Fossil Primate Ardipithecus Ramidus Described (Finally)

Omomyid writes "I wasn't actually aware that Dr. Tim White of UC Berkeley had been 'sitting' on A. ramidus but apparently he has (I remember the original flurry of interest back in the '90s when it was announced), but now Dr. White and others have assembled a nearly complete skeleton of the 4.4mya specimen and the descriptions being carried by the NY Times and the AP are intriguing. Ramidus is clearly differentiated from the other Great Apes and also more primitive than A. afarensis (Lucy), providing a nice linkage backwards to the last shared ancestor between humans and chimpanzees. According to the NY Times, a whole passel of papers will be published in tomorrow's Science magazine describing A. ramidus." Update — 10/01 at 22:05 GMT by SS: Reader John Hawks provided a link to his detailed blog post about Ardipithecus, which contains a ton of additional details not covered in the above articles.

Comments

Science

[sopssa]

I'm not trying to troll or anything - but why is it so interesting to study where humans have come from and why exactly monkeys? Yeah they maybe look the most of us from all the animals, but intelligently and in other ways they're totally different.

Monkeys have come from somewhere too - maybe humans are just another race from the same point, not related to monkeys in any way.

Ewww

[SnarfQuest]

Dr. Tim White of UC Berkeley had been 'sitting' on A. ramidus
Is this something like Clinton wanting to "date" an Aztec mummy?

Re:Birthers, deathers, and other wingnuts

[spun]

Don't get me wrong. I do not idolize Obama. He was, IMHO, the much lesser of two evils. He is a left center politician, a complete moderate, and I wanted a radical.

Now that it's not W running the show, I guess is okay that the wars (and funding for them) are continuing, that the illegal wiretapping is being even more vociferously defended, that federal agents can write their own warrants and continue to do so, and the widening income gap will continue to widen as the rich are bailed out and the middle class is left to pick up the tab.

You've just expressed my sentiments exactly. However, my issue with the teabaggers boils down to their idea that they have anything in common with the Boston tea party. This is not a case of taxation without representation. They had a fair shot at putting their man in power, they lost fair and square. They have representation. They can write to their congresscritters, just like I could when the Republicans held power.

Teabaggers do not believe in democracy. They want things their way, and they will use any despicable tactics to get that. They are childish and unpatriotic.