As Moldova marks 34 years of independence from Moscow, leaders from France, Germany, and Poland arrived in Chisinau to back the country’s EU membership bid and push back against Russia’s growing influence. Moldova’s pro-European President Maia Sandu welcomed Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, and Donald Tusk to reaffirm the country’s westward path ahead of crucial elections. With fears of Russian interference looming and war raging across the border in Ukraine, Moldova hopes to make EU accession an "irreversible" reality. Can Europe hold the line against Moscow's pressure?

Moldova polls under foreign shadow? | Macron, Merz, Tusk show solidarity

Watch in Top Headlines of the hour: - ISRO Chief interview - WION Exclusive - Fresh peace talks to start in Cairo - Russia pounds Zaporizhzhia, again - Poland local elections at test for tusk

Fresh peace talks to start in Cairo | Poland local elections at test for tusk

Nigeria destroyed 2.5 tonnes of seized elephant tusks valued $11.2 million in a push to protect its dwindling elephant population from rampant wildlife traffickers. Watch this report to know more!

Nigeria: 25 tonnes of seized Elephant tusks worth $11.2 mn destroyed

Nigeria destroys seized elephant tusks worth $11.2 mn

In a surprising find at the Freedom Mine in North Dakota, a shovel operator found a two-metre-long mammoth tusk buried in an old streambed estimated to be between 10,000 to 100,000 years old. The mine typically produces tonnes of lignite coal annually, making this ancient find a rare occurrence.

Experts&nbsp;were amazed at the well-preserved state of the mammoth tusk, considering the heavy equipment used in the mine. Further excavation revealed over 20 bones, potentially making it the most complete mammoth found in North Dakota.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/trending/enormous-15ft-sea-creature-washes-up-on-uk-coast-stunning-beachgoers-677526">Also read |&nbsp;Enormous 15ft sea creature washes up on UK coast, stunning beachgoers</a>

<h2>Insights into the past</h2>

Mammoths, larger than today's elephants, once roamed the Earth. This mammoth discovery provides valuable insights into their history, with the bones likely being from a single animal. Despite fewer bones than a full skeleton, the find is significant.

Also watch |&nbsp;US Elections 2024: DeSantis &amp; Haley seek to be alternative to Donald Trump

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/us-elections-2024-desantis-haley-seek-to-be-alternative-to-donald-trump-677392/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Weighing over 22.6 kgs, the mammoth tusk is fragile. To prevent damage, paleontologists wrapped it in plastic for controlled dehydration. The bones will remain wrapped for months. The mining company plans to donate the remains for educational purposes.

North Dakota's landscape, near the Rocky Mountains, is a treasure trove for fossils. The state's strategic location and ecological history have preserved remnants of ancient life, making it a fascinating area for paleontologists.

(With inputs from agencies)

In a surprising find at the Freedom Mine in North Dakota, a shovel operator found a two-metre-long mammoth tusk buried in an old streambed estimated to be between 10,000 to 100,000 years old.

In a surprising find at the Freedom Mine in North Dakota, a shovel operator found a two-metre-long mammoth tusk buried in an old streambed estimated to be between 10,000 to 100,000 years old. The mine typically produces tonnes of lignite coal annually, making this ancient find a rare occurrence. Experts were amazed at the well-preserved state of the mammoth tusk, considering the heavy equipment used in the mine. Further excavation revealed over 20 bones, potentially making it the most complete mammoth found in North Dakota. Also read | Enormous 15ft sea creature washes up on UK coast, stunning beachgoers Insights into the past Mammoths, larger than today's elephants, once roamed the Earth. This mammoth discovery provides valuable insights into their history, with the bones likely being from a single animal. Despite fewer bones than a full skeleton, the find is significant. Also watch | US Elections 2024: DeSantis & Haley seek to be alternative to Donald Trump Weighing over 22.6 kgs, the mammoth tusk is fragile. To prevent damage, paleontologists wrapped it in plastic for controlled dehydration. The bones will remain wrapped for months. The mining company plans to donate the remains for educational purposes. North Dakota's landscape, near the Rocky Mountains, is a treasure trove for fossils. The state's strategic location and ecological history have preserved remnants of ancient life, making it a fascinating area for paleontologists. (With inputs from agencies)

US coal miners discover mammoth tusk buried for thousands of years

A team of Austrian veterinarians has performed a surgery on a female elephant in the port city of Karachi, relieving her of lingering pain caused by a broken tusk infection.

