Kulindadromeus Zabaikalicus: A Cute Little Dinosaur

That incredibly cute critter is what Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus might look like: in an Arisa manga comic.

Maybe someone will write the heartwarming tale of a Kulindadromeus — named Kuddly Zeke??

Or maybe not.

Dinosaur Feathers

Until paleontologists found Kulindadromeus, a dinosaur that lived where Siberia is now, scientists knew that some dinosaurs had feathers: but had only found them on theropods.

Scientists are still pretty sure that Coelurosaurs, a particular sort of theropod, are the distant ancestors of birds. Oddly enough, though: theropods have lizard-like hips, or did.

Kulindaromeus is an Ornithischian: one of the 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs. It wasn't, the Lemming understands, just feathers that pegged theropods as the dinosaurs that eventually gave the birdseed industry a reason for existence: and that's another topic.

As far as the Lemming knows, there is no "Sir Richard Owen Zoological gardens." Not yet, anyway. Richard Owen did, however, give Mesozoic reptiles a name: Dinosauria. That was before other scientists realized that they weren't, or weren't quite, reptiles, and that's yet another topic.


(From Chris Masna, via Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol; used w/o permission.)
("Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus reconstruction by Chris Masna, non-threatening occupant of the Sir Richard Owen Zoological Gardens."
(Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol))

And no, to the best of the Lemming's knowledge: nobody has found Kulinda DNA, or grown a live dinosaur. Not yet.

Seriously, Though: That's a Cute Dinosaur

(From Andrey Atuchin, via Deptartment of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol; used w/o permission.)
(Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus in its lakeside environment.)

"Kulindadromeus, the feathered ornithischian
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol

"The first ever example of a plant-eating dinosaur with feathers and scales was reported from Russia in 2014. Previously only flesh-eating dinosaurs were known to have had feathers so this new find indicates that all dinosaurs could have been feathered. This has important implications for our understanding of the biology and success of dinosaurs and for the evolution of bird characters.

"The new dinosaur, named Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus, meaning 'Kulinda runner from the Zabaikal region' as it comes from a site called Kulinda on the banks of the Olov River, in Zabaikal District, in Siberia, is described by Godefroit et al. (2014). Kulindadromeus shows epidermal scales on its tail and shins, and short bristles on its head and back. The most astonishing discovery, however, is that it also has complex, compound feathers associated with its arms and legs...."

The Lemming is pretty sure that an American would have written "...the evolution of bird characteristics...," or maybe the University of Bristol folks meant that the cute little ornithischian looks a bit like Tweety and The Road Runner. Then again, maybe not.

Not all scientists are sure that "Kulinda runner from the Zabaikal region" really had feathers. The stuff that apparently kept Kulindadromeus warm isn't shaped like bird feathers. Not the sort birds have these days, anyway.

Maybe the way scientists processed these Kulindadromeus fossils made the feathers look funny, or maybe feathers have changed in the last 150,000,000 years, or maybe some of Earth's critters grow hair or fur, some sprout feathers, and some kept warm with — something else.

If you haven't read enough about dinosaurs and all that yet, there's more:

• "Fishface! Ancient Fish with a Jaw, Cheekbones, and Beady Little Eyes"
  (September 27, 2013)
• "Snakes Don't Have Legs: There's an Explanation For That"
  (February 8, 2011)
• "Ecological Disaster - a Quarter of a Billion Years Ago"
  (December 14, 2010)
• "T. Rex Tail Made For Running, Maybe"
  (November 18, 2010)
• "Dinosaurs, Three Major Asteroid Impacts, and Massive Volcanic Eruptions"
  (August 29, 2010)

Fishface! Ancient Fish with a Jaw, Cheekbones, and Beady Little Eyes

"The earliest known species with what we would recognize as a face was an armored, beady-eyed prehistoric fish."

"First face? Prehistoric fish was a jawdropper"
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, via FoxNews.com (September 25, 2013)

"The earliest known species with what we would recognize as a face was an armored, beady-eyed prehistoric fish, according to a new paper in the journal Nature.

"The fish, entelognathus primordialis (meaning 'primordial complete jaw'), is the oldest known animal to have face-forming jaw and cheek bones comparable to those of today's bony fishes and most terrestrial animals, including us....

"...'Entelognathus had a rather unprepossessing face,' co-author Per Erik Ahlberg of Uppsala University told Discovery News. 'The mouth was wide, the forehead low and flat, and the small, close-set and almost immobile eyes pointed forwards like a pair of car headlights.'..."

The Lemming isn't sure that "primitive" is quite the right term for this piscine prodigy. That jaw was a revolutionary development in fish: and still standard equipment in most land animals that keep their skeleton on the inside. Which is dandy place for it, in the Lemming's opinion.

Sharks definitely aren't primitive, as Friedman points out in the article. Matt Friedman: the Lemming gathers that he does lectures about paleobiology at Oxford. The university, not the town: although Oxford U. is in Oxford, and that's another topic.

Sure, the skeletons of sharks are cartilage, not bone, but those fish are specialized and represent a fairly recent development. "Recent" is in the eye of the beholder, of course. Or Lemming, in this case.

Lampreys and hag-fish: now those things are primitive. Not the current ones so much, but their equally-jawless predecessors back in the good old days when agnatha shared the world with critters that give new meaning to the word "weird."


(D.W. Miller, via the Smithsonian Institution, used w/o permission.)

Of course, if opabinia had kept going for another 500,000,000 years or so, they might be complaining about the younger generation and cost of living: and think critters with only two eyes are weird. And that's another topic. Topics.

Opabina? That's the little critter with five eyes and an improbable-looking mouth-claw-pincer thing sticking out of its front end in that picture.

Allegedly-related posts:

• "Tracing the Y Chromosome, Studying Fossil Proteins, Seeking Truth"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (August 16, 2013)
• "Lowbrow to Highbrow in Four Centuries, Paleolithic Pitchers, and a Fantastic Elastic Echinoderm"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (July 5, 2013)
• "Another 17,000,000 Years on the Coelacanth Timeline"
  (April 16, 2012)
• " 'Nutcracker Man,' Big Teeth, and - - - Grass?!"
  (May 6, 2011)
• "Snakes Don't Have Legs: There's an Explanation For That"
  (February 8, 2011)

(From Chase Studios, via Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma, used w/o permission.)

Another 17,000,000 Years on the Coelacanth Timeline

"Skull Confirms Older Origin for 'Living Fossil' Fish"
Wynne Parry, LiveScience (April 10, 2012)

"A group of ancient fish, called coelacanths, have changed so little over time they are known as "living fossils." Now, the remains of a skull found in the Yunnan Province of China, confirms these creatures have been around, largely unchanged, for more than 400 million years.

"Once thought to have died out at roughly the time the dinosaurs disappeared, the first living coelacanth was discovered in a fishing net in 1938 off the eastern coast of South Africa. Since then, others have turned up elsewhere along the coasts of the Indian Ocean. [Image Gallery: Freaky Fish]

"While it's clear their history goes way back, the fossils they left behind have been scarce so far. A lower jawbone, more than 400 million years old and discovered in Australia, hinted at the earliest known emergence of coelacanths whose appearance matched the two species alive today. This small fossil has been described as the oldest coelacanth, but the authors of the recent research write that it offers so little information that it cannot be reliably placed within the fishes' family tree...."

Fascinating as they are, coelacanths are not particularly pretty fish. But, although some folks say they're an "endangered species," these critters were around before those dragonflies with two-and-a-half-foot wingspans flitted around. And they're still here.


(Alberto Fernandez Fernandez, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission)
"Preserved specimen of chalumnae (Also known as Coelacanth [1]) in the Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria."

