Latest news with #Siberia
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Senior Siberian Cat's Wild Reaction To Noticing Hidden Camera Has People Stunned
Senior Siberian Cat's Wild Reaction To Noticing Hidden Camera Has People Stunned originally appeared on PetHelpful. Cats with their infinite peculiarities and mysterious personalities will never cease to amaze us. Whereas dogs will usually do things specifically when people are around because they want attention from their humans, their feline counterparts will do something a little different. Just take the senior Siberian cat, Miss Nonna, for instance. Apparently, she enjoys 'screaming at the top of her lungs,' but only when she thinks no one is listening. But as this stunning video shows, that's not all this beguiling feline will do when she believes no one is watching. It all started with this fluffy senior Siberian cat 'screaming' her heart out at the top of the stairs. Naturally, this is quite the adorable spectacle, and Miss Nonna's human wanted to film this unruly act of adorableness. The problem was that Miss Nonna is a little shy. As soon as the camera was out, she would clam up like she had just caught a sudden case of stage fright. Undeterred, Miss Nonna's human decided to pull a sneaky move in order to film their cat's rantings and ravings; they hid their phone at the top of the stairs and started recording while the beloved feline companion was enough, Miss Nonna was completely oblivious to the camera first. She started meowing to her fluffy heart's content, but after a moment, the camera finally caught her eye. Suddenly filled with curiosity, she started to approach the camera while continuing to meow loudly. But, just as Miss Nonna reached the camera, something remarkable happened. She began to speak as only a feline can. 'Herrow?' She said. And then again, and again, saying 'herrow' to her newest friend, the camera! As this other video shows, Miss Nonna is indeed a very vocal kitty. As such, it is not uncommon for her to give 'updates' to her human whenever she feels they are necessary. But Miss Nonna, being the complex feline that she is, doesn't always just give her human a straightforward meow when she wants to communicate. Sometimes, she will squeak to speak. And squeak in this clip, she does! While we would never presume to speak for Miss Nonna, we do feel confident in encouraging her to speak her mind. Because, as these videos show, when she does, it is a prime time formula for cuteness overload! Looking for more PetHelpful updates? Follow us on YouTube for more entertaining videos. Or, share your own adorable pet by submitting a video, and sign up for our newsletter for the latest pet updates and tips. Senior Siberian Cat's Wild Reaction To Noticing Hidden Camera Has People Stunned first appeared on PetHelpful on Jun 18, 2025 This story was originally reported by PetHelpful on Jun 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scientists SOLVE the mystery of the ‘Dragon Man': Ancient skull is first ever found from lost group of ancient humans that lived 217,000 years ago
It has baffled scientists since it was first discovered back in 2018. But the mystery of the 'Dragon Man' skull has finally been solved - as a new study reveals its true identity. Using DNA samples from plaque on the fossil's teeth, researchers have proven that the Dragon Man belonged to a lost group of ancient humans called the Denisovans. This species emerged around 217,000 years ago and passed on traces of DNA to modern humans before being lost to time. Denisovans were first discovered in 2010 when palaeontologists found a single finger of a girl who lived 66,000 years ago in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. But with only tiny fragments of bones to work with, palaeontologists couldn't learn anything more about our long-lost ancestors. Now, as the first confirmed Denisovan skull, the Dragon Man can provide scientists with an idead of what these ancient humans might have looked like. Dr Bence Viola, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto in Canada who was not involved in the study, told MailOnline: 'This is very exciting. Since their discovery in 2010, we knew that there is this other group of humans out there that our ancestors interacted with, but we had no idea how they looked except for some of their teeth.' Scientists have finally solved the mystery of the 'Dragon Man' skull which belonged to an ancient human who lived 146,000 years ago Scientists have now confirmed that the skull is that of a Denisovan (artist's impression), an ancient species of human which emerged around 217,000 years ago The Dragon Man skull is believed to have been found by a Chinese railway worker in 1933 while the country was under Japanese occupation. Not knowing what the fossilised skull could be but suspecting it might be important, the labourer hid the skull at the bottom of the well near Harbin City. He only revealed its location shortly before his death, and his surviving family found it in 2018 and donated it to the Hebei GEO University. Scientists dubbed the skull 'Homo Longi' or 'Dragon Man' after