We have a fossil closer to our split with Neanderthals and Denisovans
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...“And now I shall pose a few final questions to the esteemed Tarakanian federation!
Is it not true that a ship bearing your flag landed on the then dead planet?
That due to a refrigerator failure part of its foodstocks were spoiled??
That on this ship were two vacuum-dwellers - who were later struck from all lists because of their shady deals with the Resniks? ?
That those two milky scumbags were called Ban and Pug?
Is it not true that Ban and Pug - drunk - not only polluted the poor defensless planet, but went on a whim and jokingly rearranged its biological evolution in a a criminal and reprehensible way??
Is it not true that those two Tarakanians, did - on purpose - decide to make of Earth the incubator or nightmarish monsters, a cosmic circus, a museum of abominable pieces, who later became the laughing stock of even the farthest nebulae ?!?
Is it not true that those two, void of any sense of decency or moral guardrails, did trash on the rocks of the then dead Earth six barrels of rancid gellatin glue, two vats of spoiled albumine paste, then added to this mixture fermented ribose and levulose??
And as if this wasn't enough - they topped it all with three jumbo cans of moldy aminoacids, then stirred it all with a coal shovel, bent leftwards, and with a poke, also bent leftwards, which made ALL the proteins of the future earthlings to be lefty?!?
And is it not true that at the end Pug, who at that time had a runny nose, encouraged by Ban, himself barely standing under the influence of alcohol, deliberately sneezed in the plasmotic embyo, contaminating it with viruses, while chuckling that "This is how you put some divine spirit in it", in that poor, unlucky organic yeast?
Is it not true that this leftiness has, to this day, been passed to all of Earth's living organisms, including to the Artefactum Abhorrens race, who called themselves - by pure jealosy, I am sure - Homo Sapiens?
Is it then NOT TRUE, that the Tarakanians should not only pay for the Earthlings' entry fee in our federation, in the sum of one billion metric tons of precious metals, but also should pay to the poor inhabitants of the planet a SPACE ALIMONY???..."
The very best one, as usual: Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, Eigth Voyage.
Yes, I've quoted this elsewhere. Not my fault if it applies so often
Is it not true that a ship bearing your flag landed on the then dead planet?
That due to a refrigerator failure part of its foodstocks were spoiled??
That on this ship were two vacuum-dwellers - who were later struck from all lists because of their shady deals with the Resniks? ?
That those two milky scumbags were called Ban and Pug?
Is it not true that Ban and Pug - drunk - not only polluted the poor defensless planet, but went on a whim and jokingly rearranged its biological evolution in a a criminal and reprehensible way??
Is it not true that those two Tarakanians, did - on purpose - decide to make of Earth the incubator or nightmarish monsters, a cosmic circus, a museum of abominable pieces, who later became the laughing stock of even the farthest nebulae ?!?
Is it not true that those two, void of any sense of decency or moral guardrails, did trash on the rocks of the then dead Earth six barrels of rancid gellatin glue, two vats of spoiled albumine paste, then added to this mixture fermented ribose and levulose??
And as if this wasn't enough - they topped it all with three jumbo cans of moldy aminoacids, then stirred it all with a coal shovel, bent leftwards, and with a poke, also bent leftwards, which made ALL the proteins of the future earthlings to be lefty?!?
And is it not true that at the end Pug, who at that time had a runny nose, encouraged by Ban, himself barely standing under the influence of alcohol, deliberately sneezed in the plasmotic embyo, contaminating it with viruses, while chuckling that "This is how you put some divine spirit in it", in that poor, unlucky organic yeast?
Is it not true that this leftiness has, to this day, been passed to all of Earth's living organisms, including to the Artefactum Abhorrens race, who called themselves - by pure jealosy, I am sure - Homo Sapiens?
Is it then NOT TRUE, that the Tarakanians should not only pay for the Earthlings' entry fee in our federation, in the sum of one billion metric tons of precious metals, but also should pay to the poor inhabitants of the planet a SPACE ALIMONY???..."
The very best one, as usual: Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, Eigth Voyage.
Yes, I've quoted this elsewhere. Not my fault if it applies so often
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I do believe our world is a little poorer without our cousins to share it with. We may never know what happened all those years ago to leave us alone here on Earth, but I'd like to think we'd be better for family to share it with.
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I wonder if someday Homo Erectus fossils will be found in the Americas. Maybe they made it that far but eventually died out. They made it all over Asia and even down to the Indonesian archipelago, so why not the Americas?
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Are these remains too old for DNA or protein sequencing? In the Nature article they don't seem to mention whether there is a possiblility for a follow up study with these fossils, or whether they tried and failed to get any sequencable material.
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A picture is worth a 1,000 words—a simple family tree would have taken a good amount of mental load off of the reader.
