, Siberia is just about as far away from Africa as they could have gone. And later groups of hominins and humans would have exchanged DNA as they moved into the area, or passed through the area, or whatever.

If humans were not naturally nomads, they might never have left Africa, and then where would we be? Well, I guess we might all still be in Africa.