Extraordinary find is 'missing link' in human evolution.

[TWiley]

Fossil Ida: extraordinary find is 'missing link' in human evolutionPerfectly preserved fossil Ida, unveiled

Scientists have discovered an exquisitely preserved ancient primate fossil that they believe forms a crucial "missing link" between our own evolutionary branch of life and the rest of the animal kingdom.

The 47m-year-old primate – named Ida – has been hailed as the fossil equivalent of a "Rosetta Stone" for understanding the critical early stages of primate evolution.

The top-level international research team, who have studied her in secret for the past two years, believe she is the most complete and best preserved primate fossil ever uncovered. The skeleton is 95% complete and thanks to the unique location where she died, it is possible to see individual hairs covering her body and even the make-up of her final meal – a last vegetarian snack.

"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of all the mammals; with cows and sheep, and elephants and anteaters," said Sir David Attenborough who is narrating a BBC documentary on the find. "The more you look at Ida, the more you can see, as it were, the primate in embryo."

"This will be the one pictured in the textbooks for the next hundred years," said Dr Jørn Hurum, the palaeontologist from Oslo University's Natural History Museum who assembled the scientific team to study the fossil. "It tells a part of our evolution that's been hidden so far. It's been hidden because the only specimens are so incomplete and so broken there's nothing almost to study." The fossil has been formally named Darwinius masillae in honour of Darwin's 200th birthday year.

It has been shipped across the Atlantic for an unveiling ceremony hosted by the mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg today. There is even talk of Ida being the first non-living thing to feature on the front cover of People magazine.

She will then be transported back to Oslo, via a brief stop at the Natural History Museum in London on Tuesday, 26 May, when Attenborough will host a press conference.

Ida was originally discovered by an amateur fossil hunter in the summer of 1983 at Messel pit, a world renowned fossil site near Darmstadt in Germany. He kept it under wraps for over 20 years before deciding to sell it via a German fossil dealer called Thomas Perner. It was Perner who approached Hurum two years ago.

"My heart started beating extremely fast," said Hurum, "I knew that the dealer had a world sensation in his hands. I could not sleep for 2 nights. I was just thinking about how to get this to an official museum so that it could be described and published for science." Hurum would not reveal what the university museum paid for the fossil, but the original asking price was $1m. He did not see the fossil before buying it – just three photographs, representing a huge gamble.

Full Story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/ida-fossil-missing-link

Oops, what will the fundamentalists say?

[gcomeau]

1. ...

Oops, what will the fundamentalists say?

Same thing they always say. That that is a fossil of one unique, distinct and "fully formed" species that they're sure has no relation to any other species, and demand a transitional fossil between that and everything else... never grasping that ALL transitional fossils are of "fully formed" species since there isn't any other kind...and that effectively ALL fossils are transitional between what came before it and what came after it.

[HopeHoops]

2. They'll say "IDA was ON THE ARK!"

What OTHER excuse could they have?

:shrug:

[dmallind]

13. Nah - you forgot the obvious.

Any transitional fossil (which technically is pretty much all of them really) creates TWO more missing links.

Historically it's gone like this:

Scientist: Homo sapiens sapiens (Z) evolved from primitive lemur-like species (A)

Fundy: You can't say that until you show me missing link M!

Scientist: Hey guess what? We found M in between A and Z - you can see it has features of both!

Fundy: No you can't say that until you show me missing links F and R!

.
.
.

(much snippage)


Scientist: OK after investigating this for only about 125 years and even with the incredible rarity of fossilized examples we finally covered all the major transitions from early mammals through simians and hominids all the way to us. A through Z - there you go now you have to accept it!

Fundy: No you can't say that until you show me missing links A.1, B.2, C.3 and so on!

Fact is the denialists will never run out of decimal places for their "missing links".

[HopeHoops]

14. Shit - I couldn't even follow that.

How the HELL would you expect a Republican moron to get past the first three words?

[dmallind]

15. In certain specific areas your average fundy is quite bright

They are rigorously conditioned to be able to parse any datum with incredible sophistication in order to excavate a big enough gap for their imaginary friend to live in.

[Arctic Dave]

3. They will say that Gawd is testing their stupidity...uh... I mean faith.

[jkshaw]

4. "IS" a missing link in the evolution of humans is not

exactly what the scientists themselves are saying. They're are saying that it has the POTENTIAL of being A missing link. Lots of weasel words. But fascinating nonetheless.

[Rebubula]

5. Unpossible....

...the Earth is only about 6000 years old...how can this be possible?

I call Shenanigans...

[theoldman]

6. There is no such thing as a missing link.

The process of evolution goes step by step as change occurs over millions of years. If you want to call each peculiar configuration a link then all are links. The only missing links are the ones we have not found. When I find the keys to my car they are no longer missing.

[lunatica]

9. The missing link is supposedly the deciding link between primates and humans

And recently they've realized that evolution can be very fast as mutations occur in DNA even from parents to children. The mutated DNA is then passed down to ensuing offspring, perhaps as a recessive gene until later it becomes a dominant gene.

There have probably been many mutations that never made it and ended up killing of whole communities of humans.

Some of the differences in the races are probably mutations that happened quickly.

[Arugula Latte]

16. Humans are primates, though.

Did you mean "primitive" primates (for want of a better word).

[mmonk]

7. What was a Republican doing in Germany?

[guitar man]

8. goose stepping and going "sig heil!!"

what else? It's really what they do best. :D

[mmonk]

10. So that's where the Nazis got it from.

I always wondered.

[guitar man]

11. exactly

the pugs had it own long before the Nazis :P

[lazer47]

12. Ya'll have not being paying attention,, He was the VP for 8 yrs,,

[Occam Bandage]

17. They'll say it is an example of a "fully formed species" and not a "transitional form,"

and demand to see the "transitional form" for the two new gaps which have been created in the fossil record.

[redqueen]

18. He kept it secret for 20 years?!

WHY?

:banghead:

[Garbo 2004]

19. Scientists not claiming it is "the missing link" but it is a significant find.

"But despite a television teaser campaign with the slogan “This changes everything” and comparisons to the moon landing and the Kennedy assassination, the significance of this discovery may not be known for years. An article to be published on Tuesday in PLoS ONE, a scientific journal, will report more prosaically that the scientists involved said the fossil could be a “stem group” that was a precursor to higher primates, with the caveat, 'but we are not advocating this.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/business/media/19fossil.html?bl&ex=1242964800&en=03a8f7720cdc331a&ei=5087%0A

History Channel documentary to air on Memorial Day.