the Heilongjiang near where it was found, which translates to black dragon river. The researchers knew that this skull didn't belong to either homo sapiens or Neanderthals but couldn't prove which other species it might be part of. In two papers, published in Cell and Science, researchers have now managed to gather enough DNA evidence to prove that Dragon Man was a Denisovan. Lead researcher Dr Qiaomei Fu, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had previously tried to extract DNA from bones in the skull but had not been successful. To find DNA, Dr Fu had to take tiny samples of the plaque that had built up on Dragon Man's teeth. Previously, the only traces of Denisovans were small fragments of bone like these pieces found in Siberia which meant scientists didn't know what they might have looked like Who is Dragon Man? Dragon Man is the nickname for a skull found near Harbin City, China in 2018. Known officially as the Harbin Cranium, scientists determined that the skull did not belong to any known human ancestor species. Scientists gave it the titled Homo longi, meaning 'Dragon Man' after the Heilongjiang, or black dragon river, near where it was found. Scientists suspected that Dragon Man might have been a member of the Denisovan species of humans but could not confirm this. That was because the bones are so old that most traces of DNA have long since decayed. As plaque builds up it sometimes traps cells from the inside of the mouth, and so there could be traces of DNA left even after 146,000 years. When Dr Fu and her colleagues did manage to extract human DNA from the plaque, it was a match for samples of DNA taken from Denisovan fossils. For the first time, scientists now have a confirmed Denisovan skull which means they can work out what our lost ancestors actually looked like. The Dragon Man's skull has large eye sockets, a heavy brow and an exceptionally large and thick cranium. Scientists believe that Dragon Man, and therefore Denisovans, would have had a brain about seven per cent larger than a modern human. Reconstructions based on the skull show a face with heavy, flat cheeks, a wide mouth, and a large nose. However, the biggest implication of the Dragon Man skull's identification is that we now know Denisovans might have been much larger than modern humans. Dr Viola says: 'It emphasizes what we assumed from the teeth, that these are very large and robust people. This also confirms that Dragon Man was from an older lineage of Denisovans which dates back to the earliest records around 217,000 years ago, rather than from the late Denisovan line which branched off around 50,000 years ago 'Harbin [the Dragon Man skull] is one of, if not the largest human cranium we have anywhere in the fossil record.' However, scientists still have many questions about Denisovans that are yet to be answered. In particular, scientists don't yet know whether Dragon Man reflects the full range of diversity that could have existed within the Denisovan population. Dragon Man was probably a heavily-set, stocky hunter-gatherer built to survive the last Ice Age in northern China but Denisovan bones have been found in environments that weren't nearly as cold. Professor John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told MailOnline: 'Harbin gives us a strong indication that some of them are large, with large skulls. 'But we have some good reasons to suspect that Denisovans lived across quite a wide geographic range, from Siberia into Indonesia, and they may have been in many different environmental settings. 'I wouldn't be surprised if they are as variable in body size and shape as people living across the same range of geographies today.' THE DENISOVANS EXPLAINED Who were they? The Denisovans are an extinct species of human that appear to have lived in Siberia and even down as far as southeast Asia. The individuals belonged to a genetically distinct group of humans that were distantly related to Neanderthals but even more distantly related to us. Although remains of these mysterious early humans have mostly been discovered at the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, DNA analysis has shown the ancient people were widespread across Asia. Scientists were able to analyse DNA from a tooth and from a finger bone excavated in the Denisova cave in southern Siberia. The discovery was described as 'nothing short of sensational.' In 2020, scientists reported Denisovan DNA in the Baishiya Karst Cave in Tibet. This discovery marked the first time Denisovan DNA had been recovered from a location that is outside Denisova Cave. How widespread were they? Researchers are now beginning to find out just how big a part they played in our history. DNA from these early humans has been found in the genomes of modern humans over a wide area of Asia, suggesting they once covered a vast range. They are thought to have been a sister species of the Neanderthals, who lived in western Asia and Europe at around the same time. The two species appear to have separated from a common ancestor around 200,000 years ago, while they split from the modern human Homo sapien lineage around 