Elephant at Karachi zoo treated for an infected tusk

In Africa, the population of Elephants has drastically declined due to poaching. They are the main targets of the illegal ivory trade in the country. But now, the DNA in their tusks could map the trafficking network pointing towards the very criminal groups that poached them.

Africa: Researchers tracing tusk DNA of Elephants to reveal trafficking networks

Elephants have them. Pigs have them. Narwhals and water deer have them. Tusks are among the most dramatic examples of mammal dentition: ever-growing, projecting teeth used for fighting, foraging, even flirting.

So why, across the broad sweep of geologic history, do such useful teeth only appear among mammals and no other surviving groups of animals? According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, it takes two key adaptations to teeth to make a tusk — and the evolutionary pathway first appeared millions of years before the first true mammals.

Around 255 million years ago, a family of mammal relatives called dicynodonts — tusked, turtle-beaked herbivores ranging in stature from gopher-size burrowers to six-ton behemoths — wandered the forests of the supercontinent Pangea. A few lineages survived the devastating Permian extinction period, during which more than 90 per cent of Earth’s species died out, before being replaced by herbivorous dinosaurs.

“They were really successful animals,” said Megan Whitney, a paleontologist at Harvard University and lead author of the study. “They’re so abundant in South Africa that in some of these sites, you just get really sick of seeing them. You’ll look out over a field and there’ll just be skulls of these animals everywhere.”

To work out how these animals evolved their tusks, Whitney and her colleagues collected bone samples from 10 dicynodont species, among them the tiny, big-eyed Diictodon and the tank-like Lystrosaurus. They looked at how their canines attached to the jaw, whether they regularly regenerated lost teeth, like many reptiles do, and for indicators that their teeth grew continuously.

Many mammal families have evolved long, saber-toothed fangs or ever-growing incisors for gnawing. Several early dicynodonts also had a pair of long canine teeth poking from their beaks. But these teeth, like most animal teeth, are composed of a substance called dentine, capped by a hard, thin covering of enamel. Tusks have no enamel, Whitney said, and grow continuously even as the comparatively softer dentine gets worn away.

Examining the dicynodont skulls, the team found that a shift occurred midway through the group’s evolution: the appearance of soft tissue attachments supporting the teeth, akin to the ligaments present in modern mammals. And like modern mammals, dicynodonts didn’t continuously replace their teeth.

Both of these shifts laid the groundwork for the development of an ever-growing, well-supported tooth — a tusk. Afterward, Whitney said, late dicynodonts developed tusks at in at least two different lineages, and possibly more.

This evolutionary pathway is reminiscent of another group of tusked animals: elephants. Early elephant relatives had enlarged canines that were covered with enamel, Whitney said. Later members of the family reduced the enamel to a thin band on one side of the tooth, like a rodent incisor, allowing the tooth to grow continuously. Finally, they ditched the enamel entirely.

“You’re providing the means for a tusk to evolve if you unlock the evolution of reduced tooth replacement and soft tissue attachments,” Whitney said. “Once you have a group that has both conditions, you can go a long time of animals playing with different tooth combinations, and you start to see these independent developments of tusks.”

The reason that tusks are currently limited to modern mammals, then, lies in a specific arrangement of teeth that mammals inherited from the broader family of synapsids, the group that includes mammal forerunners like dicynodonts.

Even with those prerequisites, Whitney said, an adaptation like tusks isn’t inevitable. But it is available, and multiple mammal groups — elephants, whales, deer, pigs and walruses — have found uses for them.

“Mammals are kind of stuck with our teeth, unlike something like a shark, which has a conveyor belt of terror,” Whitney said. “So an ever-growing tooth is pretty brilliant if you’re only replacing your tooth once.”

