[caption id="attachment_67950" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Eosimias"][/caption]
We learned that humans evolved from earlier primates in Africa and then spread around the world. But what about those earlier primates? Where did they originate?
Find out more about this new, yet very old, ancestor at Hominid Hunting. Link
(Image credit: Nancy Perkins/Carnegie Museum of Natural History)
We learned that humans evolved from earlier primates in Africa and then spread around the world. But what about those earlier primates? Where did they originate?
Until about 20 years ago, the answer seemed obvious: Africa. That’s where the earliest fossil evidence was found, mainly from Egypt’s Fayum Depression. Starting in the 1990s, however, relevant fossils started popping up in Asia. Paleoanthropologists now consider a 45-million-year-old primate discovered in China, called Eosimias, to be the earliest anthropoid, the group of primates that includes monkeys, apes and humans. Eosimias was tiny, weighing less than half a pound. But it possessed certain dental and jaw characteristics that link it to living anthropoids.
The newly discovered species, named Afrasia dijijidae, dates to roughly 37 million years ago and was found in Myanmar. So far, all that’s known of Afrasia is based on four isolated teeth. But the nooks, crannies, crests and bumps on those teeth reveal a few things about where the ancestors of today’s monkeys and apes came from.
Find out more about this new, yet very old, ancestor at Hominid Hunting. Link
(Image credit: Nancy Perkins/Carnegie Museum of Natural History)
Comments (0)
You might also be surprised about China. It's not as strong as it is in the US, but there's a growing environmental movement there. As their middle class grows, they've begun to realize that prosperity is useless if you're too sick to enjoy it due to a toxic environment. They're actually investing far more than the US in renewable energy sources. Really, we're playing a global game of the prisoners dilemma, where doing nothing is the equivalent of ratting out your neighbor. It also explains why inaction is the likely outcome.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/29/climate-change-sceptics-change-mind
That doesn't quite fit the narrative, does it?
And to respond to timothyemerson, the first thing we can do about global warming is to get non-scientists to acknowledge it exists. Although I do know how hard it is for people to stop foaming at the mouth about taxes (even though raising taxes need not be a part of the solution.)
Like the stealth funding of the tea-party, follow the money. Don't vote against your own best interests.
You are absolutely right about China, not only are they NOT going to stop but they are making new deals right now to ship even more coal from Wyoming all the way to Oregon, down the Columbia River and straight to China! (Wonder what that will do to the cost of coal for Americans?)
Fossil fuels will be used and burned, bought and sold, no matter how many global warming studies are done. Period. LOL!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
Do you really think China is going to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that they use because some people claim that the planet is being heated up by Man? Do you?
LOL
Timothy, let not your heart be troubled. The AGW bleating is not worth a cup of warm spit. Nothing will be done because nothing will happen.
Global Warming alarmists, however, remain unmoved.
Check out this link:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/06/truth-about-richard-muller.html
From the wikipedia entry on skepticism:
"A scientific (or empirical) skeptic is one who questions beliefs on the basis of scientific understanding. Most scientists, being scientific skeptics, test the reliability of certain kinds of claims by subjecting them to a systematic investigation using some form of the scientific method."
This is exactly what Muller did, which resulted in him changing his mind. This is also exactly what other so-called climate "skeptics" do not do. Calling them skeptics is a huge compliment they don't deserve. They are simply deniers, and denying doesn't require any work.