Anus-mouthed worm looks like our earliest ancestor You have a family member with no anus, but it has the potential for serious verbal diarrhea. If it’s of any reassurance, let’s make it clear that we’re talking about a 2-3 cm long worm with a flat body, which looks like our 600 million-year-old original form. The worm goes by the name of Xenoturbella bocki, which, roughly translated, means ‘Bock’s strange tubellarian’. Despite its tiny size, the Xenoturbella bocki has been the cause of heated debate among the world’s evolutionary scientists. For decades, researchers from several countries have been collecting and studying specimens, and in numerous scientific articles they have developed, contributed to or dismissed theories of where on life’s genealogical tree the Xenoturbella belongs. Now an international research team has made a long-awaited scientific breakthrough regarding the tiny worm. Researchers kept worm alive For the first time ever, scientists have managed to study embryos and newly-hatched offspring from the Xenoturbella bock.
Migration mystery: Who were the first Americans? - life - 05 April 2013 NOT SO long ago there was a simple and seemingly incontrovertible answer to the question of how and when the first settlers made it to the Americas. Some 13,000 years ago, a group of people from Asia walked across a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska and headed south. These people, known to us as the Clovis, were accomplished toolmakers and hunters. Subsisting largely on big game killed with their trademark flint spears, they prospered and spread out across the continent. For decades this was the received wisdom. No longer. Moore's Law and the Origin of Life Here’s an interesting idea. Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years or so. That has produced an exponential increase in the number of transistors on microchips and continues to do so. But if an observer today was to measure this rate of increase, it would be straightforward to extrapolate backwards and work out when the number of transistors on a chip was zero. In other words, the date when microchips were first developed in the 1960s. A similar process works with scientific publications. Today, Alexei Sharov at the National Institute on Ageing in Baltimore and his mate Richard Gordon at the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Florida, have taken a similar to complexity and life. These guys argue that it’s possible to measure the complexity of life and the rate at which it has increased from prokaryotes to eukaryotes to more complex creatures such as worms, fish and finally mammals. That raises an interesting question.
Controversial worm keeps its position as the progenitor of mankind - University of Gothenburg, Sweden News: Mar 06, 2013 Researchers are arguing about whether or not the Xenoturbella bocki worm is the progenitor of mankind. But new studies indicate that this is actually the case. The Xenoturbella bocki worm is a one-centimetre long worm with a simple body plan that is only found regularly by the west coast of Sweden. Researchers argue about the origin Zoologists have long disagreed about whether or not the Xenoturbella bocki worm holds a key position in the animal tree of life. “It’s absolutely fantastic that one of the key evolutionary organisms in the animal kingdom lives right on the doorstep of the University of Gothenburg’s Centre for Marine Research. Worm closely related to man Genetic studies indicate that the Xenoturbella bocki worm belongs to the group of deuterostomes, the exclusive group to which also man belongs. “So maybe we’re more closely related to the Xenoturbella bocki worm, which doesn’t have a brain, than we are to lobsters and flies, for example,” says Matthias Obst.
Early human ancestors were ‘aquatic apes’: Living in water helped us evolve big brains and walk upright, scientists say - Genome Analysis - Human Genome Supporters of the aquatic ape theory include Sir David AttenboroughIt says apes emerged from water, lost their fur, and started to walk upright Theory will be revisited at London conference next week By Amanda Williams PUBLISHED: 17:23 GMT, 28 April 2013 | UPDATED: 17:23 GMT, 28 April 2013 A controversial theory that humans evolved from amphibious apes has won new support. The aquatic ape theory, whose supporters include David Attenborough, suggests that apes emerged from the water, lost their fur, started to walk upright and then developed big brains. While it has been treated with scorn by some scientists since it first emerged 50 years ago, it is backed by a committed group of academics, including Sir David. The group will hold a major London conference next week featuring several speakers who will voice support for the theory. Peter Rhys Evans is one of the organisers of Human Evolution: Past, Present and Future. Categories: Uncategorized Tags:
How far north did the Neanderthals go? A reconstruction of what Denmark looked like many thousands of years ago during the Eemian interglacial period. The National Museum of Denmark houses a cast of a pile of seemingly insignificant bones. They are neither from dinosaurs nor mammoths, but from ordinary deer. However, this research-based conclusion – that only a food-loving, bone-breaking Neanderthal could have worked up these old roe deer bones – was recently dismissed by a research team from Aarhus University that specialises in genetic engineering. So the question remains: did the Neanderthals ever make it all the way north to Denmark, or did they go no farther north than to Germany? The reliable find discovered nearest to the Scandinavian countries comes from Lehringen in Germany, only 300 kilometres south of the Danish border, explains PhD student Trine Kellberg Nielsen, who was part of the research team that eliminated the roe deer bone theory. Nielsen will not be looking for evidence in bones. Trine Kellberg Nielsen
Early human ancestors were 'aquatic apes': 'Living in water helped us evolve big brains and walk upright' Supporters of the aquatic ape theory include Sir David AttenboroughIt says apes emerged from water, lost their fur, and started to walk upright Theory will be revisited at London conference next week By Amanda Williams Published: 17:23 GMT, 28 April 2013 | Updated: 13:28 GMT, 29 April 2013 A controversial theory that humans evolved from amphibious apes has won new support A controversial theory that humans evolved from amphibious apes has won new support. The aquatic ape theory, whose supporters include David Attenborough, suggests that apes emerged from the water, lost their fur, started to walk upright and then developed big brains. While it has been treated with scorn by some scientists since it first emerged 50 years ago, it is backed by a committed group of academics, including Sir David. The group will hold a major London conference next week featuring several speakers who will voice support for the theory. Others have dismissed the theory.
