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In the heart scan study, researchers found that the AI model wasn’t actually focusing on the heart itself, where there were few visible differences linked to racial categories. Instead, it drew information from areas outside the heart, such as subcutaneous fat as well as image artefacts – unwanted distortions like motion blur, noise, or compression that can degrade image quality. These artefacts often come from the scanner and can influence how the AI interprets the scan.
Scientists have found genetic evidence of an ancient group of people in Colombia with no modern-day descendants. It’s as if they simply vanished from the face of the Earth. What’s more, they’re also not closely related to the ancient Native American populations that scientists had thought would be their ancestors.
“This is unexpected,” Andre Luiz Campelo dos Santos, an archaeologist from Florida Atlantic University who did not participate in the research, tells Adithi Ramakrishnan at the Associated Press. “Up to this point, we didn’t believe there was any other lineage that would appear in South America.”
An international team of researchers described the discovery in a study published in late May in the journal Science Advances. They analyzed DNA from the bones and teeth of 21 individuals found at five archaeological sites in the Altiplano—the high plains around Bogotá—dating to between 500 and 6,000 years ago. The analyses represent Colombia’s first ancient human genomes ever to be published.
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.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 