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World’s 1st Surgery Took Place in Head of Peruvian Warrior 2,000 Years Ago

Biological anthropologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History examine the skulls discovered near Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. Photo: Reuters
Biological anthropologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History examine the skulls discovered near Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. Photo: Reuters
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World’s 1st Surgery Took Place in Head of Peruvian Warrior 2,000 Years Ago

Biological anthropologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History examine the skulls discovered near Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. Photo: Reuters
Biological anthropologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History examine the skulls discovered near Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. Photo: Reuters

Metal plate implanted into head of Peruvian warrior 2,000 years ago is thought to be the world's first skull surgery and it was successful, The Daily Mail reported.

The 2,000-year-old skull of a Peruvian warrior was found to have been fused together with metal in one of the world's oldest examples of advanced surgery, according to a museum curator.

The Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma says the skull, which is in its collection, is reported to have been that of a man who was injured during battle before having some of the earliest forms of surgery to implant a piece of metal in his head to repair the fracture.

Experts told the Daily Mail that the man survived the surgery, with the skull now a key piece of evidence in proving that ancient peoples were capable of performing advanced surgeries.

The skull in question is an example of a Peruvian elongated skull, which is an ancient form of body modification where tribe members intentionally deformed the skulls of young children by binding them with cloth or even binding the head between two pieces of wood for prolonged periods of time.

“This is a Peruvian elongated skull with metal surgically implanted after returning from battle, estimated to be from about 2,000 years ago. It’s one of our more interesting and oldest pieces in the collection. We don't have a ton of background on this piece, but we do know he survived the procedure,” the museum said in a statement.

“Based on the broken bone surrounding the repair, you can see that it's tightly fused together. It was a successful surgery,” added the statement.

The skull had originally been kept in the museum's private collection; However it was officially put on display in 2020 following growing public interest in the artifact due to news coverage on the discovery of the skull. The area where the skull was discovered in Peru has long been known for surgeons who invented a series of complex procedures to treat a fractured skull.

The injury was commonplace at the time due to the use of projectiles like slingshots during battle. Elongated skulls were common in Peru at the time and were stretched by applying force to a person's cranium, often by binding it between two pieces of wood. According to researchers, the skull elongation served as a way for society's elites to mark themselves out.

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Great White Shark Caught on Underwater Footage During Mediterranean Clean-up

People fish at sunset near the Corniche Al-Manara seafront promenade on the Mediterranean coast in Beirut, Lebanon, 05 June 2026. (EPA)
People fish at sunset near the Corniche Al-Manara seafront promenade on the Mediterranean coast in Beirut, Lebanon, 05 June 2026. (EPA)
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Great White Shark Caught on Underwater Footage During Mediterranean Clean-up

People fish at sunset near the Corniche Al-Manara seafront promenade on the Mediterranean coast in Beirut, Lebanon, 05 June 2026. (EPA)
People fish at sunset near the Corniche Al-Manara seafront promenade on the Mediterranean coast in Beirut, Lebanon, 05 June 2026. (EPA)

Divers removing abandoned ‌fishing nets from the central Mediterranean, between Italy and North Africa, have captured what they believe is the first-ever underwater footage of an adult great white shark in the region.

The sighting occurred as a team led by the Healthy Seas Foundation recovered so-called ghost nets from a shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily -- a biodiversity hotspot heavily impacted by industrial fishing.

The video, taken ‌last week and ‌released on Monday, shows the shark ‌accompanied ⁠by a dozen ⁠striped pilot fish, that often flank large predators in the hope of picking up leftovers.

Footage and photographs of the shark were filmed by volunteer diver Derk Remmers of Ghost Diving, one of the project partners.

"An offshore underwater shark encounter ⁠in the Mediterranean is insane," Remmers ‌said in a statement.

Another ‌member of the diving team, Pascal van Erp, ‌said on Facebook that the shark had likely ‌been drawn to dead marine life entangled in the abandoned fishing net, including lots of sea turtles.

While there have been occasional sightings of great whites in the ‌Mediterranean, the size of the population is unknown and previous encounters are not ⁠believed ⁠to have been filmed by divers, the foundation said.

"Moments like this remind us how much life can still exist in offshore Mediterranean waters and how important it is to protect it from preventable threats like abandoned fishing gear or overfishing," said Healthy Seas director Veronika Mikos.

Researchers working with the mission said the sighting could improve understanding of the distribution and behavior of the critically endangered species, though further analysis would be required before broader conclusions are drawn.

Varieties

Aging France to See Population Fall After 2037 Peak

People walk along the Seine river in Paris on June 2, 2026 with in the background "La Caverne du Pont Neuf" ("The Pont Neuf Cave") artwork by French street artist and photographer JR on the Pont-Neuf bridge after it was damaged and torn by the wind. (Photo by SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP)
People walk along the Seine river in Paris on June 2, 2026 with in the background "La Caverne du Pont Neuf" ("The Pont Neuf Cave") artwork by French street artist and photographer JR on the Pont-Neuf bridge after it was damaged and torn by the wind. (Photo by SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP)
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Aging France to See Population Fall After 2037 Peak

People walk along the Seine river in Paris on June 2, 2026 with in the background "La Caverne du Pont Neuf" ("The Pont Neuf Cave") artwork by French street artist and photographer JR on the Pont-Neuf bridge after it was damaged and torn by the wind. (Photo by SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP)
People walk along the Seine river in Paris on June 2, 2026 with in the background "La Caverne du Pont Neuf" ("The Pont Neuf Cave") artwork by French street artist and photographer JR on the Pont-Neuf bridge after it was damaged and torn by the wind. (Photo by SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP)

France's population is expected to peak in 2037, seven years earlier than previously estimated, before shrinking back to around its 2014 level in the following decades, statistics agency INSEE said on Monday.

