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Possible New Human Species Discovered In China
BayaWeaver writes "These are exciting times in anthropology. Recent analysis of fossils first discovered in China in 1979 indicate that a human-like species may have co-existed with modern humans as late as 11,500 years ago. This presumably new species has been nicknamed Red Deer Cave people because of their apparent taste for the extinct giant red deer. Other species recently discovered include: the 'hobbits' on the Indonesian island of Flores which are also thought to have been around until 12,000 years ago and the Denisovans discovered in 2010 that co-existed with modern humans in Siberia about 30,000 years ago."
I, for one, think this is absolutely fascinating! The thought that, as recently as 10k years ago, there were other species of human is amazing - that's not far off of written history!
I wonder if we could think about cloning these people - is the DNA "fresh" enough?
Cemil.
Besides Homo Sapiens, there are Neanderthals, Floresians (I ain't calling them "hobbits"), Denisovans and now these?
Pre-history is getting crowded with failed competitors. Yay us?
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
They lasted til the end of the ice age and then died-out when the earth grew warmer. I wonder why? Any idea what they looked like?
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
And I thought we got over scientific racism a long time ago...
What missing link?
Well, it's not quite as bad as their last article, "Possible New Human Species Discovered in Cardiff."
Though at least they had the obligatory blurry, shaky video for that one.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Based on the title, I thought that mankind has just made another evolutionary leap! But no, it's actually an old human species, not a new one.
Ezekiel 23:20
The missing link was found. And the two new missing links on either side of that, and the new "missing links".
Please, if serious you need to accept that it has become so well studied of a field that scientists actually estimated based on previous research where a "crock-o-duck" should have existed, went there and found the bloody fossils. Same for whales. Your argument has devolved, pun intended, from something that could be respected to practically a parody of Xeno arguing that a runner could never catch a turtle.
If a troll, I may be feeding you, but feeding you is far worse than feeding people who actually use such arguments. Please, just stop.
Named the Red Deer Cave people, after their apparent penchant for home-cooked venison...
Of course, we know that rest of the human species at the time preferred takeout...
The link between /. commenters and intelligent human beings?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
To be fair, that headline was practically begging for someone to interpret it as a reference to current humans, not to a population of hominids that lived in the area we call China thousands of years ago.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
We have Pygmies today across Africa. They've endured a lot of human rights issues over the years, and theories are out suggesting Iodine deficiencies are related to their short stature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmies
Why do we see papers about recent human evolutionary theory only when it pertains to extinct peoples? Are the currently living pygmies less studied simply because anthropologists aren't interested in living people, and nobody else is into these fields of science?
That 'image' you're holding? It's a balloon animal with a Groucho Marx face drawn on it with magic marker.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
As opposed to "corporatis oppressednus"? What about "imperius oppressednus"? There are all sorts of ideologies with which to oppress people. If you think we, in the west, don't enslave others through various forms, you're quite mistaken. Our hands are cleaner only because there are lots of steps we never see and it's not happening on out dirt... (that damned constitution getting in the way you know)
i could make a poor taste joke about cheap Chinese knockoffs right about now...
We just don't recognize them because their bones are buried or cremated and we generally dont go digging up graves.
It won't be long until lawyers from the Saul Zaentz Company in California start threatening the 'Hobbit' race of Flores... not even extinction will save them!
Huh? I thought they actually found NEW (as in living, just formed) human species...
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Who says they aren't related, in much the same way that Neanderthals interbred with humans, such that some of their DNA persists in certain populations? To say that modern Europeans ARE Neanderthals is a bit much, but so is the opposite.
There's always an oppressor. If not you have anarchy, which could be called oppression by the strong.
Then you need a better filesystem integrity checker.
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)
This (Futurama S06E09 exerpt) sums it up quite well imo.
BM3
Because... there are no missing links, but that's what the discovery of the next one will be another one of.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Politicians. Apparently descended from some inbred Neanderthals...
wake up and hold your nose
The journal article that is being linked to is open-access. There is no paywall, regardless of where you are accessing it from. You can download it and print as many copies as you want, you can even download it and repost it in its entirety on your own website if you feel like it. You can do the same with every article in the PLoS journals as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I read the summary and immediately got a flash of 'The Tomorrow People' ;)
Too many Godzilla movies in my youth I guess...
but...but...but.. the world is only 6,000 years old and man was created in his current image by god! There must be some other explanation!
That's why they're a different species: made in someone else's image.
And survived right up 'til 5500 years before creation, too!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No, no, how can they have been telling us for thousands of years? Every Chinese person knows China has 5000 years of history, while the West has approximately 5 years of history. There were some reported sightings of Westerners once in the Ming dynasty, but this has since been discovered to have been a hoax, constructed from a bearded monkey on stilts.
"apparent taste for the extinct giant red deer" It is interesting to ponder how they had a taste for an extinct animal...perhap my grammar is out of date.