Ancient, and Apparently Durable

"...The discovery reinforces what was already suspected about coelacanths: After a period of rapid diversification long ago, these fish have remained pretty much the same over hundreds of millions of years, according to Matt Friedman, a lecturer in paleobiology at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the research.

" 'It makes their sort of anatomical conservation, this lack of major change over geological time, much more impressive,' Friedman said.

"In fact, the discovery extends the record for coelacanths with modern-looking bodies back by about 17 million years, according to the researchers, led by Min Zhu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences...."

So far, coelacanths have survived assorted ice ages, asteroid impacts, and mobs of volcanoes that make the Mount St. Helens eruption look like a kitchen spill. Maybe they're not quite as delicate as they're supposed to be.

Pushing "coelacanths with modern-looking bodies back by about 17 million years" probably won't help American taxpayers who are struggling with tax forms while hoping that their request for an extension got processed. But the Lemming is fascinated by ugly fish that haven't changed much in 400,000,000 or so years.

Coelacanths, you see, are lobe-finned fish: which apparently led to tetrapods, critters with four limbs they use for moving around. Also lungfish, some of which 'walk' underwater, which suggests that walking started in the water.

Still awake?

The Lemming's noticed that peoples' eyes tend to glaze over pretty fast during these verbal meanders. And that's another topic.

Intermittent Ice Ages, Asteroid Impacts, and the Occasional Massive Volcanic Event

There may be planets where not much happens. Earth isn't one of them.

Some critters, like the koala, panda, and Bee Creek Cave Harvestman spider, require very special conditions. Change the environment, and they die.

Other critters, like rats, cockroaches, and - apparently - coelacanths, aren't quite as easy to kill off. Which is just as well, under the circumstances:

• 225,000,000 years BP (before present)
  • Asteroid hits Earth
• 200,000,000 years BP
  • Heavy volcanic activity starts
  • Pangea breaks in two
    • The gap got called "The Atlantic" recently
• 199,400,000 years BP
  • Heavy volcanic ends
    • Elapsed time: 600,000 years
    • Crurotarsans are extinct
      • Leaving room for dinosaurs
• 65,000,000 years BP
  • Asteroid hits Earth
    • Dinosaurs are extinct
    • Leaving room for mammals
      • And, eventually, humans
  (Adapted from March 24, 2010)

One of the critters that didn't make the cut, about a half-billion years back, was opabinia regalis: the thing shown in that sketch. It had five eyes, and isn't quite like anything that's alive today.

Recent Events: The Last 700,000,000 Years

The observable universe and been around for 13,730,000,000 years, give or take 120,000,000. That's a recent estimate by astronomers, cosmologists, astronomers, and physicists, anyway.

This timeline covers part of Earth's history, picking up the story around the time that glaciers reached the equator. By that time, single-celled critters (and maybe bigger) were leaving tiny (and rare) fossils.

• -700,000,000 - 799,999,999 years BP
  • -716,500,000: Sea ice reaches equator
  • eukaryotic life survives
• -600,000,000 - 699,999,999 years BP
  • -650,000,000: Primitive sponges
  • -652,000,000: Lots of stromatolites and acritarchs die out ("Applied Palaeontology," Robert Wynn Jones)
• -500,000,000 - 599,999,999 years BP
  • -544,000,000: Trilobites show up (The Arthropod Story)
  • -505,000,000: Opabinia regalis, a - thing - with five eyes
• -400,000,000 - 499,999,999 years BP
  • -445,000,000: Lots of volcanoes; about 60% of marine invertebrates become extinct
  • -400,000,000 or so: Coelacanths show up
• -300,000,000 - 399,999,999 years BP
  • -350,000 or so: a fish walks ashore
  • -300,000,000: Really big dragonflies
• -200,000,000 - 299,999,999 years BP
  • -248,000,000: No more trilobites; Dinosaurs show up (The Arthropod Story)
  • -250,000,000 or so: huge volcanic eruptions form Siberian Traps
• -100,000,000 - 199,999,999 years BP
  • -199,999,999 or so: lots of volcanoes for 600,000 years; Pangea cracks
  • Coelacanths still around
• -0 - 99,999,999 years BP
  • -65,000,000 years BP: Asteroid impact(s); huge volcanic eruptions form Deccan traps
  • -65,000,000 years BP (Before Present): No more dinosaurs
    
• Now
  • Coelacanths still around

These days, delicate critters teetering on the brink of extinction get a lot of attention. As important as that might be, the Lemming is also interested in why distinctly indelicate critters don't die out: and keep on not dying out. Sometimes for hundreds of millions of years.

Like coelacanths.

Related posts:

• "Life is On the Clock - And Has Been for a Very Long Time"
  (January 29, 2011)
• "Ecological Disaster - a Quarter of a Billion Years Ago"
  (December 14, 2010)
• "Really Big Dragonflies: Oxygen's What Does It"
  (November 3, 2010)
• "Two Thirds of a Billion Years Ago: Earth's First Animals?"
  (August 18, 2010)
• "Four Legs, a Tail, and Tracks a Third of a Billion Years Old"
  (July 26, 2010)

More related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

Lemming Tracks: Fire; 1,000,000 Years of Sizzling Steaks and Burned Fingers

"Humans used fire 1 million years ago, scientists say"
Charles Choi, LiveScience, FoxNews.com (April 2, 2012)


(M. Chazan, via LiveScience and FoxNews.com, used w/o permission)
"Researchers found evidence of human fire use in South Africa's Wonderwerk Cave (shown here), a massive cavern located near the edge of the Kalahari Desert. (M. Chazan)"

"Ash and charred bone, the earliest known evidence of controlled use of fire, reveal that human ancestors may have used fire a million years ago, a discovery that researchers say will shed light on this major turning point in human evolution.

"Scientists analyzed material from Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, a massive cavern located near the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Previous excavations there had uncovered an extensive record of human occupation.

"Microscopic analysis revealed clear evidence of burning, such as plant ash and charred bone fragments. These materials were apparently burned in the cave, as opposed to being carried in there by wind or water, and were found alongside stone tools in a layer dating back about 1 million years. Surface fracturing of ironstone, the kind expected from fires, was also seen...."

There's an old gag that goes "countless ages ago, man learned to make fire. Generations later, man learned to put out fires." And that's almost another topic.

This discovery is a big deal. Along with string, fire is one of those basic technologies people use. And now it looks like people have been using it for about 1,000,000 years. At least.

Not that the fires in Wonderwerk Cave were the sort of thing you'd find in a Bessemer converter.

1,900,000 Years and Counting

"...Although modern humans are the only human species alive today, originating about 200,000 years ago, other human species once roamed the Earth, such as Homo erectus, which arose about 1.9 million years ago. [10 Things That Make Humans Special]

" 'The analysis pushes the timing for the human use of fire back by 300,000 years, suggesting that human ancestors as early as Homo erectus may have begun using fire as part of their way of life,' said researcher Michael Chazan, a paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Toronto and director of the university's archaeology center.

"The research team's analysis suggests that materials in the cave were not heated above about 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Celsius)...."

Granted, even with a shave, haircut, and new clothes, someone from 1,900,000 years back would have had trouble blending into a crowd today. But folks seem to have been using kitchens for upwards of 800,000 years: and what scientists found in Wonderwerk Cave says that cooking fires go back 200,000 years before that.

I'm not terribly surprised at this latest finding. Over the last century or so, folks have been learning that the universe is bigger, and older, with fascinating structures at increasingly large and small scales.

I've been fascinated by the unfolding story: and by what we've been learning about my remote ancestors. Not everybody has the 'oh wow' response I have, and I'll get back to that.

