New computer imaging techniques used on child neanderthal fossils show that they bear no resemblance to child human bones. This would lead science to believe that early humans and neanderthals coexsisted but did not interbreed, as has been suggested before as a possible cause of the neanderthal's demise.
Combined with earlier DNA evidence that Neanderthals and Humans are not related, this new find begins to shut the door on such theories.
A New Face on Human Origins
In Kenya, a new aincent skull has been found on the western shore of Lake Turkana which is confusing many archaeologists. It is being called, Kenyanthropus platyops. It has a very human-like face (being flat-faced instead of the protruding face of supposed human ancestors), yet also some features of other more well known possible human ancestors, such as a small ear canal and small teeth. The find would be great for archaeologists, since it appears to show a transition from ape to human, if it was not for one thing.....it is as old if not older than the oldest accepted human ape ancestor, nicknamed "Lucy". Therefore, how can a species which apears to be very human, come before its supposed ancestor?
It appears that there are different facial features that developed independant from each other and not in the slow and steady progression of Darwinian Evolution.
New DNA samples from "Mungo Man" bones (found in 1974 at Lake Mungo, New South Wales, Australia) are causing a ripple in the Evolution community. The bones, dated to between 56,000 - 68,000 years old, carry no DNA connection to any African humans. The direct genetic decendents of these people are since extinct, thought to have interbred with the migrating African peoples.
This is a challenge to the popular belief that all modern humans came in successive waves of migration out of Africa 100,000 - 150,000 years ago. For if we all are from Africa, then we should all have DNA links with each other.
These modern human skeletons therefore show that there could -and indeed was- multiple independent human evolutions, rather than the one large Human Evolution that is taught today.
Scientists report today, April 4, 2001 that the Hubble Space Telescope has observed the most distant supernova yet. The supernova, or exploded star, is 10,000,000,000 light years from Earth, putting its age at 10 billion years ago. This is very close to the accepted age of the universe of 12 - 15 billion years old.
The supernova is odd because it is brighter and moves a different way than it should, if the universe has been expanding at a constant rate since the beginning of time. The brightness and movement suggests rather that the universe is accelerating. Scientists think that the universe began in a "big bang" 12 - 15 billion years ago and then sped up at around 6 - 8 billion years ago.
What caused this acceleration which continues today?
It has been suggested that the mysterious and ever elusive and undetectable Dark Matter could play a role. Also, it has been suggested that there may have been less intersteller dust in the past and so, more light is able to reach us. More obervations will be needed for a definative answer.
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