Latest news with #Homo
Time of India
3 days ago
- Time of India
Nexus author Yuval Noah Harari warns of AI's deeper emotional threat beyond job loss: ‘The danger is enormous...'
The Perils of 'Fake' Connection Beyond Job Loss: A Radical Shift in Human Experience Who is Yuval Noah Harari? You Might Also Like: 'Don't be that person who ignores this technology': Nvidia CEO warns AI will rewrite the rules of employment A Wake-Up Call for the AI Era As artificial intelligence rapidly evolves, fears around job automation dominate headlines. Yet acclaimed author Yuval Noah Harari , known for his bestselling books Sapiens and Nexus, offers a far more unsettling warning: AI's ability to replicate intimacy could fundamentally alter human relationships—and not necessarily for the a recent panel discussion co-hosted by the Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien, Tokyo College, and Kawade Shobo in March 2025, Harari shared a revealing video clip on his Instagram. He explained how AI, having already mastered language and attention, is now advancing toward mimicking intimacy—arguably the most potent human connection.'Intimacy is much more powerful than attention,' Harari said. 'A good friend can change your views in a way no article or book ever could.' Until now, genuine intimacy was something that could not be faked or mass-produced. But AI has broken that cautions that a new generation might grow up forming intimate bonds with AI rather than with other humans. Unlike humans, AI has no feelings of its own. It never gets upset, angry, or tired and can focus entirely on an individual, creating a 'fake sense of intimacy.'This, Harari warns, poses an 'enormous potential danger': people might become emotionally attached to artificial entities and, in the process, lose the ability to engage in real, complicated human relationships . Genuine intimacy is messy and requires navigating emotions and conflicts—something AI simply job displacement remains a valid concern with AI's rise, Harari's perspective highlights a deeper cultural and psychological challenge. The risk isn't only economic; it's existential. If humans turn to AI for emotional support and connection, the very fabric of human relationships could insights resonate strongly given his broader work on humanity's future. As a historian and philosopher, he has long explored how technological revolutions reshape societies—from the cognitive revolution that made Homo sapiens dominant to the looming biotechnological era where humans might engineer new life Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and public intellectual renowned for making complex ideas accessible to the public. His landmark book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind traces the arc of human evolution and culture, while Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI delves into the digital transformations shaping today's work explores themes such as consciousness, free will, and the future of intelligence. He famously predicts that Homo sapiens as we know them may disappear within a century, replaced by technologically enhanced or AI-driven warning is a timely reminder that the AI revolution is not only about economic disruption but about how humans relate to one another at their core. As AI becomes ever more capable of mimicking human emotions and intimacy, society faces profound questions: Can artificial relationships satisfy human needs? And at what cost to genuine human connection?This emerging reality invites urgent reflection—not only on what AI can do but on what it should do. For now, the risks seem to outweigh the benefits, and Harari's voice urges caution and awareness before the next frontier in AI irrevocably changes what it means to be human.
