Early human-neanderthal ancestor remains identified

This is an incredible story. Scientists have identified a 30,000-40,000 year old hominid ancestor whose DNA indicates that it is part Human, part Neanderthal.

If further analysis proves the theory correct, the remains belonged to the first known such hybrid, providing direct evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred. Prior genetic research determined the DNA of people with European and Asian ancestry is 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal.
Those were amazing times in Europe, where humans and Neanderthals co-existed. One wonders whether this co-existence was at all peaceful. Regardless, apparently I (along with many people of European and Asian ancestry) carry some Neanderthal genetic coding. When I am asked about my "race," I have sometimes (when I would not receive any sort of benefit or privilege for doing so) indicate "African." I've previously argued that we'd all be better off declaring that we are African, because the categories or "race" are as scientifically deficient as they are culturally divisive. But now, thanks to this new finding, I have the option of indicating that my "race" is Part-human, part Neanderthal, out of Africa via Europe, currently living in the U.S. Or something like that.

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Meet the rat-sized common ancestor of mammals

It lived 66 million years ago, and it might be your ancestor:

Humankind’s common ancestor with other mammals may have been a roughly rat-size animal that weighed no more than a half a pound, had a long furry tail and lived on insects. In a comprehensive six-year study of the mammalian family tree, scientists have identified and reconstructed what they say is the most likely common ancestor of the many species on the most abundant and diverse branch of that tree — the branch of creatures that nourish their young in utero through a placenta. The work appears to support the view that in the global extinctions some 66 million years ago, all non-avian dinosaurs had to die for mammals to flourish.

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Modules and evolution

In "The Parts of Life," Karl Zimmer takes a close look at evolving computer networks and concludes that modules and minimal connections facility efficient evolution.

[A]s networks become more efficient, they become more modular. But once the parts of a system emerge, natural selection may then favor modules themselves, because they make living things more flexible in their evolution. Once life’s Legos get produced, in other words, evolution can start to play.

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The long slow development of the eye

Anti-evolutionists like to point to the eye as though it is proof that God exists, in that the eye is so complex that it requires a designer. There are many problems with this argument. For instance, just because eyes are incredibly complex doesn't mean that "God" exists--perhaps we just don't know enough to explain eyes. The lack of an explanation is merely the lack of an explanation. But we actually do know a lot about the evolution of eyes, as David Attenborough explains in this 3-minute video.

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