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The reanalysis further pushes back the divergence time of modern humans — Homo sapiens — whose ancestors are estimated to have lived in Africa around 500,000 years ago, Neanderthals, who lived between 24,000 and 130,000 years ago in Europe, and Homo longi, a species closely related to Denisovans, who thrived from 30,000 to 285,000 years ago across Asia and are the cousins of Neanderthals.
“This is a joint effort,” Cheng said. “Phenotyping data were collected both from the UK and China, and we employed a multi-disciplinary approach.”
“Mendel discovered what we now call the laws of inheritance without knowing what a gene was,” said Cheng. “Today, using modern tools, we can see the exact genes — and the precise mutations — that he unknowingly tracked.”
Among the most striking findings, researchers discovered that the mutations underlying Mendel’s traits span a wide range, underscoring the complexity behind what once appeared to be simple hereditary patterns.
“Most of these mutations cause loss-of-function changes, which provide a clear molecular explanation for the dominant and recessive inheritance Mendel observed,” Cheng said.
The study also identified previously unknown genetic elements, including a natural flower color revertant and a modifier gene known as Mfa, which suppresses fasciation — a trait causing abnormal floral growth. These discoveries reveal hidden layers of genetic complexity in the pea plant.
As sequencing tech grows faster and cheaper, scientists will keep hunting for ancient gene families, refining the ancestral blueprint, and scoping out early viral fossils hidden in microbial DNA.
New drilling missions aimed at untouched seafloor vents could reveal communities whose lifestyles echo those first biochemical gambles, tightening links between geology and genetics.
The storyline is still unfolding, but one takeaway already stands firm: life did not tiptoe onto the stage. It sprinted, armed with a full toolkit, ready to spar with viruses, and eager to reshape its surroundings – leaving every organism alive today carrying a hint of that four‑billion‑year‑old spark.
The study addresses a fundamental question: How do these intricate connections form, and why do distinct brain regions exhibit such orderly distribution across the cortex?
“The brain begins following a genetic ‘blueprint’ during embryonic development,” Fan noted.
Researchers proposed a hypothesis: genetic encoding and cortical connectivity are not directly correlated due to the vast numerical disparity between genes and neural connections. Instead, genes likely guide the spatial organization of white matter fiber tracts through efficient organizational principles, forming specific embedded patterns in the cortex, said Li Deying, the paper’s lead author and a doctoral student at the institute.
The research has revealed that life’s evolution from simple to complex in about 1.5 billion years is not a linear process but a pattern of alternating long-term stagnation and relatively rapid growth.
The results also highlighted the profound effects of sudden environmental shifts, such as temperature and oxygen level, on early complex life, offering crucial implications for studying alien life in harsh conditions and evaluating the future habitability of Earth, said Tang Qing from Nanjing University, the first author and one of the corresponding authors of the paper.
A peer-reviewer praised the work as “a long overdue paper to examine the fossil record of the Proterozoic,” which will make for “a plethora of papers following [its] publication.”
The foot metatarsal bone found this year is the only one unearthed in China, and it could provide important information in studying both how the ancients walked and their height, Wu said.
In addition, the finely crafted stone tools found at Hualongdong show the relatively high technical level of the Hualongdong cave people 300,000 years ago. They were very intelligent, and had evolved towards the stage of Homo sapiens, according to Wu.
“The Hualongdong humans were the earliest ancient humans in East Asia who exhibited the most characteristics of Homo sapiens, and were at a key turning point in the evolution from ancient humans towards modern humans. The Hualongdong site will provide a wealth of information on how modern humans evolved,” said Liu Wu, another researcher with the IVPP, who has conducted excavations at the site for more than a decade.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 