Elephants have them. Pigs have them. Narwhals and water deer have them. Tusks are among the most dramatic examples of mammal dentition: ever-growing, projecting teeth used for fighting, foraging, even flirting.

Elephants have them. Pigs have them. Narwhals and water deer have them. Tusks are among the most dramatic examples of mammal dentition: ever-growing, projecting teeth used for fighting, foraging, even flirting. So why, across the broad sweep of geologic history, do such useful teeth only appear among mammals and no other surviving groups of animals? According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, it takes two key adaptations to teeth to make a tusk — and the evolutionary pathway first appeared millions of years before the first true mammals. Around 255 million years ago, a family of mammal relatives called dicynodonts — tusked, turtle-beaked herbivores ranging in stature from gopher-size burrowers to six-ton behemoths — wandered the forests of the supercontinent Pangea. A few lineages survived the devastating Permian extinction period, during which more than 90 per cent of Earth’s species died out, before being replaced by herbivorous dinosaurs. “They were really successful animals,” said Megan Whitney, a paleontologist at Harvard University and lead author of the study. “They’re so abundant in South Africa that in some of these sites, you just get really sick of seeing them. You’ll look out over a field and there’ll just be skulls of these animals everywhere.” To work out how these animals evolved their tusks, Whitney and her colleagues collected bone samples from 10 dicynodont species, among them the tiny, big-eyed Diictodon and the tank-like Lystrosaurus. They looked at how their canines attached to the jaw, whether they regularly regenerated lost teeth, like many reptiles do, and for indicators that their teeth grew continuously. Many mammal families have evolved long, saber-toothed fangs or ever-growing incisors for gnawing. Several early dicynodonts also had a pair of long canine teeth poking from their beaks. But these teeth, like most animal teeth, are composed of a substance called dentine, capped by a hard, thin covering of enamel. Tusks have no enamel, Whitney said, and grow continuously even as the comparatively softer dentine gets worn away. Examining the dicynodont skulls, the team found that a shift occurred midway through the group’s evolution: the appearance of soft tissue attachments supporting the teeth, akin to the ligaments present in modern mammals. And like modern mammals, dicynodonts didn’t continuously replace their teeth. Both of these shifts laid the groundwork for the development of an ever-growing, well-supported tooth — a tusk. Afterward, Whitney said, late dicynodonts developed tusks at in at least two different lineages, and possibly more. This evolutionary pathway is reminiscent of another group of tusked animals: elephants. Early elephant relatives had enlarged canines that were covered with enamel, Whitney said. Later members of the family reduced the enamel to a thin band on one side of the tooth, like a rodent incisor, allowing the tooth to grow continuously. Finally, they ditched the enamel entirely. “You’re providing the means for a tusk to evolve if you unlock the evolution of reduced tooth replacement and soft tissue attachments,” Whitney said. “Once you have a group that has both conditions, you can go a long time of animals playing with different tooth combinations, and you start to see these independent developments of tusks.” The reason that tusks are currently limited to modern mammals, then, lies in a specific arrangement of teeth that mammals inherited from the broader family of synapsids, the group that includes mammal forerunners like dicynodonts. Even with those prerequisites, Whitney said, an adaptation like tusks isn’t inevitable. But it is available, and multiple mammal groups — elephants, whales, deer, pigs and walruses — have found uses for them. “Mammals are kind of stuck with our teeth, unlike something like a shark, which has a conveyor belt of terror,” Whitney said. “So an ever-growing tooth is pretty brilliant if you’re only replacing your tooth once.”

How did elephants and walruses get their tusks? It’s a long story.

In a strange development, an increasing proportion of female elephants in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park have been born without tusks. As per scientists, this is an evolutionary response to the brutal killing of elephants for their ivory tusks during the country's 15-year civil war.

