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Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week
- Thread starter Ender Rises
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Evil?
omghaxlol!1
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What gets me is that wearing that could actually be embarrassing for a mature male adult in their society. Nearly everyone I know of around here would just take a punishment like that as a joke. They must have some serious insecurity issues over there, or a very limited sense of humor...
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omghaxlol!1
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Study points to larger role of Asian ancestors in evolution
CHICAGO (AFP) - A new analysis of the dental fossils of human ancestors suggests that Asian populations played a larger role than Africans in colonizing Europe millions of years ago, said a study released Monday.
The findings challenge the prevailing "Out of Africa" theory, which holds that anatomically modern man first arose from one point in Africa and fanned out to conquer the globe, and bolsters the notion that Homo sapiens evolved from different populations in different parts of the globe.
The "Out of Africa" scenario has been underpinned since 1987 by genetic studies based mainly on the rate of mutations in mitochondrial DNA, a cell material inherited from the maternal line of ancestry.
But for this study, European researchers opted to study the tooth fossil record of modern man's ancestors because of their high component of genetic expression.
The investigators examined the shapes of more than 5,000 teeth from human ancestors from Africa, Asia and Europe dating back millions of years.
They found that European teeth had more Asian features than African ones.
They also noted that the continuity of the Eurasian dental pattern from the Early Pleistocene until the appearance of Upper Pleistocene Neanderthals suggests that the evolutionary courses of the Eurasian and African continents were relatively independent for a long period.
"The history of human populations in Eurasia may not have been the result of a few high-impact replacement waves of dispersals from Africa, but a much more complex puzzle of dispersals and contacts among populations within and outside continents," the researchers wrote.
"In the light of these results, we propose that Asia has played an important role in the colonization of Europe, and that future studies on this issue are obliged to pay serious attention to the 'unknown' continent."
The paper was written by researchers at Spain's national center for research into human evolution in Burgos and appears in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
CHICAGO (AFP) - A new analysis of the dental fossils of human ancestors suggests that Asian populations played a larger role than Africans in colonizing Europe millions of years ago, said a study released Monday.
The findings challenge the prevailing "Out of Africa" theory, which holds that anatomically modern man first arose from one point in Africa and fanned out to conquer the globe, and bolsters the notion that Homo sapiens evolved from different populations in different parts of the globe.
The "Out of Africa" scenario has been underpinned since 1987 by genetic studies based mainly on the rate of mutations in mitochondrial DNA, a cell material inherited from the maternal line of ancestry.
But for this study, European researchers opted to study the tooth fossil record of modern man's ancestors because of their high component of genetic expression.
The investigators examined the shapes of more than 5,000 teeth from human ancestors from Africa, Asia and Europe dating back millions of years.
They found that European teeth had more Asian features than African ones.
They also noted that the continuity of the Eurasian dental pattern from the Early Pleistocene until the appearance of Upper Pleistocene Neanderthals suggests that the evolutionary courses of the Eurasian and African continents were relatively independent for a long period.
"The history of human populations in Eurasia may not have been the result of a few high-impact replacement waves of dispersals from Africa, but a much more complex puzzle of dispersals and contacts among populations within and outside continents," the researchers wrote.
"In the light of these results, we propose that Asia has played an important role in the colonization of Europe, and that future studies on this issue are obliged to pay serious attention to the 'unknown' continent."
The paper was written by researchers at Spain's national center for research into human evolution in Burgos and appears in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Krigloch the Furious
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I think it has something to do with the smaller penis size or some sort of Napoleonic complex.
Necuratul said:
That makes a lot of sense, actually. But of course, since God created humans in the Garden of Eden, which was in Asia. :Smug:
(I jest)
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omghaxlol!1
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Twin fossil find adds twist to human evolution
Homo erectus had an unexpected neighbour, and a surprising lifestyle too.
Michael Hopkin
Two fossils unearthed in Kenya have added a new dimension to our view of life at the birth of our Homo genus. They show that two ancestral human species seem to have lived cheek-by-jowl in the same area, much as gorillas and chimpanzees do today.
Both skull fragments were found by anthropologists digging near Kenya's Lake Turkana, adding to the impressive list of early human fossils unearthed here. One of the fossils, an upper jawbone from the species Homo habilis, is dated at 1.44 million years, much younger than most fossils of this species.
The other fossil is an almost complete — but faceless — Homo erectus skull. Dated at 1.55 million years, the skull is far smaller than any other from this species — suggesting to the researchers that, as is the case with modern gorillas, there was a large size differences between the sexes in H. erectus.
Walking abreast
The fact that these two species seem to have been contemporaries is a surprise to anthropologists, say Fred Spoor of University College London and his colleagues, who discovered the hominin fossils seven years ago and now describe them in this week's Nature1.
