Imagine a human-like being only 1 meter tall & 31 kgs but with an opposable big toe. Otherwise, skeletally much the same as a modern human.
They found it in Germany, dating to 11.6 million years ago.
The findings “raise fundamental questions about our previous understanding of the evolution of the great apes and humans,” said Madelaine Boehme of the University of Tuebingen, Germany, who led the research.
The question of when apes evolved bipedal motion has fascinated scientists since Charles Darwin first argued that they were the ancestors of humans. Previous fossil records of apes with an upright gait — found in Crete and Kenya — dated only as far back as 6 million years ago.
Fred Spoor, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, called the fossil finds “fantastic” but said they would likely be the subject of much debate, not least because they could challenge many existing ideas about evolution.
“I can see that there will be a lot of agonizing and re-analysis of what these fossils mean,” said Spoor, who wasn’t involved in the study.
....Not sure if this is a right thread or not, but recently I discovered a certain Japanese manga series called "Hoshi o Tsugu Mono".
It's all complete fiction, obviously, but there's this wild theory of humanity's evolution that forms the backbone of this manga and I thought I'd share it with those who are interested in such a thing. A word of warning: it seems that the translation was done by non-native English speakers so it can be a bit of rough reading.
The synopsis of the manga: In a near future, a human remains is discovered on the moon, which is then dated to be at least 50,000 years old. To make matters worse, the body is wearing a never-before-seen astronaut suit. A team of international scientists comprising of some of the finest minds on Earth tries to unravel this mystery, only to run into some astonishing discoveries and conspiracies.
Edit:
The manga's author posits that humanity wasn't the first "intelligent" species to emerge in our solar system. He went with the storyline of a "fifth planet" that used to exist between Mars and Jupiter where the asteroid belt is currently, and that was where this intelligent species lived.
He goes even further and theorises that Earth's moon was actually the satellite of this fifth planet, named Minerva in the manga, and it only ended up as our satellite coincidentally after Minerva went kablooey from a cataclysmic war around 50,000 years ago. Which was fought among by homo sapiens and cro-mangnons, taken to Minerva by Minervans for a scientific experiment tens of thousands of years prior. The whole arc is too complicated/convoluted to fully articulate here.
There's a whole chapter of the manga dedicated to explaining how Earth's environments might have been like without the moon present, and how that might have affected evolution, including a rather fascinating take on why dinosaurs look the way they do.
....Not sure if this is a right thread or not, but recently I discovered a certain Japanese manga series called "Hoshi o Tsugu Mono".
It's all complete fiction, obviously, but there's this wild theory of humanity's evolution that forms the backbone of this manga and I thought I'd share it with those who are interested in such a thing. A word of warning: it seems that the translation was done by non-native English speakers so it can be a bit of rough reading.
The synopsis of the manga: In a near future, a human remains is discovered on the moon, which is then dated to be at least 50,000 years old. To make matters worse, the body is wearing a never-before-seen astronaut suit. A team of international scientists comprising of some of the finest minds on Earth tries to unravel this mystery, only to run into some astonishing discoveries and conspiracies.
There's some controversy over selection vs genetic drift. Does your understanding resolve that?
There's some evidence to suggest population bottlenecks. One 70,000 years ago reducing human population down to somewhere between 40 and 1000 breeding pairs, and another roughly 200,000 years ago which resulted in just one unrelated pair being the origin of all humans today. Does your understanding resolve these?
There's some controversy over selection vs genetic drift. Does your understanding resolve that?
There's some evidence to suggest population bottlenecks. One 70,000 years ago reducing human population down to somewhere between 40 and 1000 breeding pairs, and another roughly 200,000 years ago which resulted in just one unrelated pair being the origin of all humans today. Does your understanding resolve these?
How does any of that equate to JKgo's post about a sci fi manga's theory? It's ok, I think a lack of understanding and possibly a need for confrontation resolves that question.
I wasn't aware of a particular controversy although I'm sure you can post more details on that. Neither phenomenon acts in isolation from the other, they're both factors in evolution.
Even more, it's not part of evolution anyways. The theory only explains how life arrived on Earth. It doesn't explain anything about how life began in the first place.
There's some evidence to suggest population bottlenecks. One 70,000 years ago reducing human population down to somewhere between 40 and 1000 breeding pairs, and another roughly 200,000 years ago which resulted in just one unrelated pair being the origin of all humans today. Does your understanding resolve these?
