John Hawks

Remarkable thread about the most numerous and diverse branch of the animal tree of life

Thanks for posting this really informative thread on your new research!

I know The Golden Bough very well, and more should read it! Myth and stories provide one pathway into the breadth of diversity of human thought—and as Frazer knew, Western thought is no less built on these foundations.

Nice summary of new work in Yunxian Cave with a third fossil hominin cranium being unearthed. It's neat to see announcements and commentary in the open about such work, by @dyanilewis @Nature

Human chromosome 2 resulted from the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes shared by chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. An interesting new article suggests this fusion happened around 900,000 years ago (95% CI up to 1.5 million).

For example, it is shameful that we now have three papers debating whether the Bodo 1 cranium should be the holotype of a new species, and none of them have cited the actual description of the cranium done in 1992 by Tsirha Adefris: