Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution" Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year. "By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA." This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred. Casey Kazan Related Galaxy posts: Immense Journey
Economics Evolution in Action: Lizard Moving From Eggs to Live Birth Evolution has been caught in the act, according to scientists who are decoding how a species of Australian lizard is abandoning egg-laying in favor of live birth. Along the warm coastal lowlands of New South Wales (map), the yellow-bellied three-toed skink lays eggs to reproduce. But individuals of the same species living in the state's higher, colder mountains are almost all giving birth to live young. Only two other modern reptiles—another skink species and a European lizard—use both types of reproduction. (Related: "Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas—By Komodo Dragon.") Evolutionary records shows that nearly a hundred reptile lineages have independently made the transition from egg-laying to live birth in the past, and today about 20 percent of all living snakes and lizards give birth to live young only. Eggs-to-Baby Switch Creates Nutrient Problem One of the mysteries of how reptiles switch from eggs to live babies is how the young get their nourishment before birth.
TED Economics Australopithecus afarensis | Smithsonian Human Origins Program Australopithecus afarensis Nickname: Lucy's species Where Lived: Eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania) When Lived: Between about 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago Australopithecus afarensis is one of the longest-lived and best-known early human species—paleoanthropologists have uncovered remains from more than 300 individuals! Similar to chimpanzees, Au. afarensis children grew rapidly after birth and reached adulthood earlier than modern humans. Au. afarensis had both ape and human characteristics: members of this species had apelike face proportions (a flat nose, a strongly projecting lower jaw) and braincase (with a small brain, usually less than 500 cubic centimeters -- about 1/3 the size of a modern human brain), and long, strong arms with curved fingers adapted for climbing trees. Year of Discovery: 1974 History of Discovery: The species was formally named in 1978 following a wave of fossil discoveries at Hadar, Ethiopia, and Laetoli, Tanzania. First paper: Schmid, P., 2004.
"Lucy" Kin Pushes Back Evolution of Upright Walking? Lucy—a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton discovered in 1974—belongs to , a species which scientists think was an early direct ancestor of modern humans. An exceptionally petite female—her estimated height was 3.5 feet (1.1 meters)—Lucy's small frame has been interpreted as not being totally adapted for human-like, upright walking. (See: "6-Million-Year-Old Human Ancestor 1st to Walk Upright?" ) But the discovery of the 3.6-million-year-old male disproves that idea, said study co-author Yohannes Haile-Selassie , curator of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. "As a result of this discovery, we can now confidently say that 'Lucy' and her relatives were almost as proficient as we are walking on two legs, and that the elongation of our legs came earlier in our evolution than previously thought," Haile-Selassie said in a statement. {*style:<b>"Big Man" <i> A. </b>*} {*style:<b>Newfound Skeleton a Better Walker
How did life originate? How did life originate? Living things (even ancient organisms like bacteria) are enormously complex. However, all this complexity did not leap fully-formed from the primordial soup. Instead life almost certainly originated in a series of small steps, each building upon the complexity that evolved previously: Simple organic molecules were formed. Simple organic molecules, similar to the nucleotide shown below, are the building blocks of life and must have been involved in its origin. Multicellularity evolved.
How We Are Evolving Thousands of years ago humans moved for the first time into the Tibetan plateau, a vast expanse of steppelands that towers some 14,000 feet above sea level. Although these trailblazers would have had the benefit of entering a new ecosystem free of competition with other people, the low oxygen levels at that altitude would have placed severe stresses on the body, resulting in chronic altitude sickness and high infant mortality. Earlier this year a flurry of genetic studies identified a gene variant that is common in Tibetans but rare in other populations. This variant, which adjusts red blood cell production in Tibetans, helps to explain how Tibetans adapted to those harsh conditions. The discovery, which made headlines around the world, provided a dramatic example of how humans have undergone rapid biological adaptation to new environmental circumstances in the recent past. Select an option below: Customer Sign In
Humans' Big Brains Tied To Chimps' Immunity? What Makes Chimps And Humans Different? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture Neandertal Children Developed on the Fast Track Parents who think their kids are growing up too fast should be glad they're not Neandertals. A new study of the fossilized teeth of eight Neandertal children finds that their permanent teeth grew significantly faster and erupted earlier than those of our own species, Homo sapiens. Taken with recent studies showing subtle differences in the brain maturation and developmental genes in Neandertals and H. sapiens, the new data suggest Neandertal kids may have reached adulthood a few years faster than modern human children do. Researchers have long known that humans grow up slowly. We take almost twice as long as chimpanzees to reach adulthood. Our distant ancestors were more like chimps; Lucy and other australopithecines, for example, matured quickly and died young. Credit: Paul Tafforeau (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) and Tanya Smith (Harvard University and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology