New fossil moves story of mankind back one million years

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent

The seven stone, four-foot tall female roamed forests 4.4 million years ago – a million years before the previous oldest discovered fossil.

Her skeleton promises to fill in gaps about how we became human and evolved from apes. It has already reversed some common assumptions of evolution.

Rather than humans evolving from chimps, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved together from another common more ancient ancestor.

Each has evolved and changed separately along the way, it is believed.

Formally known as Ardipithecus ramidus — which means root of the ground ape — the find is detailed in 11 research papers published in the journal Science.

“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever been able to come,” said Dr Tim White, an anthropologist and one of the researchers at the University of California.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor six million to seven million years ago, the research suggests.

Ardi has many traits that do not appear in modern-day African apes, leading to the conclusion that the apes evolved extensively since they shared that last common ancestor with humans.

A study of Ardi, under way since the first bones were discovered in 1994 in the Afar region of Ethiopia, indicates her species lived in the woodlands and could climb on all fours along tree branches.

But the development of arms and legs indicates she did not spend much time in the trees, the study claims.

Her pelvis suggests she walked upright and her teeth are closer to humans than primates. While she would have had a muzzle, it did not project out as much as modern apes.

Dr White described her as a “mosaic” that was neither human or chimpanzee.

“The only way we’re really going to know what this last common ancestor looked like is to go and find it,” he said. “Well, at 4.4 million years ago we found something pretty close to it.”

Dr David Pilbeam, palaeoanthropology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, said: “This is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution.

“It is relatively complete in that it preserves head, hands, feet, and some critical parts in between.”

Until the discovery of Ardi, the earliest well-known stage of human evolution was Australopithecus, the small-brained, fully bipedal “ape man” that lived between four million and one million years ago.

The most famous Australopithecus fossil is the 3.2-million-year-old “Lucy,” found in 1974 about 45 miles north of where Ardi would later be discovered.

Lucy was described as the “mother of man” and the missing link between humans and chimps. Before Ardi, she was thought to be the oldest fossil of a human ancestor that walked on two legs.

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Making people move in slow motion

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News

Brain waves appear to have a direct effect on behaviour

Researchers have used electrodes to make people move in slow motion.

The scientists "boosted" human subjects' brain waves - applying a small alternating current via electrodes on the volunteers' scalps.

These waves are patterns generated naturally by groups of neurons, or brain cells, firing in a rhythm.

In the journal Current Biology, the researchers described how their finding shows that brain waves directly affect human behaviour.

The results also reveal clues about movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, sufferers of which have difficulty making voluntary movements.

Lead author Professor Peter Brown, from University College London in the UK, said: "We induced the same patterns as you see in normal brains via electrodes."

He and his team boosted one specific form of relatively low frequency brain wave called a beta oscillation.

"Different parts of the brain work together and generate certain frequencies," he explained, "and the movement areas of the brain come together in beta activity.

"That activity is suppressed just prior to and during movement, so we think the body gets rid of it to prepare to make a new movement."

Boosting beta brain waves slowed people's movement by 10%

To investigate the effect of this beta activity, the research team gave healthy human subjects electrical stimulation through their scalps.

"The currents we use are very small... but [they] shape the likelihood of neurons firing in the imposed rhythm," he told BBC News.

During the test each volunteer was shown a dot on a computer screen. They were able to control another marker on the same screen with a joystick.

"The dot jumped to a new location and when they were signalled to by an alarm they had to move [their marker] to that new location as quickly as they could," Professor Brown explained.

"When we applied the beta stimulation that quick movement was slowed by 10%.

"So we have a direct experiment showing a causal link between the oscillations and the behaviour," he said.

Professor Brown explained that beta activity was important in Parkinson's disease.

"So this information is very helpful," he said. "Since we've shown that this slows people down, it tells us what Parkinson's disease treatments should be trying to suppress."

Professor John Stein, a neuroscientist from the University of Oxford pioneered the theory of what he refers to as a "beta straitjacket" - a pattern of brain activity that prevents Parkinson's disease patients from making voluntary movements.

"The theory is that... in Parkinson's disease when people try to move they cannot suppress beta [brain waves] and therefore cannot move," he told BBC News.

"This study is the first to show... in normal subjects that beta activity actually slows movement. This supports a causal role for [the] activity in causing a fixed posture and tending to prevent voluntary movements."

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Shell Executives Accuse Oil-Covered Otter Of Playing It Up

The otter, milking it for every last ounce of sympathy.

OAK HARBOR, WA—Executives from the Shell Oil Company blasted a floundering, oil-covered sea otter Monday, accusing the small aquatic mammal of grossly exaggerating the effects of last week's hazardous petroleum spill.

According to Shell president Marvin Odum, the otter has been putting on "quite a show" in front of rescue workers and clean-up crews, and is making the 860,000-gallon, three-mile-wide toxic slick seem like a much bigger deal than it actually is.

"He's fine," said Odum, referring to the 40-pound sea creature, who was found washed ashore and appeared to be suffering from anaphylactic shock. "Trust me, before all of the cameras and reporters showed up, our little buddy here was having no problem at all cleaning himself off. Now, all of a sudden, it's severe spastic convulsions this and complete kidney failure that."

"Seriously, come on," the Shell executive continued. "Talk about laying it on thick."

Odum, who was alerted to the massive petroleum spill early Monday morning, claimed that the attention-seeking otter was not only overdoing it with his frantic and anguished squealing, but that his habit of gasping desperately for oxygen was "melodramatic."

In addition, Odum claimed that the otter's rapidly fluctuating body temperature and growing heart palpitations were nothing more than a sad attempt to curry favor with Coast Guard officials, Greenpeace volunteers, and anybody else not smart enough to see right through his "little ploy."

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Shell executives were disgusted by the flamboyant, over-the-top act put on by contaminated wildlife Monday.

"Give me a break," Odum said as rescue crews tried to remove hazardous waste from the mammal's pelt. "Clearly, this otter has some weird, personal vendetta against Shell and large corporations in general, and wants everyone to cry at his pathetic sob story."

"Just look at him out there," Odum added while volunteers tried to keep the sea creature from losing consciousness. "The sick bastard's loving every minute of this."

Odum also downplayed claims by rescue workers that the otter may not be able to handle the stress of the clean-off process, saying that the animal is "acting ridiculous" and is just doing an impression of what he thinks an otter affected by a massive oil spill is supposed to act like.

"The extreme shivering, the wheezing, the prolonged dehydration, it's all part of the same gaudy burlesque," Shell CEO Peter Voser said. "It's simple: The otter gets some oil on his body, and he thinks that gives him carte blanche to play the victim. Don't you people get it? This is exactly what he wants. You're all playing right into his twisted little game."

Voser even called into question the otter's mental stability, citing the sea pup's early attempts to drink the highly contaminated water around him as an example of just how far the publicity-hungry mammal was willing to go to make the Shell Oil Company look like "the bad guy."

On Saturday, Shell chairman Jorma J. Ollila issued a statement accusing the sea mammal of being a master manipulator, and said that what the otter really needs to do is grow up.

Ollila went on to praise a number of petroleum-soaked seals, pelicans, and sea turtles in the contaminated area, commending them for remaining completely still and silent, and not "making a big production" out of the environmental disaster when rescue and camera crews arrived at the scene.

The one-page document, however, focused largely on the single otter, who as of press time was in critical condition.

"Rescue crews have to stop coddling him and giving him everything he wants," Ollila said. "Because if they don't, other otters are just going to pull the exact same crap the next time one of our tankers ruptures and we spill crude oil everywhere."

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