Did you hear the news? We’ve got a new ancestor.
A team of researchers, led by a UC-Berkeley paleoanthropologist, revealed that a trove of fossils from Ethiopia are from 36 members of a prehuman species that lived 4.4 million years ago. That’s more than a million years before Lucy, the now-familiar partial skeleton that has supplied so much of what we know about our early ancestors.
The newly revealed fossils were discovered 15 years ago, but they’ve been under study since. The scientists have named the ancient species Ardipithecus ramidus, after the word for “root” in the local Afar language.
The fossils were found to be much more “modern” than expected, and in some ways more like humans than like apes. Experts say this may indicate that some features we consider primitive in chimps — big canine teeth, hands curved for swinging from branches — may actually be later developments.
Fascinating stuff. Lots of stories about this all over the Internet, including this one.
- Congrats to Healthy Shasta, which recently won a silver medal in the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Spotlight Awards for its annual Walk This Way event. This year’s Walk This Way is TODAY, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Turtle Bay Exploration Park. Admission to Turtle Bay is free, and lots of fun events are planned. For a complete schedule, click here.
- Pink, No Elephants: If you happened to see the Sundial Bridge on Wednesday night and it looked pink, you weren’t hallucinating. Crews were testing the lights for the upcoming one-time-only Think Pink illumination of the bridge on Oct. 15. The bridge will glow pink for two hours that night for breast cancer awareness. Lots of events are scheduled. More here.
- Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko has announced he’s running for re-election in 2010. Bosenko has been sheriff since 2006, and has been in law enforcement more than 30 years.
- Everybody Needs an Editor: I’m working on a novel that opens with a holdup at a movie theater. I’ve read over this manuscript, oh, eight or nine times. My best friend, a professional writer/editor, has marked it up. My agent has read it. And, still, on the umpty-umpth rewrite, I find that masked gunmen “ordered two gasping girls out of the concession stand.” I didn’t even know they sold gasping girls at movie theaters. That would explain why there are so many in the audiences.
Tips appreciated: Send news tidbits to steveb.anewscafe@gmail.com.
