The find marks the first time scientists have recovered a large collection of terrestrial vertebrate fossils from this period in New Zealand’s history. Preserved within the cave were fossils belonging to 12 bird species and four frog species, offering a rare snapshot of a world that existed hundreds of thousands of years before humans reached the islands.

The research, published in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, suggests that New Zealand’s wildlife was already undergoing dramatic changes long before human settlement. Powerful volcanic eruptions and rapid climate shifts repeatedly reshaped habitats, driving extinctions and opening opportunities for new species to evolve.

Ancient Birds Lost to Time

Lead author Associate Professor Trevor Worthy of Flinders University says the fossils reveal a bird community unlike anything seen in New Zealand today.

“This is a newly recognized avifauna for New Zealand, one that was replaced by the one humans encountered a million years later,” says Associate Professor Worthy, from the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University.

“This remarkable find suggests our ancient forests were once home to a diverse group of birds that did not survive the next million years.”

In biology, the term “avifauna” refers to the collection of bird species living in a particular place and time. The fossils indicate that the birds inhabiting New Zealand a million years ago were substantially different from those present when people eventually arrived.

The study involved paleontologists from Flinders University and Canterbury Museum, as well as volcanologists Joel Baker of the University of Auckland and Simon Barker of Victoria University of Wellington.

According to the researchers, approximately 33-50% of species disappeared during the million years before humans reached Aotearoa New Zealand.

Volcanoes and Climate Change Reshaped Ecosystems

Scientists believe these losses were largely caused by natural environmental upheaval.

“These extinctions were driven by relatively rapid climate shifts and cataclysmic volcanic eruptions,” says co-author Dr. Paul Scofield, Senior Curator of Natural History at Canterbury Museum.

The discovery helps fill one of the largest gaps in New Zealand’s fossil record.

“From our excavations at St Bathans in Central Otago over many years, we have a snapshot of life in Aotearoa between 20 and 16 million years ago. These new findings cast light on the 15 million year period from then to 1 million years ago, which is largely absent from New Zealand’s fossil record,” says Dr. Scofield.

“This wasn’t a missing chapter in New Zealand’s ancient history, it was a missing volume.”

Fossils are often compared to pages in Earth’s history book. In this case, researchers say they have uncovered an entire section of that story that was previously unknown.

A Possible Flying Ancestor of the Kākāpō

One of the most exciting discoveries is a newly identified parrot species called Strigops insulaborealis. It is an ancient relative of the kākāpō, one of New Zealand’s most famous birds.

Today, the kākāpō is the world’s only flightless parrot. It is also one of the heaviest parrots and is known for its unusual nighttime lifestyle. However, the newly discovered ancestor may have been very different.

Analysis of the fossilized bones suggests it had weaker legs than modern kākāpō. Because today’s birds rely heavily on their strong legs and climbing ability, researchers think the ancient species may have spent less time climbing and possibly retained the ability to fly.

Additional research will be needed to determine whether it truly could take to the air.

The cave also contained fossils from an extinct ancestor of the takahē, another distinctive New Zealand bird. Researchers also identified an extinct pigeon species closely related to Australia’s bronzewing pigeons.

“The shifting forest and shrubland habitats forced a reset of the bird populations,” adds Dr. Scofield.

“We believe this was a major driver for the evolutionary diversification of birds and other fauna in the North Island.”

Volcanic Ash Helps Date the Fossils

One reason the discovery is so important is that scientists can determine its age with unusual precision.

The fossils were trapped between two layers of volcanic ash preserved inside the cave. One ash layer came from an eruption about 1.55 million years ago. The second was produced by a massive eruption approximately 1 million years ago.

This natural geological sandwich provides clear age limits for the fossils.

Researchers say the younger eruption likely covered much of the North Island in meters of ash. While rain and erosion eventually removed much of that material, some remained protected inside caves.

The older ash layer also reveals something else remarkable. It shows that the fossil site is the oldest known cave on New Zealand’s North Island.

Rewriting New Zealand’s Natural History

Associate Professor Worthy says the fossils provide a crucial benchmark for understanding how New Zealand’s wildlife evolved.

