The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

'Hobbits' a New Human Species?

Professor Mike Morwood created an international storm with his discovery of Homo floresiensis -- dubbed the Hobbit because of its small size and big feet -- on Flores, an Indonesian island, in 2003. The archaeologist said the Hobbits, who were only about one metre tall and weighed just 30kg, existed on the remote island until about 12,000 years ago. 

Homo floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease found researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York. Using statistical analysis on skeletal remains of a well-preserved female specimen, the researchers determined the "hobbit" to be a distinct species and not a genetically flawed version of modern humans. 

Richard Dawkins on Evolution & Origins of Life (VIDEO)

"The universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple -just physics and chemistry, just the scattered dust of the cosmic explosion that gave birth to time and space. The fact that it did not -the fact that life evolved out of literally nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing -is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. And even that is not the end of the matter. Not only did evolution happen: it eventually led to beings capable of comprehending the process by which they comprehend it."

Richard Dawkins -famed Oxford evolutionary biologist reflecting on the sheer wonder of the emergence of life on Earth and the evolutionary process in his classic The Ancestor's Tale.

2.5 Billion-Year-Old Event Triggered Greatest Environmental Change Earth Has Ever Seen

Humans might not be walking the face of the Earth were it not for the ancient fusing of two prokaryotes — tiny life forms that do not have a cellular nucleus. Endosymbiosis refers to a cell living within another cell. If the cells live together long enough, they will exchange genes; they merge but often keep their own cell membranes and sometimes their own genomes.

"We have been overlooking how important cooperation is," UCLA molecular biologist James A. Lake said. "If two prokaryotes get together, they can change the world. They restructured the atmosphere of the Earth. It's a message that evolution is giving us: Cooperation is a way to get ahead."

The Past 5,000 Years Mark a New Epoch in Human Evolution (The Weekend Feature)

"We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals."

John Hawks -University of Wisconsin anthropologist

In a fascinating discovery that counters a common theory that human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, a study examining data from an international genomics project describes the past 40,000 years as a time of supercharged evolutionary change, driven by exponential population growth and cultural shifts.

Have Humans Entered a New Stage of Evolution? (Weekend Feature - A Galaxy Insight)

Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.

Did Civilization Turbo-Charge Human Evolution? A Galaxy Classic

“It was the failures who had always won, but by the time they won they had come to be called successes. This is the final paradox, which men call evolution.”

Loren Eiseley -The Immense Journey

According to most theories of human evolution, the species became “behaviorally modern” some 50,000 years ago and has not evolved much genetically since then. But according to a controversial new book, The 10,000 Year Explosion, human civilization has actually turbo changed our evolution.

Experts Ask: Will The Human Species Ever Evolve into a Type 111 Galactic Civilization?

Darwin's "Molecular Machines" : New Proof of Evolution at Cellular Level

An international team of biochemists have discovered evidence at the molecular level in support of one of the key tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution that provides a blueprint for a general understanding of the evolution of the "machinery" of our cells.

"Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial," Trevor Lithgow Lithgow of Australia's Monash University said.

Evolution: Has Human Culture Replaced Biology?

Now, after some three billion years, the Darwinian era is over. The epoch of species competition came to an end about 10 thousand years ago when a single species, Homo sapiens, began to dominate and reorganize the planet. Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the driving force of change.

Freeman Dyson  -Institute for Advanced Study

Does Human Evolution Have a Mutation Rate? New Research Says "Yes"

First things first: You're a mutant.  But don't waste your time trying to fly or look through people's clothes, as your amazing mutant powers are "not having pseudopods" and "consisting of more than a single cell."  All of evolution results from random changes in DNA, and now scientists have recorded the current rate of human mutation.

'Hobbits' a New Human Species?

Professor Mike Morwood created an international storm with his discovery of Homo floresiensis -- dubbed the Hobbit because of its small size and big feet -- on Flores, an Indonesian island, in 2003. The archaeologist said the Hobbits, who were only about one metre tall and weighed just 30kg, existed on the remote island until about 12,000 years ago. 

Homo floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease found researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York. Using statistical analysis on skeletal remains of a well-preserved female specimen, the researchers determined the "hobbit" to be a distinct species and not a genetically flawed version of modern humans. 

Richard Dawkins on Evolution & Origins of Life (VIDEO)

"The universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple -just physics and chemistry, just the scattered dust of the cosmic explosion that gave birth to time and space. The fact that it did not -the fact that life evolved out of literally nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing -is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. And even that is not the end of the matter. Not only did evolution happen: it eventually led to beings capable of comprehending the process by which they comprehend it."

Richard Dawkins -famed Oxford evolutionary biologist reflecting on the sheer wonder of the emergence of life on Earth and the evolutionary process in his classic The Ancestor's Tale.

2.5 Billion-Year-Old Event Triggered Greatest Environmental Change Earth Has Ever Seen

Humans might not be walking the face of the Earth were it not for the ancient fusing of two prokaryotes — tiny life forms that do not have a cellular nucleus. Endosymbiosis refers to a cell living within another cell. If the cells live together long enough, they will exchange genes; they merge but often keep their own cell membranes and sometimes their own genomes.

"We have been overlooking how important cooperation is," UCLA molecular biologist James A. Lake said. "If two prokaryotes get together, they can change the world. They restructured the atmosphere of the Earth. It's a message that evolution is giving us: Cooperation is a way to get ahead."

The Past 5,000 Years Mark a New Epoch in Human Evolution (The Weekend Feature)

"We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals."

John Hawks -University of Wisconsin anthropologist

In a fascinating discovery that counters a common theory that human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, a study examining data from an international genomics project describes the past 40,000 years as a time of supercharged evolutionary change, driven by exponential population growth and cultural shifts.

Have Humans Entered a New Stage of Evolution? (Weekend Feature - A Galaxy Insight)

Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.

Did Civilization Turbo-Charge Human Evolution? A Galaxy Classic

“It was the failures who had always won, but by the time they won they had come to be called successes. This is the final paradox, which men call evolution.”

Loren Eiseley -The Immense Journey

According to most theories of human evolution, the species became “behaviorally modern” some 50,000 years ago and has not evolved much genetically since then. But according to a controversial new book, The 10,000 Year Explosion, human civilization has actually turbo changed our evolution.

Experts Ask: Will The Human Species Ever Evolve into a Type 111 Galactic Civilization?

Darwin's "Molecular Machines" : New Proof of Evolution at Cellular Level

An international team of biochemists have discovered evidence at the molecular level in support of one of the key tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution that provides a blueprint for a general understanding of the evolution of the "machinery" of our cells.

"Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial," Trevor Lithgow Lithgow of Australia's Monash University said.

Evolution: Has Human Culture Replaced Biology?

Now, after some three billion years, the Darwinian era is over. The epoch of species competition came to an end about 10 thousand years ago when a single species, Homo sapiens, began to dominate and reorganize the planet. Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the driving force of change.

Freeman Dyson  -Institute for Advanced Study

Does Human Evolution Have a Mutation Rate? New Research Says "Yes"

First things first: You're a mutant.  But don't waste your time trying to fly or look through people's clothes, as your amazing mutant powers are "not having pseudopods" and "consisting of more than a single cell."  All of evolution results from random changes in DNA, and now scientists have recorded the current rate of human mutation.