First Love Child of Human, Neanderthal Found | Orwellwasright's Weblog The skeletal remains of an individual living in northern Italy 40,000-30,000 years ago are believed to be that of a human/Neanderthal hybrid, according to a paper in PLoS ONE.If further analysis proves the theory correct, the remains belonged to the first known such hybrid, providing direct evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred. Prior genetic research determined the DNA of people with European and Asian ancestry is 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal.The present study focuses on the individual’s jaw, which was unearthed at a rock-shelter called Riparo di Mezzena in the Monti Lessini region of Italy. Both Neanderthals and modern humans inhabited Europe at the time. Turkana Boy Study Finds No Sign Of Bone Disorder, But Debate Over Proto-Human's Skeleton Continues By: Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer Published: 03/20/2013 11:23 AM EDT on LiveScience "Turkana Boy," an exquisitely preserved 1.5-million-year-old human ancestor found in Kenya, may not have had dwarfism or scoliosis, new research suggests. Past studies had suggested that the ancient human ancestor, a Homo erectus, had suffered from a congenital bone disorder that made him unrepresentative of his species. "Until now, the Turkana Boy was always thought to be pathological," said study co-author Martin Häusler, a physician and physical anthropologist at the University of Zurich. "The spine was somewhat weird, and so he couldn't be used as a comparative model for Homo erectus biology because he was so pathological." But the new analysis, published in the March issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggests that apart from a herniated disc in his back, Turkana Boy was a fairly healthy person with no genetic bone problems. Exquisite find Controversial results
Human Jawbone Fossil Found In Serbian Cave May Be More Than Half-Million Years Old By: Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer Published: 02/06/2013 05:24 PM EST on LiveScience Scientists have unearthed a jawbone from an ancient human ancestor in a cave in Serbia. The jawbone, which may have come from an ancient Homo erectus or a primitive-looking Neanderthal precursor, is more than 397,000 years old, and possibly more than 525,000 years old. The fossil, described today (Feb. 6) in the journal PLOS ONE, is the oldest hominin fossil found in this region of Europe, and may change the view that Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relatives, evolved throughout Europe around that time. "It comes from an area where we basically don't have anything that is known and well- published," said study co-author Mirjana Roksandic, a bioarchaeologist from the University of Winnipeg in Canada. Cave diggers In 2000, Roksandic and her colleagues began excavating a cave in Balanica, Serbia, that contained ancient archaeological remains. Oldest specimen
A chimp-pig hybrid origin for humans? (Phys.org) —These days, getting a Ph.D. is probably the last thing you want to do if you are out to revolutionize the world. If, however, what you propose is an idea, rather than a technology, it can still be a valuable asset to have. Dr. Eugene McCarthy is a Ph.D. geneticist who has made a career out of studying hybridization in animals. Generally speaking, interspecies hybrids—like mules, ligers (lion-tiger hybrids), or zedonks (zebra-donkey hybrids)—are less fertile than the parents that produced them. This latter possibility may not sound so far-fetched after you read the riveting details suggesting that the origin of the gorilla may be best explained by hybridization with the equally massive forest hog. It is not yet clear if or when genetic data might support, or refute, our hybrid origins. McCarthy has done extensive research into the broader issues, and shortcomings, of our currently incomplete theory of evolution. Share Video undefined