I mean the bottleneck 70,000 years ago, if it happened, was potentially the result of volcanic winter caused by the Toba eruption. However, there's conflicting evidence that suggests anything major happened as a result. More likely is the "Founder Theory" where small bands of people immigrated out of Africa in small bands to settle in new areas. Since the populations were rather small that did immigrate, the breeding stock was rather limited. This lead to genetic issues and probably caused early deaths, which in turn limited the breeding stock even more.
If you put this in terms of evolution, those who resisted the genetic abnormalities and survived continued their lineage onwards. So the survival of the fittest.
....Not sure if this is a right thread or not, but recently I discovered a certain Japanese manga series called "Hoshi o Tsugu Mono".
It's all complete fiction, obviously, but there's this wild theory of humanity's evolution that forms the backbone of this manga and I thought I'd share it with those who are interested in such a thing. A word of warning: it seems that the translation was done by non-native English speakers so it can be a bit of rough reading.
The synopsis of the manga: In a near future, a human remains is discovered on the moon, which is then dated to be at least 50,000 years old. To make matters worse, the body is wearing a never-before-seen astronaut suit. A team of international scientists comprising of some of the finest minds on Earth tries to unravel this mystery, only to run into some astonishing discoveries and conspiracies.
Edit:
The manga's author posits that humanity wasn't the first "intelligent" species to emerge in our solar system. He went with the storyline of a "fifth planet" that used to exist between Mars and Jupiter where the asteroid belt is currently, and that was where this intelligent species lived.
He goes even further and theorises that Earth's moon was actually the satellite of this fifth planet, named Minerva in the manga, and it only ended up as our satellite coincidentally after Minerva went kablooey from a cataclysmic war around 50,000 years ago. Which was fought among by homo sapiens and cro-mangnons, taken to Minerva by Minervans for a scientific experiment tens of thousands of years prior. The whole arc is too complicated/convoluted to fully articulate here.
There's a whole chapter of the manga dedicated to explaining how Earth's environments might have been like without the moon present, and how that might have affected evolution, including a rather fascinating take on why dinosaurs look the way they do.
Reminds me of the Pak from Larry Niven's Known Universe series of books and short stories. Which are really good if you like harder science fiction stuff. Nothing really spoilery here from memory, this stuff gets spelled out pretty explicitly as part of the stories.
A species called Pak lives on a planet near the Milky Way core. The species has three main stages of development: Child, Breeder, Protector. A Pak is born, and matures into a Breeder, at which point he or she may bear children. Breeders are not particularly intelligent. Around 40 years of age, the root of the Tree-of-Life plant begins to smell delicious to all Breeders, and they eat it and metamorphose into the Protector stage via a virus that lives in the plant. A Protector's joints expand to give his muscles a greater moment arm, his skin wrinkles into a tough armor, and his nails turn into retractile claws. A second heart develops near the groin, the mouth fuses into a beak, and all sexual characteristics disappear. The most important change is that the brain expands, giving a Protector a tremendous intellect. A Protector has no motivation other than the preservation of his bloodline, and to that end the Pak homeworld is never free from war, since all Protectors are constantly trying to ensure their progeny's survival at the expense of everyone else. If a Protector has no children left, he no longer feels the urge to eat and dies unless he can adopt the entire Pak race and work towards their benefit.
Two and a half million years ago, a group of Protectors hollowed out an asteroid, turned it into a ship, and set sail for the galactic arms. They eventually settled on Earth, but discovered that the Tree-of-Life root would not grow, meaning that no Breeders would turn into Protectors, and the Protectors would die without the root. The Protectors spent their time building a laser strong enough to send a message for help back to the Pak homeworld. Eventually, the Breeders, known to us as Homo habilis, evolved into present-day forms, including Humans.
Niven has written that he invented the Protectors as a thought experiment to explain the common effects of aging on humans and to create a fictional evolutionary explanation for humans' long lives after females have passed reproductive age. Accordingly, most of the positive attributes of Protectors are based on negative human aging effects: swollen joints, decreased muscle-fat ratio, weakening heart, invariant diet, decreasing height, facial atrophy, leathery skin, hair loss, lack of sex drive, and tooth loss are all turned to advantage during the shift from Breeder to Protector.
I wasn't aware of a particular controversy although I'm sure you can post more details on that. Neither phenomenon acts in isolation from the other, they're both factors in evolution.
I think as grokking these things properly requires a reasonably nuanced understanding of statistics it can be difficult for the layman to get that what appears to be problems aren't actually problems at all.
It seems to me the manga theory and the Niven theory are both variations on panspermia, the idea that life originated elsewhere and came to Earth. While it doesn't at all explain the origin of life itself, it maybe helps answer some other questions.
