Seed Media Group

Afarensis

Anthropology, Evolution and Science

Search this blog

Profile

afarcomp3.jpg 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 Transitions:The Evolution of Life His previous blog can be found here.
My blog banners were designed by pough - frequent commenter and Photoshop wizard, Bill Clark, and Chris Whitehouse. Thanks, you all do excellent Photoshop work!

My Amazon Wishlist

Other Information

Recent Posts

Categories

Recent Comments

Archives

Aphorisms


"Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul..."
Mark Twain


"Ideology is a poor substitute for rational thought..."
Afarensis


"It isn't faith that makes good science...it's curiosity"
Prof. Jacob Barnhardt, The Day the Earth Stood Still


"This man wishes to be accorded the same privilege as a sponge. He wishes to think!"
Clarence Darrow, Inherit the Wind


"...I become fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason..."
Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still


"I want you to grab life by its little bunny ears and get in its face..."
The Simpsons


"This is between me and the vegetable..."
Seymour Krelborn, The Little Shop of Horrors


"There are bad laws and cruel laws and the people who enforce them are both bad and cruel..."
Thea, Isle of the Dead


"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." Jean- Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation

"But the limit of tolerance for these human foibles is obtained when the proponent of a questionable scientific doctrine endeavors to maintain it against all possible odds by misrepresentation, misinformation and suppression of contradictory data, and by insinuating unfairness in opponents of his views."
Franz Weidenreich, Morphology of Solo Man


"Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconcious, impersonal material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny."
George Gaylord Simpson, Life of the Past


Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd, he's smarter than you he's got a science degree! Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd, he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
Unknown

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Frederich Nietzsche


But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Declaration of Independence


Directory of Science Blogs

Subscribe via Email

Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.

Sign me up!

Invertebrates:

Octopi Porn

National Geographic has an interesting video on the sex lives of octopi - apparently there is a certain amount of mimicry and guile involved.... The video is based on this article:...

I'm a Bit Late To The Fray, But The Best Phylum = Arthropods

The question has come up on ScienceBlogs as to which class of invertebrates are the best, coolest, etc. Like PZ I had though about saying Cephalopods (because of those nice octopi that helped the archaeology community find some pottery), but...

Whales, Squid, and Echolocation

Science Daily has an interesting article up about the evolution of echolocation in toothed whales. The research behind the article was published in Lethaia....

Studies in Mutualism: The Senita Moth

Science News Daily has an interesting story about the mutualism between the senita moth and the senita cactus. At least that's what the title of the piece proclaims. The article is actually about the struggle of one scientist to make...

That's Just Mean!

National Geographic has a story about an orchid that has evolved to resemble a female wasp:...

Sea Snails and Dollo's Law

Dollo's Law states that evolution is not reversible. Once fins, for example, are lost from an organism they can never be regained. The law was first formulated in 1890 and has survived the test of time, more or less. A...

Crawling Crinoid: Again

A better movie of the crawling crinoid can be found here. It comes from Stalked Crinoid Locomotion, And Its Ecological And Evolutionary Implications by Baumiller and Messing....

Happy Birthday PZ

Octopus Escaping Through a One Inch Hole

Amazing video...here...

Jumbo Squid Migrations

Deep-Sea News has some interesting, well, news, on jumbo squid migrations. He even provides links to an open access paper (summarizes approximately 1500 hour of data from tagging the squid) and the senior author's website. Check it out!...

Bone Eating Sea Worms: One From the Archives

This is a combination of two posts from the archives......

Interesting Cuttlefish Video

From an article on color perception and camouflage in cuttlefish comes this video of a cuttlefish blending in with its surroundings. The article is located here A press release describing the paper - with more cuttlefish pictures - here......

Plants and Insects Fifty Million Years Ago: One from the Transitions Archives

This is a companion piece to the previous post. Studying the evolution of insects can be difficult because they don't fossilize well. But there are ways to study insect evolution. All life affects it's environment in one form or another....

Eocene Insect and Plant Diversity in South America: One from the Archives

When I was in college my favorite classes had a heavey dose of methodology and/or experimental design. I loved the two method and theory of archaeology classes I took. Consequently, I like to occasionally write about studies that have a...

Octopus Killing a Shark

Martin Brazeau at The Lancelet has the video. Apparently, the octopus was moved into a shark tank and developed a regular habit of killing 3-4 foot sharks......

Tubeworms and the Impact of Evolutionary Theory on Medical Research

This is another from the archives.... Tubeworms or interesting creatures. They live deep in the ocean near volcanic vents where the temperature often exceeds 200 degrees. They have no mouth or stomach, instead they acquire all their nutrients from colonies...

Search All Blogs

Blogs in the Network

Top Five: Most German

Top Science Stories

powered by SEED - seedmagazine.com