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Oldest human relative walked upright 7 mn years ago: study

AFP

The earliest known human ancestor walked on two feet as well as climbing through trees around seven million years ago, scientists said Wednesday after studying three limb bones.

When the skull of Sahelanthropus tchadensis was discovered in Chad in 2001, it pushed back the age of the oldest known representative species of humanity by a million years. 

Nicknamed “Toumai”, the nearly complete cranium was thought to indicate that the species walked on two feet because of the position of its vertebral column and other factors.

However the subject triggered fierce debate among scientists, partly due to the scarcity and quality of the available bones, with some even claiming that Toumai was not a human relative but just an ancient ape.

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In a study published in the Nature journal on Wednesday, a team of researchers exhaustively analysed a thigh bone and two forearm bones found at the same site as the Toumai skull.

“The skull tells us that Sahelanthropus is part of the human lineage,” said paleoanthropologist Franck Guy, one of the authors of the study.

The new research on the limb bones demonstrates that walking on two feet was its “preferred mode of getting around, depending on the situation,” he told a press conference. 

But they also sometimes moved through the trees, he added. 

– ‘Not a magical trait’ –

The leg and arm bones were found alongside thousands of other fossils in 2001, and the researchers were not able to confirm that they belonged to the same individual as the Toumai skull.

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After years of testing and measuring the bones, they identified 23 characteristics which were then compared to fossils from great apes as well as hominins — which are species more closely related to humans than chimpanzees.

They concluded that “these characteristics are much closer to what would be seen in a hominin than any other primate,” the study’s lead author Guillaume Daver told the press conference.

For example, the forearm bones did not show evidence that the Sahelanthropus leaned on the back of its hands, as is done by gorillas and chimpanzees.

The Sahelanthropus lived in an area with a combination of forests, palm groves and tropical savannahs, meaning that being able to both walk and climb through trees would have been an advantage.

There have been previous suggestions that it was the ability to walk on two feet that drove humans to evolve separately from chimpanzees, putting us on the path to where we are today.

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However the researchers emphasised that what made Sahelanthropus human was its ability to adapt to its environment.

“Bipedalism (walking on two legs) is not a magical trait that strictly defines humanity,” paleontologist Jean-Renaud Boisserie told the press conference.

“It is a characteristic that we find at the present time in all the representatives of humanity.”

– Our ‘bushy’ family tree –

Paleoanthropologist Antoine Balzeau of France’s National Museum of Natural History said the “extremely substantial” study gives “a more complete image of Toumai and therefore of the first humans”.

It also bolstered the theory that the human family tree is “bushy”, and was not like the “simplistic image of humans who follow one another, with abilities that improve over time,” Balzeau, who was not involved in the research, told AFP.

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Daniel Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, said in a linked paper in Nature that the study’s “authors have squeezed as much information as possible from the fossil data”.

But he added that the research will not offer “full resolution” of the debate.

Milford Wolpoff, a paleoanthropologist at the US University of Michigan cast doubt on whether Toumai is a hominin, telling AFP that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.

Wednesday’s study was carried out by researchers from the PALEVOPRIM paleontology institute, a collaboration between France’s CNRS research centre and Poitiers University, as well as scientists in Chad.

Guy said the team hopes to continue its research in Chad next year — “security permitting”.

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Chadian paleontologist Clarisse Nekoulnang said the team was “trying to find sites older than that of Toumai”.

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International

Trump will receive Netanyahu at the White House next week

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington next week, a high-ranking official of Donald Trump’s government told EFE.

The visit, which according to the specialized portal Jewish Insider will take place on Monday, comes amid pressure from Washington to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza strip.

The US president launched a message on Sunday on his social network Truth calling for an immediate agreement to end the conflict and “release the hostages.”

This message follows another one from last Friday in which he assured that a solution to the conflict in Palestine could be reached as early as this week.

“We are working in Gaza and trying to solve it. We are supplying a lot of money and a lot of food to that area because we have to do it,” the president stressed at an event in Washington.

In addition to publicly insisting on his desire to reach a cease of hostilities in the region, Trump has also supported Netanyahu, a key ally, despite the fact that the Israeli is going through a judicial process where he is charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three different criminal cases.

Israel has maintained its offensive in Gaza, in a resurgence of the conflict that has already lasted for more than a year and that leaves dozens of deaths daily.

The Israeli Army has intensified its attacks in the north of the Strip after ordering last Sunday the forced evacuation of residents in several neighborhoods of the capital of Gaza and the northern city of Yabalia.

Since October 7, 2023, at least 56,259 Palestinians have died and more than 132,000 have been injured by Israeli fire, according to figures from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas Government.

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International

The US climate agency will lose access to key data for hurricane forecasting in July

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on Monday that it will lose access to essential satellite data for the hurricane forecast on July 31, when the Department of Defense will stop sharing the images with that US agency.

Initially, NOAA was going to lose access to the data from today Monday, but managed to extend the deadline since NASA, which was also going to be affected by the measure, requested an extension until July 31.

According to a NOAA statement, late on Friday, June 27, the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command received a request from Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, “to postpone the withdrawal and continue processing and distributing data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program until July 31.”

The original decision to cut off access to satellite data as of today was made with the aim of “mitigating a significant cybersecurity risk,” according to the note.

NOAA’s access to data provided by the Defense Weather Satellite Program was crucial for predicting hurricane formation, since they allowed to mediate variables that were not available to conventional satellites.

In addition, the measure takes place in the middle of hurricane season, which experts expect to be more intense than normal in the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the Colorado State University (CSU), the probability of a major hurricane, category 3 or higher, impacting the United States in the current Atlantic cyclone season amounts to 51%.

This coincides with the approval in the Lower House of Congress of the controversial “great and beautiful bill” of US President Donald Trump, which includes a cut of almost 30% of the annual budget to NOAA and 646 million dollars to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

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International

The Argentine justice declares Milei’s measure that limited the right to strike unconstitutional

The Justice of Argentina declared on Monday the unconstitutionality of two articles of the decree signed on May 20 by President Javier Milei that limited the right to strike of workers from various sectors, giving rise to a precautionary measure requested by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the main workers’ central of the country.

The decision was made by the National Labor Court No. 3, which ordered to stop the application of articles 2 and 3 of decree 340/2025, considering that they violate constitutional guarantees such as freedom of association and the right to strike, established in the Constitution and in international agreements signed by Argentina.

The decree modified article 24 of Law 25,877, which regulates collective labor conflicts, and declared a long list of activities as essential, limiting the possibility of its workers to carry out union action measures.

Judge Moira Fullana, who intervened in the case, argued that the unconstitutionality is based on the fact that, at the time of the signing of the decree, the National Congress was in full function, so there was no justification of necessity and urgency that deserved to skip the legislative treatment of such modifications.

On June 2, Fullana had provisionally failed to suspend the application of this measure, in response to another precautionary measure, requested by the Association of State Workers (ATE).

Until before its recent challenge, Decree 340/2025 required to guarantee between 50% and 75% of the usual benefits in sectors such as the production of medicines and/or hospital supplies, land and underground transport, radio and television, industrial activities, the food industry, the production and distribution of building materials, all airport services, logistics services, mining activity, refrigeration activity, mail and the distribution and marketing of food and beverages, among others, even during trade union conflicts.

The Government also included in that list of essential services all branches of maritime and river transport, customs, immigration services and education at all levels.

The measure, originally included in an extensive decree of general deregulation of the economy signed by Milei shortly after its assumption in December 2023, had already been unconstitutional by the Argentine Justice at that time.

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