Becoming Human

The authors of a paper in Nature this week  conclude a modification of a haplotype found in the Denisovan genome apparently has given modern Tibetans (and their ancestors) an adaptation to high altitude, thus avoiding the hypoxia thinner air causes in individuals lacking this genetic combination.

The Nature Podcast this week reports (from another journal; an interesting finding from Germany: an indication Neanderthals may have consumed more vegetables than previously thought.

Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia is the well known site of the first evidence of Homo erectus outside of Africa and once more has yielded a rich find according to a paper in the journal Science this week. Known informally as Skull 5 and assigned the number D4500, this complete skull required no reconstruction.

Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia is the well known site of the first evidence of Homo erectus outside of Africa and once more has yielded a rich find according to a paper in the journal Science this week. Known informally as Skull 5 and assigned the number D4500, this complete skull required no reconstruction.

The questions of when and why intelligent speech developed among humans continue to puzzle researchers. The increasing complexity of fashioning tools, from the simplest of stone implements to heat treatment and forging of metals, has been considered by some researchers as a proxy for intelligent speech but views differ as to where along the spectrum of increasing complexity did speech arise.

A small event can have large consequences. So it is with a single gene controlling the production of an enzyme called lactase. Lactase enables infant mammals to digest lactose, the principal sugar in mother's milk ensuring the newborn has a reliable source of nutrition until able to digest solid food.

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Two papers published in recent weeks demonstrate again the rigor of the scientific method. The first  concerned a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal tooth from Belgium, while the other pertained to the controversial Australopithecus sediba fossils from South Africa.

At a conference  held earlier this month in Cold Spring Harbor NY the leader of the team exploring the ancient cave in Central Asia called Denisova (photo below) announced startling results from the team’s genetic analyses.

A puzzling set of fossils, discovered near Johannesburg in 2008 and surrounded by controversy from the first, are back in the news and both the puzzle and the controversy are no nearer resolution.  Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand and his son uncovered the first of these fossils.