Nog een kijktip: Dinsdag 26 mei, BBC 1, 22:00 - 23:00, Uncovering our earliest ancestor

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Deze reportage (door een ander -met respekt- fossiel: David Attenborough)
gaat over de laatste ontdekking.

http://online.wsj.com/
Researchers on Tuesday (Cees: 12mei09) unveiled the fossil of a 47
million-year-old creature that offered clues about what some of our
earliest ancestors might have looked like.

The animal was the size of a cat, had a long tail, and died at nine or 10
months old. Several of its features can be commonly seen in modern-day
primates, including baby teeth and an opposable big toe. Instead of claws,
"she's got fingertips with nails like we do," said Jorn Hurum of the
Natural History Museum in Oslo, who led the research.
[deel weggelaten]
Despite the publicity surrounding the announcement, other scientists say
the finding isn't likely to be the last word on which branch of early
primates eventually gave rise to monkeys, apes and humans.

The scientists gave the creature the scientific name Darwinius masillae
and the nickname Ida. In a paper published online in peer-reviewed journal
Public Library of Science, they conclude that Ida was an agile,
independent-feeding female that lived in the trees above the forest floor
in what is now Germany.

She is "a representative of an ancestor group that gave rise to higher
primates," said Jens Franzen of the Senckenberg Research Institute in
Frankfurt, who helped analyze the fossil. However, he stopped short of
calling the animal a direct ancestor of humans. "She's not our
great-great-great-grandmother, but our great-great-great-aunt."

> Kijktip: Dinsdag 26 mei, BBC 1, 22:00 - 23:00
>
>  	Wetenschap
>
>   	Uncovering our earliest ancestor: The link
> Wetenschappelijke documentaire over de evolutie.
>
> **********

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