Nature Hub

From - BBC News Edited by - Amal Uawatta IMAGE SOURCE, MIRIAM LUCIAÑEZ TRIVIÑO Image caption, An artist's impression of 'Ivory Lady' (in red) The highest status individual in ancient Iberian copper age society was a woman, not a man as previously believed, according to a new study. A treasure-packed tomb outside Seville dating back to around 2,850 BC was thought to belong to a young man between 17 and 25 years old. But a new technique shows the remains are of a woman, say researchers. They have named her "Ivory Lady". She was buried with ivory tusks, ostrich eggshell, and a rock crystal dagger. Marta Cintas‑Peña, an associate professor of prehistory at the University of Seville, along with her colleagues, detected Ivory Lady's sex using a new technique that identifies chromosomal information in tooth enamel. The research team says that the new procedure is highly reliable even with poorly preserved human skeletons and that this novel method is also much cheape

From -Smithsonian Magazine Ella Feldman , Daily Correspondent,  Edited by - Amal Udawatta      The 3,000-year-old Imsety sculpture is a lid to a canopic jar, which held organs during         mummification.  U.S. Customs and Border Patrol The stone sculpture depicts the Egyptical funeral deity Imsety On August 17, the  United States Customs and Border Patrol  seized a 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifact in Memphis. (That’s Memphis, Tennessee, by the way, not  Memphis , Egypt.) Customs officials intercepted the item after its shipper made contradictory statements about its declared value, says the agency in a  statement . To find out more about the artifact, they contacted subject matter experts at the University of Memphis’  Institute of Egyptian Art and Archeology These specialists determined that the stone sculpture is the lid to an  Egyptian canopic jar , depicting the funeral deity  Imsety . Egyptians used canopic jars to hold organs that were removed from a body during the mummificati

  By Pallab Ghosh, Science correspondent, Edited by-  Amal Udawatta, IMAGE SOURCE, PALEOZOO Image caption, Artist's impression of the Gogo fish Researchers have discovered a 380-million-year-old heart preserved inside a fossilised prehistoric fish. They say the specimen captures a key moment in the evolution of the blood-pumping organ found in all back-boned animals, including humans. The heart belonged to a fish known as the Gogo, which is now extinct. The "jaw-dropping" discovery, published in the journal Science, was made in Western Australia. The lead scientist, Prof Kate Trinajstic from Curtin University in Perth told BBC News about the moment she and her colleagues realised that they had made the biggest discovery of their lives. "We were crowded around the computer and recognised that we had a heart and pretty much couldn't believe it! It was incredibly exciting," she said. Scientists find 'oldest human ancestor' Human clues to our fish ancest

 From BBC News Eddited by Amal Udawatta, IMAGE SOURCE, SHARAD BADHE / BBC Image caption, Several small and large stone tools were found during excavations. Over the years rock carvings of a previously unknown civilisation have been found in India's western state of Maharashtra. Now, a cave in the same region is promising to shed more light on the creators of these prehistoric artworks and their lives. The BBC Marathi's Mayuresh Konnur reports. The cave, located around 10km (six miles) away from Koloshi village in the Konkan region of western Maharashtra, was discovered by a group of researchers last year. Excavations earlier this year revealed several stone tools in the cave that date back tens of thousands of years. "Nowhere in the world can we find rock art of this kind," says Dr Tejas Garge, who heads Maharashtra's archaeology department. Archaeologists believe these artefacts can help us find out more about the way our ancestors lived. IMAGE SOURCE, SHARAD BAD