The fossils “provide a critical, missing baseline for New Zealand’s natural history.”

For many years, scientists focused primarily on the ecological changes that occurred after humans arrived in New Zealand roughly 750 years ago. The new evidence shows that powerful natural forces had already been transforming the islands’ wildlife for hundreds of thousands of years.

“For decades, the extinction of New Zealand’s birds was viewed primarily through the lens of human arrival 750 years ago. This study proves that natural forces like super-volcanoes and dramatic climate shifts were already sculpting the unique identity of our wildlife over a million years ago.”

Quantum science focuses on the behavior of matter and energy at extremely small scales, including atoms, electrons, and particles of light. Although atoms are often pictured as tiny balls colliding with one another, the quantum world is far stranger. Atoms can behave like waves, appear in multiple locations at the same time, and even pass through one another under certain conditions.

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab Studies Matter Near Absolute Zero

About the size of a mini refrigerator and controlled remotely from Earth, the Cold Atom Lab cools atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 237 degrees Celsius). At temperatures just above absolute zero, atoms can combine into an unusual quantum state known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, or BEC.

A BEC is made up of matter waves and is considered a fifth state of matter in addition to solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. Even though it is much larger than individual subatomic particles, it still follows the laws of quantum mechanics. The microgravity conditions of low Earth orbit allow these matter waves to become even larger than they can on Earth.

“At the coldest temperatures, matter behaves drastically different from anything we have experienced,” said Jason Williams, project scientist for Cold Atom Lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built the facility. “The wavelike nature of matter dominates, and ultracold matter can behave in ways that are not only unexpected, but that also enable extremely precise measurements of time, gravity, and motion. The lab has lots of tools — especially with this latest upgrade — to let us probe the nature of the universe.”

The facility currently supports five international research teams studying fundamental physics. It also serves as a testing ground for quantum instruments that could one day support Earth science investigations and future exploration missions.

How the Upgraded Cold Atom Lab Works

At the center of the facility is a sophisticated collection of instruments known as the science module. A newly upgraded version of this module arrived at the space station on April 11 aboard a Commercial Resupply Services mission, expanding the range of experiments scientists can perform.

During an experiment, strips of rubidium or potassium metal are heated to temperatures as high as 750 °F (400 °C), creating a gas inside a vacuum chamber. Researchers then use carefully tuned lasers to remove energy from the atoms. As the atoms lose energy, they slow down and cool dramatically.

After the laser cooling stage, magnetic fields trap the atoms and keep them contained. Additional cooling techniques reduce their energy even further, bringing the atomic cloud close to a complete standstill and allowing scientists to maximize the amount of time it can be studied in microgravity.

Why Quantum Experiments Benefit From Space

Scientists can study ultracold gases in laboratories on Earth, but space offers important advantages. In microgravity, quantum gases can be observed for longer periods and cooled to even lower temperatures.

The low gravity environment also allows larger quantum waves to form and interact with gravity for longer periods of time. To make these experiments possible aboard the station, engineers compressed what would normally be a room-sized atomic physics laboratory filled with lasers and optical equipment into a compact system that fits inside a station experiment rack.

“As the first project to create Bose-Einstein condensates in orbit, we’re demonstrating that we can make quantum technology work reliably in space,” said Ethan Elliott, deputy project scientist for Cold Atom Lab at JPL. “In the previous century, there was a quantum revolution that led to lasers, cellphones, and MRIs for medical imaging. We’re performing quantum 2.0 — direct manipulation of large quantum states — and we hope for similar gains in quantum tech by advancing this science in orbit.”

New Upgrade Expands Quantum Research Capabilities

The latest enhancement is the fourth major upgrade since the Cold Atom Lab was installed on the International Space Station in 2018.

Among the most significant improvements is a redesigned magnetic trap that can alter the shape of quantum gas clouds. This gives researchers new opportunities to investigate the properties and behavior of ultracold atoms. Engineers also introduced redesigned metal atom sources that generate the gas clouds used in experiments.

“It’s the closest thing we have to controlling the boundary of the quantum world,” said Kamal Oudrhiri, project manager of Cold Atom Lab at JPL, referring to those low temperatures. “This new upgrade pushes that boundary even further.”