Anthropologists have tended to see the evolution of Homo species as a linear progression, beginning with H. habilis and passing through H. erectus before ending up with modern humans. But it seems the path through time was broad enough for more than one species to walk abreast, with H. erectus and H. habilis living in the same place at the same time for as much as half a million years. Spoor and his colleagues argue that this makes it less likely that H. erectus was a direct descendant of H. habilis, instead suggesting that there is a common ancestor yet to find.
The two species are thought to have lived side by side in much the same way as modern chimps and gorillas coexist in central regions of Africa — by adopting different habits and diets. "To live in the same area for half a million years they must have found their own niches — different diets, maybe different migratory routes — to minimize competition," says Spoor. "When food is scarce, when there's a drought or something, it becomes very important that you're not in each other's way."
Harem of females
The new H. erectus skull also changes our ideas about the nature of this species. "What is truly striking about this fossil is its size," comments Spoor. The fact that the skull — probably belong to a young adult — is so small suggests that the size range of H. erectus was much larger than we imagined. The researchers infer from this that the males of H. erectus were much bigger than the females. By comparison, there is a relatively slight difference seen between the sexes in our own species. A greater inequality of size has implications for the way the creatures lived.
H. erectus has always been viewed as similar to H. sapiens in both body shape and lifestyle. Spoor points out that the new discovery suggests a family set-up more akin to that of modern gorillas in which dominant males mate with a harem of females. "If we look at those primate species that have large sexual dimorphism, their groups usually involve one dominant male — the silverback if you're talking about gorillas — multiple female mates, and then perhaps a few non-dominant males that hang around, just waiting for their chance," Spoor says.
A similar set up is inferred from fossils of the earliest hominins, such as the australopithecines, but there has been a widespread assumption that sexes of more or less equal sizes arose when our ancestors ditched their more ape-like characteristics, evolving from Australopithecus into the more genteel Homo. To find such a difference in H. erectus, Spoor says, "was quite a surprise, actually".
Homo erectus had an unexpected neighbour, and a surprising lifestyle too.
Michael Hopkin
Two fossils unearthed in Kenya have added a new dimension to our view of life at the birth of our Homo genus. They show that two ancestral human species seem to have lived cheek-by-jowl in the same area, much as gorillas and chimpanzees do today.
Both skull fragments were found by anthropologists digging near Kenya's Lake Turkana, adding to the impressive list of early human fossils unearthed here. One of the fossils, an upper jawbone from the species Homo habilis, is dated at 1.44 million years, much younger than most fossils of this species.
The other fossil is an almost complete — but faceless — Homo erectus skull. Dated at 1.55 million years, the skull is far smaller than any other from this species — suggesting to the researchers that, as is the case with modern gorillas, there was a large size differences between the sexes in H. erectus.
Walking abreast
The fact that these two species seem to have been contemporaries is a surprise to anthropologists, say Fred Spoor of University College London and his colleagues, who discovered the hominin fossils seven years ago and now describe them in this week's Nature1.
Anthropologists have tended to see the evolution of Homo species as a linear progression, beginning with H. habilis and passing through H. erectus before ending up with modern humans. But it seems the path through time was broad enough for more than one species to walk abreast, with H. erectus and H. habilis living in the same place at the same time for as much as half a million years. Spoor and his colleagues argue that this makes it less likely that H. erectus was a direct descendant of H. habilis, instead suggesting that there is a common ancestor yet to find.
The two species are thought to have lived side by side in much the same way as modern chimps and gorillas coexist in central regions of Africa — by adopting different habits and diets. "To live in the same area for half a million years they must have found their own niches — different diets, maybe different migratory routes — to minimize competition," says Spoor. "When food is scarce, when there's a drought or something, it becomes very important that you're not in each other's way."
Harem of females
The new H. erectus skull also changes our ideas about the nature of this species. "What is truly striking about this fossil is its size," comments Spoor. The fact that the skull — probably belong to a young adult — is so small suggests that the size range of H. erectus was much larger than we imagined. The researchers infer from this that the males of H. erectus were much bigger than the females. By comparison, there is a relatively slight difference seen between the sexes in our own species. A greater inequality of size has implications for the way the creatures lived.
H. erectus has always been viewed as similar to H. sapiens in both body shape and lifestyle. Spoor points out that the new discovery suggests a family set-up more akin to that of modern gorillas in which dominant males mate with a harem of females. "If we look at those primate species that have large sexual dimorphism, their groups usually involve one dominant male — the silverback if you're talking about gorillas — multiple female mates, and then perhaps a few non-dominant males that hang around, just waiting for their chance," Spoor says.
A similar set up is inferred from fossils of the earliest hominins, such as the australopithecines, but there has been a widespread assumption that sexes of more or less equal sizes arose when our ancestors ditched their more ape-like characteristics, evolving from Australopithecus into the more genteel Homo. To find such a difference in H. erectus, Spoor says, "was quite a surprise, actually".
Krigloch the Furious
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I often wonder why the Netherlands doesn't get more terrorist attacks, with all the anti-Muslim sentiment there seems to be there (i.e. Theo Van Gogh, the Muhammad cartoons, etc).
Krigloch the Furious
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