Sunday, April 14, 2013

Got bananas?

Comarisons
Modern human left, 2 million year ancestor findings middle, chimp right

More clues to knowing our blog ancestors.  

Reuters/Jon Herskovitz. 4/12/13."Two million-year-old creature had mix of ape, human traits."

"A 2 million-year-old ancestor of man had a mixture of ape and human-like features that allowed it to hike vast distances on two legs with as much ease as it could scurry up trees, according to research published on Friday.

Discovered in cave near Johannesburg in 2008, the fossils of a species named "Australopithecus sediba" have given researchers clues about the evolution of man and which traits in our ancestors fell by the wayside.

Standing about 1.3 meters (4 ft) tall, sediba had a narrow rib cage similar to apes but a flexible spine more similar to that of a human. Its long arms and powerful torso helped in climbing, according to the research published in the journal Science." 

ReferenceScience Magazine Special 4/12/13.  "INTRODUCTION—The site of Malapa, South Africa, has yielded perhaps the richest assemblage of early hominin fossils on the continent of Africa. The fossil remains of Au. sediba were discovered in August of 2008, and the species was named in 2010. In 2011, detailed studies of four critical areas of anatomy of these remains were published in Science, and a refined date of ~1.977 to 1.98 Ma was proposed for their age. In 2013, Science presents six articles that complete the initial examination of the prepared material attributed to three individuals: the holotype and paratype skeletons, commonly referred to as MH1 and MH2, and the adult isolated tibia referred to as MH4. They, along with the cumulative research published over the past 3 years, provide us with a comprehensive examination of the anatomy of a single species of early hominin."

Related articles - Nature, 4/13/13, San Francisco Chronicle, 4/13/13.  Note:  photograph from  BBC News, 4/12/13,  Wall Street Journal video, 4/11/13, 30 seconds.

Posted by Kathy Meeh

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What does this have to do with Paciica?

Leaky said...

I recognize the one in the middle, Pacificus Erectus No-growthus

Anonymous said...

new logo for the tourists

Pacifica...where evolution stopped...and you can, too!

Anonymous said...

The one on the right is Fixus Pacificus No-brainus

Anonymous said...

What does this have to do with Pacifica?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, without coffee and donuts nothing matters.

Kathy Meeh said...

The prior thinking was the human/ape transition occurred 1 million years ago. The current, new discovery indicates the human/ape transition occurred 2 million years earlier (twice as slow as previously considered).

As Anon 5:12 PM suggests with his comment, there may be some evolutionary laggers in Pacifica. The dull ongoing question from Anon 4/14, 6:08 PM, 4/15, 2:03 PM (who then does not submit homie Pacifica articles) tends to confirm.

Anon 4/14, 6:08 PM, 4/15, 2:03 PM, maybe think of the slow evolutionary time process (twice as long or not so much), as similar to getting any progress or development built in Pacifica. That might work for you. If not, well...