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Categories: Anthropology: Early Humans, Computer Science: Encryption

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Scientists use genomic data to resolve the phylogeny of zygnematophyte algae and pinpoint several emergences of multicellularity in the closest known relatives of terrestrial plants.

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Computer scientists have succeeded in developing a method for systematically finding the optimal quantum operation sequence for a quantum computer. They have developed a systematic method that applies optimal control theory (GRAPE algorithm) to identify the theoretically optimal sequence from among all conceivable quantum operation sequences. This method is expected to become a useful tool for medium-scale quantum computers and is expected to contribute to improving the performance of quantum computers and reducing environmental impact in the near future.

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Scientists have developed a mathematical description of what happens within tiny magnets as they fluctuate between states when an electric current and magnetic field are applied. Their findings could act as the foundation for engineering more advanced computers that can quantify uncertainty while interpreting complex data.

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The modalities and date of emergence of bipedalism remain bitterly debated, in particular because of a small number of very old human fossils. Sahelanthropus tchadensis, discovered in 2001 in Chad, is considered to be the oldest representative of the humankind. The shape of its cranium suggests a bipedal station. The description of three limb bones of Sahelanthropus confirms habitual bipedalism, but not exclusively.

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Research has established that there are traces of Neandertal DNA in the genome of modern humans. Now an exploratory study that assessed the facial structure of prehistoric skulls is offering new insights, and supports the hypothesis that much of this interbreeding took place in the Near East -- the region ranging from North Africa to Iraq.

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Researchers have shown that a component of modern computer processors that enables different areas of the chip to communicate with each other is susceptible to a side-channel attack. An attacker can monitor how traffic from two different cores on a processor interferes with each other to extract secret information, like a cryptographic key.

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Did the 12th century B.C.E. -- a time when humans were forging great empires and developing new forms of written text -- coincide with an evolutionary reduction in brain size? Think again, says a team of researchers whose new paper refutes a hypothesis that's growing increasingly popular among the science community.

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New research provide evidence that the crustacean carapace, along with other plate-like structures in arthropods (crustaceans, insects, arachnids, and myriapods) all evolved from a lateral leg lobe in a common ancestor more than 500 million years ago. This work further supports their proposal for a new concept of how novel structures evolve -- one which suggests that they aren't so novel, after all.

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Researchers find that stem cells in the developing brain of modern humans take longer to divide and make fewer errors when distributing their chromosomes to their daughter cells, compared to those of Neanderthals.

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A newly identified 16th century horse specimen is among the oldest domestic horses from the Americas known to date, and its DNA helps clarify the history of horses in the Western Hemisphere, according to a new study.

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A method known as quantum key distribution has long held the promise of communication security unattainable in conventional cryptography. An international team of scientists has now demonstrated experimentally, for the first time, an approach to quantum key distribution that is based on high-quality quantum entanglement -- offering much broader security guarantees than previous schemes.

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An international team has successfully implemented an advanced form of quantum cryptography for the first time. Moreover, encryption is independent of the quantum device used and therefore even more secure against hacking attempts.

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Whether by the spear or the plow, humans have been homogenizing the mammal communities of North America for 10,000-plus years, says a new analysis of 8,831 fossils representing 365 species.

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Many people and companies worry about sensitive data getting hacked, so encrypting files with digital keys has become more commonplace. Now, researchers have developed a durable molecular encryption key from sequence-defined polymers that are built and deconstructed in a sequential way. They hid their molecular key in the ink of a letter, which was mailed and then used to decrypt a file with text from a classic story.

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The study of the genomes of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, has opened up new research paths that can broaden our understanding of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens. A new study has made an estimation of the time when some of the genetic variants that characterize our species emerged. It does so by analyzing mutations that are very frequent in modern human populations, but not in these other species of archaic humans.

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For the first time, researchers successfully sequenced the genome of ancient human fossils from the Late Pleistocene in southern China. The data suggests that the mysterious hominin belonged to an extinct maternal branch of modern humans that might have contributed to the origin of Native Americans.

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In a new paper, researchers challenge the longstanding view that the force of natural selection in humans must decline to zero once reproduction is complete. They assert that a long post-reproductive lifespan is not just due to recent advancements in health and medicine. The secret to our success? Our grandparents.

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The fossil record tells us about ancient life through the preserved remains of body parts like bones, teeth and turtle shells. But how to study the history of soft tissues and organs, which can decay quickly, leaving little evidence behind? In a new study, scientists use gene expression patterns, called transcriptomics, to investigate the ancient origins of one organ: the placenta, which is vital to pregnancy.

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New genetic research from remote islands in the Pacific offers fresh insights into the ancestry and culture of the world's earliest seafarers, including family structure, social customs, and the ancestral populations of the people living there today.

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An international group of geneticists and archaeologists have found that the ancestry of dogs can be traced to at least two populations of ancient wolves. The work moves us a step closer to uncovering the mystery of where dogs underwent domestication, one of the biggest unanswered questions about human prehistory.