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The startling discovery of million-year-old human footprints on a beach in the United Kingdom has scientists jumping.

THE UNIVERSITY OF WINNIPEG—An international team of researchers, led by University of Winnipeg palaeoanthropologist Dr. Mirjana Roksandic, has announced the naming of a new species of human ancestor, Homo bodoensis. This species lived in Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, around half a million years ago, and was the direct ancestor of modern humans.

NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY–Scientists have long wondered why the physical traits of Neanderthals, the ancestors of modern humans, differ greatly from today’s man. In particular, researchers have deliberated the factors that necessitated early man’s forward-projecting face and oversized nose. As published in the April 4 edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society B, an international research team led by a professor at the University of New England in Australia, with the aid of an anatomy and fluid dynamics expert at NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University (NYITCOM at A-State), may have the answer.

The dramatic discovery was made in an Israeli excavation.

The Royal Society, London—Our closest extinct human species cousins the Neanderthals are, outside of our own species (Homo sapiens), the most studied human species. But researchers are finding that the book is far from closed on our understanding of what the Neanderthals looked like, how they behaved, and what capabilities they demonstrated. Now, a recent study has shed additional light on Neanderthal facial morphology — the structure and form of the face, internal and external — based on an examination and interpretation of the teeth and nasal cavities —by using computer simulations.