The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- Science
- The Herald Scotland
Pebble with finger print suggests Neanderthal may have created art
The quartz-rich granite pebble included indentations resembling a face, its nose a Rudolph-like red dot visible at center. Significantly, the spot didn't appear to be random, instead bearing evidence indicating it was the product of someone's imagination. "The ocher dot does not appear as a shapeless addition or a mere stain," wrote lead author David Alvarez-Alonso of Madrid's Complutense University. "Rather, it contains a fingerprint that implies the pigment has been applied specifically with the tip of a finger soaked in pigment." The authors consider the artifact a nonutilitarian visual symbol - in other words, not a tool but an altered or marked object with possible symbolic significance. While its age makes it impossible to draw any definitive conclusions, they wrote, the stone could "represent one of the oldest known abstractions of a human face in the prehistoric record." ????Hemos resuelto un caso de 43.000 anos de antiguedad Se trata de la????huella dactilar mas antigua del mundo y nuestra Policia Cientifica ha logrado el hito de su identificacion por procedimientos no invasivos de teledeteccion junto a la @unicomplutense Ha sido fundamental el... — Policia Nacional (@policia) May 27, 2025 "The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with ocher shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolizing, imagining, idealizing and projecting his or her thoughts on an object," they wrote. An expanding Neanderthal portfolio This isn't the first time a Neanderthal fingerprint has been pinpointed, the authors noted. A partial one, likely made by a thumb, was found on resin discovered in Germany in 1963. However, the discovery offers yet another dab of evidence suggesting that Neanderthals made art. In 2018, The Guardian reported archaeological findings in Spain indicating that Neanderthals used red ocher to produce shapes and symbols on cave walls 65,000 years ago. The species flourished from roughly 350,000 to 40,000 years ago, and studies indicate they and modern humans may have gone their separate ways as long as 800,000 years ago. Increasing evidence has indicated that Neanderthals were more advanced than once thought. In 2020, a paper published in the journal Science said evidence found in a coastal cave in Portugal suggested Neanderthals were skilled fishermen who regularly consumed seafood as part of their diet. Until then, only humans (Homo sapiens) had been thought to look to the sea as a food source. Meanwhile, the discovery of 176,000-year-old structures deep within a French cave hinted at Neanderthals' ability to use fire and work in groups. A 2016 article in Nature described strange, circular edifices constructed in an interior space 360 yards removed from daylight; the formations were made from uniform stalagmites, many of them cut to size. With the earliest known human-built structures 40,000 years old, the cave formations not only predate such activity by Homo sapiens but also show Neanderthal utilization of deep caves began much earlier as well. According to the study, the earliest indications of modern humans using deep caves are less than 42,000 years old.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
This May Be The World's Oldest Human Fingerprint, And That's Not All
Around 43,000 years ago, a Neanderthal dipped their finger in ocher and stamped the very center of a pebble. This one small marking on this one small stone still exists to this day. It was discovered in 2022 in the San Lázaro rock shelter of Central Spain, and it may be the world's oldest complete human fingerprint. More than that, it could also be one of the oldest known artistic representations of a human face. That latter claim remains controversial, but the red fingerprint does sit in the very middle of the pebble, below two divots and above another – an artistic 'boop' right where a nose should be. On site, the face immediately jumped out to archaeologists, led by David Álvarez-Alonso at the Complutense University of Madrid. If the team is right, this stone was probably carried from the nearby river to the San Lázaro rock shelter. The Neanderthal who selected it must have seen something special in its shape to take it home and paint it with ocher, especially as it seems to serve no functional purpose and no other ocher has been found at the site. "The ocher dot does not appear as a shapeless addition or a mere stain," explain the authors, "rather, it contains a fingerprint that implies the pigment has been applied specifically with the tip of a finger soaked in pigment." There's always a chance the print was made by accident. But Álvarez Alonso and colleagues think it is more likely the marking was an intentional act of imagination and symbolic art – a skill we have only just started giving Neanderthals credit for. "If we had a pebble with a red dot on it that was done 5,000 years ago by Homo sapiens, no one would hesitate to call it portable art," Álvarez Alonso told Sam Jones at The Guardian. "But associating Neanderthals with art generates a lot of debate. I think there's sometimes an unintentional prejudice." The study was published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. Robot Hand Could Help Scientists Decode Why Tickling Makes Us Giggle Earliest Known Whale Bone Tools Discovered in Europe's Museum Collections Are Dogs Replacing Babies in Countries With Declining Birth Rates?
