Human Evolution

[AUSloth]

Pity they have no data for the Qld police force as it was under Jo

[CoachPedro]

interesting study. Thank you.

[Darwinsbulldog]

I wonder what the sub-dominant chimps think of the Alphas, do they say to themselves:- "arrogant assholes?'' or summat?

[AUSloth]

Originally Posted by Darwinsbulldog

I wonder what the sub-dominant chimps think of the Alphas, do they say to themselves:- "arrogant assholes?'' or summat?

and do three chimps on a street corner constitute an illegal protest?

[Mjt]

Very interesting Puppy, thanks

[dilbadoon]

Originally Posted by The Irreverent Mr Black

I've already told our thick-skinned friend Jireh about altruistic animals.

Surely he would love to hear that chimps seek order in their social structure without intervention from the sky fairy.

He'll probably just tell you those chimps aren't actually "policing" but actually "priesting" and are only intervening after work has come down from his holiness chimpus Christ who sends messages through patterns formed on banana skins.

[nettybetty]

Exciting news regarding some interesting remains found in China. Even better, the study was led by an Australian team!

The next step is the ancient DNA study, a Chinese lab has attempted to recover DNA without success so now a number of ancient DNA labs around the world are collaborating to try again. Here's hoping they recover something so they determine where these remains fit in regards to modern humans, Neanderthal and the recent Denisovan genome....

Here's the abstract:

Background

Later Pleistocene human evolution in East Asia remains poorly understood owing to a scarcity of well described, reliably classified and accurately dated fossils. Southwest China has been identified from genetic research as a hotspot of human diversity, containing ancient mtDNA and Y-DNA lineages, and has yielded a number of human remains thought to derive from Pleistocene deposits. We have prepared, reconstructed, described and dated a new partial skull from a consolidated sediment block collected in 1979 from the site of Longlin Cave (Guangxi Province). We also undertook new excavations at Maludong (Yunnan Province) to clarify the stratigraphy and dating of a large sample of mostly undescribed human remains from the site.
Methodology/Principal Findings

We undertook a detailed comparison of cranial, including a virtual endocast for the Maludong calotte, mandibular and dental remains from these two localities. Both samples probably derive from the same population, exhibiting an unusual mixture of modern human traits, characters probably plesiomorphic for later Homo, and some unusual features. We dated charcoal with AMS radiocarbon dating and speleothem with the Uranium-series technique and the results show both samples to be from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition: ~14.3-11.5 ka.
Conclusions/Significance

Our analysis suggests two plausible explanations for the morphology sampled at Longlin Cave and Maludong. First, it may represent a late-surviving archaic population, perhaps paralleling the situation seen in North Africa as indicated by remains from Dar-es-Soltane and Temara, and maybe also in southern China at Zhirendong. Alternatively, East Asia may have been colonised during multiple waves during the Pleistocene, with the Longlin-Maludong morphology possibly reflecting deep population substructure in Africa prior to modern humans dispersing into Eurasia.

And even better again, the paper is open access:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...ew+Articles%29

[Darwinsbulldog]

Stewart, J. R. and C. B. Stringer (2012). "Human Evolution Out of Africa: The Role of Refugia and Climate Change." Science 335(6074): 1317-1321.

Although an African origin of the modern human species is generally accepted, the evolutionary processes involved in the speciation, geographical spread, and eventual extinction of archaic humans outside of Africa are much debated. An additional complexity has been the recent evidence of limited interbreeding between modern humans and the Neandertals and Denisovans. Modern human migrations and interactions began during the buildup to the Last Glacial Maximum, starting about 100,000 years ago. By examining the history of other organisms through glacial cycles, valuable models for evolutionary biogeography can be formulated. According to one such model, the adoption of a new refugium by a subgroup of a species may lead to important evolutionary changes.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/33.../1317.abstract

Sorry, not free! [Wait a year]

[Darwinsbulldog]

Molenaar, J. J., J. Koster, et al. (2012). "Sequencing of neuroblastoma identifies chromothripsis and defects in neuritogenesis genes." Nature 483(7391): 589-593.