Gathering 'Round the Campfire

"...Fire would have helped early humans stay warm and keep nighttime predators at bay, and enabled cooking, which would have made food more digestible. In addition, 'socializing around a campfire might actually be an essential aspect of what makes us human,' Chazan said. 'The control of fire would have been a major turning point in human evolution.'

"Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham has speculated that controlled fires and cooked meat even influenced human brain evolution. He suggests that humans were cooking their prey as far back as the first appearance of Homo erectus 1.9 million years ago, just when humans were experiencing major brain expansion, and proposes that cooking allowed our ancestors to evolve larger, more calorie-hungry brains and bodies, and smaller guts suited for more easily digested cooked food.

" 'It's possible we may find evidence of fire use as early as Wrangham has suggested,' Chazan told LiveScience...."

Human beings are, from one point of view, opportunistic omnivores. We can get by without meat. But for the last 2,500,000 years, it's been part of the diet for most of us. Richard Wrangham says we've been cooking our meat for the last 1,600,000 years - which wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Besides tasting better, cooked meat is easier to digest - which meant that our distant ancestors needed smaller digestive systems when the said goodby to steak tartare. For the most part.

Meat, Muscle, Brains, and Burned Fingers

Good thing, too, since a given unit of our brain burns energy about 22 times as much as the same unit of muscle. (Aiello, 1997) Not that someone decided, about 1,600,000 years back, 'we'd better start growing bigger brains - so those big guts have got to go.' The last I heard, scientists hadn't nailed down just how and why critters change over time.

Still, switching from munching berries and fruit to a diet that included cooked meat gave our bodies room to grow these outsize brains we have. And occasionally use.

I've played with the idea that dangerous new technologies like fire and flint knapping may have put 'evolutionary pressure' on folks whose neighbors were early adapters. I'm not very serious about the notion - but it takes a little extra intellectual work to:

• Remember to keep the fire going
• Make sure the fire doesn't spread
• Do something when the fire does spread

Then there's the tricky matter of cooking meat without burning your fingers. Sure, it's simple for us: but we're folks whose ancestors have been dealing with fire for about a million years.

These days, some folks who eat cooked food without a qualm seem convinced that today's 'dangerous new technologies' will kill us all. That reminds me of the cartoon where one caveman was grumbling to another about what that crazy kid was doing: "Just wait, someday it'll get out of control, and destroy the entire village."

He was right: but I think there's a reason why most of us cook food, and steak tartare is a specialty food.

Related posts:

• Tools, teeth, and compassion
  • " 'Nutcracker Man,' Big Teeth, and - - - Grass?!"
    (May 6, 2011)
  • "New Clue in Human Evolution: It's All in the Wrist"
    (January 28, 2011)
  • "Evidence of Human Compassion: 500,000 Years Ago"
    (October 13, 2010)
  • "Earliest Known Tool Use: 3,390,000 Years Ago"
    (August 12, 2010)
  • "Homo Erectus, Kitchens, and Human (Pre)History"
    (December 21, 2009)
  • " 'Journey of Mankind:' 160,000 Years of Ups and Downs"
    (November 1, 2007)
    • Links to an interactive timeline
• Brains and language
  • "Growing Up Neanderthal: A New Look"
    (November 8, 2010)
  • " 'Mommy Brain' Research by a Mother"
    (October 23, 2010)
  • "Homo Gautengensis: Big Teeth, Tiny Brain, Fire, Stone Tools; and a New Puzzle"
    (May 21, 2010)
  • "Babies and Language: What We Hear is What We Cry?"
    (November 8, 2009)
  • "Broca's Center Multitasks: Big Brain Breakthrough"
    (October 15, 2009)
• Getting a grip
  • "Beauty, Science, and a Crazy Idea"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (March 14, 2012)
  • " 'In a State of Journeying' "
    A Catholic Citizen in America (January 18, 2012)
  • " 'Inevitable Progress;' 'We're All Gonna Die;' and Getting a Grip"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (January 16, 2012)
  • "Fukushima Power Plant: Explosion, Yes; Reactor, No"
    (March 12, 2011)
    Particularly
    • Godzilla, Rodan, and New Technologies
  • "Tofu Turkeys, Genetically Altered Foods, and the Evil Eye"
    (November 14, 2009)

More related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

More articles:

• "Man Entered the Kitchen 1.9 Million Years Ago"
  Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience (August 22, 2011)
• "Fire Used to Make Better Tools 75,000 Years Ago"
  Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience (August 13, 2009)
• "Outdoor BBQ: A 700,000-year-old Ritual"
  Meredith F. Small, LiveScience (July 3, 2008)
• And, on a geekier note:
  • "Dietary quality and encephalization in platyrrhine primates" Kari L. Allen and Richard F. Kay, Biology, Proceedings of the Royal Society (Received June 22, 2011; Accepted July 21, 2011)
  • "Brains and guts in human evolution: The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis*"
    Leslie C. Aiello, Brazilian Journal of Genetics (March, 1997)

'Nutcracker Man,' Big Teeth, and - - - Grass?!

" 'Nutcracker Man' Ate Like a Cow (or Pig)"
Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience (May 2, 2011)

"The strong-jawed human relative nicknamed "Nutcracker Man" likely didn't crack nuts at all, preferring to graze on grass like a cow instead, scientists find.

"These findings could dramatically alter conventional wisdom regarding what the earliest members of the human lineage and their relatives ate.

"The extinct hominid, officially called Paranthropus boisei, ranged across East Africa 1.2 million to 2.3 million years ago, living side-by-side with the direct ancestors of humanity. It earned its nickname because of its massive jaw and huge molars...."

"...It was long assumed that because of its powerful jaw, P. boisei lived up to its nickname and ate nuts, seeds and other hard items. Still, a recent study of its teeth did not turn up the kind of pitting one would expect from hard meals, hinting that it actually dined on softer fare.

Now scientists investigating carbon isotope ratios in Nutcracker Man's teeth found 'it most likely was eating grass, and most definitely was not cracking nuts,' Cerling said...."

Those are really big teeth. And there's more than isotopes to indicate that the now-extinct 'Nutcracker Man' ate grass:

"...'...No living ape feeds mostly on grass, and the practice is rare among primates. "There is one primate that is primarily a grass-eater, the gelada baboon in Ethiopia,' Cerling told LiveScience, and Ungar noted the wear and tear seen on P. boisei teeth 'looks very similar to that of the gelada baboon.'..."

Eating grass seems to be a sort of good news-bad news situation.

On the one hand, grass grows like - well, like grass. It's a very common plant.

On the other hand, back when Paranthropus boisei was around, ancestors of zebras, pigs, warthogs and hippos were in the neighborhood: also eating grass.

Maybe that's why P.b. is extinct, and we're not. There's probably more to it than that: in the Lemming's opinion.

That LiveScience article gives a little of the technical side of how researchers worked out what isotopes were in those big teeth:

"...The researchers drilled enamel off 24 teeth collected in central and northern Kenya from 22 P. boisei that lived between 1.4 million and 1.9 million years ago. They pulverized approximately 2 milligrams of enamel per tooth to look at the carbon isotopes within. All carbon isotopes have six protons in their atoms, but they differ from each other in how many neutrons they have in their nuclei -- for instance, carbon-12 has six, while carbon-13 has seven.

