DNA evidence for early 'mystery' humans
SEATTLE, July 26 (UPI) -- Early humans in Africa mated with a mystery species of human that may have been related to Neanderthals that later inhabited Europe, genetic studies show.
No fossil evidence of the previously unknown humans exists, researchers said, but they left their mark in bits of foreign DNA in modern-day African populations.
The existence of that genetic material in modern human populations is proof of interbreeding between the two species, probably 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, they said.
"Geneticists like euphemisms, but we're talking about sex," Joshua Akey of the University of Washington in Seattle told The Washington Post.
Akey's lab identified the mystery DNA in three groups of modern Africans.
"We're calling this a Neanderthal sibling species in Africa," Akey said.
The time of the interbreeding would have been long after some modern humans had walked out of Africa to colonize Asia and Europe, he said, and around the same time Neanderthals were on the decline in Europe.
Present-day Europeans show no evidence of the foreign DNA, suggesting the mystery people were likely confined to Africa, he said.
While modern humans and the newly found "archaic" Africans might be classified as distinct species, they managed to produce viable offspring, Akey said.
"They had to be similar enough in appearance to anatomically modern humans that reproduction would happen," Akey said.
However, with no fossils in hand, he acknowledged, it's impossible to say what these people looked like.
Face of Simon Bolivar 'reconstructed'
ARACAS, Venezuela, July 26 (UPI) -- Venezuela says artists have made a 3-D reconstruction of the face of Simon Bolivar, who died in 1830 after leading a fight against Spanish colonial rule.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez unveiled the computer-generated image, created by artists studying Bolivar's remains, at Miraflores presidential palace in the capital Caracas on the 229th anniversary of Bolivar's birth.
Two years ago Chavez ordered that the remains should be exhumed, the BBC reported.
"Bolivar is the fight that does not end, he is born every day in ourselves, in his people, in the children, in the fight for life and for social justice," Chavez, a known admirer of the Venezuelan-born national hero, said.
Bolivar's remains will now reside in a new $78 million mausoleum built in central Caracas from marble imported from South Africa.
Bolivar began his fight against the Spanish empire in the early 1800s and after independence became the president of Gran Colombia, which covered much of modern Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador and northern Peru.
Facebook appealing to more Japanese
TOKYO, July 26 (UPI) -- A growing number of young Japanese say they are ditching the country's homegrown social networks in favor of foreign counterparts like Facebook.
A Nielsen/NetRatings survey found there were 17.2 million unique Facebook users in Japan in May, more than double that a year ago, NewScientist.com reported.
Tech-savvy young people say they're leaving Japanese social networks such as Mixi, on which most users are anonymous, in favor of Facebook and other networks where personal information is shared freely.
Kenji Shinozaki, a 19-year-old hair stylist from Shizuoka, said he has has swapped Mixi for Facebook.
"Exchanging personal information such as phone numbers was a no-go and anyone who did risked having their account erased," he said. "We wanted a bit more freedom and openness and Facebook offered that."
Facebook Japan estimates it will pass Mixi, which has 20 million active users a month, by the end of the year.
"We think that Japanese Internet users have started to realize the fun and merit of real-name communication on the Web," said Wakaba Takemura, spokesman for Facebook Japan.
The simplicity of Facebook is winning some converts.
"The 'like' button is simple, but very clever," said Ayumi Matsuda, a first-year university student who joined Facebook three months ago. "It doesn't require a lot of thought but has a certain emotional meaning attached to it.
Deep canyon found under Antarctic ice
ABERDEEN, Scotland, July 26 (UPI) -- Ice melt on Antarctica is being accelerated by a rift as deep as the Grand Canyon created as the continent is slowly splitting in two, scientists say.
A British team using ice-penetrating radar found the chasm, dubbed the Ferrigno rift, and determined it was about a mile deep, the BBC reported.
In the geological rift system new crust is being formed as the eastern and western halves of the antarctic continent are slowly separating, scientists said.
Reporting their finding in the journal Nature, the team said the canyon is bringing more warm sea water to the ice sheet, speeding up its melting.
Researchers towed an ice-penetrating radar kit behind a snowmobile as they traveled nearly 1,500 miles.
"What we found is that lying beneath the ice there is a large valley, parts of which are approximately a mile deeper than the surrounding landscape," Aberdeen University glaciologist Robert Bingham said.
"If you stripped away all of the ice here today, you'd see a feature every bit as dramatic as the huge rift valleys you see in Africa and in size as significant as the [U.S.] Grand Canyon."
