{"id":302847,"date":"2025-11-23T04:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T04:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/302847\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T04:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T04:48:11","slug":"first-ever-look-at-neanderthal-nasal-cavity-shatters-expectations-nasa-reveals-comet-3i-atlas-images-from-8-missions-and-much-more-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/302847\/","title":{"rendered":"First-Ever Look At Neanderthal Nasal Cavity Shatters Expectations, NASA Reveals Comet 3I\/ATLAS Images From 8 Missions, And Much More This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, research into the evolutionary origins of kissing has revealed that our ancient ancestors were smooching around 21 million years<\/a> ago, new footage may be the first evidence of wild wolves using tools<\/a>, and 14,400-year-old paw prints are the world\u2019s oldest evidence of humans living alongside canine companions<\/a>. Finally, we share an exclusive clip from Apple TV’s upcoming Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age, and explore how the woolly mammoth was able to \u201chear\u201d through its feet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Create an IFLScience account<\/a> to get all the biggest science news delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday and Saturday.First-Ever Look At Neanderthal Nasal Cavity Shatters Expectations<\/p>\n

The astonishingly well-preserved nasal cavity of a Neanderthal in Italy has finally settled one of the great debates in palaeoanthropology by completely contradicting our assumptions regarding the facial anatomy of our extinct relative. Previously, scientists thought that Neanderthals possessed specific structures in their noses that helped them deal with cold environments, yet we now know that these features did not actually exist. Read the full story here<\/a><\/p>\n

Kissing Has Survived The Path Of Evolution For 21 Million Years \u2013 Apes And Human Ancestors Were All At It<\/p>\n

Evolutionary biologists have been investigating the evolutionarily origins of kissing by taking a broad look at behaviour in Afro-Eurasian primates, a family tree that includes chimps, bonobos, our ancient ancestors, and us, Homo sapiens. They found that lip-touching displays of affection are found in most of the large apes, suggesting it emerged in an extinct ancestor of this group around 21.5 to 16.9 million years ago. In other words, kissing likely evolved around 21 million years ago in our distant primate family, and everyone has been at it since. Read the full story here<\/a><\/p>\n

NASA Finally Reveals Comet 3I\/ATLAS Images From 8 Missions, Including First From Another Planet’s Surface<\/p>\n

NASA has finally published several observations of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS<\/a> that were taken during the 43-day government shutdown. In a special press conference, the space agency released images from eight different missions that add to the Hubble, JWST, and SPHEREx observations from the summer, as well as those from the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope, which discovered 3I\/ATLAS on July 1. Read the full story here<\/a><\/p>\n

Incredible Footage May Be First Evidence Wild Wolves Have Figured Out How To Use Tools<\/p>\n

Incredible footage from British Columbia shows what may be the first ever instance of tool use by wild wolves. In the recordings, two wolves can be seen pulling on crab trap lines in order to access tasty bait, and while this behavior clearly shows a sophisticated level of cognition, there is some debate over whether it strictly counts as tool use. Read the full story here<\/a><\/p>\n

14,400-Year-Old Paw Prints Are World’s Oldest Evidence Of Humans Living Alongside Domesticated Dogs<\/p>\n

Exploring new caves during the Upper Palaeolithic was fraught with danger, which is why one group of ancient humans in Italy made sure to take their trusted four-legged companion with them when they stepped into the darkness. Analyzing the fossilized foot and paw prints left behind during this subterranean excursion, researchers say that these 14,400-year-old tracks represent the world\u2019s oldest direct evidence of humans living alongside a domesticated dog. Read the full story here<\/a><\/p>\n

TWIS is published weekly on our Linkedin<\/a> page, join us there for even more content.Feature of the week:\u00a0How Could Woolly Mammoths Sense When A Storm Was Coming? By Listening With Their Feet<\/p>\n

Have you ever noticed how life during the Ice Age just seemed to be much, much bigger? As Apple TV\u2019s new series Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age demonstrates, everything from bears to sloths<\/a>, birds, and armadillos was far bigger than anything we\u2019ve seen since, but might I point you to one small fact that might\u2019ve escaped your knowledge: woolly mammoths had tiny ears. So, did that mean they had lousy hearing? Not necessarily, as like modern-day elephants, woolly mammoths were able to listen for a kind of sound that\u2019s inaudible to the human ear: infrasound. In this exclusive clip from Apple TV, you can see how. Read the full story here<\/a><\/p>\n

More content:<\/p>\n

Have you seen our e-magazine,\u00a0CURIOUS<\/a>? Issue 40, November 2025, is available now<\/a>. This month, we asked, \u201cHow Do We Predict The Weather?\u201d \u2013 check it out for exclusive interviews, book excerpts, long reads, and more.<\/p>\n

PLUS, the We Have Questions<\/a> podcast \u2013 an audio version of our coveted CURIOUS e-magazine column \u2013 continues. In episode 14, we ask, \u201cCan Burying Scientists Alive In The Snow Help Us Protect Polar Bears?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The Big Questions<\/a> podcast concludes season 5 with a special bonus episode: Searching For Nessie: IFLScience Takes On Cryptozoology<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, research into the evolutionary origins of kissing has revealed that our ancient ancestors were smooching around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-302847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}