Photo
March 16, 2012
Faces of our Ancestors - Discovery News “To put a human face on our ancestors, scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute used sophisticated methods to form 27 model heads based on tiny bone fragments, teeth and skulls collected from across the globe… Homo ergaster The almost perfectly preserved skeleton of the “Turkana Boy” is one of the most spectacular discoveries in paleoanthropology. Judging from his anatomy, scientists believe this Homo ergaster was a tall youth about 13 to 15 years old.” These faces are so amazing. 

Faces of our Ancestors - Discovery News

“To put a human face on our ancestors, scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute used sophisticated methods to form 27 model heads based on tiny bone fragments, teeth and skulls collected from across the globe…

Homo ergaster

The almost perfectly preserved skeleton of the “Turkana Boy” is one of the most spectacular discoveries in paleoanthropology. Judging from his anatomy, scientists believe this Homo ergaster was a tall youth about 13 to 15 years old.”

These faces are so amazing. 

Photo
February 28, 2012
doctordisaster: n-a-s-a: The Opposing Tails of Comet Garradd Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Pölzl  Holy crap this text is tiny. Another area of fuzzy thinking out there is the movement called Intelligent Design. It asserts that some things are too marvelous or too intricate to explain. The contention is that these things defy common scientific accounts for cause and effect, and so they’re ascribed to an intelligent, purposeful designer. […] So let’s start a movement called Stupid Design, and we’ll see where that takes us. For example, what’s going on with your appendix? It’s much better at killing you than it is at anything else. That’s definitely a stupid design. What about your pinky toenail? You can barely put nail polish on it, there’s no real estate there. How about bad breath, or the fact that you breathe and drink through the same hole in your body, causing some fraction of us to choke to death every year? And here’s my last one. Ready? Down there between our legs, it’s like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that? ROFL.

doctordisaster:

n-a-s-a:

The Opposing Tails of Comet Garradd

Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Pölzl 

Holy crap this text is tiny.

Another area of fuzzy thinking out there is the movement called Intelligent Design. It asserts that some things are too marvelous or too intricate to explain. The contention is that these things defy common scientific accounts for cause and effect, and so they’re ascribed to an intelligent, purposeful designer. […] So let’s start a movement called Stupid Design, and we’ll see where that takes us. For example, what’s going on with your appendix? It’s much better at killing you than it is at anything else. That’s definitely a stupid design. What about your pinky toenail? You can barely put nail polish on it, there’s no real estate there. How about bad breath, or the fact that you breathe and drink through the same hole in your body, causing some fraction of us to choke to death every year? And here’s my last one. Ready? Down there between our legs, it’s like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system.

Who designed that?

ROFL.

Quote
September 09, 2011
“

For example, the study of the hand shows that major changes in the thumb usually associated with toolmaking “did not imply abandoning life in the trees. In the foot article, we’re introduced to a unique and previously unknown combination of archaic and advanced traits in sediba,” Potts explained.

The researchers reported that the fingers of A. sediba were curved, as might be seen in a creature that climbed in trees. But they were also slim and the thumb was long, more like a Homo thumb, so the hand was potentially capable of using tools, though no tools were found at the site.

…The heel bone seems primitive, the researchers said. Yet its front is angled, suggesting an arched foot for walking on the ground, and there is a large attachment for an Achilles tendon as in modern humans, they said.

The pelvis is short and broad like a human pelvis, creating more of a bowl shape than in earlier Australopith fossils like the famous Lucy, explained Job Kibii of the University of the Witwatersrand.

That may force a re-evaluation of the process of evolution because many researchers had previously associated development of a human-like pelvis with enlargement of the brain, but in A. sediba the brain was still small.

…After the bones were discovered, the children of South Africa were invited to name the child, which they called “Karabo,” meaning “answer” in the local Tswana language.

”

—

Australopithecus Sediba Bones: South Africa Discovery Offers Evolution ‘Game-Changer’

This is pretty fascinating.  I love the name!  :)

Quote
August 29, 2011
“the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change…the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect.”

— Republicans Against Science - NYTimes.com