Neuroblastoma is a childhood tumour of the peripheral sympathetic nervous system. The pathogenesis has for a long time been quite enigmatic, as only very few gene defects were identified in this often lethal tumour1. Frequently detected gene alterations are limited to MYCN amplification (20%) and ALK activations (7%)2, 3, 4, 5. Here we present a whole-genome sequence analysis of 87 neuroblastoma of all stages. Few recurrent amino-acid-changing mutations were found. In contrast, analysis of structural defects identified a local shredding of chromosomes, known as chromothripsis, in 18% of high-stage neuroblastoma6. These tumours are associated with a poor outcome. Structural alterations recurrently affected ODZ3, PTPRD and CSMD1, which are involved in neuronal growth cone stabilization7, 8, 9. In addition, ATRX, TIAM1 and a series of regulators of the Rac/Rho pathway were mutated, further implicating defects in neuritogenesis in neuroblastoma. Most tumours with defects in these genes were aggressive high-stage neuroblastomas, but did not carry MYCN amplifications. The genomic landscape of neuroblastoma therefore reveals two novel molecular defects, chromothripsis and neuritogenesis gene alterations, which frequently occur in high-risk tumours.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture10910.html

[Darwinsbulldog]

'Lucy' Lived Among Close Cousins: Discovery of Foot Fossil Confirms Two Human Ancestor Species Co-Existed


The Burtele partial foot (BRT-VP-2/73). A laboratory photo after cleaning and preparation. It is shown here in its anatomically articulated form. (Credit: © The Cleveland Museum of Natural History Photo courtesy: Yohannes Haile-Selassie)

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2012) — A team of scientists has announced the discovery of a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot from the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia. The fossil foot did not belong to a member of “Lucy’s” species, Australopithecus afarensis, the famous early human ancestor. Research on this new specimen indicates that more than one species of early human ancestor existed between 3 and 4 million years ago with different methods of locomotion.
The analysis will be published in the March 29, 2012 issue of the journal Nature.

The partial foot was found in February 2009 in an area locally known as Burtele.
“The Burtele partial foot clearly shows that at 3.4 million years ago, Lucy’s species, which walked upright on two legs, was not the only hominin species living in this region of Ethiopia,” said lead author and project leader Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator of physical anthropology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “Her species co-existed with close relatives who were more adept at climbing trees, like ‘Ardi’s’ species, Ardipithecus ramidus, which lived 4.4 million years ago.”
The partial foot is the first evidence for the presence of at least two pre-human species with different modes of locomotion contemporaneously living in eastern Africa around 3.4 million years ago. While the big toe of the foot in Lucy’s species was aligned with the other four toes for human-like bipedal walking, the Burtele foot has an opposable big toe like the earlier Ardi.

“This discovery was quite shocking,” said co-author and project co-leader Dr. Bruce Latimer of Case Western Reserve University. “These fossil elements represent bones we’ve never seen before. While the grasping big toe could move from side to side, there was no expansion on top of the joint that would allow for expanded range of movement required for pushing off the ground for upright walking. This individual would have likely had a somewhat awkward gait when on the ground.”
The new partial foot specimen has not yet been assigned to a species due to the lack of associated skull or dental elements.
The fossils were found below a sandstone layer. Using the argon-argon radioactive dating method, their age was determined to be younger than 3.46 million years, said co-author Dr. Beverly Saylor of Case Western Reserve University. “Nearby fossils of fish, crocodiles and turtles, and physical and chemical characteristics of sediments show the environment was a mosaic of river and delta channels adjacent to an open woodland of trees and bushes,” said Saylor. “This fits with the fossil, which strongly indicates a hominin adapted to living in trees, at the same time ‘Lucy’ was living on land.”

2ndary Source:-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0328135930.htm

original paper [abstract only ] :

Haile-Selassie, Y., B. Z. Saylor, et al. (2012). "A new hominin foot from Ethiopia shows multiple Pliocene bipedal adaptations." Nature 483(7391): 565-569.

A newly discovered partial hominin foot skeleton from eastern Africa indicates the presence of more than one hominin locomotor adaptation at the beginning of the Late Pliocene epoch. Here we show that new pedal elements, dated to about 3.4 million years ago, belong to a species that does not match the contemporaneous Australopithecus afarensis in its morphology and inferred locomotor adaptations, but instead are more similar to the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus in possessing an opposable great toe. This not only indicates the presence of more than one hominin species at the beginning of the Late Pliocene of eastern Africa, but also indicates the persistence of a species with Ar. ramidus-like locomotor adaptation into the Late Pliocene.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture10922.html