Nos Morituri te salutamus
While you are right that his comment is idiotic, it is not because missing links were found, it is because modern biology does not consider it necessary for any link to even exist and they are therefore not missing. Google 'punctuated equilibrium' for details. Of course the term missing link was devised by naysayers to evolution before most prehuman ancestors were categorised so it is not entirely incorrect to say the missing links were found.
Wow, I thought they were talking about a new species, but it turns out they're talking about old ones.
The mix of characteristics suggests that they might have been a distinct species, but may be just a mixed ancestry of barely premodern human types.
Huh? I thought they actually found NEW (as in living, just formed) human species...
I was hoping for an ancient one, living undisturbed (until now) in some forgotten valley high in Tibet.
You were not the only one to be sorely disappointed at the mention of fossils.
Typical of the Chinese manufacturing industry: they saw other parts of the world making relatively intelligent hairless primates, and decided to make their own knock-off version!
Found, but throws a 503.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Generations are discrete, so eventually you'd reach a point where there are no missing links.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just because you aren't reading about something on Slashdot doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Have you seen how they reproduce?
In another 10,000 years everyone will be the Orange People of New Jersey...
If the Red Deer people had any writing, it was probably pointing out how stupid Homo Sapiens were and how much more intelligent they were.
Then they froze to death, were killed by Homo Sapiens, or were eaten by a Grue.
Considering taxonomy is the science of identifying, naming, and classifying species I believe taxonomists are in a reasonably good position to do so.
Though it is exciting that scientific breakthroughs in genetics over the last ~20 years have helped revise classifications and clarify relationships between 'species'. Modern taxonomy has been going on for nearly three hundred years with pretty much only anatomy to work with.
The 'species problem' may finally be surmounted at some point in the future, if they can set a genetic standard to differentiate species. We currently still have legacy classifications for many species which can definitely interbreed and produce viable offspring, and many others that can likely do so (including hominoids).
Huh? I thought they actually found NEW (as in living, just formed) human species...
I was hoping for an ancient one, living undisturbed (until now) in some forgotten valley high in Tibet. You were not the only one to be sorely disappointed at the mention of fossils.
You don't think there might have been a bit more publicity if they had found Shangri La?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If they were found alive, they'd just put them to work at Foxconn making iPads. The only reason Yeti has been left alone is its hands are too big to handle the little instruments.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ancient_history
Casteism
we were so advanced we just made shit up and systematically killed off anything and everything that didn't fit our new belief....
The Chinese claim that they have found Shangri La. It is in the northwest corner of Yunnan province, on the Tibetan Plateau. I went there a few years ago and it was definitely high up, I had trouble breathing and came down after a day,much to my wife's disappointment. It is quite .... Chinese.... in a Tibetan way. Most of the people there are Tibetan, but the business owners are mostly Han Chinese. It is a relatively popular tourist destination, but more for backpackers, at that time anyway (@ 10 years ago).
So, you can go, it is a good trip if you like lite adventure travel.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
You have either misunderstood punctuated equilibrium really badly, or expressed it terribly.
The distinction between conventional neo-Darwinian ideas and punctuated equilibrium ideas is in the temporal distribution of rate of change of the species. Conventional noe-Darwinian ideas have relatively steady, frequent small changes in response to environmental changes ("evolution by creeps", in the famous joke) and therefore lots of opportunities for the fossilisation of intermediate forms. In contrast, punctuated equilibrium posits organisms accommodating to their environmental changes most of the time in ways that are not visible in their anatomy (say, by behavioural change, or subtle biochemical changes) - that's the "equilibrium" part of the idea. However eventually the required degree of change exceeds what can be accommodated by cryptic changes, and substantial change occurs in the body over a comparatively short period of time (the "punctuation", or in the old joke, "evolution by jerks"). In consequence, the intermediate forms are only around (and potentially fossilisable) for a short period of time and so are relatively unlikely to to be found in the fossil record.
The "missing link" forms do exist in both ideas, but for differing periods of time. With fossilisation (and human discovery of and identification of the fossil) being essentially a random sampling event, the probability of actually seeing the intermediate forms is crudely proportional to the length of time that the intermediate forms exist for.
In consequence, to distinguish between the two processes is only going to be possible with a good statistical analysis of abundant data across an interval of gradual environmental change with steady sediment deposition. Which data is expensive and time-consuming to acquire.
Of course, it is entirely possible that both styles of change occur, at different times in the same lineage of organisms.
In the laboratory, using fast-generating, high-population organism (i.e. microbes), the evidence seems to be that both processes occur. Which is a typically messy biological result.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Which would be the point at which you're looking at a complete genetic profile of every member of the species in question.
We're nearly there for some rare species in captive breeding programmes (when the motivation of the genetic work is to try to preserve the largest possible amount of the remaining genetic variation in the species) ; we're not going to get there for organisms which are not currently alive, because DNA decays rapidly in most circumstances.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
We have Pygmies today across Africa. They've endured a lot of human rights issues over the years
Yeah, they've endured a lot of human rights issues over the years, let's start pricking them with needles. That would fly...
Ezekiel 23:20