For my russian friends

Todos venimos de China

The earliest unequivocally modern 

humans in southern China

• Wu Liu,
• María Martinón-Torres,
• Yan-jun Cai,
• Song Xing,
• Hao-wen Tong,
• Shu-wen Pei,
• Mark Jan Sier,
• Xiao-hong Wu,
• R. Lawrence Edwards,
• Hai Cheng,
• Yi-yuan Li,
• Xiong-xin Yang,
• José María Bermúdez de Castro
• & Xiu-jie Wu

• Affiliations
• Contributions
• Corresponding authors

Nature

 

(2015)

 

doi:10.1038/nature15696

Received

 

09 May 2015 

Accepted

 

09 September 2015 

Published online

 

14 October 2015

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The hominin record from southern Asia for the early Late Pleistocene epoch is scarce. Well-dated and well-preserved fossils older than ~45,000 years that can be unequivocally attributed to Homo sapiens are lacking^{1, 2, 3, 4}. Here we present evidence from the newly excavated Fuyan Cave in Daoxian (southern China). This site has provided 47 human teeth dated to more than 80,000 years old, and with an inferred maximum age of 120,000 years. The morphological and metric assessment of this sample supports its unequivocal assignment to H. sapiens. The Daoxian sample is more derived than any other anatomically modern humans, resembling middle-to-late Late Pleistocene specimens and even contemporary humans. Our study shows that fully modern morphologies were present in southern China 30,000–70,000 years earlier than in the Levant and Europe^5, 6, 7. Our data fill a chronological and geographical gap that is relevant for understanding when H. sapiensfirst appeared in southern Asia. The Daoxian teeth also support the hypothesis that during the same period, southern China was inhabited by more derived populations than central and northern China. This evidence is important for the study of dispersal routes of modern humans. Finally, our results are relevant to exploring the reasons for the relatively late entry of H. sapiens into Europe. Some studies have investigated how the competition with H. sapiens may have caused Neanderthals’ extinction (see ref. 8 and references therein). Notably, although fully modern humans were already present in southern China at least as early as ~80,000 years ago, there is no evidence that they entered Europe before ~45,000 years ago. This could indicate that H. neanderthalensis was indeed an additional ecological barrier for modern humans, who could only enter Europe when the demise of Neanderthals had already started.

At a glance

¿For ever young?

Foto:codondesastre tomada en Ochagavía.

"In what could be the start of a new era of do-it-yourself gene therapy, the CEO of a biotech startup last month skipped town to undergo a very public round of anti-aging therapy in Latin America, reports MIT Technology Review. Forty-four-year-old Elizabeth Parrish claims to have received several unproven treatments, including muscle mass enhancement and therapy to lengthen protective DNA caps known as telomeres, a process associated with longer life spans in mice. Neither treatment is FDA approved, but Parrish—whose company is developing and promoting these treatments—says they are based on research done in mainstream U.S. labs. Although many details are unconfirmed, researchers who advised the company say Parrish’s claims are plausible. They are divided, however, on what this means".

For my Russian visitors

Queridos amigos/as rusos: muchas gracias por sus numerosas visitas. En la foto, que tiene un enorme valor histórico
aparece el embajador soviético junto a  Fidel, y me parece que el hombre con el uniforme blanco es un astronauta. Emplazo a descubrir al Che.

Bloqueo a Kuba

El levantamiento del bloqueo a Cuba favorece el establecimiento en Cuba de proyectos empresariales serios.
Cuba tiene un notable desarrollo en medicina y farmacología. El embargo perjudica la investigación básica. Más allá de sol y playa existe un capital humano con formación técnica y científica.