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While a nice thought...ummm...have you met us? We group together and kill any that are defined as "not us".
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The same, but also consider how a significant portion of our population has racist beliefs regarding members of their own species.
How much worse of a problem would that become if you threw full-blooded Neanderthals and Denisovans into the mix as potential targets?
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Today, yes, I'd agree. Pull our cousins out of the deep past and drop them anywhere here today and it'd go badly for them. But if we grew alongside them? If they were part of our world from the very beginning? I wonder how Earth would look today, and how we'd be. I'd like to think we'd be a bit more mellow towards our cousins, and just in general even.
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The oldest Homo DNA I’m aware of is just over 430 ka, from Neanderthals in Spain (Science link)…so in the ball park, and in the range of possibility (Wikipedia), but less likely in warmer regions.
DNA fragments 2 Ma have been analyzed (Sci Am link).
Proteins that imply some aspects of DNA from 2 Ma Paranthropus robustus have also been analyzed (Nature).
(edit, grammar and formatting)
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This is a very laudable point of view, but animals and even bacteria are extremely bad at caring for anything but themselves and their own interests and care very little for the bigger picture. Not because they'd be evil or whatever, but just because they don't see the bigger picture and are much more concerned with the details of their very own individual existence and survival.
And we were and still are exactly this: Animals. Some of us are by historical accident comfortable enough to not have to care all that much about surviving to the next day or spring and can afford to have very laudable and noble opinions about all that, but all in all it's other and much more basic things that decide where things are going without most knowing or caring about the future at all.
It's just like our species driving other species into extinction: With every one of them one of us killed (and probably ate) the last extant survivor but he (or she) usually didn't even knew it was the last one. It was just another meal that day.
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There would only be one species, one way or the other. We've never really been all that nice in general to ourselves, to say nothing of other hominids.
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As a dentist I always find it interesting to see jaws and teeth from prehistoric times. I saw a gentleman this morning that is one of those all natural grows his own food mountain men that we have in Colorado and his teeth wear is pretty much exactly like this.
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Interesting stuff.
But archeologists really have a loose attitude with the term 'species'.
How many species would archeologists declare a bunch of dog fossiles?
But archeologists really have a loose attitude with the term 'species'.
How many species would archeologists declare a bunch of dog fossiles?
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"Here’s looking at you, hominin"
Channeling your inner Beth? Kiona, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Channeling your inner Beth? Kiona, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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And Sam the Sapien played the black and whites for them.
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Yeah. Some self-reflection is definitely in order, at least on my part. I read:
And my immediate thought was "Ok, do we know what species to pay back for this?" Then realized we probably already have many times over. Intended as a humorous thought, but still enough to reconsider how my initial reactions go.
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"From the Neander Valley, let's call them Neanderthals shall we?"
"Brilliant! And us?"
"Well wisdom separated us from other animals, Sapiens for Wise Man?"
"So smart! And what about these ones?"
"Well they were found over by Dennis, innit?"
(ok ok I know the cave was named after Denis and they were after the Denisova Cave cave named after the hermit, but still)
"Brilliant! And us?"
"Well wisdom separated us from other animals, Sapiens for Wise Man?"
"So smart! And what about these ones?"
"Well they were found over by Dennis, innit?"
(ok ok I know the cave was named after Denis and they were after the Denisova Cave cave named after the hermit, but still)
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I prefer the Kilgore Trout / Venus on the Half-Shell version of that trope. It may be one of the inspirations for HHGTTG. Several key plot points match, and it came out 4 years before in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine....“And now I shall pose a few final questions to the esteemed Tarakanian federation!
Is it not true that a ship bearing your flag landed on the then dead planet?
That due to a refrigerator failure part of its foodstocks were spoiled??
That on this ship were two vacuum-dwellers - who were later struck from all lists because of their shady deals with the Resniks? ?
That those two milky scumbags were called Ban and Pug?
Is it not true that Ban and Pug - drunk - not only polluted the poor defensless planet, but went on a whim and jokingly rearranged its biological evolution in a a criminal and reprehensible way??
Is it not true that those two Tarakanians, did - on purpose - decide to make of Earth the incubator or nightmarish monsters, a cosmic circus, a museum of abominable pieces, who later became the laughing stock of even the farthest nebulae ?!?
Is it not true that those two, void of any sense of decency or moral guardrails, did trash on the rocks of the then dead Earth six barrels of rancid gellatin glue, two vats of spoiled albumine paste, then added to this mixture fermented ribose and levulose??
And as if this wasn't enough - they topped it all with three jumbo cans of moldy aminoacids, then stirred it all with a coal shovel, bent leftwards, and with a poke, also bent leftwards, which made ALL the proteins of the future earthlings to be lefty?!?
