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Hobbit Is A New Species
Migraineman writes "Over the last year or so, archaeologists in Indonesia unearthed skulls and bones from eight proto-humanoids. Critics have claimed the meter-tall specimens were either pygmies or "aberrant individuals with a pathological condition" like microcephaly. A recent article in Science[subscription] rebuffs the critics, and claims that the specimens are actually a new species - Homo floresiensis. There's a summary article over at Nature."
Frodo died???
Homo Florescent lights?
I wonder if they found anything buried in its pocketses.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
the island of flores saw the amazing uptick in tourism that new zealand experienced after the lord of the rings movie trilogy, and so that island's tourism proponents decided that they could get in on the tolkien tourism bandwagon too
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I for one welcome our new Hobbit-humaniod overl... Oh nevermind.
Scientific American
(I didn't have to subscribe, YMMV.)
This tagline brought to you by 1500 monkeys in just under 17 years.
Scientific name: Bilbous Bagginsis
Common name: Tricksy Hobbitses
I truly believe these little people are the early prototype of ancient time traveling alien/human hybrid race. These people are the result of an extra-terrestial alien race mating with primates. The aliens have left but they will be back to check on our progress.
Nope. This is a new development on an older story (specifically, the story you read in the paper a few months ago).
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
The whole idea of a missing link is a sham. It's a straw man put up by creationists. Because of the way evolution works you won't ever find a completely smooth transition from one form to another, you observe a puntuated equilibrium in the fossil record.
Just think... once, in a strange land millions of years ago, beings much like us looked up and dreamed that someday, somehow, they would reach the treetops.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
No, it couldn't be a "missing link". The leading guesses are that it is either an alternate branch that evolved an advanced brain separate from the more recent human lineage, or it is a branch off of Homo erectus that subsequently lost size but retained brain form. Personally, I'm a creationist. Keeps things simpler ^^.
But what, then, happened to all the elves?
Continental drift. The undying lands ended up at the north pole.
Actually, what was announced yesterday (by members of some team) was the results of a computer reconstruction of the brain, which analyzed impressions left on the inside of the skull by the pulsating brain- indicating a more powerful brain (for the size) than previously thought possible. (From today's LA Times: Data Bolster Claim of a 'Hobbit' Human Species
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
The One Ring was destroyed in Mount Doom, leaving the door open for a new cycle of books with a new ring forged in Mount Half-Life.
TFA didn't have it, but there's an artist's rendering of this species here (from http://www.mi.uib.no/~respl/tolkien/mapdocs/index2 .html)
for those interested there's also an article about homo florensis at Bits of News
Bits of News Giving you the latest bits.
Thank you for actually referencing primary sources, and not some university or coporate PR generated press release!
I wish i had mod points right now.
One dead body does not a new species make.
if it shows sufficient differences from other species, it certainly does.
they discovered what happened to the Oompa Loompas after Willy Wonka was done with them and Charlie took over the Chocolate Factory. Apparently Charlie tried to hide the bodies, but they were eventually found.
Charley Bucket was quoted as saying "I got tired of hearing the same songs sung day after day, so I got rid of them." Apparently Charley was still taking advice from his Grampa Joe who is known as a very shady character.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
In the case of Flores Man, these remains weren't even fossilized yet, but the principle is the same.
It truly amazes me how people will pontificate so grandly on a subject which they so obviously hold so little understanding in. They really do not understand the methodologies and techniques that scientists employ.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
While apparently the movie is bad, I thought the book this is based on is very interesting. The author's name is Vercors (French) and the book (in English translation) is called You Shall Know Them. I read it in Russian, in a collection of best French SciFi.
Anthropologists discover "a missing link" (still living, unlike our hobbits), and that forces them to try to look into the question of whether they are human or not (do they have human rights?). It forces them to try defining what makes a human being. This involves a court case (which is what most of the book is about). Overall, it has little to do with SciFi, and a lot
with philosophy. Which is probably why the movie sucked.
- A few ordinary pygmies and a microcephalic,
- An extraordinary group of Homo sapiens,
- Descendants of Indonesian Homo erectus, or
- Something completely different.
Carl concludes that these new results make 3 or 4 most likely, explaining why "explanations 3 and 4 seem to come out strongest at the moment. Either one would mean that the Hobbit represents an amazing experiment in hominid brain evolution. They suggest that some human-like features emerged in hominids that were separated from us by two or maybe three million years of evolution. Yet their brains were mosaics, sharing features with us and with other hominids, and also had features of their own. These strange brains, Dr. Morwood argues, allowed Hobbits to do things some pretty elaborate things, such as butcher dwarf elephants or make fires. It would be wonderful to know how these strange brains were wired together, but we have to be content with their shadows. But even shadows can sometimes reveal a lot."For anyone interested in Hominid species, here is a list and description of 20 main hominids, here are sample fossils for these species, and data on trends in brain sizes by species.
And to hit the pause button on any creationist "there are no missing links" arguments, take a close look at the comparison of hominid skulls, from the very useful 29 Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ -- each evidence complete with examples, references, predictions, and falsifiability tests (the latter two necessary for a theory to be a scientific theory). A shaved and suited Homo erectus is *not* going to be mistaken for a modern Homo sapiens, not with that small brain and strange face (compare especially the forehead and canines, and that he actually uses his wisdom teeth. Ours are on the way out). But he'll obviously be human- upright, great walker, up to 6 feet tall, briefcase filled with stone tools and a fire-starter kit.
And because at least a few of these claims show up in Slashdot threads on biology, here is the Index of Creationist Claims -- CC0 through CC150 covers human evolution -- and the arguments even creationists say to stop using. If your creationist argument is in the index, how about countering the evidence in the index instead of just making the claim?
According to Tolkien, Minas Tirith was about at the latitude of Venice, and the Shire does correspond more or less to England. Don't trust the movies; they compressed the geography tremendously. (You'd never guess from the climactic scene that Barad-dur was supposed to be over 100 miles from the gates of Mordor now, would you?)
And the brethren went away edified.
I've been wondering how plant and animal breeding is not an example of macro-evolution.
t m Heike Crab which evolved a human face.
Wild strawberries are primarily for birds to eat and generally have a stronger and bitter taste compared to domesticated strawberries, their size is smaller concentrating the seeds on a smaller surface area. Only in the past 500 years or so have strawberries been domesticated to the way we now buy them in stores. Is this not an example of evolution? The plant has (been) adapted to prosper under different conditions.
I think in the strawberries case most of the intermediate plants were not kept, maybe records of them have been. But, if people don't keep their in-betweens why would nature? And I doubt that if you did search for in-betweens in this case it would be very easy to find them. Just like it being difficult to find fossils of plants and animals from even further back in time.
An interesting page that I read in the past which shows another and better written example is Carl Sagans' http://web.singnet.com.sg/~sctien/samurai_crabs.h
Rational and Irrational are not some play on words of "ratio", they are literally how the ancient Greek mathematicians saw such numbers, with respect to their mathematical religion. (The Cult of Pythagoras actually had the square root of two banned, because it was provably not a ratio.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)