Daily Maverick
6 days ago
- Science
- Daily Maverick
Ancient protein from pre-human teeth reveals genetic secrets of human evolutionary tree
Researchers have extracted 2 million-year-old protein remains from ancient pre-human teeth to reveal biological sex and genetic variability. Researchers have extracted 2 million-year-old protein remains from ancient pre-human teeth to reveal biological sex and genetic variability. The teeth are from Paranthropus robustus, an extinct hominin genus that emerged and evolved in Africa between 2.8 and 1.2 Ma. It is considered to be a side branch of our evolutionary tree. It walked on two legs and co-existed with early species of Homo in Africa, possibly interacting. The work, published in the journal Science, marks a significant breakthrough in human evolution studies. It provides some of the oldest human genetic data from Africa and reveals previously undetected genetic variability. 'Because we can sample multiple African Pleistocene hominin individuals classified within the same group, we're now able to observe not just biological sex but, for the first time, genetic differences that might have existed among them,' says the study's co-lead Palesa Madupe. Madupe is a postdoctoral research Fellow at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen and research associate at the Human Evolution Research Institute (HERI) at the University of Cape Town. The researchers used a technique called palaeoproteomics to retrieve ancient protein sequences from the teeth of four Paranthropus robustus fossils recovered from the cave site Swartkrans. Solving the riddle Using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry techniques, they partially reconstructed the ancient enamel protein sequences from the teeth. They found that two of the fossils are male and two are female. But how was this done? Madupe explains: Among the proteins found in tooth enamel, there's one called amelogenin. This protein is unique because its genetic instructions are located on the sex chromosomes: biological females have a version called amelogenin X, while biological males have both amelogenin X and amelogenin Y. 'We used mass spectrometry to detect which protein fragments are present in the fossilised teeth we are analysing. The precise detection of amelogenin Y protein fragments allows us to confidently identify that specimen as belonging to a male individual. 'The challenge comes when we only detect amelogenin X protein fragments, as this could indicate either a female or a male individual whose amelogenin Y is not measured. 'To solve this, we developed a quantitative method for increasing certainty that the lack of amelogenin Y detection proves that those individuals are females.' Eventually, two were identified as male and two as female, just by tiny ancient proteins. Ancient diversity A single genetic variant in another protein, enamelin, was also identified that differentiated the four specimens from one another. Two specimens carried one version of the protein, a third carried another and a fourth specimen appeared to carry both. Their methodology allows for the partial recovery of the amino acid sequences of specific proteins from dental enamel. 'You can imagine this 'amino acid sequence' as a sequence of letters, with each letter corresponding to a specific amino acid [and with 20 possible letters to choose from for each position of the sequence]. An amino acid sequence is usually characteristic of a species; members of the same species will have the same sequence of letters for a protein. 'When we recovered and looked at the enamelin sequence of the four specimens, we saw that the sequences differed at one letter; they had 'a single genetic variant'.' Ioannis Patramanis and Claire Koenig, co-leads from the University of Copenhagen, explained that there are a number of reasons this difference could have occurred. For example, it could be that Paranthropus robustus has a high genetic diversity, or that the four samples belong to different populations or subspecies of Paranthropus, or that we sampled the same species but at different time points in its evolution. 'When studying proteins, specific mutations are thought to be characteristic of a species and, as such, used to identify it. We were thus quite surprised to discover that what we initially thought was a mutation uniquely describing Paranthropus robustus, was actually variable within that group; some individuals had it while others did not,' says Patramanis. The future and DNA HERI co-director Rebecca Ackermann was a senior author on the study, with contributions from co-director Robyn Pickering and several HERI research associates. 'Being able to accurately determine the sex of ancient fossils is a big breakthrough as it allows us to determine whether the variation we see in a sample is due to sexual dimorphism or other factors such as taxonomic diversity,' says Ackermann. 'This has the potential to help us understand sex-related differences in morphology and behaviour. It also provides some control for determining how many species are being sampled. It also may provide direct evidence for understanding the hominin family tree, though this is based on a very small amount of genetic information, so we need to be very cautious in these interpretations. 'Palaeoproteomics does give us insight into genetics, as DNA encodes proteins, so we can work backwards to reconstruct DNA sequences. 'But it's important to remember that the enamel proteome is very small, so this is just a tiny bit of genetic information. At this point, ancient proteins are our only genetic information for deep-time African fossils. 'DNA preservation is poor in African environments, and so far our time depth for understanding human evolution from ancient DNA in Africa is only about 20 thousand years. Only time will tell whether this can be pushed back further!' says Ackerman. DM
