Register
Events
Popular
More
Post #1
+1 for Darwin.Scientists from the Wits Institute for Human Evolution based at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg have just announced the discovery of a large rock containing significant parts of a skeleton of an early human ancestor. The skeleton is believed to be the remains of 'Karabo', the type skeleton of Australopithecus sediba, discovered at the Malapa Site in the Cradle of Humankind in 2009.
Professor Lee Berger, a Reader in Palaeoanthropology and the Public Understanding of Science at the Wits Institute for Human Evolution, will make the announcement at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in Shanghai, China on 13 July 2012.
"We have discovered parts of a jaw and critical aspects of the body including what appear to be a complete femur (thigh bone), ribs, vertebrae and other important limb elements, some never before seen in such completeness in the human fossil record," says Berger. "This discovery will almost certainly make Karabo the most complete early human ancestor skeleton ever discovered. We are obviously quite excited as it appears that we now have some of the most critical and complete remains of the skeleton, albeit encased in solid rock. It's a big day for us as a team and for our field as a whole."
The remains are invisible to the casual observer and are entrenched in a large rock about one metre in diameter. It was discovered almost three years ago, but lay unnoticed in the Wits laboratories until early last month. Prof. Berger and his wife Jackie Smilg, a radiologist at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, who is conducting her PhD on the CT scanning of fossil material embedded in rock, scanned the large rock in a state of the art CT scanner.
Berger added that negotiations had begun with the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom and the Smithsonian in Washington. "We have already donated casts of Australopithecus sediba to these three institutions, amongst others," says Berger.
================================================== =================
Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0712162744.htm
-
+1 for Darwin.
-
But Darwin couldn't have existed without the almighty lord himself directing his every step!
praise jesus our lord and savior
-
This is getting old
-
Weres ur missen link
-
You know who else is old? God. God is a pretty good guy so maybe it's OK to be a little old.
-
(User was banned for this post ("Shitposting with image macros- I've seen you do this multiple times" - Craptasket))
-
But...how old is it? Couldn't they do some RCD to find out?
-
omg xD that's hilarious man
you sure showed those pesky creationists!
-
Do you really need to fill up every thread you encounter with an image of a combine elite with a caption that is used to escape an argument your afraid you might lose?
-
Searching for your good grammar.
-
i maek funny gmod vido so i can post image macro!
(User was banned for this post ("Shitposting with image macros- I've seen you do this multiple times" - Craptasket))
-
i agree what a great guy
-
it's okay the darker the skin color the more they have sinned
-
Because hey! Making fun of religion gets us...well nowhere!
-
Yay 12 posts about NOTHING to do with the article, congrats. This is post 15.
Anyways, this is a huge victory for science if it's intact as they say it is.
-
The sad thing is though with these fossils, is that they're always so crushed and scattered compared to most others.
-
But hell isn't nowhere.
-
I'm straight, and it seems like I haven't ever raped, or in fact had sex with a woman ever.
July 2008
3,957 Posts
But hell is now here
-
What's with calling every new hominid fossil "human ancestor".
That's like saying "your father is my father because our grandfathers were brothers"
-
Do you know what ancestor means?
Australopithecus is in the line our species comes from. So, human ancestor.
-
Australopithecus is our ancestor. We descended from them.
-
Darwin was still religious. People keep forgetting this.
-
His model for natural selection proved to be very effective at explaining evolution, though.
Edited:
And he was an atheist anyways, at least at a certain point in his life. He was never traditionally religious, and believed evolution and god were compatible ideas.
-
we r all human bengs and deservd to be ansestors
-
People also keep forgetting that its very difficult to tell how religious people were that long ago, because denouncing religion at certain times in history was sociopolitical (and sometimes physical) suicide.
-
Darwin was actually agnostic.
-
wel sed we r all human bengs and are deservd to haved live
-
Nah, it doesn't work like this:
It's more like this:
Sharing a common ancestor somewhere a million years ago =/= immediate ancestor
-
If I remember correctly, the Homo genus is an offshoot of the Australopithecus genus. So it's more like this:Nah, it doesn't work like this:
It's more like this:
Sharing a common ancestor somewhere a million years ago =/= immediate ancestor
Taken from Wikipedia:
Edited:
And according to Wiki's tree, A. sediba is a direct ancestor to the homo genus.
Edited:
And thanks to this thread, I can't stop whispering Australopithecus to myself because it's a fun word to say.
-
:|Nah, it doesn't work like this:
It's more like this:
Sharing a common ancestor somewhere a million years ago =/= immediate ancestor
Wikipedia posted:
-
Yep, it's better explained on those cladograms
The point is that I don't really see the "straight line" model working, evolution is more like a tree with multiple branches. In better words, A. Sediba is the closest thing to the Homo genus compared with other Australopithecus species we have at this moment, it may just be a close relative of the actual species that evolved into Homo, since in evolutionary biology there's no 100% sure "this species gave rise to this other one".
-
That's what an ancestor is though. You have ancestral fish because at some point everything was a fish or other sea critter. A. Sediba, as it stands with the knowledge we have now, is our closest Australopithecus ancestor. But there is always the possibility that we may find a closer one that's still part of the Australopithecus genus. Science is subject to change.Yep, it's better explained on those cladograms
The point is that I don't really see the "straight line" model working, evolution is more like a tree with multiple branches. In better words, A. Sediba is the closest thing to the Homo genus compared with other Australopithecus species we have at this moment, it may just be a close relative of the actual species that evolved into Homo, since in evolutionary biology there's no 100% sure "this species gave rise to this other one".
Winner x 47
x 77
x 15
x 2
x 1
x 1
Useful x 1
Artistic x 1
x 9
Friendly x 1
