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Indonesian 'Hobbit' a tiny ancestor? DENVER: Scientists working with powerful
imaging computers say the spectacular 'Hobbit' fossil recently discovered in
Indonesia had distinctive brain features that could justify its
classification as a separate — and tiny — human ancestor. The new research produced a computer-generated
model that compared surface impressions on the inside of the fossil skull
with brain casts of modern and ancient humans, as well as chimps and other
primates. The scientists said the model shows that the 90-cm specimen,
nicknamed Hobbit, had a brain unlike anything they had seen before in recent
human lineage. The brain is chimplike
in size, between 380 and 420 cubic centimeters. Despite being up to
two-thirds smaller than a modern human brain, the Hobbit fossil's brain
shared wrinkled surface features with the brains of both modern humans and
Homo erectus, tool-making human ancestors that lived more than 1 million
years ago, the researchers said. Some of those features are consistent with
higher cognitive traits, they report. At the same time, they said the Hobbit
brain was different from the brain of a modern human pygmy or a human with
abnormal brain growth. Funny,
he doesn’t look Indonesian. "This is something new," said http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1041649.cms |
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My thoughts here…the first point that I would like to make, is that scientists are probably the geekiest people in the world without any exceptions. In fact, they probably all look like the picture on the right (Fig 1.1), or the picture below that (Fig 1.2). I bet these scientist guys just snickered when they nick-named it Hobbit—cute, real cute. So, instead of commenting on the story itself, I will focus on “The life of Mr. Scientist.” Mr. Scientist, we hardly knew ye; we hardly wanted
to. Mr. Scientist was born in nowhere in particular to a
family of little or no importance. His father was a nobody,
and his mother sold shoes down at some place to no one in particular. Ever since he was a little nobody,
Mr. Scientist was fascinated by bugs, lizards, or stamp collecting. It was
his favorite hobby. As he grew up, he was continuously picked on for his
glasses and his geeky demeanor—the fact that he always wore his “Alf” t-shirt
everyday to school (Fig 1.3) had
nothing to do with it. The other children used to complain that he smelled
like kerosene, but that was because he left his shirt one weekend in the back
of his father’s Pinto. From his demeanor and his fuming, woozy, inducing
smell, the other children would never sit next to him at the lunch
table—probably out of fear of nausea or social status declination. From his
lack of attention, except from his momma, Mr. Scientist grew up without
developing any social skills. When he got to high school, the only kids who
hung out with him were the “stoners” for the same reason that the other kids
stayed away. Upon graduating high school, he went off to study paleontology
or some other nerdy sounding program. He eventually graduated with a
doctorates or masters at the top of his class, and reached the pinnacle of
his degree field later finding work for NASA, EPA, or some other |
Figure 1.1
Figure 1.2
Figure 1.3 |
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