This is incredible - the decoding of a protein from a 3.5 million year old fossil hominin! This protein also permits determination of sex - which can be very difficult in fragmentary fossils, based on shape alone. Article by @killgrove.bsky.social: www.livescience.com/archaeology/... - ThreadSky

profaliceroberts.bsky.social • 14 days ago

This is incredible - the decoding of a protein from a 3.5 million year old fossil hominin! This protein also permits determination of sex - which can be very difficult in fragmentary fossils, based on shape alone. Article by @killgrove.bsky.social:

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/in-a-1st-ancient-proteins-reveal-sex-of-human-relative-from-3-5-million-years-ago

Comments

gee-emm.bsky.social•14 days ago

Hopefully this is a good start to finding out where we all came from and who we are.

raytheonofficial.bsky.social•14 days ago

I'm Ray

xencat.bsky.social•14 days ago

*biological sex 😉

ellpezz.bsky.social•14 days ago

Is there another type of sex?

xencat.bsky.social•14 days ago

It's a reference to me querying somebody on Digging For Britain who said it, and Alice directed me to a policy document on the subject.

design3.bsky.social•14 days ago

Human fossil 3.5 million years old

Adam and Eve 6000 years old

This is what we are up against

gee-emm.bsky.social•14 days ago

Science will always win. 😉

alanwyatt.bsky.social•14 days ago

Science even wins against science. That's the great thing about it. 😃

detroit1701.bsky.social•14 days ago

Can this be used to glean information when DNA is too degraded to be of use?

raytheonofficial.bsky.social•14 days ago

This was exactly my first thought. How does a protein survive that long? Do they not have approximately the same shelf life of DNA?

thedrammed.bsky.social•14 days ago

That’s incredibly impressive tbh.

sweeneyhere.bsky.social•12 days ago

Wow!

alralenko.bsky.social•14 days ago

Wait! What? Ken Hamm tells me the erf is only 6 thousand years old.

will99.bsky.social•14 days ago

Wow this is amazing. Will help sort out the human family tree.

jbar-b-a.bsky.social•14 days ago

Awesome!!

mandirainbow.bsky.social•14 days ago

Proud of Palesa Madupe! 🇿🇦

lorrainepaylor.bsky.social•13 days ago

Amazing

pearlpearl1.bsky.social•14 days ago

😎

llencca.bsky.social•14 days ago

It is very exciting. If we can also identify species based off a protein, we may be able to identify Denisovan bones. Is it possible that some of fragmentary H. erectus fossils are actually Denisovans?

cherylmorgan.bsky.social•14 days ago

Probably, but presumably we can’t be sure of rates of AMELY deletion in other species

lucy7021.bsky.social•14 days ago

It's a bit long to wait for a reveal party.

kc-momkin.bsky.social•14 days ago

WOW! Pretty impressive.

merimaat.bsky.social•14 days ago

Wow ! Thank you for sharing this

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