In a strange development, an increasing proportion of female elephants in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park have been born without tusks. As per scientists, this is an evolutionary response to the brutal killing of elephants for their ivory tusks during the country's 15-year civil war. Experts working in the park started noticing the phenomenon after the war ended in 1992. Field data and analysis of old video footage found that the proportion of tuskless female elephants increased more than threefold between 1972 and the year 2000. Ryan Long, an associate professor of wildlife sciences at the University of Idaho said that this was the period during which the elephant population tumbled from roughly 2,000 to about 250 individuals. According to a study published in the journal Science, scientists have now developed a better understanding of the genetic basis for the tusklessness and why it only appears to affect female elephants. As per the analysis, the tuskless females were five times more likely to survive during the 28-year period than their tusked female counterparts. In Gorongosa, in the 1970s, 18.5 per cent of the female elephants did not have tusks, while three decades later 5 per cent did. Also read | Polar bears return to Pacific Arctic for first time in 20 years Long, an author of the study was quoted by CNN as saying, "Evolution is simply a change in heritable characteristics within a population over successive generations, and based on the results of our study, the shift toward tusklessness among female elephants at Gorongosa fits this definition perfectly." "The fact that it occurred so rapidly is rare indeed, and is a direct function of the strength of selection," he said via email. "In other words, it happened so quickly because tuskless females had a MUCH higher probability of surviving the war, and thus a MUCH greater potential for passing their genes on to the next generation." As a part of the study, the researchers took blood samples of 18 female elephants, with and without tusks. They also sequenced their genomes. It was then revealed that the females with no tusks had a genetic variation in a very specific region of the X-chromosome. This plays a role in tusk development. The exact genetic and developmental mechanism that leads to tusklessness in females has not yet been understood.

Elephants without tusks? The mammal evolves due to brutal poaching

European Council President Donald Tusk said on Friday (December 14) he had no mandate to reopen Brexit negotiations with Britain, while the head of the bloc's executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, said the EU stood ready to start discussions on the future relationship as soon as the text is ratified.

Tusk and Juncker were speaking at a news conference after two days of talks at an EU summit that were dominated by the issue of Brexit and saw the other 27 national leaders of the bloc offer British prime Minister Theresa May only vague assurances over their tentative Brexit deal.

May, who on Wednesday survived a plot in her party to oust her, rejected EU criticism of "nebulous" demands from a divided British political system and asked EU leaders for political and legal assurances to help her win parliament around to her deal.

Commenting on British media reports describing the EU leaders' response to May's plea as a 'humiliation,' Tusk said EU leaders treated the prime minister with 'a much greater empathy and respect than some British MPs ,' while Juncker said they had 'the highest respect' for her.

European Union leaders on Friday also called for urgent action to combat fake news on the Internet, saying more needed to be done to safeguard next year's EU election against disinformation. Juncker said he had warned EU leaders around the table that some of them were spreading fake news themselves, naming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as one of them.

European Council President Donald Tusk said on Friday (December 14) he had no mandate to reopen Brexit negotiations with Britain, while the head of the bloc's executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, said the EU stood ready to start discussions on the future relationship as soon as the text is ratified.

European Council President Donald Tusk said on Friday (December 14) he had no mandate to reopen Brexit negotiations with Britain, while the head of the bloc's executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, said the EU stood ready to start discussions on the future relationship as soon as the text is ratified. Tusk and Juncker were speaking at a news conference after two days of talks at an EU summit that were dominated by the issue of Brexit and saw the other 27 national leaders of the bloc offer British prime Minister Theresa May only vague assurances over their tentative Brexit deal. May, who on Wednesday survived a plot in her party to oust her, rejected EU criticism of "nebulous" demands from a divided British political system and asked EU leaders for political and legal assurances to help her win parliament around to her deal. Commenting on British media reports describing the EU leaders' response to May's plea as a 'humiliation,' Tusk said EU leaders treated the prime minister with 'a much greater empathy and respect than some British MPs ,' while Juncker said they had 'the highest respect' for her. European Union leaders on Friday also called for urgent action to combat fake news on the Internet, saying more needed to be done to safeguard next year's EU election against disinformation. Juncker said he had warned EU leaders around the table that some of them were spreading fake news themselves, naming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as one of them.

EU's Tusk said no more Brexit negotiations

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