Adventure Ausrama Blog

Denisovans were similar to humans . A finger bone has been found that is human-like. Neanderthals had quite different fingers than Homo sapiens. Only five fossils remain of Denisovans a little finger, a mandible and three molars. Despite artistic depictions of the hominid it is not know what they looked like. Denisovans  were much further ahead in their development than Neanderthals. It seems that  Denisovans  and humans followed a similar evolutionary path , while Neanderthals became large animal hunters and developed muscular bodies. Neanderthal could have taken on dangerous animals and survive while humans would succumb. Though  Denisovans  branched off from Neanderthals , just why they became more like humans is not known. Maybe common habitats make for creatures of the same ilk. There is evidence that the three types of apes interbred. This is a mystery in itself because the missing Y Chromosome would make fertile progeny impossible. What ma...

A fragment of a long bone from a hominid at least 13 years old shows that it had a Denisovan father and Neanderthal mother. The specimen was found in Denisova Cave in Russia in 2012. Because it was found indicates that other cross breeding occurred. Neanderthals obviously migrated to eastern Eurasia from western Europe. They were not "stuck" in regions around the Iberian Peninsular. Genetic analysis shows that the father of the Neanderthal/Denisovan adolescent also had some Neanderthal ancestry, so the groups were coexisting in the east. It is believed by scientists that Neanderthals interbred with humans and had fertile young. However, this is not possible as Neanderthals have 24 pairs of chromosomes while humans have 23. Interbreeding of Denisovans and Neanderthals could occur as they both had 24 pairs of chromosomes. + so denisovan is neanderthal us dna ox humans a denisovans i fossil oh mother ah genes by mixed id years + ~ ha denisovan in neanderthal on dna an hum...

When a platypus specimen was first viewed in England it was a sensation, Many people including scientists said that it was a fake: it was a combination of parts from other animals. However, it did exist in the Australian niche where it evolved. I should be noted that this was in an era when the English were still struggling with Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest. The majority of the population still believed that God created Man. The Garden of Eden was foremost in their minds. Today, the platypus' existence is accepted without question. There has not been a lot of fossil evidence about how it came to be. Recently, this gap has been filled by a fossil of an ancient duck-billed marine reptile. Like most fossils which illuminate family trees it was found in China. Eohupehsuchus brevicollis lived 248 million years ago. Only two other examples of this creature have been brought to light, both in other parts of China. Like the platypus it was small f...

Three years ago a fossil was found at st Bathams in New Zealand. The record books now have to be rewritten. It seems the fossil is an ancestor of the Kiwi and it indicates that it was related to the Australian emu. This undermines the premise that the kiwi is a solely New Zealand bird. After all it is the national symbol. You see, the emu relative could fly and it flew to New Zealand. It was a tiny bird compared to the kiwi. The enormous egg that kiwis lay evolved. It was not "handed-down" by the giant Moa. Eggs began to get larger in birds during the Miocene. The theory that the kiwi originated in Australia was commonly held before this fossil find. It was believed to have got to New Zealand when the country was joined to Australia on Gondwanaland, but his view has been put to rest. Most New Zealand birds got bigger over time. This was not unusual. The kiwi evolved from the earlier tiny ancestor. Discovery of this 20 million year old fossil was pure ...

There are new facts about the evolution of fish. An ancient fish fossil has provided preserved muscle tissue. European and Australian scientists have examined a placoderm fossil 380 million years old. Early fish did not have moving jaws with joints. Their mouths were fixed partially open, though they could still move. Jaw structure was presumed to be like sharks, because that was taken to be a living example. The fossil has changed this assumption. It shows a pronounced shoulder structure. From this girdle neck muscles attached to a dermal joint. So the head moved relative to the body but the jaw did not. Sharks do not have joints in the neck - their necks are flexible. Another difference is musculature in the abdomen much like four-limbed vertebrates such as horses. Rather than being a evolutionary step for four-legged animals it was fully developed by placoderms, the first vertebrate with armoured plates and no teeth. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://w...

Darwin got it right. Well actually he may not have. Fossils of early humans do not alter basic scientific thought in relation to evolution, Finds do not show a linear development toward advanced Man. Evolution though does tend to predict what new discoveries show. Claims that a particular fossil find is a breakthrough are just not true. New dinosaur fossils, however, tend to be groundbreaking with regular identification of new type of dinosaurs. Indeed, they seem to have roamed on every continent. The whole book on dinosaur evolution has not yet been written. Time will tell how clear an understanding of it we can get.  It seems evolution of dinosaurs is clearer than that of humans. New research teams need to be formed to go to all parts of the world and seek answers to evolution of mammals and reptiles, if indeed dinosaurs were reptiles. Some specialists today even question this view. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adv...

It is amazing how people will see something new, then run with it to the extreme saying this will change the world. This is true for virtually all non-fossil energy producing systems, but all of them have drawbacks and none have revolutionized the power sector. The two major problems have been high cost and non constant energy production during the 24 hour period. Scientists have worked on hydrogen systems for decades and success seems very distant. It is not being accepted for widespread use. Actually, hydrogen is a "byproduct" of energy production. When electricity is generated by any method the excess not used at a point in time is passed through water. It splits into oxygen and hydrogen via electrolysis with the fuel stored to be used in the future. When hydrogen is recombined with oxygen, electricity is generate. Heat from the process can also be used directly for heating purposes. As with other environmentally friendly electricity producing methods time will tell if...

Australia goes its own way in lower carbon power generation by opening a solar-diesel power station, the world's first, in Western Australia. Solar panels track the sun during the day. The station is built in a location that holds the record for the most days of maximum temperature. Use of the solar panels will lessen greenhouse gas emissions by 1119 tonnes a year. the local Aboriginal community is fully supportive of the power plant in the Pilbara. Aboriginals named it Pippunyah, the name of the river nearby. Funding came from the Federal Government in its renewable remote power generation program via the Office of Energy in Western Australia. It is unfortunate that solar power generation had to be combined with fossil fuel generation. Even getting natural gas there would have been better than diesel. It seems there is no perfect solution to the pollution problem. New systems only seem to meet requirements half way. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysa...

A fossil find in Victoria, Australia, throws light on the origin of baleen whales. The artifact is 25 million years old. It is the 45 cm long skull of Mammalodon colliveri . Information about it has remained open since its discovery in 1932. Though it had teeth it spent its time sucking mud in the search for prey on the seafloor. A short, blunt snout made this possible. This type of feeding led to the filter method of modern whales. The baleen whale was only three meters long, a far cry from the monsters that followed. Its ancestors though were also very large. Other fossils have been found in Torquay , Victoria, notably Janjucetus hunderi which was unique to the area. This region is believed to be the cradle of tiny whales. Some form of isolation must have occurred for this to happen. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--australi...

Big insects once roamed the US. They were very big. Ants were the size of small birds 50 million years ago. They are thought to have crossed the arctic land bridge that once existed between Europe and the US. The Green River site in Wyoming has given up many new finds in the past. Bruce Archibald of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia noted that the fossil was similar to one found in Germany. Only the queen of the Dorylus wilverthi species of ant living today reaches this size. Fittingly, the new ant has been named Titanomyrma lubei . Louis Lube found the specimen. While this ant is big for North America, big ants probably lived in other parts of the world because large fossils of other creatures have been found there. Large ants only live a tropical climate in the present so North America was tropical millions of years ago. It is a mystery how they crossed the temperate Arctic region then. For brief periods this area became quite warm, up to 8 degrees Celsius, th...