What killed the King of the Apes

Giganto were the biggest apes that have ever been – 3 metres tall and weighing in at 250 kg. Related to orang-utans, and distantly to humans, they died out over 200,000 years ago at a time when other great apes were thriving.

The first evidence of Gigantopithecus blacki came from teeth found in a Chinese medicine shop in Hong Kong in 1935. Now we have many teeth and four jawbones.

A global team of researchers report today in Nature that Giganto couldn’t adjust to a changing climate that led to forests in southern China becoming more seasonal.

Their conclusions come from detailed study of teeth and other samples from 22 caves across Guangxi Province using six dating technologies plus environmental and behaviour analysis. The teeth show striking evidence of chronic stress as the apes declined.

Associate Professor Kira Westaway from Macquarie University co-led the study with Professor Yingqi Zhang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences supported by

• Australia: Southern Cross University, Wollongong University, University of Queensland, ANU.

• China: Shandong University, Natural History Museum of Guangxi, Zhuang Ethnological Musuem, Jiaotong University.

• Other: University of Iowa (USA), Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology (Germany), Centre on Human Evolution (Spain), University of Johannesburg (South Africa).

Story at https://bit.ly/47unGCq and there’s a full media kit with reconstructions of Giganto, videos and grabs from the researchers working in the caves in China, graphics, and a copy of the paper at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/xbf70ln2jovdauif4u6sa/h?rlkey=iop2a884fvt8ihtvx6l1q6n3v&dl=0

Kira Westaway from Macquarie University and Associate Professor Renaud Joannes-Boyau from Southern Cross University are both great talent and available for interview this week.

Fran Molloy from Macquarie University is managing the story and can organise interviews: +61 412 485 677, fran.molloy@mq.edu.au.

Train your brain to overcome tinnitus

An app can change the lives of those affected by tinnitus.

• Millions of people have been told to there is nothing they can do about their tinnitus.

• That’s bad advice and for many it leads to more stress anxiety and depression.

• With specialist psychological support you can train your brain to ignore tinnitus. But that’s expensive and not widely available.

• Now, a research team led by the University of Auckland have developed an app that, in a trial published today in Frontiers in Audiology and Otology, reduced the impact of tinnitus in two-thirds of users in weeks.

An international research team has shown that the debilitating impact of tinnitus can be effectively reduced in just weeks by a training course and sound therapy delivered via a smartphone app.

The MindEar app guides users through a journey to help manage their tinnitus symptoms.

The research team from Australia, New Zealand, France and Belgium report these findings today in Frontiers in Audiology and Otology.

It offers some hope for millions affected by tinnitus who:

• have been told that there is nothing they can do about it

• face long queues waiting for treatment, or

• can’t afford the costs of specialist support.

The initial trial worked with 30 sufferers, of whom almost two thirds experienced a ‘clinically significant improvement’. The team are now planning larger trials in the UK in collaboration with the University College London Hospital.

The app, MindEar, is available for individuals to trial for themselves on a smartphone in North America, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and select other countries (more coming soon).

Full media release and media kit at https://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/media-releases/mindear-230109

For interviews contact me, or Tom Carruthers: tom@scienceinpublic.com.au, +61 404 404 026.

For the USA & Canada, please contact Erin Kim: e@erinheejoon.com, +1 347 261 2364.