so this is kinda a big discovery, right?
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6...ion-years.html


The seven stone, four-foot tall female roamed forests 4.4 million years ago – a million years before the previous oldest discovered fossil.
Her skeleton promises to fill in gaps about how we became human and evolved from apes. It has already reversed some common assumptions of evolution.

Rather than humans evolving from chimps, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved together from another common more ancient ancestor.

Each has evolved and changed separately along the way, it is believed.

Formally known as Ardipithecus ramidus — which means root of the ground ape — the find is detailed in 11 research papers published in the journal Science.

“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever been able to come,” said Dr Tim White, an anthropologist and one of the researchers at the University of California.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor six million to seven million years ago, the research suggests.
Ardi has many traits that do not appear in modern-day African apes, leading to the conclusion that the apes evolved extensively since they shared that last common ancestor with humans.

A study of Ardi, under way since the first bones were discovered in 1994 in the Afar region of Ethiopia, indicates her species lived in the woodlands and could climb on all fours along tree branches.

But the development of arms and legs indicates she did not spend much time in the trees, the study claims.
Her pelvis suggests she walked upright and her teeth are closer to humans than primates. While she would have had a muzzle, it did not project out as much as modern apes.

Dr White described her as a “mosaic” that was neither human or chimpanzee.

“The only way we’re really going to know what this last common ancestor looked like is to go and find it,” he said. “Well, at 4.4 million years ago we found something pretty close to it.” Dr David Pilbeam, palaeoanthropology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, said: “This is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution.

“It is relatively complete in that it preserves head, hands, feet, and some critical parts in between.”
Until the discovery of Ardi, the earliest well-known stage of human evolution was Australopithecus, the small-brained, fully bipedal “ape man” that lived between four million and one million years ago.

The most famous Australopithecus fossil is the 3.2-million-year-old “Lucy,” found in 1974 about 45 miles north of where Ardi would later be discovered.
Lucy was described as the “mother of man” and the missing link between humans and chimps. Before Ardi, she was thought to be the oldest fossil of a human ancestor that walked on two legs.

hoax
not a real person

;).

atsonicpark - ironically (to the whole rape tunnel thing), i actually co-author a feminist zine called hoax. it's being distributed now. :D

Hahaa.

That's amazing!

Sexy.

"common assumptions about evolution" are ussually completely wrong, much like most "common sense"

no scientists ever claimed we descended from apes, but that apes and humans descended from common ancestors,. it is the ignorant idiots that push that angle.

to @sonicpark: yup! I was kinda in a really bad mood yesterday and didn't feel like mentioning that in case it got me berated. But yeah, we just finished our first issue & have started distributing/trading all over. exciting.

i wasn't sure if i should even mention it at on this board at all because people here seem to avoid talking about feminism/anything too politicized.

So Earth was originally populated entirely by women until male UFOnauts appeared on the scene, right?

I ran 50 issues of a video game zine back when I was 13. So fun. I love zines.

I like zines!

can I send ya some $$ to get one?

...on a self-indulgent note, my gf works @ science magazine. she hinted to me that something was going to break today but i didnt know what...until now.

I did several, one was called Vigilante Death, part comic, part rant zine

another was called DME-AM, about a supposedly fictional cabal operating inside the auspices of a "men's club"

another was called CHUCK's FRIENDS and it was just art

Huh, I was already under the impression of this.

My ignorance is FUTURE KNOWLEDGE!

cool. science mag is great

yeah, totally! pm me yr address and i'll mail it out!

i'll send it to anybody who wants it! i already mailed jenn a copy. :-D

just warning though - it's really riot grrl-este. i co-authored it with the person who i trained to direct the vagina monologues in the future (i organized it for a while) so yeah....

i also love zines. i had always wanted to do one. the ideas for this particular one just kinda came organically.

ps - we should do zine trading.

Isn't this the sort of stuff the CIA doesn't want the public to know about? And have I stumbled upon something that will result in my disapperance?

yeah, it's a great job...although a 4 hr commute (we live in baltimore, the office is in downtown dc). she actually decided to quit it because waking up at 5am and getting home at 8-9pm was killing her. she wants to be a musician and there was no way that could possibly happen with the job at science. but yeah. it's a pretty awesome thing to say that you've done.

Thanks for sharing!

I bet the "Illuminati" already knew about it.