France has long had stronger demographics than most of Europe, but an ageing population and falling birth rates show it is not immune to the pressures straining public finances across the continent.

France's ⁠natural population growth ⁠turned negative in 2025 and will remain so, with gains until 2037 driven entirely by migration, INSEE said in its latest projections.

The population is expected to rise from 69.1 million in 2026 ⁠to a peak of 69.8 million in 2037, before falling to 65.9 million by 2070, roughly its 2014 level, Reuters reported.

INSEE's previous projections in 2021 put the peak later, in 2044, at about 69.3 million.

If migration weakens or fertility falls below the central assumption of 1.45 children per woman, the population could drop to as low ⁠as ⁠54.6 million by 2070.

As well as shrinking, the population will age significantly.

By 2070, one in three people in France will be aged 65 or older, about double the share under 20.

The sharpest shift will be among the oldest groups, with the number aged 80 and over more than doubling to around 9 million, while centenarians could quadruple to about 160,000

Varieties

Cuba’s Iconic Antique Cars Sit Idle as US Energy Blockade Deepens Fuel Crisis

An old car drives past the Gran Hotel Bristol in Havana on June 3, 2026. (AFP)
An old car drives past the Gran Hotel Bristol in Havana on June 3, 2026. (AFP)
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Cuba’s Iconic Antique Cars Sit Idle as US Energy Blockade Deepens Fuel Crisis

An old car drives past the Gran Hotel Bristol in Havana on June 3, 2026. (AFP)
An old car drives past the Gran Hotel Bristol in Havana on June 3, 2026. (AFP)

A worsening fuel crisis across Cuba is testing the island's famed “almendrones," the vintage American cars that serve as vital shared taxis and embody the island’s ingenuity and endurance.

These days, many of the iconic gas-guzzling antique cars sit idle, casualties of fuel shortages that have gripped Cuba since January and that Cuban officials blame on a US energy blockade.

Outside his modest concrete-block home on a dirt road in Las Minas, a town of about 2,000 people on the outskirts of Havana, Diriel Valdez is restoring a 1951 Chevrolet Deluxe. The burgundy body is intact and the original engine still works. Finding fuel for it, however, is another matter.

Valdez is among thousands of Cubans waiting for fuel through a government reservation app that, for many, has become a symbol of the shortages it was designed to manage.

“I signed up in February ... I’m still somewhere around number 2,800,” said the 27-year-old who runs an auto body shop from his home.

The reward for the wait would be 20 liters (5.3 gallons) of gasoline — enough fuel, Valdez says, to get him to the beach.

The name almendrón comes from the Spanish word for almond, a reference to the rounded shape of the large American sedans imported before Cuba’s 1959 revolution.

For decades, sanctions, shortages and limited imports forced Cuban mechanics to become masters of improvisation. Engines were swapped, bodies rebuilt and replacement parts sourced from wherever they could be found.

On a recent night in Havana, as another blackout darkened much of the city, taxi driver Leonardo Daniel González steered a friend’s glowing purple 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster through the darkness.

“These cars are passed down from generation to generation,” said González, 30. “I had one that belonged to my great-grandfather. It went from him to my grandfather, then to my father, and then to me.”

The wait for fuel Cuba is experiencing one of its most severe energy crises in years. The population, already battered by decades of economic crises and shortages, is now navigating daily blackouts that can last up to 20 hours in some parts of the island.

The country produces only about 40% of the fuel it consumes and depends heavily on imports to keep its power plants running and its transportation network moving.

Since January, the Trump administration has tightened sanctions on Cuba as an element of its ongoing pressure campaign against the island’s communist government. Trump also threatened tariffs on countries that sell or transport oil to Cuba, further complicating the island’s efforts to secure fuel supplies. Just a single Russian tanker has delivered oil to the island nation since then.

Standing beside his Chevrolet in Las Minas, Valdez, who runs the auto body shop, said the fuel shortage is also affecting his livelihood. He learned auto-body work from his stepfather and has been repairing classic cars since he was 13.

“People don’t want to do major repairs anymore,” he said. “A lot of them have their cars parked. They don’t have much hope that they’ll be circulating the way they used to.”

Almendrones persist even with electric vehicles

As gasoline becomes harder to obtain, many drivers are turning to Cuba’s black market, where fuel can often be found more quickly, though at significantly higher prices that can reach up to $8 per liter ($30 per gallon).

Omar Everleny Pérez, a former economist at the University of Havana’s Center of Cuban Economic Studies, said the country’s transportation system still depends heavily on almendrones because modern vehicles remain out of reach for most Cubans.

“They’ve been vital to the transportation of ordinary Cubans,” he said. “Not only in Havana but throughout the country.”

New vehicles have become available in Cuba in recent years, but at prices far beyond the reach of most state-sector workers, Pérez said. That has helped keep the aging American cars on the road, even as a different future is beginning to emerge on Cuba’s streets.

Electric motorcycles imported from China have become increasingly common. Small electric vehicles are also appearing, aided by a growing network of solar-powered charging stations promoted by the government as part of its push toward renewable energy.

Back in Havana, González is not ready to write off the almendrones. Despite the lack of fuel and a sharp decline in tourism, he can still make a living off the old Chevrolet.

“There are ... several WhatsApp groups for us to find rides and so on,“ said González. “But tourism in Cuba is in very bad shape.”