fossils

This morning, scientists revealed an analysis of a female skeleton that seems to be the best example of early hominids around, about a million years older than the famous Lucy specimen that has been a prime example of early humanoids for about 40 years. New species Ardipithecus ramidus, which scientists nicknamed "Ardi," lived in the woodlands of present-day Ethiopia and had a blend of human and chimplike features.

Scientists estimate the number of species on Earth to be close to 10 million -- and each year, the number of known species grows. The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists recently released its "Top 10" list of new species described in 2008.

We bet that SciKu, the delicate science poetry that belongs to everyone, will last and last. As did, apparently, a 300-million-year-old brain found inside a rock in northeast Kansas:

Fish brain turned to stone
Alas! Fossilization:
It's not just for bone

This iniopterygian fossil, discovered in Kansas, is an extinct relative of modern chimaeras, a distant relative of sharks and rays. Iniopterygians have unusual features, including large skulls and eye sockets, rows of shark-like teeth, clubbed tails, and fins tipped with spikes and hooks. Previously, only flattened fossils of this relatively small fish -- which averages around six inches in length -- were known to exist. The new finding, the first three-dimensional iniopterygian fossil, is remarkable for having the oldest fossilized brain ever found.

Sliding Easy: An artists conception of the snake in its natural habitat, 60 million years ago.  Jason Bourque/University of Florida

A research team found the vertebrae of the 43-foot long snake down the Cerrejon Coal Mine in northern Colombia. Their report appears in Nature this week, and gives a conservative estimate that the snake weighed 2,500 pounds when it lived 60 million years ago.

Researchers reveal that a 1.2 million-year-old female pelvis they found in Ethiopia in 2001 suggests our predecessors were larger-brained than previously thought

The story of evolution got bigger last week when researchers revealed in the journal Science that they had discovered a wide-hipped pelvis, suggesting our ancestors were larger-brained than formerly thought. The first of its kind, the 1.2 million-year-old, near-complete female pelvis is from the now-extinct Homo erectus species, believed to be our first human-like relative to leave Africa.