Move over Lucy, Ardipithecus is coming to town! I think I have the pics, diagrams, and enough amateur physical anthropology to back up this conclusion:
Based on all that, Ardi could walk upright almost as well as Lucy, using her arms to carry back goodies from the grassland to her forest enclave. And with those long arms, fingers, and toes, including the partially opposing big toe, she could probably climb almost as well as an adult chimp or juvenile gorilla. That's about as good a transitional fossil ... as you could ask for.
Gary Hurd has a nice rundown on the stratigraphy including this preemptive gem for any wayward creationists skeptical of radiometric dating:
We know this because electric lights work. We know this because any change in the universal physical constants great enough to affect dating results would necessarily have caused the earth to have recently melted, and penetrated with so much radiation that it would glow.
Carl Zimmer has some great pics and observations and PZ puts the find in its rightful place while taking a crack at correcting some of the inevitable press mangling. Speaking of the press and transitional fossils, check out what Newsweek said Richard Dawkins said, and what Dawkins actually said.
- It's true, there is a Killer Klown in spaaaaaace!
Guy Laliberte, the billionaire founder of Cirque du Soleil founder, arrived at the (ISS) International Space Station Oct. 1 and -- to no one's surprise -- slapped on a clown nose and began yukking it up with crew members of the space station.
- The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization have released a report (.pdf) showing that climate change is now the greatest threat to America's greatest parks.
- Reaclimate goes medieval and justs destroy a frequent shady character with annoying items like facts diagrams, and general science:
Steve McIntyre keeps insisting that he should be treated like a professional. But how professional is it to continue to slander scientists with vague insinuations and spin made-up tales of perfidy out of the whole cloth ...?
- Well enough of that gooey, wet slimy terrestrial science! Astronomers have embarked on a BOSS program to help get a new handle on the most grand, mysterious force known in the universe: Dark Energy.