Human History in Western Europe Extends to One Million Years Ago

This pre-molar is the oldest evidence of human occupation in western Europe.
Image: AFP

The Atapuerca site in northern Spain's Burgos Province has yielded the oldest human fossil in western Europe, extending the known human occupation in that region hundreds of thousands of years. Scientists had previously found fossil remains of humans at Atapuerca dating back 800,000 years, finds ascribed to Homo antecessor ("Pioneer Man"), but this recently unearthed pre-molar is the oldest, possibly an ancestor of Homo antecessor.

--BBC has more information

Many Planetary Systems May Have Twin Suns

Artist's rendition of a binary sunset.
Image: www.space.com

Planetary systems with twin suns may be just as common as systems with single suns, NASA scientists have reported. Leftover debris from planet formation, known as dusty discs, were found in 40% of solar systems with double suns within 50 to 200 light years away from Earth.

—Read here for more

Romans in China?

Possible route of Roman legionnaires to China.
Image: Telegraph.co.uk

Liqian, a remote settlement on the edge of the Gobi desert in northwestern China, may be an unusual place to expect the birth of a blonde-haired baby girl. But that's how Gu Meina was born. Her father, Gu Jianming, says she is called "yellow hair" by her classmates at school. Another resident of Liqian, Cai Junnian, has been nicknamed "Cai Luoma," or "Cai the Roman," on account of his ruddy complexion and green eyes.

Homer Dubs, professor of Chinese history at Oxford in the 1950s, hypothesized that Liqian was founded by Roman legionnaires in the late first century BC. In 53 BC, Marcus Crassus' army was defeated in Mesopotamia by the Parthian Empire at the battle of Carrhae. Stories were told of scores of captive Roman warriors who wandered eastward. And seventeen years later, Chinese warriors talked of capturing soldiers who made a "fish-scale formation," perhaps a reference to the tortoise formation of the Roman legion.

Geneticists have taken blood samples from 93 Liqians, and results are pending.

--The Telegraph has more

Stone Age Embrace

The late Stone Age pair was buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago.
Image: AP

Archaeologists in Italy have uncovered an embrace lasting over seventy centuries. The pair, discovered 25 miles south of Verona outside of Mantua, appears to be that of lovers buried together during the Neolithic period. Dental analysis shows that the couple was young at the time of burial. Although there is no concrete explanation for the pairing, many think the wife was sacrificed at the death of her husband. The area has provided many Neolithic finds, including thirty burials, as well as artifacts of pottery, flint and animal horns.

--The USA Today has more information

More on New Horizons

A diagram of the New Horizons' probe.

Image: Nasa

Nasa provides an online resource for the New Horizons project. The site contains artistic images of the probe, team and instrument specifications, and multimedia features as well as up to the minute updates on the mission. The probe is currently approaching Jupiter and is on course for a 2015 rendevous with Pluto.

--Visit Nasa's online resource

Voyage to Pluto

An artist's rendition of the New Horizons probe as it passes Jupiter.
Image: JHU/APL/SwRI

NASA's New Horizons probe is approaching Jupiter, and the gas giant's gravity will slingshot the voyager toward remote Pluto by 2015. The probe will make its closest pass of Jupiter on Feb. 28, from which the planet will accelerate the probe to 52,000 miles per hour. Researchers are considering the flyby a test of the probe's data collection capabilities. Scientists plan future data will provide a map of Pluto and Charon in 2015. From Pluto, New Horizons will live up to its name, passing into the distant Kuiper Belt region, the farthest and oldest region of the Solar System.

--BBC has more information

In the Footsteps of the Hubble Telescope

An artist's conception of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Image: NASA

John Mather is the senior project scientist behind the Hubble Telescope's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). "This telescope extends the science that Hubble has pioneered, but it covers different wavelength regions," he said. The JWST will see in infrared, as opposed to Hubble's scan of optical and ultra-violet wavelengths. Infrared technology will allow astronomers to see farther into the cosmos, giving insight into the farthest, and oldest, regions of outer space.

--BBC has more information