Time of India
13-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Advanced weapons built 80,000 years ago, unearthed in Russia, has no human connection
An 80,000-year-old bone spear tip, unearthed in Russia, challenges previous assumptions about Neanderthal capabilities. This discovery suggests they independently developed sophisticated hunting weapons, predating similar innovations by Homo sapiens. The artifact's advanced craftsmanship and well-preserved condition provide compelling evidence of Neanderthal resourcefulness and technological prowess, reshaping our understanding of their cognitive abilities. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads FAQs The world is witnessing the use of advanced and hi-tech weaponry in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, the military conflict between Israel on one side and a host of terror groups on the other, as well as the recent confrontation between India and Pakistan that came to an end just a couple of days advanced weapons and modern warfare techniques, including drones, UAVs , and cyberattacks, have been used in these military between all this, a unique weapon has been uncovered beneath the ground in Russia , one that was not even made by a human. While the weapon is a masterpiece, it has no human connection, and that has baffled the has revealed that this ancient weapon is approximately 80,000 years old and was unearthed from a cave in Russia. While the weapon, a spear tip made of bone, seems to be a simple object in the first instance, its age, dated to be nearly 80,000 years old has shocked the had till now believed that these sophisticated early tools, especially those made of materials other than stone, were the hallmark of our species, Homo sapiens But this remarkable spear tip, discovered in Russia's Mezmaiskaya Cave back in 2003, throws a fascinating curveball into that of its age, it's clear that modern humans couldn't have been the ones who painstakingly carved and shaped spotlight now turns to the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), our close evolutionary cousins who roamed Europe for hundreds of thousands of years before eventually fading Liubov Golovanova, an archaeologist at the Laboratory of Prehistory in Russia and the lead researcher behind the new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, explains the significance of this discovery. "This specimen suggests that at least some groups of late Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals in Europe had begun to develop bone-tipped hunting weapons," she and her team state in their makes this even more intriguing is the implication that the Neanderthals likely came up with this innovation on their own, "independently and without influence from early Upper Paleolithic modern humans that started to arrive on the continent much later."For years, these skills were largely attributed to Homo sapiens. However, this spear tip joins a growing body of evidence suggesting that Neanderthals were far more resourceful and technologically capable than we previously gave them credit discoveries of other bone tools crafted by Neanderthals, such as a 50,000-year-old collection from Siberia and 40,000-year-old tools possibly used for softening leather found in Europe, further support this evolving older bone tools, dating back as far as 400,000 years and potentially predating Neanderthals, have been found in Italy, hinting at a long history of bone tool use among early human researchers like Dr. Golovanova point out that the craftsmanship seen in this 80,000-year-old spear tip appears more advanced than some of these earlier fact that we don't find as many Neanderthal bone tools compared to their stone tools might simply be a matter of is more fragile than stone and requires specific environmental conditions to survive the relentless march of Cave, where the spear tip was found nestled amongst animal remains, stone tools, and traces of ancient campfires, seems to have provided that perfect researchers noted the "exceptional" preservation of the bone, with no signs of weathering or damage that would typically occur over such a long carefully examining the spear tip, Dr. Golovanova and her team even found cracks that suggest it was used to strike something soon after it was made and attached to a wooden shaft with tar. The bone itself likely came from a bison, a common prey animal of the discovery suggests that Neanderthals were not simply brutish cave dwellers but possessed a capacity for innovation and complex toolmaking that rivals our early bone tools are relatively rare compared to stone tools. However, this may be because bone decomposes more easily unless preserved in ideal conditions. Recent discoveries show Neanderthals used bone more often and more skillfully than once a mix of climate change, competition with Homo sapiens, small populations, and interbreeding. Some of their genes live on in us todayNeanderthals were shorter and stockier than modern humans, with large brow ridges, wide nostrils, and a robust, muscular build. Their faces were broad with a prominent nose, and they likely had pale skin and possibly red or light brown hair.