Oudrhiri added that the new hardware “demonstrates NASA’s ability to maintain U.S. leadership in space-based quantum technologies while maturing future quantum instruments, such as matter-wave interferometers for fundamental physics missions, positioning, navigation, timing, and gravity sensing of Earth, the Moon, and beyond.”

Advancing Quantum Technology in Space

The Cold Atom Lab is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, while NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, built, and operates the facility. The project is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences division within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The division supports scientific discovery by using the unique conditions of space to conduct experiments that cannot be carried out on Earth. By studying biological and physical processes in extreme environments, researchers gain knowledge that can help humans travel farther and remain in space longer, while also producing benefits for life on Earth.

For Cynthia Schraf-Fletcher, 74, the results were “remarkably” successful.

Nearly a year after receiving genicular artery embolization (GAE) on her right knee, Schraf-Fletcher says the improvement is comparable to the total knee replacement she previously underwent on her left knee.

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” says Schraf-Fletcher, who had the procedure performed by Leigh Casadaban, MD, MS, assistant professor of radiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine.

Today, she says everyday activities such as gardening and riding a stationary bicycle are far more enjoyable because of the reduction in pain.

How Genicular Artery Embolization Works

GAE is an outpatient procedure designed to ease chronic knee pain by reducing blood flow to inflamed areas within the joint. By targeting abnormal blood vessels associated with inflammation, the treatment can help decrease swelling and discomfort.

“For treating osteoarthritis in the knees, we often think of medications, physical therapy, maybe a steroid injection, and then on the far end of the spectrum is a total knee replacement. There really hasn’t been anything for patients in between,” Casadaban, a vascular interventional radiologist, says. “GAE is a promising minimally invasive procedure that may fill that spot for people who have failed conservative treatments but are not yet ready to have a major surgery.”

According to Casadaban, people with mild to moderate osteoarthritis tend to benefit the most. Patients with more advanced disease can also undergo the procedure, although the effects are generally less durable.

“We find about 70% of patients have phenomenal results. They cut their pain scores in half, sometimes more. We have a few patients with no pain at all after the procedure,” Casadaban says. “Patients that have tried a lot of other treatments and haven’t had pain relief are happy to get back to their normal activities.”

After experiencing complications from knee replacement surgery, Schraf-Fletcher was eager to explore another option. Looking back, she says choosing GAE was the right decision.

What Happens During the Procedure?

GAE typically takes between one and two hours and is performed under conscious sedation.

During the procedure, an interventional radiology team makes a small incision near the crease of the leg. Using X-ray imaging and contrast dye for guidance, doctors advance a tiny catheter through the femoral artery until it reaches the genicular arteries around the knee.

Once in position, the team releases microscopic beads that block blood flow to the abnormal vessels located in the painful areas identified by the patient.

Patients are monitored for several hours afterward and are usually able to return home the same day. Doctors generally advise taking it easy for a few days during recovery.

Originally developed in Japan a little more than a decade ago, GAE has steadily gained attention worldwide. Since 2021, the FDA has granted “breakthrough device status” to multiple devices related to the procedure in the United States.

Research Suggests Long Lasting Pain Relief

Early and ongoing research continues to produce encouraging results.

“The theory is that GAE reduces inflammation inside the knee joint, and symptom relief can last years,” Casadaban says. “Four-year data published in Japan shows that if you have one outpatient procedure, your pain relief can last for those four years. In the U.S., we now have two-year data, which shows that if you have a good response, pain relief can last two years. That really speaks to the theory that we’re hopefully modifying something in the joint.”

Casadaban is currently leading two clinical trials at CU Anschutz. One study is examining changes in knee fluid among patients receiving GAE. The other is evaluating a temporary arterial treatment device called Nexsphere-F, which blocks small blood vessels in the knee that may contribute to inflammation and pain.

Expanding Beyond Knee Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease that affects millions of people each year and can occur in many different joints throughout the body.

Although GAE is currently used only for knee conditions, Casadaban says researchers and physicians are beginning to explore its use for other painful musculoskeletal disorders, including frozen shoulder, tennis elbow, and plantar fasciitis.