Recently, an international research team identified rare snow leopard fossil records from various Panthera fossil sites across the Eurasian continent and used them to reveal the snow leopard’s unique evolutionary path. The study was authored by Associated Prof. JIANGZUO Qigao, from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Associated Prof. LI Xinhai from the Institute of Zoology of CAS, and several researchers from Italy, Portugal, and France. Their work was published in Science Advances. Prof. DENG Tao and WANG Shiqi, from IVPP are co-corresponding authors.

Despite the long history of consumption of fermented dairy, little is known about how the fermented microbes were utilized and evolved over human history. Here, by retrieving ancient DNA of Bronze Age kefir cheese (~3,500 years ago) from the Xiaohe cemetery, a group of Chinese scientists explored past human-microbial interactions.

According to a study published in Current Biology on May 22, the genetic components of the ancient populations in the western Tibetan Plateau are closest to ancient populations in the southern Tibetan Plateau, and their major genetic components have been maintained over the past 3,500 years. In addition, these ancient populations in the western Tibetan Plateau had complex and frequent interactions with ancient populations inside and outside the plateau. Contact to FU Qiaomei: fuqiaomei@ivpp.ac.cn

Mammaliaforms are extinct and extant organisms that are closely related to mammals. Studying mammaliaforms helps scientists understand the evolutionary processes that led to various mammalian features. In two consecutive studies in Nature, Dr. MAO Fangyuan and Dr. ZHANG Chi from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with colleagues from Australia and the United States, recently reported two Jurassic mammaliaforms from China, revealing the earliest dental diversification, mandibular middle ears, and articular-quadrate joint transformation of mammaliaforms.

A new study from the Nihewan basin of China has revealed that hominins who possessed advanced knapping abilities equivalent to Mode 2 technological features occupied East Asia as early as 1.1 million years ago (Ma), which is 0.3 Ma earlier than the date associated with the first handaxes found in East Asia. This suggests that Mode 2 hominins dispersed into East Asia much earlier than previously thought.The study, which was conducted by a joint team led by Prof. PEI Shuwen from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Prof. Ignacio de la Torre from the Institute of History the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), was published in PNAS on Mar. 5 and provide insights into the early dispersals and adaptions of hominins in Eurasia. Contact to PEI Shuwen: peishuwen@ivpp.ac.cn

Writing a commentary in the 50th anniversary issue of Cell, Qiaomei FU and E. Andrew Bennett, both of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, explored the contribution of paleogenomics to our understanding of the evolution of modern humans. Contact to FU Qiaomei: fuqiaomei@ivpp.ac.cn