See Life: May 2009

This is something I write about after reading a news.

It’s very interesting.

The Missing Link

When we look around us at the natural world, there is often an ulterior motive. We desperately want to know where we came from. We love to think about us and about our ancestors. On 19th of May 2009, a fossil creature was unveiled as the closest thing we can get as to our direct ancestors. The fossil, nicknamed Ida or by its scientific name Darwinius masillae, is claimed to be a "missing link" between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives.
Ida was discovered in the 1980s in a fossil treasure-trove called Messel Pit, near Darmstadt in Germany. For much of the intervening period, it has been in a private collection. The top-level international research team which was led by Jorn Hurum, 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.
According to one of the scientists who has studied her, she is a "Rosetta stone" for understanding our early evolution. One reason Ida is so special is her exquisite preservation. Ida is particularly well-preserved, her body pressed between layers of stone known as oil shale, and that is because the Messel pit, near Darmstadt in Germany, is a very exceptional place. Forty-seven million years ago it was a volcanic lake surrounded by a steamy sub-tropical forest.
The fossil has both adult and baby teeth, indicating that it was weaned and about 9 months old when it died. X-rays revealed a broken wrist, which the team of scientists believe may have contributed to Ida's death. The team believes this stopped her from climbing and she had to emerge from the trees to drink water from the 250-metre-deep lake. Ida may have been overcome by carbon dioxide gas while drinking from the Messel lake, which was often covered by a low-lying blanket of the gas. Hampered by the broken wrist, the young primate may have fallen into unconsciousness and may slip into the lake. The primate sunk to the bottom and was preserved for 47 million years.
Since the discovery of Ida, the study of it has gained a lot of attention across multiple platforms than any study in recent history. The search for direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years. Any bits found that has a connection to the missing link has never been looked off.
Jorn Hurum said that the fossil creature, Ida, is most likely to be the missing link between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. There is few evidence supporting this theory.
The first primates are believed to have evolved about 55 million years ago. During that period, the first whales, horses, bats and monkeys emerged, and the early primates branched into two groups - one group lived on mainly as lemurs, and the second developed into monkeys, apes and humans. The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line.
Up until now, the most famous fossil primate in the world has been Lucy, a 3.18-million-year-old hominid found in Ethiopia in 1974. She was then our earliest known ancestor, and only 40% complete. But at 95% complete, Ida was so well preserved in the mud at the bottom of the volcanic lake, there is even evidence of her fur shadow and remains of her last meal.
With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own. Important evidence is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later.
There are experts like Dr Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and author of The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey, who argued that this theory could damage the popularisation of science if the creature was not all that it was hyped up to be. He also said that he would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans. There are also many out there who disagree that Ida could be the link to our ancestors. This is because they think that human evolving from a primate is completely ridicules. They said there is no fossil that can fully explain an evolutionary transition all on its own. There are lots of uncommon thing between them and us. However I think differently. Evolution wouldn’t be evolution if something doesn’t evolve from one thing to another. There may be some difference between us and Ida, but that may be what that had been evolved. Therefore I absolutely agree with the theory by Jorn Humus, saying that the fossil creature, Ida, is the missing link between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.
Now people can say, okay you say we’re primates, like monkeys and apes, and that we came from simple generalised mammals. Show us the link; the link they would have said until now is missing. Well it is now no longer missing. As the discovery of Ida, it has marked a spot in the world history. We could think it as the eighth wonder of the world.

reference

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8057465.stm
Scientists hail stunning fossil
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/19/human.ancestor/index.html
Scientists piece together human ancestry
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/science/2009/may/Hype-Over--Missing-Link--Fossil-Ida-Draws-Skeptics.html
Hype Over “Missing Link” Fossil Ida Draws Skeptics
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0521/1224247034331.html
Fossil Ida a crucial finding for the understanding of early human evolution

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Friday, May 29, 2009

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Thursday, May 21, 2009

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