Behold! My research #WordCloud! One thing in particular is something not everybody realises: a shared "heritage" of our #HumanEvolution..."mandibular" and "reduction".
While we are told that the big brain is the most typical human trait, the jaws and teeth are the "least conspicuous" ones, and that's what makes them interesting...
When compared to our ancestors and living relatives, we have very gracile jaws, and I try to discover how that happened...
Recently, a population of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) 🐒 started using stone tools to open oysters! 🦪 Unusual but not unique. The unique part is that they acquired this behaviour following the Covid19 lockdown!
The macaques, usually relying on tourists for part of their diet, found themselves in need of a new resource...and a way to exploit it!
This tells us how quick technological advances can emerge in primates!
Cool stuff anthropologists do! While we often have little fossil material to work with, we have creativity to spare...
We can model the way hominin walked/ran by estimating muscles and their functioning via simulations! By "we" I mean Dr Ashleigh Wiseman and her colleagues: that's what she does in her #NewPaper.
The force a muscle generates is dependent on muscle structure, in which fibre length, pennation angle and tendon slack length all influence force production. Muscles are not preserved in the fossil record and these parameters must be estimated when constructing a musculoskeletal model. Here, we test the capability of digitally reconstructed muscles of the Australopithecus afarensis model (specimen AL 288-1) to maintain an upright, single-support limb posture. Our aim was to ascertain the influence that different architectural estimation methods have on muscle specialisation and on the subsequent inferences that can be extrapolated about limb function. Parameters were estimated for 36 muscles in the pelvis and lower limb and seven different musculoskeletal models of AL 288-1 were produced. These parameters represented either a ‘static’ Hill-type muscle model (n = 4 variants) which only incorporated force, or instead a ‘dynamic’ Hill-type muscle model with an elastic tendon and fibres that could vary force-length-velocity properties (n = 3 variants). Each muscle’s fibre length, pennation angle, tendon slack length and maximal isometric force were calculated based upon different input variables. Static (inverse) simulations were computed in which the vertical and mediolateral ground reaction forces (GRF) were incrementally increased until limb collapse (simulation failure). All AL 288-1 variants produced somewhat similar simulated muscle activation patterns, but the maximum vertical GRF that could be exerted on a single limb was not consistent between models. Three of the four static-muscle models were unable to support >1.8 times body weight and produced models that under-performed. The dynamic-muscle models were stronger. Comparative results with a human model imply that similar muscle group activations between species are needed to sustain single-limb support at maximally applied GRFs in terms of the simplified static simulations (e.g., same walking pose) used here. This approach demonstrated the range of outputs that can be generated for a model of an extinct individual. Despite mostly comparable outputs, the models diverged mostly in terms of strength.
Can you tell Pi from Pizza? Find out how to approximate the value of Pi in your kitchen!
Spoiler: it's not your regular kitchen...and yes: I coded it in #Rstats
In just 2 minutes, the movie went from a joyless entertainment to an active treasure hunt of scientific inaccuracies!
Just instinctively started "The X-files, the movie" on my TV. Based on the opening, I am scared, amused and baffled at the same time...I bet they are about to present a theory you don't find on books of mainstream anthropology...
University Of Tübingen Investigates Evolutionary Forces That Shape The Human Skeleton
https://indiaeducationdiary.in/university-of-tubingen-investigates-evolutionary-forces-that-shape-the-human-skeleton/
A large-scale study by an international research team led by Dr. Hannes Rathmann @hannes_rathmann and Professor @kharvati Harvati @Harvatilab_tue
Genetic analyzes of human bones reach their limits when, for example, the DNA is poorly preserved or the samples must not be destroyed. In such cases, comparisons of the structure and shape of certain parts of the skeleton can also provide detailed i
Charles Darwin’s Son Draws Cute Pictures on the Manuscript of "On the Origin of Species"
https://www.openculture.com/2013/10/charles-darwins-son-doodles-on-the-origin-of-species.html
Look what washed ashore this morning! #Shark egg cases with embryos!
The shape of the "Mermaid's purse" differs remarkably across species. Not all sharks lay eggs, though: some retain them inside their body until they hatch.
If you want to know more about shark eggs: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/do-sharks-lay-eggs.html
P.S. My guess is Catshark (happy to hear expert's opinions, though). In case the embryos were still viable, I put them back in the water.
Photo taken in Tarragona, Spain.
MU-Peter Shimon 🀄
Lost World
Open Culture (Official)