And is it not true that at the end Pug, who at that time had a runny nose, encouraged by Ban, himself barely standing under the influence of alcohol, deliberately sneezed in the plasmotic embyo, contaminating it with viruses, while chuckling that "This is how you put some divine spirit in it", in that poor, unlucky organic yeast?
Is it not true that this leftiness has, to this day, been passed to all of Earth's living organisms, including to the Artefactum Abhorrens race, who called themselves - by pure jealosy, I am sure - Homo Sapiens?
Is it then NOT TRUE, that the Tarakanians should not only pay for the Earthlings' entry fee in our federation, in the sum of one billion metric tons of precious metals, but also should pay to the poor inhabitants of the planet a SPACE ALIMONY???..."
The very best one, as usual: Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, Eigth Voyage.
Yes, I've quoted this elsewhere. Not my fault if it applies so often
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Four years before HHGTTG, right ? Not before Lem's Star Diaries ?
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Maybe. But all evidence indicates homo sapiens came here somewhere in the 20k years ago range. Actually older than general recent consensus thinks happened. But we'd have good genetic evidence if indigenous Americans had genetic links for H Erectus that evolved into H. Sapiens here.
Even if H Erectus had been here or had evolved into something else and immigrating H. Sapiens wiped them out, we'd have likely found some evidence by now if any had made it to the Americas, or in any wide spread way.
There isn't evidence of H Erectus on very far flung islands, like there are of ancestral H. Sapiens. So, so far, it seems like H Erectus almost certainly made boats at some point, they never seemed to get nearly far flung enough to have made it to the Americas (or Australia). But, hey, could be something turns up. Maybe that is Big Foot? Evolved H Erectus? (I am 90% joking)
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Yeah, turns out chewing on silica does the same thing now as it did millennia ago.
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Granted, the African slave trade might have been avoided. That's the good news. The bad news is that slavery would likely continue indefinitely as an ongoing keystone of modern civilization, with those objectively inferior sub-humans as chattel...
(Note: we grew alongside each other, but that's never stopped us from engaging in systematic racial, ethnic, or religiously motivated abuse up to and including genocide.)
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Don't you know it's bad comments section etiquette to not be as negative as possible?
I do think there's something to what you are saying, and I also think that there's little chance that we'd have not reckoned with more neurodiversity if we had biological neighbors, and for that alone I think we'd be in a very different and probably useful spot.
It's been very easy to think all of reality is oriented around humanity since we're heads and shoulder above the nearest intelligent life forms, but if we had intellectual neighbors who were still appreciably different that would a perspective worth having.
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truth: Our findings are miniscule compared to the timeframe. we have incomplete facts to create an incomplete story. I believe in the evolutionary track, we just don't know exactly what that is. Good find but realize, it's the leftovers of some creature that caught and ate them. very small sample size.
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REALLY well written! Just what I aspire to, as agonizing as that is, instead of the regurgitated blah drooled out by LLMs.
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We might have followed the same path we did with dogs. Denisovans (to pick on one group) bred to be docile, probably with the "feral" ones eventually extinct. So we could have slaves who are OK with being slaves. Maybe with different breeds by now, again like with dogs. Toy Denisovans as pets, Factory Denisovans for working, Pit Bull Denisovans for
Doing my best...
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As Dr Karl Kruszelnicki once said: "For every person eaten by a shark, 100,000 sharks are eaten by people. Sharks must think about this a lot."
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To be fair, sharks only attack people who wander into their home area. It's not like they wander into town and go through the trash, although they will hang around our sewer outflows.
Also, and I believe Dr Karl will agree with me on this, sharks don't eat people very often. They're more likely to take a bite, and then spit it out. Apparently we don't taste good.
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The period around 1 million years ago has become interesting since new estimates put the human chromosome 2 fusion around that time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2
https://www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-human-chromosome-2-fuse
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Archeologists are mainly concerned with late modern humans in the Holocene after the end of the latest glacial period. It is paleontologists that mainly study the Pleistocene species, historically using morphological species concepts (fossils) but now also genetic species concepts as some comments alludes to.
Paleontologists do have problems with the last common dog ancestor either way, since the genetic last common ancestor cannot yet be robustly dated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_dog
They likely didn't get to Australia, though the H. floresiensis population came close. The best way to illustrate the historical migrations problems are the various ecological clustering of plants and animals that are proposed.
The Beringian passage was analogous to this and the original exit ways from Africa, with ease or difficulty depending on sea levels. Perhaps they didn't spread fast enough, since wolves made it in an older possible passage period:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringia
In any case, it looks like it was less time periods available for land animals to pass between Asia and America than between Asia and Australia. The difficulties makes an absence of fossils understandable and the likelihood for later finds smaller.
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.. they WERE part of our world at the very beginning
… we DID grow/evolve alongside them
… this IS how the world looks today
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