"By looking at the carbon isotope ratios in tooth enamel, scientists can decipher the past diet. The method relies on the type of carbon used in photosynthesis, the process in which carbon dioxide and water, with energy from the sun, are turned into food for certain plants. For instance, trees and the leaves, nuts and fruits they produce, as well as shrubs, herbs and cool-season grasses, all rely on C3 photosynthesis, which prefers carbon-12, while tropical grasses and sedges such as papyrus rely on C4 photosynthesis, where both carbon-12 and the heavier carbon-13 isotope are used...."
(LiveScience)

Fascinating stuff, in the Lemming's opinion: although your experience may vary.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "New Clue in Human Evolution: It's All in the Wrist"
  (January 28, 2011)
• "Growing Up Neanderthal: Another New Look"
  (November 15, 2010)
• "Homo Gautengensis: Big Teeth, Tiny Brain, Fire, Stone Tools; and a New Puzzle"
  (May 21, 2010)
• "Neanderthals and Me: New Data About Old Relatives"
  (May 7, 2010)
• "Homo Erectus, Kitchens, and Human (Pre)History"
  (December 21, 2009)

More related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

---

How the Lemming sees science, religion, and all that:

• "God's Creation: He Seems to Think Big"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (September 23, 2010)
• "Copernicus, Galileo, Science and a Reality Check"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (October 26, 2009)
• "Faith and Reason, Religion and Science"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 20, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Darwin and Huxley vs. Ussher and Carlyle
  • What If Darwin Had Been an Astronomer?
• "Catholic Church, Creationism, Evolution, Facts and Faith"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 5, 2009)

Snakes Don't Have Legs: There's an Explanation For That

"How Snakes Lost Their Legs"
Jennifer Viegas, Animal News, Discovery News (February 7, 2010)

"Some, if not all, snakes used to have legs, and now new research suggests snakes lost their limbs by growing them more slowly or for a shorter period of time.

"The research, outlined in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, strengthens the belief that snakes evolved from a lizard that either burrowed on land or swam in the ocean.

"In either case, its legs must have become less useful as the animal evolved over time.

" 'If something is not useful it can regress without any impact on the (animal's) survival, or regression can even be positive, as for here if the leg was disturbing a kind of locomotion, like for burrowing snakes or swimming snakes,' lead author Alexandra Houssaye told Discovery News...."

That's a somewhat carefully-qualified statement. The Lemming suspects that folks studying life on Earth over the last few hundreds of millions of years have gotten a trifle cautious - since what was 'absolutely known' within living memory has, in quite a few cases, to be revised. And sometimes re-revised. The Lemming's posted about that sort of thing before:

• "Teeth: Human, Very Old, and in an Unexpected Place"
  (December 29, 2010)
• "Age of the Earth, Illustrated: Almost A Century Ago"
  (August 10, 2010)
• "Himalayan Frogs Shake Up Geologists' Assumption"
  (August 9, 2010)

The article tells how researchers used high-energy radiation to get a thee-dimensional image of a 90,000,000-year-old snake pelvis. And the critter's abbreviated legs. Based on these scans, and educated guesswork, it looks like snakes - or critters whose descendants became the snakes we know - had already lost their front limbs by then. And were in the process of losing their back set.

As to just what happened, or where: That's something that Alexandra Houssaye says will probably take well upwards of a decade.

Meanwhile, it's pretty definite that snakes started out as lizard-like critters that lived in water.

Or land.

Sort-of-related posts:

• "Cambrian Explosion Evidence: Burgess Shale Fossils aren't Alone"
  (September 12, 2010)
• "Gliding Lizard and a Snake that 'Swims' Through the Air"
  (March 29, 2010)
• "Big Snake, Small Dinosaur, and a Professor from Michigan"
  (March 2, 2010)
• "Snakes - With Tentacles - That They 'See' With"
  (February 16, 2010)
• "Hurdia Victoria: Cambrian Supercritter of the Burgess Shale"
  (March 20, 2009)

More related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

---

Why the Lemming doesn't have conniptions over the 'e-word.'

• "Faith and Reason, Religion and Science"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 20, 2009)
• "Catholic Church, Creationism, Evolution, Facts and Faith"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 5, 2009)

Life is On the Clock - And Has Been for a Very Long Time

"Ancient body clock keeps all life on time: studies"
Kate Kelland, editing by Paul Casciato, Health, Edition: US, Reuters (January 26, 2011)

"Scientists have identified the mechanism that controls the internal 24-hour clock of all forms of life -- a finding they say should shed light on some shift work-related problems like diabetes, depression and cancer.

"Researchers from Britain's Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, whose work was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, said their findings provide important insight into health-related problems linked to people such as nurses, pilots and other shift workers, whose body clocks are disrupted.

"The studies also suggest that the 24-hour circadian clock found in human cells is the same as that found in algae, and dates back millions of years to early life on earth, they said.

"In the first study, Cambridge scientists found for the first time that red blood cells have a 24-hour rhythm.

"This is significant, they explained, because circadian rhythms have always been assumed to be linked to DNA and gene activity -- but, unlike most other cells in the body, red blood cells do not have DNA...."

What the scientists found was that levels of peroxiredoxins - proteins found in just about every living thing on Earth - change on a 24 hour schedule. Whether the organism is exposed to light or not.

Just how these ancient clocks tie in with the rest of our bodies' processes - is still a mystery. But researchers have something specific to look for now.

On a personal note, finding these built-in clocks reminds the Lemming that there's most likely something to the old saying, "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise."

Not, as James Thurber put it, 'early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy and wealthy and dead.' And that's another topic.

New Clue in Human Evolution: It's All in the Wrist

"Humans Left Trees 4.2 Million Years Ago"
Jennifer Viegas, Archaeology News, Discovery News (January 28, 2011 )

"Wrist bones of human ancestors reveal when humans switched from living in trees to on the ground.

"Early human ancestors stopped swinging in trees and started walking on the ground sometime between 4.2 and 3.5 million years ago, according to a new study.

"This key moment, when our ancestors became anatomically and behaviorally less ape-like, coincides with increased cooling, more defined seasonality, and a grassland growth spurt. All transformed former forest habitats into more varied ones, forcing our very early relatives to change their ways.

" 'With the trees being farther apart, it became energetically advantageous for hominids to cross the gaps bipedally,' said Gabriele Macho, lead author of the study that was published in the latest issue of Folia Primatologica.

"Macho, a paleoanthropologist at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology in Barcelona, and his colleagues made the determinations after analyzing wrist bones from two early hominid relatives: Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis (also known as the "Lucy" fossil). The former species is 600,000 years older than the latter and is believed to be its ancestor...."

The article is more paleontology news than "archaeology news:" but, never mind.

There's a fair amount of detail in the article - including a discussion of what it is about the wrist bones that tells about how they were used.

The bottom line seems to be that there's more evidence that we were 'us' earlier than we thought. Not that a haircut and new clothes would help one of the folks who made the earliest known kitchen blend into the crowd these days. But looks aren't everything - and that's another topic.

It still looks like we got started in east Africa. But it looks like some of us may have left quite a bit earlier than paleontologists thought until recently. And that's another topic, too, sort of:

• "Ancestors may have left Africa earlier than thought"
  Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times (January 28, 2011)
  Briefly:
  • Tools found at Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates
    • Seem to be about 125,000 years old
      • That's around 60,000 years before we were assumed to have left Africa
    • The tools aren't like those found along the known migration route
      
  • Change happens
    • Including sea level
      • The Bab al Mandab strait was (fairly) dry at low tide back then
    • Lakes, rivers, and grasslands covered Arabia then
      • Good hunting

Nothing new there, in a way. The more humanity finds out, the bigger, older, and more complex the world turns out to be. And the Lemming is not going to get into the fine-structure constant, galaxies, cosmology, and just how many universes we're talking about. (September 16, 2010, November 3, 2009, June 4, 2008)

Related posts:

• "Teeth: Human, Very Old, and in an Unexpected Place"
  (December 29, 2010)
• "Growing Up Neanderthal: Another New Look"
  (November 15, 2010)
• "Evidence of Human Compassion: 500,000 Years Ago"
  (October 13, 2010)
• "Neanderthals and Me: New Data About Old Relatives"
  (May 7, 2010)
• "Homo Erectus, Kitchens, and Human (Pre)History"
  (December 21, 2009)

More related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

Forgotten for 14,000,000 Years, Waiting Under the Ice

"Drill Close to Reaching 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake"
Duncan Geere, Wired UK, Wired Science (January 7, 2011)

"Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit...."

Lake Vostok is about two and a half miles below the surface of Antarctica's icecap - and most likely won't come in contact with that drill bit. Several paragraphs later, the same article identifies the technology that'll be used for the last several yards as a "thermal lance."

Maybe that's nitpicking, but the Lemming prefers that articles be internally consistent, at least.

Moving along.

There's more than the depth of this subglacial lake that makes it special:

"...The lake, which lies 2.5 miles below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen: Levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes...."

Researchers have been trying to get at Lake Vostok for two decades. There's more of a challenge to the job, than just being in a place that's even less hospitable than Minnesota in winter.

The trick isn't just getting a probe into the lake. It's getting a clean probe into the lake. The place has been cut off from the rest of Earth's life for a remarkably long time - which makes any critters found there very, very interesting indeed.

Provided that contemporary critters don't get at them first. Hence the need for being really, really tidy about the drilling process.

Here's where the thermal lance is mentioned:

"...The drill bit currently sits less than 328 feet above the lake. Once it reaches 65 to 98 feet, the mechanical drill bit will be replaced with a thermal lance that's equipped with a camera...."

"...When the sample can be recovered, however, it's hoped that it'll shed light on extremophiles — lifeforms that survive in extreme environments. Life in Lake Vostok would need adaptions to the oxygen-rich environment, which could include high concentrations of protective enzymes. The conditions in Lake Vostok are very similar to the conditions on Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, so the new data could also strengthen the case for extraterrestrial life...."

This wouldn't be the first time that microbes from a very old, very isolated, ecosystem on Earth have been recovered and studied. (June 15, 2009) It's still a rare opportunity to study life that has been out of the loop for a very long time.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "IceCube Neutrino Observatory: Again"
  (December 28, 2010)
• "Antarctic Ice Cap Didn't Get the Memo"
  (April 18, 2009)
• "Creepy Crawlies in Antarctica: Tundra Tales"
  (July 25, 2008)
• "Ancient Antarctic Lake: Catch-22 for Scientists"
  (December 4, 2007)

Teeth: Human, Very Old, and in an Unexpected Place

People who look pretty much like the folks you see in the papers and on television today may have been around longer than we thought. A lot longer.

Really Old Teeth: New Facts to Chew On

"400,000 year old teeth challenge evolutionary theory"Anne Barker, ABC News Online (December 29, 2010)

"ELEANOR HALL: Israeli archaeologists say they've uncovered evidence that could challenge the accepted theories on human evolution.

"A team from Tel Aviv found human teeth that they estimate are 400,000 years old: twice as old as any previous finds.

"But they say they can't be sure of the significance of their discovery until further tests are done as Middle East correspondent Anne Barker reports.

"ANNE BARKER: The accepted theory among evolutionary scientists is that homo sapiens originated in Africa around 200,000 years ago and gradually migrated around the world.

"And until now the earliest human remains were found in eastern Africa.

"But now Israeli archaeologists have uncovered a set of teeth that they believe are twice as old and if so would force a complete rethink of the whole concept of human evolution.

"AVI GOPHER: This conclusion may be of great importance because it may be a first hint at changing some of the paradigms we are used to think about, used to use in terms of human evolution.

"ANNE BARKER: Professor Avi Gopher at Tel Aviv University heads the team which was excavating the Qesem Cave, a prehistoric site in central Israel that was discovered 10 years ago where they found eight teeth believed to be 400,000 years old.

"AVI GOPHER: The dating of the cave shows that the presence of homo sapiens in this part of the world is earlier than any other evidence we have to date.

"The earliest we know until now is Homo sapiens found in eastern Africa dated to around 200,000 years.

"That means that we have to rethink the basic reconstructions we have for human evolution and spread.

"ANNE BARKER: Professor Gopher says more research is needed to confirm the remains are the earliest evidence of the existence of modern man.

"But scientists have already done a morphological analysis of the teeth which included CT scans and X-rays that indicate their size and shape are very similar to those of today's humans.

"And he says other findings suggest that whoever it was who lived in the cave were hunters who used fire and shared animal meat, all of which are consistent with modern man...."

The Lemming isn't all that surprised at this news. Folks who make a serious study of life on Earth have generally been discovering that things happened earlier than they thought.

This is a pretty big jump, though, in terms of time: from 200,000 years back being as early as folks looking pretty much like us were around; to 400,000 years back. The shift from west Africa to the east end of the Mediterranean isn't such a big shift, though. It's walking distance. If you're willing to spend a few years on the hike.

Human Origins, Teeth, Writing Headlines, and Accepting Change

Another article, from Monday:
"Researchers: Ancient human remains found in Israel"
Associated Press, via FoxNews.com (December 27, 2010)

" Israeli archaeologists said Monday they may have found the earliest evidence yet for the existence of modern man, and if so, it could upset theories of the origin of humans.

A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old...."

"...The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations began in 2004. Researchers Gopher, Ran Barkai and Israel Hershkowitz published their study in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology."

The Lemming thinks that phrase, "challenge evolutionary theory," in the ABC article should be taken with a grain of salt. Make that a few pounds.

Yes, the evolutionary theories that have folks looking like us starting in Africa about 200,000 years back may be due for an overhaul. At least.

But the general idea that homo sapiens sapiens didn't always look like we do now? And that if you go back far enough, our ancestors looked different enough to have another tag in the 'species' column? The Qesem cave finds don't change that.

The Lemming recognizes that news is written to sell newspapers. Or, these days, to attract visitors to websites. That "challenge evolutionary theory" thing in the headline was, the Lemming suspects, calculated to attract readers who are still wrangling over the preferred realities of Darwin and Ussher.

The idea that change happens, and that it's okay, is something the Lemming accepts. At any rate, change happens: and I've got the choice of dealing with it, or being miserable. It's not such a hard choice.

What, No Rant About Godless Science?

If you've been following this blog, you've probably learned that the Lemming is a practicing Catholic. Which doesn't mean what some folks in America apparently think it does:

• "Home Schooling, Religious and Moral Instruction, and American Culture"
  (March 6, 2010)
  Particularly
  • NOT ALL CHRISTIANS ARE DOLTS
• "Dinosaurs, Mutant Chickens, Evolution, and Faith in God"
  (June 29, 2009)

Bottom line, I believe that God exists. I also acknowledge that He's smarter and stronger than I am. More patient, too. And I'm inclined to take the world as it is: not as I'd like it to be.

Moving along.

One reason the Lemming wasn't all that surprised at the idea that folks who look "human" have been around longer than we thought is that 'things happened earlier.' Like I said, the time of the earliest known modern humans, fish, or whatever, has generally been getting pushed back as we learn more.

Another is that archeologists/paleontologists (the distinction seems to be getting blurred) found a kitchen in the same general area - that folks used some 800,000 years ago. They didn't have a dishwasher, freezer, or microwave oven: but they did have an area that was designed around the tasks of preparing food.

