Ancient Siberia was home to previously unknown humans, say scientists

The Guardian

DNA analysis reveals hardy group genetically distinct from Eurasians and East Asians

It was cold, remote and involved picking fights with woolly mammoths – but it seems ancient Siberia 30,000 years ago was home to a hardy and previously unknown group of humans. Scientists say the discovery could help solve longstanding mysteries about the ancestors of native North Americans.

While it is commonly believed the ancestors of native North Americans arrived from Eurasia via a now submerged land bridge called Beringia, exactly which groups crossed and gave rise to native North American populations has been difficult to unpick.

Now scientists say they might have found some answers to the conundrums.

Writing in the journal Nature, Eske Willerslev and colleagues reveal how they drew on existing data from modern populations as well as analysing ancient DNA from the remains of 34 individuals obtained from sites around north-eastern Siberia, dating from more than 31,000 years ago up to 600 years ago.

While it had previously been thought that these remains might be from the ancestors of native North Americans, the DNA data suggests otherwise.

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Giant hole appears at 'the end of the world' in Siberia

The Independent 

A mysterious crater has appeared at the “end of the world” in Siberia, leaving a pit 80m wide and so deep it has not yet been measured.

Researchers are being dispatched to investigate the hole, which has confounded scientists with its dramatic appearance. 

Some have speculated it could have been made by a meteorite striking earth, an underground explosion, or is a sinkhole caused by collapsing rock, the Siberian Times reported. 

One imaginative online commenter claimed it could even be evidence “of the arrival of a UFO craft” to the planet.

UPDATE: A team has reached the hole

The area’s name, Yamal, translates as the “end of the world” and the remote peninsula reaches into the Arctic Ocean.

It holds some of Russia’s largest gas reserves and the crater appeared less than 20 miles from the biggest gas field, Bovnenkovo.

The dark colour of the crater’s sides was said in a Zvezda TV report to indicate “temperature processes” or burning.

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Scientists Brought a 30,000-Year-Old Virus Back to Life — On Purpose

Vice

There’s even more bad news out of Russia: A never-before-seen virus that lay dormant for 30,000 years under 100 feet of Siberian permafrost has come back to life. And it’s infectious.

The pathogen, named Pithovirus sibericum, is unusually large for a virus — it has 500 genes as opposed to the more typical 8, and unlike the vast majority of viruses, it’s big enough to be seen through a conventional microscope. After multiplying in a petri dish in front of the French scientists who discovered and thawed it, the pathogen quickly infected a host.

Luckily, as the scientists wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that host was an amoeba; the virus isn’t dangerous to humans.

That said, the virus brings up the very real possibility of other, genuinely dangerous pathogens being resurrected and causing a pandemic. Only that wouldn't be because of curious French scientists — it would be due to global warming.

“The revival of such an ancestral amoeba infecting virus … suggests that the thawing of permafrost either from global warming or industrial exploitation of circumpolar regions might not be exempt from future threats to human or animal health,” the scientists wrote.

Somewhat troublingly, infectious disease researchers dig up old viruses fairly regularly, but this is the first time scientists have seen a virus that is still infectious after so much time.

“Any old virus can pop up again,” Dr. Paul A. Luciw, a virologist at UC Davis Center for Comparative Medicine, told VICE News. “And if it were harmful in the past, it would be harmful again.”

As temperatures keep getting warmer, more permafrost will thaw, which theoretically means more ancient viruses will continue to be exposed. And as France’s National Center for Scientific Research pointed out in a statement, even supposedly eradicated viruses like smallpox could be revived.

“Theoretically, it is possible that a hiker walking around in Siberia could fall in a hole,” Luciw said, “and become infected with an old disease that would affect humans.”