"He must, so know the starfish and the student biologist who sits at the feet of living things, proliferate in all
directions. Having certain tendencies, he must move along their lines to the limit of their potentialities."

John Steinbeck - Log from the Sea of Cortez

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Also in Nature...

...the breaking news about a possible human relative identified by DNA analysis of a finger bone found in a Siberian cave. Discovered in 2008, the bone had been assumed to belong to one of hte Neanderthals that had lived in the region. Initial analysis indicates that it represents another hominid species. This means that there may have been (at least) four Homo species living across Asia in the latter part of the last ice ago - Homo sapiens, the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis as indicated by the "Hobbit" find in Indonesia, and this new species in Siberia. Of course, for the time being, caution is warranted.

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