Related posts:

• "Growing Up Neanderthal: Another New Look"
  (November 15, 2010)
• "Evidence of Human Compassion: 500,000 Years Ago"
  (October 13, 2010)
• "Earliest Known Tool Use: 3,390,000 Years Ago"
  (August 12, 2010)
• "Neanderthals and Me: New Data About Old Relatives"
  (May 7, 2010)
• "Homo Erectus, Kitchens, and Human (Pre)History"
  (December 21, 2009)

More related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

Ecological Disaster - a Quarter of a Billion Years Ago

"Massive Volcanism May Have Caused Biggest Extinction Ever"
Alexandra Witze, Science News, via Wired Science, Wired (December 14, 2010)



"The greatest extinction in the history of life may have been caused, in part, by ozone-depleting gases spewed in a massive volcanic eruption, a new study suggests. Geologists have found surprisingly high amounts of the elements fluorine and chlorine in Siberian lavas dating back 250 million years — when about 90 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial species went extinct.

"Benjamin Black, a graduate student at MIT, and his colleagues described their theory Dec. 13 in a poster presentation at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

"Researchers have long struggled to explain the 'Great Dying' that occurred at the end of the Permian period. Some think that the extinction was a long, drawn-out affair caused by multiple factors - perhaps gradual changes in oceanic or atmospheric chemistry (SN: 5/28/05, p. 339). Others have blamed a single catastrophic event such as a belch of methane from the seafloor or an asteroid impact (SN: 2/24/01, p. 116) like the one thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs and other species 65 million years ago.

"Volcanoes might be one of those calamities. In Siberia, around 250 million years ago, a series of massive volcanic eruptions spewed out lava over more than 2 million square kilometers [800,000 square miles]. Some scientists have blamed these eruptions, known as the Siberian Traps, for climatic changes that contributed to the extinction...."

Between routine events like eruptions that created the Siberian and Deccan Traps, the Yellowstone caldera's periodic blowup, and intermittent falling asteroids, this planet isn't a particularly safe place to live.

The Siberian Traps are interesting, according to this article, because there's significantly more sulfur, chlorine and fluorine in those rocks than in the Deccan Traps.

"...The chemicals probably weren't in the magma as it began traveling up from deep within the Earth, the team proposed, but melted into the magma as it passed through salt-rich rock before erupting on the surface.

"In all, the amount of chemicals in the Siberian rocks could translate to 9 trillion tons of sulfur, 8.5 trillion tons of fluorine and 5 trillion tons of chlorine spewing into the atmosphere during the eruptions. Such elements, when pumped out by power plants, can cause acid rain locally...."

That's trillions of tons: a whole lot of very reactive chemicals. Whatever else was going on at the time, that stuff in the atmosphere wasn't making conditions any better.

Although, if this hadn't happened, the Lemming wouldn't be writing this post - and you wouldn't be reading it.

Related posts:

• "Ecological Disaster - a Third of a Billion Years Ago"
  (September 30, 2010)
• "Asteroid Crater Under the Timor Sea: It Could Happen Again"
  (June 3, 2010)
• "Dinosaurs, Runaway Volcanism, Change, and Evolution"
  (March 24, 2010)
• "Frail, Delicate Little Mother Nature?!"
  (December 20, 2009)
• "Laacher See Supervolcano Eruption: You Think You Had a Bad Day?!"
  (September 26, 2009)

More:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture "

Growing Up Neanderthal: Another New Look

"Neanderthals Lived Fast, Died Young"
Jennifer Viegas, Archaeology News, Discovery News (November 15, 2010)

"Neanderthals reached full maturity faster than humans do today, suggests a new examination of teeth from 11 Neanderthal and early human fossils. The findings, detailed in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, portray Neanderthals as a live fast and die young species.

"Our characteristically slow development and long childhood therefore appear to be recent and unique to Homo sapiens. These traits may have given our early modern human ancestors an evolutionary advantage over Neanderthals.

" 'I think Neanderthals retain a more primitive developmental condition that seems to be shared with earlier fossil humans,' lead author Tanya Smith told Discovery News. 'We know from other studies of dental and cranial development that australopithecenes (early hominids from Africa) and Homo erectus did not show long or slow developmental periods like our own.'..."

It does seem to make sense: we learn a lot before hitting puberty - and then it seems like a struggle to focus on something other than the opposite sex for years. Decades. Sometimes never.

Another interesting point in the article was the look at our family history. In very broad terms, of course. It's not like we've got genealogical information going back tens of thousands of years.

"...She and her team also discovered that anatomically modern human groups that left Africa some 100,000 years ago experienced an elongation of their childhood, which has been with our species ever since. All other primates have shorter gestation, faster childhood maturation, younger age at first reproduction, and a shorter overall lifespan.

"While delaying reproduction poses a risk that individuals may not live long enough to reproduce, it could facilitate learning, social development and complex cognition. Neanderthals are known to have large brains, as well as large bodies. Without much time for learning, however, those big brains might not have been much of a match for our own impressively large-brained species.

"Smith said some researchers also suggest that slowing down childhood 'may have allowed for conservation of energy, and this may have accompanied decreased mortality rates and/or more favorable environmental conditions.'..."

All of which is somewhat conjectural at this point. The article points out that folks living in different parts of the world mature at different rates. (Not all that different - but measurable.) Why? Well, it's probably in their genes or their environment - or maybe both.

As the last paragraph of the article puts it:

"...Smith and her team, however, hint that forthcoming new studies reveal genetic and brain differences that existed between Neanderthals and members of our species, further heating up the scientific debate."

The Lemming's pretty sure that there won't be an end to this debate for a long, long time. What's interesting is how paleontologists are filling in details here and there.

Then there's the whole 'extended childhood' thing. We do have an oddly long time during which we're the developmental equivalent of kittens or puppies.

The Lemming takes some exception to the implication that "learning" stops when puberty hits: but acknowledge that there's something to it. I kept learning after I reached age 12: and have known others to do the same. There is, presumably, some reason for the existences of high schools and colleges, other than to provide professors with a way to make a living.

In the Lemming's case, having undiagnosed ADHD may have helped. Being constitutionally inclined to ricochet off topics may have helped me to keep learning about physics and girls and algebra and girls and history and - - - you get the idea. (more: "ADHD, an Apostolic Exhortation, Another Document, and V8," A Catholic Citizen in America (November 11, 2010))

That "Archaeology News" article's got a fair amount of detail. Although, as I think I've pointed out before, it's not so much about archeology as paleontology. And there is a difference. Although, when dealing with human cultures that left no written records, but did leave fossils - there's overlap.

Related posts:

• "Growing Up Neanderthal: A New Look"
  (November 8, 2010)
• "Evidence of Human Compassion: 500,000 Years Ago"
  (October 13, 2010)
• "Neanderthals and Me: New Data About Old Relatives"
  (May 7, 2010)
• "Homo Erectus, Kitchens, and Human (Pre)History"
  (December 21, 2009)
• "There Weren't Many Neanderthals - Which is Why They Died Out?!"
  (July 17, 2009)

More:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture "

Very Old, Quite Small, Lamprey: A Big Deal for Scientists

"Discovery of the oldest fossil lamprey in the world"
Science in Africa (February 2007)

"Scientists from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Chicago have discovered a 360 million-year-old lamprey, from Witteberg Group rocks near Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape, demonstrating that modern lampreys are remarkable living fossils. The report is published in Nature.

"This jawless fish fossil was discovered by Robert Gess, a PhD student at the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research at Wits, under the supervision of Prof. Bruce Rubidge of Wits and Dr Mike Coates of the University of Chicago.

