Ancient remains found in Indonesia belong to a vanished human lineage

Ancient remains found in Indonesia belong to a vanished human lineage | Johnson & Johnson booster shot increases antibodies to coronavirus nine-fold, company says | Massive iceberg narrowly avoided collision with Antarctic ice shelf Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( August 26, 2021 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE]( [] Top Science News [] [Ancient remains found in Indonesia belong to a vanished human lineage]( [Ancient remains found in Indonesia belong to a vanished human lineage]( (Hasanuddin University) A woman buried 7,200 years ago in what is now Indonesia belonged to a previously unknown human lineage that doesn't exist anymore, a new genetic analysis reveals. The ancient woman's genome also revealed that she is a distant relative of present-day Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians, or the Indigenous people on the islands of New Guinea and the western Pacific whose ancestors were the first humans to reach Oceania, the researchers found. Like the Aboriginal Australians and New Guineans, the woman had a significant proportion of DNA from an archaic human species known as the Denisovans, the researchers found. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/25) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] COVID-19 [] [Johnson & Johnson booster shot increases antibodies to coronavirus nine-fold, company says]( [Johnson & Johnson booster shot increases antibodies to coronavirus nine-fold, company says]( (Shutterstock) A booster dose of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine prompted a big spike in antibodies among clinical trial participants, when taken six to eight months after the first dose, the company announced on Wednesday (Aug.25). A booster dose generated a nine-fold increase in antibodies compared to the level seen 28 days after the initial dose, the company reported in a statement. Health officials have recommended that people vaccinated with the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines receive a booster dose about eight months after their second dose, due to waning immunity, Live Science previously reported. But they have not yet recommended a booster for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, citing the lack of data. "We also anticipate booster shots will likely be needed for people who received the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine," the U.S. Department of Health and Human services said in a statement on Aug.18. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/25) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Amazing Earth [] [Massive iceberg narrowly avoided collision with Antarctic ice shelf]( [Massive iceberg narrowly avoided collision with Antarctic ice shelf]( (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) A massive iceberg that broke off of Antarctica last year recently spun around and narrowly avoided colliding with the Brunt Ice Shelf. Such a crash could have caused a new, even more massive iceberg to break off. Iceberg A-74, which is more than 20 times the size of Manhattan, split from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf in February 2020, Live Science previously reported. Ocean currents kept the giant beast near its parent ice shelf for the past six months, according to a statement from the European Space Agency (ESA). Everything was quiet, until the winds came. In early August, strong winds spun the iceberg around the ice shelf. Two polar-orbiting satellites that make up the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission captured radar images between Aug. 9 and Aug. 18 that showed A-74 "brushing slightly" against a thin strip of ice that juts off the shelf and then moving south. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/26) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Space Exploration [] [SpaceX Starship: Key milestones for the world's most powerful rocket]( [SpaceX Starship: Key milestones for the world's most powerful rocket]( (SpaceX) SpaceX's Starship program, which boasts the world's tallest and most powerful rocket, will eventually put people and cargo on Mars. The latest prototype, SN20, is waiting for the chance to go into orbit. Several other prototypes have made flights, ground tests and sometimes even testing mistakes in the effort to improve future flights. Here's an overview of key milestones on Starship's road to the Red Planet. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/26) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [Why all the hate? Looking at what makes Blue Origin's presence in space so different]( [Why all the hate? Looking at what makes Blue Origin's presence in space so different]( (Joe Raedle via Getty Images) These days, it feels as though billionaire-backed space companies are launching off Earth all the time. So why does Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin seem to be in the hot seat? Despite a summer of success, recent competition and some controversial tweets — including some misleading infographics — have left many who follow the space industry feeling less than supportive of Jeff Bezos and his space company. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/26) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Astronomy & Astrophysics [] [Venus and a newly discovered comet will cross paths in December. Will sparks fly?]( [Venus and a newly discovered comet will cross paths in December. Will sparks fly?]( (Future) Venus is Earth's twisted twin in so many ways, what about on the skywatching front? Alas, stargazing isn't great from the Venusian surface: The thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere that blankets the planet means there's no catching a break in the clouds. But above those clouds — where, come to think of it, conditions are rather less lethal for human stargazers anyway — the view of the night sky might be pretty similar to that on Earth. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/26) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [Alien 'Dyson spheres' could be harvesting the power of black holes]( [Alien 'Dyson spheres' could be harvesting the power of black holes]( (Marc Ward/Stocktrek Images/Getty) Technologically-savvy aliens could be powering their society using a hypothetical megastructure called a Dyson sphere to harvest energy from a black hole. And the sphere might radiate in peculiar ways, allowing telescopes on Earth to discover the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, a new study suggests. A Dyson sphere is a speculative structure that would encircle a star with a tight formation of orbiting platforms in order to capture starlight and produce power, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com. First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, the idea might be realized by a spacefaring extraterrestrial species who had spread out across their star system and therefore required ever-increasing amounts of energy. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/26) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [Hubble captures gorgeous image of 'Einstein ring' from warped quasar light]( [Hubble captures gorgeous image of 'Einstein ring' from warped quasar light]( (ESA/Hubble & NASA, T. Treu Acknowledgment: J. Schmidt) A jaw-dropping Hubble Space Telescope image shows an "Einstein ring" magnifying light from the far depths of the universe. In the image, two galaxies, around 3.4 billion light-years from Earth, warp and deflect light from an even more distant galaxy behind them. The resulting pattern, predicted by Albert Einstein in 1915, shows six points of light — two clustered in the center and four threaded around a ring of distorted light. However, those bright dots don't come from six galaxies but from three — two in the ring's center and the third a distant quasar whose light has been bent so much that it appears to be four. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (8/25) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: What's the tallest (above-ground) waterfall in the world? 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