600,000 years ago. Last year researchers even claimed they could have been the first to reach Australia. Aboriginal people in Australia contain both Neanderthal DNA, as do most humans, and Denisovan DNA. This latter genetic trace is present in Aboriginal people at the present day in much greater quantities than any other people around the world. How advanced were they? Bone and ivory beads found in the Denisova Cave were discovered in the same sediment layers as the Denisovan fossils, leading to suggestions they had sophisticated tools and jewellery. Professor Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, said: 'Layer 11 in the cave contained a Denisovan girl's fingerbone near the bottom but worked bone and ivory artefacts higher up, suggesting that the Denisovans could have made the kind of tools normally associated with modern humans. 'However, direct dating work by the Oxford Radiocarbon Unit reported at the ESHE meeting suggests the Denisovan fossil is more than 50,000 years old, while the oldest 'advanced' artefacts are about 45,000 years old, a date which matches the appearance of modern humans elsewhere in Siberia.' Did they breed with other species? Yes. Today, around 5 per cent of the DNA of some Australasians – particularly people from Papua New Guinea – is Denisovans. Now, researchers have found two distinct modern human genomes - one from Oceania and another from East Asia - both have distinct Denisovan ancestry. The genomes are also completely different, suggesting there were at least two separate waves of prehistoric intermingling between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. Researchers already knew people living today on islands in the South Pacific have Denisovan ancestry.
BBC News
a day ago
- Science
- BBC News
Dragon Man: Ancient skull 'reveals what mysterious Denisovans looked like'
Scientists have linked genetic material extracted from an ancient skull found in China in 2018 to a mysterious group of early skull, nicknamed 'Dragon Man' had fascinated experts because it didn't seem to match any other prehistoric human. Now, an expert study says it has linked genetic material from the fossil with previous bones belonging to an group of prehistoric humans called Denisovans. Read on to find out more about Dragon Man, the Denisovans and how they made the discovery. Who is Dragon Man? The "Dragon Man" or Homo longi was the name given to the early relative whose fossilised skull was first given to experts in China in 2018, after reportedly being first discovered back in skull is thought to be around 146,000 years old and has been identified as a male of around 50 years finding was extra interesting to scientists who said they believed the Dragon Man was closer to modern humans than Neanderthals. Who are the Denisovans? Meanwhile Denisovans were a species of ancient humans, distinct from Neanderthals, another species of ancient are extinct relatives of modern humans who at one point lived alongside homo sapiens (humans like us). Denisovans are believed to have lived in Asia, 285 thousand to 25 thousand years ago. They were first identified from DNA taken from finger bone found in Siberia in then although other Denisovans have been identified, their appearance had remained a mystery. A team from the Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing worked on linking the Dragon Man fossil to the team failed to retrieve DNA from the skull's tooth and petrous bone, a section at the bottom of the skull which is usually a rich source of DNA in it was the hardened plaque on the teeth known as tartar which gave them results they could on this evidence, Denisovans can finally be would have had strong brow ridges, larger teeth than Neanderthals and modern humans, but brains around the same size. "I really feel that we have cleared up some of the mystery surrounding this population," said Qiaomei Fu, lead author of the new research. "After 15 years, we know the first Denisovan skull."It's hoped that this research could help identify Denisovan bones in other museum collections too.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
Land Rover launches new model paying homage to 1980s classic 4X4 - and it's not cheap
Land Rover has unveiled a special-edition Defender to pay homage to a classic model that proved the incredible off-road capabilities of the British 4X4s in the 1980s by racing across some of the world's most gruelling terrains. New 'Trophy Edition' cars get accessories and a retro livery to match the Camel Trophy vehicles from some 40 years ago. The Camel Trophy was an off-roading competition that originated in 1980 with three Jeep-equipped German teams racing across the Amazon Basin. After that first event, organisers turned to Land Rover for support and the tobacco company, Camel, for primary sponsorship, hence the name. Races took place across various locations, including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Madagascar, Samoa, Siberia, Malaysia and a host of other testing landscapes. Over the course of 20 years, all types of Land Rover cars were provided for the annual adventure challenge - Range Rover, Land Rover Series III, Land Rover 90, Land Rover 110, Land Rover Defender, Land Rover Discovery and Freelander - with all vehicles appearing in the famous cigarette brand's distinctive 'Sandglow' colour scheme. And this is one of two livery options for the new Defender Trophy Edition, which makes its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next month. But it isn't going to be cheap... The new special edition model is only available as the mid-size, five-door, Defender 110. It features unique 20-inch alloy wheels and a choice of Camel Trophy-appropriate Deep Sandglow Yellow - or Keswick Green paint. Both options come with contrasting black bonnet, wheel arches and roof – and a black leather interior. The dashboard panel is painted to match the tone of the car's bodywork. Customers can also opt for a Trophy Edition accessory pack, which costs £4,995 and bolts on a roof rack, retractable roof ladder to make it easier to access objects stored overhead, an air-intake snorkel to tackle water-logged routes, and classic-style mud flaps. The pack even includes gloss black side panniers that provide 'extra space for muddy, wet or sandy items' you don't want to store in the boot. All versions of the new special edition car - which costs from £89,810 - come with black leather interior with accents to match the external bodywork Land Rover says Trophy Edition - which has dropped the 'Camel' name for obvious advertising reasons - celebrates the 'rich history of adventure challenges', adding that the iconic yellow vehicles of the past are 'synonymous with Defenders used on international Trophy-style events'. Without the optional accessory pack, prices start from £89,810 - a mark-up on the £62,795 asking price for a standard Defender 110. Britons will get to see it in the flesh for the first time at Goodwood during the Festival of Speed event taking place between 10 and 13 July. While it does come with a premium price tag, it's half the cost of the commemorative version produced by Land Rover Classic in 2021. The heritage arm of the British car firm made 25 examples of the old-school Defender inspired by the Camel Trophy, with liveries and modifications mimicking those of the expedition vehicles. Despite an eye-watering price tag of £195,000 per car, Land Rover sold out of the Works V8 Trophy line in three days. Consequently, the Classic department commissioned another 25 models to appease its high demand. And many of the original competition cars used in the event between 1981 and the final year in 2000 are still on the road today. Some competitors purchased their vehicles, meaning there are examples dotted across continents and, consequently, are highly sought after if proven to have covered genuine Camel Trophy miles. In March, Iconic Auctioneers sold a 1992 Defender 110 Camel Trophy - which participated in 1993 - for £34,875. This was despite it being in a rather sorry state of disrepair. Last year, Collecting Cars sold another genuine 1984 Camel Trophy Defender in far better condition for £31,500. However, experts say these cars are ripe for appreciation, with collectors eager to find ex-competition cars. In the 20-year history of the event, a UK team won it only once. In 1989, brothers Bob and Joe Ives took first place after tackling the 1,062-mile route through the Brazilian rainforest from Alta Floresta to Manaus in just three weeks driving a Defender 110. In recognition of their achievement, the brothers were awarded the Royal Automobile Club Segrave Trophy - an award reserved for outstanding transport achievements that has includes esteemed recipients such as Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Lewis Hamilton MBE and John Blashford-Snell OBE. The brothers went on to be off-road advisors for BBC's Top Gear and The Grand Tour special features on Amazon Prime.
Asharq Al-Awsat
a day ago
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Russia is on the Verge of Recession, Says Economy Minister
Russia's economy is on the verge of sliding into recession, Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday. Russia this month cut interest rates for the first time since 2022, easing borrowing costs to 20% from 21%. But for months, businesses have complained of high rates stifling investment and economic growth has started to ease. "According to the figures, there is a cooling, but all our figures are in the rear-view mirror," Reshetnikov said. "According to the current feelings of businesses and business indicators, we are already, it seems to me, on the verge of going into recession. On the verge." At the same session, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said the current slowdown in GDP growth was "a way out of overheating". Alexander Vedyakhin, First Deputy CEO of Russia's largest lender Sberbank said in an interview with Reuters this week that tight monetary policy was creating overcooling risks and said much lower interest rates of 12-14% would be acceptable to restart investment lending. "There is a danger of the economy overcooling and that we will not be able to get out of this dip, and that further growth may be subdued," Vedyakhin said.
