Mar 9, 2017 03:04 AM
Fish Changed in a Surprising Way Before Invading Land
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...gs/518883/
EXCERPT: Around 385 million years ago, fish started hauling themselves onto land. Over time, their flattened fins gradually transformed into sturdy legs, ending in feet and digits. Rather than paddling through water, they started striding over solid ground. Eventually, these pioneers gave rise to the tetrapods—the lineage of four-legged animals that includes reptiles, amphibians, and mammals like us. This transition from water to land is an evocative one, and for obvious reasons, people tend to focus on the legs. They are the organs that changed most obviously, that gave the tetrapods their name, and that carried them into their evolutionary future.
But Malcolm MacIver from Northwestern University was more interested in eyes.
The earliest tetrapods had much bigger eyes than their fishy forebears. MacIver always assumed that this enlargement happened after they marched onto land, allowing them to see further and to plan their paths. “That was an expectation fueled by ignorance,” he says. Actually, after studying the fossils of many fishapods—extinct species that were intermediate between fish and tetrapods—MacIver found that bigger eyes evolved before walking legs....
Neanderthal Dental Plaque Shows What a Paleo Diet Really Looks Like
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ke/518949/
EXCERPT: [...] By harvesting and sequencing that DNA, Weyrich has shown that there was no such thing as a typical Neanderthal diet. One individual from Spy cave in Belgium mostly ate meat like woolly rhinoceros and wild sheep, as well as some edible mushrooms. But two individuals who lived in El Sidrón cave in Spain seemed to be entirely vegetarian. The team couldn’t find any traces of meat in their diet, which consisted of mushrooms, pine nuts, tree bark, and moss. The Belgian Neanderthals hunted; the Spanish ones foraged.
“When people talk about the Paleo diet, that’s not paleo, that’s just non-carb,” Weyrich says. “The true paleo diet is eating whatever’s out there in the environment.”
One of the El Sidron Neanderthals even seemed to be self-medicating with edible plants....
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...gs/518883/
EXCERPT: Around 385 million years ago, fish started hauling themselves onto land. Over time, their flattened fins gradually transformed into sturdy legs, ending in feet and digits. Rather than paddling through water, they started striding over solid ground. Eventually, these pioneers gave rise to the tetrapods—the lineage of four-legged animals that includes reptiles, amphibians, and mammals like us. This transition from water to land is an evocative one, and for obvious reasons, people tend to focus on the legs. They are the organs that changed most obviously, that gave the tetrapods their name, and that carried them into their evolutionary future.
But Malcolm MacIver from Northwestern University was more interested in eyes.
The earliest tetrapods had much bigger eyes than their fishy forebears. MacIver always assumed that this enlargement happened after they marched onto land, allowing them to see further and to plan their paths. “That was an expectation fueled by ignorance,” he says. Actually, after studying the fossils of many fishapods—extinct species that were intermediate between fish and tetrapods—MacIver found that bigger eyes evolved before walking legs....
Neanderthal Dental Plaque Shows What a Paleo Diet Really Looks Like
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ke/518949/
EXCERPT: [...] By harvesting and sequencing that DNA, Weyrich has shown that there was no such thing as a typical Neanderthal diet. One individual from Spy cave in Belgium mostly ate meat like woolly rhinoceros and wild sheep, as well as some edible mushrooms. But two individuals who lived in El Sidrón cave in Spain seemed to be entirely vegetarian. The team couldn’t find any traces of meat in their diet, which consisted of mushrooms, pine nuts, tree bark, and moss. The Belgian Neanderthals hunted; the Spanish ones foraged.
“When people talk about the Paleo diet, that’s not paleo, that’s just non-carb,” Weyrich says. “The true paleo diet is eating whatever’s out there in the environment.”
One of the El Sidron Neanderthals even seemed to be self-medicating with edible plants....