"Scientists from around the world are currently engaged in reconstructing the evolutionary tree of life, combining data from the structure of living organisms, the fossil record and the analysis of DNA. In ancient seas, jawless vertebrate fish predated and gave rise to jawed fish, from which all vertebrates, including humans, descended. The only surviving group of jawless vertebrates are the lampreys which, as a result, are attracting intense scientific interest. Only in living lampreys may jawless vertebrate embryology or DNA be studied, resulting in lampreys being increasingly used as surrogate ancestors in researching jawed vertebrates...."

This newly-discovered fossil is a big deal, since lampreys haven't left much evidence of their existence:

"...Knowing when lampreys acquired this specialization, would suggest how representative they really are of ancient fish.

"The boneless cartilagenous skeletons of lampreys have, however, left virtually no fossil record - only three fossil species having previously been described, in none of which is a sucker-disc visible...."

And now, there are four.

Back to that article:

"...The remarkably well-preserved new fossil, described in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, published today, is older than any previously discovered fossil lamprey by 35 million years. Only 42mm long it reveals details of its fin, gill basket and, most importantly, its mouth region. It's circular mouth, situated at the center of a large sucker disk and encircled by small teeth, is remarkably like that of living lampreys, revealing that lamprey adaptations for a blood-sucking lifestyle were acquired in ancient seas, before modern fish faunas arose. Lampreys are therefore 'living fossils' that have remained largely unaltered through more than 360 million years and four major extinction events...."

This ancient lamprey species has been dubbed Priscomyzon riniensis. The article explains that it's taken from Latin prisco (ancient), myzon (a lamprey), and Rini, the Xhosa name for Grahamstown and surrounds).

Lampreys aren't likely to show up in, say, a list of cute Disney cartoon characters. Between their eel-like appearance, that mouth, and their eating habits, they're - well, just not that conventionally endearing. The term 'disgusting blood-sucker' comes to mind.

That said, they're impressive critters - for their durability, if nothing else. And, as the article points out, lampreys are useful tools for studying other critters that didn't leave living descendants.

Now, this little fossil lamprey gives paleontologists and others some concrete evidence to work with.

"Little" is a comparative term. The Lemming checked - and that 42mm length works out to just over one and five eighths inches.

Really Big Dragonflies: Oxygen's What Does It

"High Oxygen Levels Spawn Monster Dragonflies"
Wired Science, Wired (November 2, 2010)

"Biologists have grown super-size dragonflies that are 15 percent larger than normal by raising the insects, from start to finish, in chambers emulating Earth's oxygen conditions 300 million years ago.

"The research, presented Nov. 1 at the Geophysical Society of America's annual meeting in Denver, Colorado, provides more support to the idea that big ancient animals and high-oxygen concentrations weren't coincidental. It may also offer an instrument to help gauge Earth's ancient atmospheric conditions.

" 'No one has been successful growing dragonflies under controlled laboratory conditions before, at least to my knowledge,' said paleobiologist John VandenBrooks of Arizona State University, leader of the work. 'This has allowed us to ask the question, "how have oxygen levels through time influenced the evolution of insects?" '

"During the Paleozoic era, around 300 million years ago, huge dragonflies zipped around with wingspans stretching more than two and a half feet, dwarfing modern relatives. Back then, however, the planet’s atmosphere had roughly 50 percent more oxygen than today...."

So far, the scientists have learned that dragonflies and beetles grow faster and get bigger in high-oxygen environments, while cockroaches grow more slowly and don't get bigger. All the insects grow smaller breathing tubes when they grew in a high-oxygen atmosphere. The smaller breathing tubes make sense, since the critters don't need today's big tubes to get oxygen in when there's plenty around - but the scientists don't know why dragonflies and beetles get bigger and cockroaches don't.

For paleontologists and other folks who study what's happened on Earth for the last few billion years, this research is important. If they can correlate oxygen levels with some feature on insects - ones that haven't changed all that much for the last few hundred million years - they'll be able to work out how much oxygen was around, by observing structures like breathing tubes on insects caught in amber.

The Lemming finds that sort of thing fascinating.

Your experience, as I've said before, may vary.

Related posts:

• "Ecological Disaster - a Third of a Billion Years Ago"
  (October 1, 2010)
• " 'Snowball Earth,' Evolution, and Really Old Rocks"
  (March 16, 2010)
• "Trilobites, Arthropods, Evolution, and Why Mothra Isn't Real"
  (October 17, 2009)
• "Origins of Life, a Virtual Ocean, and a Million Computers"
  (July 3, 2009)

Evidence of Human Compassion: 500,000 Years Ago

"Earliest Traces of a Disabled, Aged Human Found"
Jennifer Viegas, Archaeology News, Discovery News (October 12, 2010)

"A prehistoric pelvis, nicknamed 'Elvis,' and other fossilized bones are what's left of the world's first known elderly human with clear signs of aging and impairment, according to a paper in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The remains, which date back to 500,000 years ago, also represent the earliest post-cranial evidence for an aged individual in the human fossil record.

"The elderly fellow, who lived in Spain, was a member of the species Homo heidelbergensis, a type of ancient human believed by some to be exclusive to Europe and ancestral only to Neanderthals...."

Neanderthals and the Family Tree

That "ancestral only to Neanderthals" makes it sound like the Homo heidelbergensis folks don't have all that much to do with us - at least as far as being our ancestors is concerned. Maybe so, but the last I heard there's evidence from DNA that quite a few folks living today have Neanderthals in our family tree. Particularly those of us whose more recent ancestors come from Europe. (May 7, 2010)

The man whose pelvis and lower back bones were found was at least 45 when he died, and had a spinal deformity that would have been quite painful. Also forced him into a stooped posture and limited his ability to hunt and carry heavy loads.

Odds are, according to the article, he used a cane to get around.

With his physical limitations, he probably depended on others for quite a bit of his food. He could have made a contribution to his group, though.

"...As a senior, the individual would have had expertise in finding food and more, the researchers suspected, so he must have been a valuable contributor to his group. As a result, the male may also provide some of the world's first evidence for compassion and cooperation among early humans.

" 'We wouldn't say that he was a burden to his group, but rather that this was a greatly socialized group with solidarity bonds between individuals,' [lead author Alejandro] Bonmati said.

"Homo heidelbergensis had a large brain and certain anatomy, such as a highly developed inner ear, he explained. These features suggest this species had some form of spoken language that would have helped to bond individuals together...."

Taking Care of Others: That's Nice

So far, so good. We're collecting more evidence about folks who lived before we started writing things down, and learning a little about how they lived. Looks like in at least some cases, they were able and willing to take care of their elders.

And, sometimes, handicapped youngsters:

"...The findings come on the heels of yet another new study, published in the journal Time and Mind, which describes the discovered remains of a Neanderthal child with a congenital brain abnormality who was not abandoned, but instead lived until the about age five or six.

"The paper mentions yet another Neanderthal individual who would have required care: someone with a withered arm, deformed feet and blindness in one eye who lived to about age 20.

"Lead author Penny Spikins, a University of York archaeologist, said all provide evidence for compassion among early humans.

" 'Compassion is perhaps the most fundamental human emotion. It binds us together and can inspire us, but it is also fragile and elusive,' she said...."

Compassion: Taking Look Around

Whoops. Clarification time. Compassion is important. And has anybody noticed that it's the Neanderthals and their kin who get mentioned as showing compassion in this article? The Lemming is getting off-topic.

Like the Lemming said, compassion is important, and it may very well be a "fundamental human emotion." On the other hand, the Lemming can't help but remember examples of 'compassion' of this sort that aren't even in the primate families.

