Artificial Intelligence Finds Missing Ghost Ancestor of Humans
Our ancestry as a species is intricate and convoluted. We know that Denisovans, Neanderthals, and the other iterations of our hominin ancestors interbred and evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. But while anthropologists have done their best to map out this complicated lineage, we’ve now reached a point in our evolution that machines can map our genealogy better than we can. Such was the case when a machine learning algorithm applied to our DNA roadmap found a new ancestor we didn’t even know existed.
According to a study published in Nature Communications, scientists fed DNA data from fossilized bones and modern humans into an A.I. algorithm that computed thousands of timelines to map out the possible evolutionary pathways based on what we know – or what we think we know – about our ancestors migrations, diasporas, and interbreeding to tell us if we were missing anything.
It turns out we were…
The new study found that a missing, archaic “ghost” ancestor played a significant role in the development of the human species, helping to propel us from primitive hominins to the highly intelligent beings we are today.
This ancestor was likely a hybrid of Neanderthals and the Denisovans – the hominin ancestor discovered in 2010, that five percent of modern humans can still directly trace their genealogy through.
And though the study’s authors are referring to this hominin hybrid as a “ghost” population, they also believe there might be fossil evidence of it found in the bones of a 90,000-year-old specimen of a teenage girl discovered in Siberia’s Denisova cave – the location where the original Denisovan fossils were found.
The discovery of the Denisovans has presented itself as one of the most profound and baffling finds for archeologists within the past decade as their fossil remains showed they existed for millennia alongside our other ancestors. Not to mention they appear to have been massive in comparison to other hominin species.
And by massive, they mean that a Denisovan wisdom tooth found in the cave was originally mistaken for that of a bear’s. And though wisdom teeth can vary in size, the anthropologist studying the specimen, Bence Viola, told National Geographic, “large teeth with massive roots would probably require massive jaws.”
Who were these gigantic Denisovans whom we know so little about, and even more baffling, what did their hybrid progeny with Neanderthal’s look like? These paradigm-shifting discoveries only add to the fact that we still have so much more to learn about our species’ history.
For more on the strange discovery of the gigantic Denisovans check out this episode of Ancient Civilizations :
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Scientists Have Reversed the Arrow of Time in Quantum Experiment
Scientists have reversed the arrow of time using a quantum computer, by reassembling electrons into an original state. And though they’re hesitant to describe their findings as having any implications for time travel, researchers said they believe their simulation has defied the second law of thermodynamics.
The second law of thermodynamics essentially defines time for us, in the sense that as the arrow of time moves forward, the entropy of an isolated system only increases and can never decrease – it’s why we get older and have finite life spans, or why your coffee eventually gets cold.
But physicists at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology say they believe they’ve been able to violate this principle, in theory.
“We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time,” head of the study, Dr. Gordey Lesovik, said.
By simulating the wave function of a particle spreading out over time, the scientists created an algorithm to reverse that wave, much like reversing the ripples in a pond after dropping a pebble into it.
But as more particles were added to the system, the physicists said the likelihood of restoring order from chaos occurred less frequently, meaning any system that utilizes their method would require a high level of control, like a quantum computer. When two qubits (quantum particles) were used, scientists were able to reverse entropy 85 percent of the time, but with a third qubit only 50 percent of the time.
Researchers involved in the study compared their test to the possibility of striking a rack of pool balls and having it return to its precisely arranged triangular formation, something seemingly impossible in our everyday reality, but now entirely possible in quantum physics.
So, does this mean we might be able to someday go back in time by traveling through the quantum realm?
Unfortunately, that answer seem to be no. When it comes to future practicality the team says this finding would likely be applied to quantum computers to eliminate noise and error. So, not quite time travel, but faster computers – guess it could be worse.
But if they were able to simulate this with quantum physics, doesn’t that mean time reversal is somehow possible, whether it agrees with traditional physics or not? Yes, in fact much of quantum physics is wildly contradictory to physics, and though we’re able to observe these paradoxical behaviors in the universe, not even the most brilliant physicists are able to fully comprehend this disparity or find a unifying theory.
For this we recommend turning to Gaia’s own quantum expert Theresa Bullard and her series Mystery Teachings — check out Theresa’s explanation of this bizarre realm in Accessing the Quantum Gap:
