Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
I thought this was cool! The Ashfall Fossil Beds in Nebraska have been named a National Natural Landmark:
About 12 million years ago, a volcano in modern-day Idaho spread a blanket of ash over large parts of what is now the midwestern United States. A layer of this powdered glass one or two feet (one- to two-thirds of a meter) thick covered the grasslands of northeastern Nebraska.Most of the animals living in the area survived the actual ashfall, but as they continued to graze on the ash-covered grasses, their lungs began to fill with the deadly particles.
While smaller animals died first, it took larger animals, like rhinos, up to five weeks to perish. Drifting ash quickly covered their bodies.The skeletons of these animals are preserved in their death positions, complete with evidence of their last meals in their mouths and stomachs.
*snip*
"These are fossils that don't need to be artificially enhanced, we don't have to label them and tell people what they are. Even after 12 million years, they still look like animals."Among the animals are five species of horses, three species of camels, barrel-bodied rhinos, saber-toothed deer, several species of dogs, and two species of turtles.
"Many of these animals are subtropical or tropical, which shows how different our environment was in this area 12 million years ago," said Rick Otto, the superintendent of the park.
"When you look at the fossil bed, you not only have an idea of what these prehistoric animals looked like, but the fact that they're buried in this pure volcanic ash gives you an idea of the catastrophe that resulted in their death," Otto said.
You can find an interactive map of the fossils at Ashfall here and various pictures of the fossils here
Such as this one:
In other news:
Finally, Science Daily has an interesting article about the evolution of angiosperms. From the article:
Whole-genome duplications have attracted attention as a possible mechanism to drive sudden bursts of evolution, like the one that so vexed Darwin over a century ago. While the vast majority of duplicate genes quickly accumulate mutations and are deleted from the genome, a few mutations will be selected for evolutionarily advantageous function. Rather than gradually collecting genetic novelty by single-gene duplications, simultaneously having a full genome's worth of raw material to elaborate new genetic function could drive sudden evolution. But because of the rapid, massive gene loss after a whole-genome duplication, these events are notoriously difficult to detect after millions of years. So dePamphilis and colleagues relied on a statistical filter to hunt for ancient duplications.In order to show that such an event occurred early in angiosperm history, dePamphilis and his colleagues had to compare the genomes of "basal" angiosperms--those whose ancestors diverged from the rest early in the lineage--with more recently derived angiosperm species, as well as with plant species outside the angiosperms. They took the opportunity to examine the genomes of a number of plant species for which only a partial DNA sequence has been determined. The team uncovered evidence of whole-genome duplications by confining their study to duplicated genes. The challenge was to distinguish isolated duplications from whole-genome duplications after a period of time in which direct evidence for a genome-wide duplication may have disappeared.
Comments
The Ashfall Fossil Beds are totally cool. What are the chances of getting more info and/or photos?
Posted by: pough
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May 13, 2006 7:38 PM
Yup, it seems like I will have to keep posting about it forever - perhaps I should start a brand new blog just for that topic...yikes! It is unfortunate that so much conversation about this, both por and con, is in Bosnian. If I had more time, I'd translate some of the best pieces, but I am currently swamped.
Posted by: coturnix | May 13, 2006 8:51 PM
Yeah, it is a shame, it would be an interesting read...and honestly, given the circumstances I'm a little surprised it's getting this much attention.
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | May 13, 2006 9:34 PM
Ash fall is near my dissertation site so I like to take students there on rainy days when we can't work. It's nice to see it getting this credit.
This story inspired me to post some photos I took there in 2004. There are more photos of the landscape than the fossils, so hopefully somebody has some more goodies for the paleontology-minded. Enjoy.
Posted by: pughd | May 13, 2006 10:11 PM