For example: "...Sick or crippled lions, unable to kill for themselves, can subsist for months by joining others on their kills...." ("The Serengeti lion: a study of predator-prey relations," George B. Schaller, University of Chicago Press (1976), p. 358, via Google Books)

The Lemming could say that compassion is a fundamental human and feline emotion. Or carry speculation even further. But that's yet another topic.

Related posts:

• "Archaeology Paleontology, Science, and Wishful Thinking"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (October 12, 2010)
• "Neanderthals, Teeth, Us, and an Ongoing Puzzle"
  (June 25, 2010)
• "Neanderthals and Me: New Data About Old Relatives"
  (May 7, 2010)
• "Homo Erectus, Kitchens, and Human (Pre)History"
  (December 21, 2009)

More related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

Two Thirds of a Billion Years Ago: Earth's First Animals?

"Oldest Animal Life on Earth Found?"
Jennifer Viegas , Animal News, Discovery News (August 17, 2010)

"Dating to 650 million years ago, evidence of primitive sponges pushes the fossil record back by about 70 million years.

"Animals have been on Earth for at least 650 million years, suggest recently found primitive sponge fossils from South Australia.

"This discovery pushes back the fossil record for animals by about 70 million years, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"The prior oldest known hard-bodied animals were reef-dwelling organisms called Namacalathus, which date to approximately 550 million years ago. Disputed remains for other possible soft-bodied animals date to between 577 and 542 million years ago...."

Looks like animals, tiny ones, by our standards, may have been around just after - and before the "Snowball Earth" event, when we had glaciers down to the equator.

The article tells a little about how the fossils were studied, and what the scientists say is the least-unlikely explanation for what they found.

Like I've said before: Things happened earlier.

Related posts:

• "Sea Sponge Genes: More Interesting Than You'd Think"
  (August 5, 2010)
• "Four Legs, a Tail, and Tracks a Third of a Billion Years Old"
  (July 26, 2010)
• "Early Earth Didn't Freeze: Why?!"
  (June 6, 2010)
• "Animals That Don't Need Oxygen - It Gets Weirder"
  (April 9, 2010)
• " 'Snowball Earth,' Evolution, and Really Old Rocks"
  (March 16, 2010)
• "Something Was Crawling on the Precambrian Mud"
  (February 19, 2010)

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More related posts, at

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

Earliest Known Tool Use: 3,390,000 Years Ago

"Discovery Pushes Human Tool Use Back 800,000 Years"
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience (August 11, 2010)

"The timeline of early human evolution needs another revision with the discovery that human ancestors used tools 800,000 years earlier than previously realized.

"The finding in Ethiopia, a pair of mammalian fossil bones marred by tool marks, pushes tool use back into the age of Australopithecus afarensis, an early human ancestor that lived in east Africa 3 million to 4 million years ago.

"Archaeologists previously believed that early human ancestors, or hominins, [not a typo¹] started using tools 2.5 million years ago. That's when evidence shows one of the first Homo species, Homo habilis, began butchering meat with sharpened stones. (Our species, Homo sapiens, didn't show up until about 200,000 years ago.) But the new find is approximately 3.39 million years old, older than the famous Australopithecus fossil "Lucy," who lived near the find site 3.2 million years ago...."

Those bones aren't all that impressive at first glance. Their age, and parallel cuts that don't look like tooth marks - and do look like what happens when someone cuts meat off bone with a sharp rock - make them evidence of tool use. Evidence of really, really early tool use.

And, as often happens when new data is discovered, existing theories have to be revised - and maybe filed as something that made sense at the time.

"...Pinning down the emergence of stone tools and meat-eating is key for understanding our evolutionary history, the researchers said. Until now, the use of tools seemed linked to an increase in brain size in hominins, prompting theories that the extra calories from butchered meat fed our ancestors' growing brains. The realization that both meat-eating and tool use significantly predate the Homo genus could force another look at those theories.

" 'There had long been an association between tool use and our genus,' said David Braun, an archaeologist at the University of Cape Town, who was not involved in the research but penned a commentary on the findings in Nature. 'That doesn't seem to be the case anymore.'..."

One thing that's missing are the tools themselves. We can make educated guesses about what they were like from the marks they left on bones: but without the sharp rocks themselves, there's no way to tell whether somebody modified a stoke to make a stone tool - or just found a conveniently sharp-edged stone.

Tool use isn't tool making - and the distinction is important. To paleontologists studying how we got to be what we are, anyway.

In this case, though, even tool use is impressive. Odds are the stone used had been carried to the site where the bones were found - from a source over a mile away. That implies a modest amount of planning.

I'm not terribly surprised by this discovery. I've been interested in paleontology for about a half-century, and noticed a pattern where humanity's background is concerned. In general, things happened earlier than we thought they did.

In the case of these 3,390,000-years-old bones, about 800,000 years earlier.

Related posts:

• "Homo Erectus, Kitchens, and Human (Pre)History"
  (December 21, 2009)
• " 'Journey of Mankind:' 160,000 Years of Ups and Downs"
  (November 1, 2007)

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Related posts, at

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

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¹ "Hominin" seems to be a newish term, and not - as I thought at first, a typo. More:

• "Hominin"
  About.com:Archeology

The use, in this context, of "hominin" reflects a more detailed understanding of what's been happening on Earth over the last several million years.

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What's a nice Catholic guy like me doing, writing about evolution? The short answer is: being interested in this creation. I've discussed this before:

• "Age of the Earth, Illustrated: Almost A Century Ago"
  (August 10, 2010)
• "Copernicus, Galileo, Science and a Reality Check"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (October 26, 2009)
• "Trilobites, Arthropods, Evolution, and Why Mothra Isn't Real"
  (October 17, 2009)
• "Dinosaurs, Mutant Chickens, Evolution, and Faith in God"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (June 29, 2009)
• "Vatican Says: 'Belief in Aliens Doesn't Contractict Faith' "
  (May 14, 2008)

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"The Future is Wild:" Giving Your Imagination a Workout

The Future is Wild

"How will the world look in 5 million, 100 million and 200 million years? How will the continents look? Will it be hot or cold? And what kinds of fantastic creatures will be walking the Earth?

"These are the questions The Future Is Wild Set out to answer, by involving the world’s leading scientists in creating a fully animated vision of what we might find, if only we could travel in time.

"By blending good science with real imagination our team has created three very different worlds along the timeline; exotic places you can explore through animatronics, films, theme parks, books and even Manga comic books...."


(from The Future is Wild, used w/o permission)

Make no mistake: The folks who are developing The Future is Wild's website would love it if you bought their products. This is a commercial website.

And a pretty good one.

That picture is of a 'Great Blue Windrunner,' in my opinion one of the more plausible critters imagined by the project's team. It's a four-winged bird - the aft pair of wings are its legs, equipped with flight feathers. They're probably not all that efficient as wings, since they're also used as legs when the bird lands: but I can see how a creature like that could exist.

CAUTION! IMAGINATION IN USE!

I saw parts of the original The Future is Wild series, and was impressed with the CGI art and technology - and the degree to which the scientists made occasionally-bizarre critters seem plausible.

They're quite clear on this point: The Future is Wild is not, strictly speaking, prediction. They don't say that this is what will happen. Just that, in principle, it could.

I enjoyed browsing through this website - particularly the part where the world of 5,000,000 years, 100,000,000, 200,000,000 years in the future is sketched out.

No people, by the way. Apart from the drearily familiar 'and we're all gonna die' attitude that's been fashionable for a few decades now, adding what people would be doing to the mix would have taken the original show in a quite different direction.

Like I said, I enjoyed looking through the website: but I also enjoy making my imagination to push-ups at frequent intervals.

I'd recommend The Future is Wild for folks who don't mind using their imaginations - and are willing to think about things that are possible, but which don't actually exist.