Science
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Missing link found? Scientists unveil fossil of 47 million-year-old primate, Darwinius masillae
Feast your eyes on what a group of scientists call the Holy Grail of human evolution. A team of researchers Tuesday unveiled an almost perfectly intact fossil of a 47 million-year-old primate they say represents the long-sought missing link between humans and apes. Officially known as Darwinius masillae, the fossil of the lemur-like creature dubbed Ida shows it had opposable thumbs like humans and fingernails instead of claws. Scientists say the cat-sized animal's hind legs offer evidence of evolutionary changes that led to primates standing upright - a breakthrough that could finally confirm Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution. "This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists," lead scientist Jorn Hurum said at a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History . "It is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail.
If you have been looking for a simple, easy to follow quick guide to evolution… we’ve got it.
Top 10 Myths About Evolution – with Downloadable PDF | Atheism Resource
Introduction to Evolutionary Biology Version 2 Copyright © 1996-1997 by Chris Colby [Last Update: January 7, 1996]
Introduction to Evolutionary Biology
While burying yourself in the stacks at the library is one way to get some serious research done, with today’s technology you can do quite a bit of useful searching before you ever set foot inside a library.
100 Time-Saving Search Engines for Serious Scholars
Human evolution
Human evolution refers to the evolutionary process leading up to the appearance of modern humans . While it began with the last common ancestor of all life, the topic usually covers only the evolutionary history of primates , in particular the genus Homo , and the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species of hominids (or "great apes"). The study of human evolution involves many scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology , primatology , archaeology , linguistics , evolutionary psychology , embryology and genetics . [ 1 ]Evolution: Frequently Asked Questions
There is great debate about how we are related to Neanderthals, close hominid relatives who coexisted with our species from more than 100,000 years ago to about 28,000 years ago. Some data suggest that when anatomically modern humans dispersed into areas beyond Africa, they did so in small bands, across many different regions. As they did so, according to this hypothesis, humans merged with and interbred with Neanderthals, meaning that there is a little Neanderthal in all modern Europeans. Scientific opinion based on other sets of data, however, suggests that the movement of anatomically modern humans out of Africa happened on a larger scale. These movements by the much more culturally and technologically advanced modern humans, the hypothesis states, would have been difficult for the Neanderthals to accommodate; the modern humans would have out-competed the Neanderthals for resources and driven them to extinction. <p style="text-align:right;color:#A8A8A8"></p>