Required reading: The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
He explains how you go from rock to DNA. Planets, and dust, are really not all that different in form. Nature tends toward that which is stable over time - precisely because time exists. DNA is a natural expression of that. You might as well be asking how the information of this got there:
Just marvel at how complex and full of information that is.
It is an almost inevitable consequence of life that it can spread itself to other places in the cosmos. So the concept of panspermia is not really far fetched. The problem with presuming that it caused life on Earth is a lack of evidence. Life is very hard to kill, in some forms, it endures unbelievable conditions. If life on Earth came from elsewhere in our solar system, that could easily been evident to us already. The fact that it isn't is a knock against the theory.
If life spread to the Earth from outside of our solar system, you might as well be talking about God with how difficult the theory would be to disprove.
It is an almost inevitable consequence of life that it can spread itself to other places in the cosmos. So the concept of panspermia is not really far fetched. The problem with presuming that it caused life on Earth is a lack of evidence. Life is very hard to kill, in some forms, it endures unbelievable conditions. If life on Earth came from elsewhere in our solar system, that could easily been evident to us already. The fact that it isn't is a knock against the theory.
If life spread to the Earth from outside of our solar system, you might as well be talking about God with how difficult the theory would be to disprove.
There is evidence of organic materials on Mars. Life could have spread from there to here before the cataclysm that wiped out the atmosphere and half the surface.
There is evidence of organic materials on Mars. Like could have spread from there to here before the cataclysm that wiped out the atmosphere and half the surface.
I believe NASA is very, very very sure life existed on Mars, and may still exist there. If they didn't, they wouldn't spend the money to send new missions to Mars for the express purpose of properly discovering and revealing it. Trouble is, some of their top scientists personally feel the revelation would be too much for some of us to accept, and could cause problems for us.
I believe NASA is very, very very sure life existed on Mars, and may still exist there. If they didn't, they wouldn't spend the money to send new missions to Mars for the express purpose of properly discovering and revealing it. Trouble is, some of their top scientists personally feel the revelation would be too much for some of us to accept, and could cause problems for us.
I worked for JPL, I know the people you're talking about. They are not censoring themselves.
NASA thinks Mars is one of the best places to look for life, that does not mean they are sure that it existed.
Edit:
I suppose I should say... the opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other institution, including NASA, JPL, or Caltech.
Is this just an aside? Or did you have a point you wanted to make with this? Why would I study Jack Parsons?
My field of study at University was Aerospace Engineering. I have two degrees in the subject, a B.S. in Aero Engineering focusing in spacecraft dynamics, and an M.S. in Aero Engineering focusing in spacecraft trajectory design and optimization theory. It was trajectory design, analysis, and optimal control which I used in my career as an engineer. A career I ultimately left after achieving my goals, and realizing I was more personally suited for other pursuits.
Edit:
I'm not a planetary scientist, or a biologist. But I do know, and have participated in, the publication process for disclosing scientific discoveries to the public.
We're a long way off from proving life on Mars. In order to do so, we need people there who can conduct some sort of fieldwork. Then they'd need to do some form of Astro-paleontology to try and discover fossils. I can't see this happening in my son's lifetime, let alone mine. Space travel is hard, especially long-distance space travel, not to mention unbelievably expensive.
The reality is that there is some evidence that suggests that life could have existed on Mars, and may still be able to exist. That doesn't say anything about whether life has or does exist on Mars, because the only proof of that is actually finding it.
If they didn't, they wouldn't spend the money to send new missions to Mars for the express purpose of properly discovering and revealing it.
That's not how research works. When you're not sure about something, you still do the research because it's the only way to find out if you're correct or not. If people only researched stuff that they were very, very, very sure about, we'd never get anywhere.
Well, the reason why it needs to live under the surface on Mars is that the actual surface is incredibly hostile to life. And not in the "life finds a way in the strangest places" sense, the levels of radiation and reactive chemicals is high enough that it's difficult to see how a self-propagating system would function for long enough to gain enough complexity to form something like that we might deem to be "life". At least in more sheltered conditions a system has more opportunity to develop.
Well obviouslyNASA the government doesn't believe the public can handle the truth (riots in the streets; big tits flopping around; spontaneous shingles outbreaks) and so they're simply not revealing it in some cases and downright lying in others.
Well obviouslyNASA the government doesn't believe the public can handle the truth (riots in the streets; big tits flopping around; spontaneous shingles outbreaks) and so they're simply not revealing it in some cases and downright lying in others.
Exactly. The truth is that Mars is the homeworld of the gay frogs, who have infiltrated our planet and are slowly taking it over through their puppet Comrade Putin, so that they can mine it for thetans and use the power to take over the universe from David Bowie in his tower in the middle of the labyrinth before 13 o'clock.
