First skull of mysterious human ancestor; Decoding whale language; Heatwaves 20x more likely to happen

神秘人类祖先的首个头骨;解码鲸鱼语言;热浪发生的可能性增加20倍

New Scientist Podcasts

2025-06-20

36 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Episode 308 An ancient skull discovered in China has been confirmed to belong to a Denisovan. It’s been tough to study this mysterious human ancestor, as we’ve only ever found a finger and jaw bone - so this new discovery could reshape our understanding of them. After being kept secret for decades, the “dragon man” skull is opening up a new window into our past. We’ve unlocked another clue in our quest to decode whale language. Analysis of 15 sperm whales in the Caribbean suggest their language may contain vowels, used in a similar way to human language. Using their various clicks, researchers have discovered interesting patterns in the way they communicate. Feeling hot and sweaty? Well, strap in - because these heatwaves are set to continue…and get worse. Summers are evolving fast as a result of climate change and weather events that would’ve once been rare are becoming much more common. Find out how the UK could be in for a string of long 40C summers in the very near future. The winner of The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction has been revealed - Dr Rachel Clarke claims the title for her book “The Story of a Heart”. The book explores the history of heart transplants and tells the story of a nine year old girl whose heart saved two other children and two adults. Rachel explains why she chose to write this story and the surprising things she learnt along the way. Chapters: (00:41) Denisovan skull discovery (14:02) Deconding whale language (18:14) Hot summers becoming more common (26:16) Winner of The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction Hosted by Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet, with guests Madeleine Cuff, Mike Marshall, Gillian Kay, Alison Flood and Rachel Clarke. To read more about these stories, visit https://www.newscientist.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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单集文稿 ...

  • Welcome to The World, the Universe and Us, the weekly news podcast from New Scientist.

  • I'm Dr Rowan Hooper.

  • And I'm Dr Penny Sarche.

  • On today's show, we have a breakthrough in our understanding of whale language.

  • That's not actually someone running a comb down the edge of a table.

  • Or someone having a wee.

  • That is a sperm whale communicating, probably saying to subscribe to the podcast.

  • Definitely saying that, yeah.

  • We also have an analysis of the record heat waves many of us are currently experiencing.

  • And we hear about the medical miracle that is organ transplantation from Dr. Rachel Clark,

  • who has just won the Women's Prize for Nonfiction for her new book.

  • But we start with the first skull of an ancient human ancestor.

  • Yeah, here it is.

  • It's a big week for ancient ancestor news.

  • This is the first time we've seen a skull of this very mysterious species of ancient human that we call the Denisovans.

  • never had a skull before, only a finger and a bit of jawbone.

  • So it's huge.

  • This is huge.

  • Yeah, this is so exciting.

  • I didn't realise this was about to drop.