The studies show that “whilst these very early fossils could walk well, our initial findings suggest that efficient running came about quite a bit later in the fossil record,” he said, adding “we have only just started to look at running and so there are still plenty of questions to answer.”
Funny, I wouldn’t think that a fossil could walk at all…
“The next really interesting question is to look in more detail at running. It has been suggested that our ability to run for long distances took a lot longer to evolve than our ability to walk. Our techniques should let us get to the bottom of this question because it will let us measure the running abilities of our fossil ancestors directly.”
“What we need to discover now is when in our evolution did we develop an Achilles tendon as knowing this will help unravel the mystery of our origins.”
This is kind of cool news from my current neck of the woods. A black Florida panther. Except it’s not–it’s a bobcat. Is it a species, or a mutation? One suspects the latter or there’d be a lot more of them.
A potential problem with special relativity? I do think that people are too quick to say “never” to things like FTL travel. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about the universe. Probably much more than we do, in fact.
A man with no brain is a successful French civil servant. Color me shocked. The jokes pretty much write themselves. I expect George Bush to appoint him to something or other any moment.
Seriously, I do think this reveals how much about the human mind that we still don’t understand (and once again gives pause about subjects like Terri Schiavo).
[Afternoon update]
And of course, what would a topic like this be without a Free Republic thread, complete with several examples of the concept.