{"id":280788,"date":"2025-11-24T15:20:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/280788\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T15:20:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:20:17","slug":"todays-biggest-science-news-man-dies-from-h5n5-bird-flu-alien-rock-on-mars-other-comet-atlas-disintegrating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/280788\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s biggest science news: Man dies from H5N5 bird flu | ‘Alien’ rock on Mars | ‘Other’ comet ATLAS disintegrating"},"content":{"rendered":"

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2025-11-24T14:43:32.769Z
\nChimp baby boom (yay) after lethal conflict (boo)<\/p>\n

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\"a\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Kevin Langergraber)<\/p>\n

Sophie<\/a> here, Live Science’s resident chimp aficionado. Hot off the press is the news that the Ngogo chimps in Uganda saw a huge baby boom after they successfully invaded the territory of a neighboring community.<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t want to give our closest living relatives a bad rep \u2014 chimpanzees and bonobos are typically very cooperative<\/a> with members of their own group. But chimps in particular really don’t gel with out-group individuals.<\/p>\n

Study co-author Brian Wood<\/a> told Live Science contributor Chris Simms<\/a> that this new discovery sheds light on the evolution of violence in humans. It’s very common for biological anthropologists to use chimpanzee behavior as a window into our own evolutionary past: humans share a lot of DNA with chimps<\/a>, and our human ancestors probably looked and behaved quite like modern-day chimpanzees.<\/p>\n

It is worth bearing in mind, though, that the amount of chimp lethal aggression varies a lot<\/a> across Africa, largely dictated by the community\u2019s social structure.<\/p>\n

Also, East African chimps are known to be more aggressive<\/a> than those in West Africa and the Ngogo community is the largest chimpanzee community in the world. Personally, I’d love to see if this post-conflict spike in fertility is found across sites. Then we can see if this is a species-wide trend (which would lend more support to the idea of a shared evolutionary benefit) or if this is unique to Ngogo.<\/p>\n

You can read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Sophie Berdugo<\/p>\n

Staff Writer<\/p>\n

2025-11-24T14:28:05.975Z
\nScience history: The discovery of Lucy<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Dave Einsel \/ Stringer via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

On this day in 1974, two anthropologists digging in the earth of Hadar, Ethiopia discovered something that would transform the story of human evolution, Tia <\/a>writes.<\/p>\n

The object they spotted, glinting in a gully, was the fossilized remains of a 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor. As they discussed the find, the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” played in the background, leading a member of the dig to suggest they name the find “Lucy.”<\/p>\n

Lucy, whose species would become known as Australopithecus afarensis, was the oldest and most complete skeleton of a human ancestor ever found. And her discovery sparked the realization among anthropologists that human evolutionary history is more like a braided stream than a family tree<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2025-11-24T13:23:07.676Z
\nLive Science roundup<\/p>\n

Here’s a roundup of some of the stories Live Science published today and over the weekend:<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Turner<\/p>\n

Acting Trending News Editor<\/p>\n

2025-11-24T12:55:20.747Z
\nWhy cat siblings don’t look alike<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: byakkaya via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

When we adopted our cat “Scallop” from the ASPCA as a kitten, she left behind a brother, “Clam,” who had been picked up from the same litter of strays. Scallop looked like an adorable blue-point Siamese, while Clam was an (also adorable) gray domestic short-hair with white socks.<\/p>\n

I’ve always wondered why the two had little resemblance to each other.<\/p>\n

Now, a story from our former (and much missed) content manager, Marilyn Perkins<\/a>, explains why cat siblings look so different from each other.<\/p>\n

You can read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Tia<\/p>\n

Tia Ghose<\/p>\n

Editor-in-Chief (Premium)<\/p>\n

2025-11-24T12:27:41.926Z
\nMan infected with H5N5 bird flu strain dies <\/p>\n

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\"chicken\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

A Washington state resident who was the first person to be infected with the H5N5 strain of bird flu has died of complications from the virus<\/a>, CNN reports.<\/p>\n

The patient, an older adult with underlying health conditions, kept a backyard flock of mixed domestic birds, making this a likely source of his infection, state health officials said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While this first infection of the H5N5 is notable, it’s not believed to be a greater threat to human health than the H5N1 virus, which has caused a wave of around 70 reported human infections \u2014 most of them poultry and dairy farm workers experiencing mild illness \u2014 in the US in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

Here are a couple of stories on how to best avoid bird flu infections<\/a>, and what can be done to prevent the virus spilling over into human to human transmission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2025-11-24T12:21:10.069Z
\n‘Other’ comet ATLAS disintegrating<\/p>\n

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C\/2025 K1 (ATLAS) snapped before its disintegration by astrophotographer\u00a0Dan Bartlett <\/a> on Oct. 29 from June Lake in California. (Image credit: Dan Bartlett)<\/p>\n

Good morning and welcome back, science fans. We’re returning with a fresh batch of science news and more images that show the “other” Comet ATLAS (C\/2025 K1) breaking apart.<\/p>\n

Scientists initially thought the comet, which is unrelated to the interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS<\/a>, survived its recent close approach to the sun. But images from The Virtual Telescope project revealed its tragic demise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The comet’s disintegration is likely the consequence of the sun’s powerful gravitational pull, which has caused it to splinter into three brighter fragments, photographer Michael J\u00e4ger told spaceweather.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Turner<\/p>\n

Acting Trending News Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Refresh 2025-11-24T14:43:32.769Z Chimp baby boom (yay) after lethal conflict (boo) (Image credit: Kevin Langergraber) Sophie here, Live Science’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-280788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}