About Human Evolution
Human evolution is the evolutionary process that led to the emergence of anatomically modern humans, beginning with the evolutionary history of primates—in particular genus Homo—and leading to the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species of the hominid family, the great apes.
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... Researchers suspected an event of such enormity must have shaped Human Evolution...
Three scientists win Nobel for 'click' chemistry
... On Monday, the committee gave the Physiology or Medicine prize to Svante Paabo for work on Human Evolution...
Nobel Prize goes to Neanderthal DNA research
...The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Sweden s Svante Paabo for his work on Human Evolution...
Richard Leakey: Kenyan conservationist dies aged 77
... Leakey followed in his parents footsteps in paleoanthropology - the practice of seeking to understand Human Evolution by studying fossils and ancient tools...
Homo erectus: Ancient humans survived longer than we thought
... Prof Chris Stringer, research leader on Human Evolution at London s Natural History Museum, who was not involved with the work, commented: This is a very comprehensive study of the depositional context of the famous Ngandong Homo erectus partial skulls and shin bones, and the authors build a strong case that these individuals died and were washed into the deposits of the Solo River about 112,000 years ago...
Secrets of the largest ape that ever lived
... Artist reconstruction of the ape Human Evolution hopesThe research, reported in Nature, is based on comparing the ancient protein sequence of the tooth of the extinct ape, believed to be a female, with apes alive today...
Babies in the womb have lizard-like hand muscles
... Dr Sergio Almécija, an anthropologist who studies ape and Human Evolution, at the American Museum of Natural History, said the findings provided a deeper appreciation of human development but raised many questions...
Giving birth two million years ago was 'relatively easy'
... Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus sediba It s not the case, though, that birth became progressively more difficult during the course of Human Evolution...
Giving birth two million years ago was 'relatively easy'
Human childbirth can be a long, painful, drawn-out process, needing assistance and sometimes taking days.
So why do close living Relatives like chimps have an easier labour, giving birth in hours and on their own?
In an attempt to answer this evolutionary question, scientists have been looking at how ancient members of the human Family Tree gave birth.
Human-like Relatives two million years ago had it "pretty easy", according to birth reconstruction in a fossil.
For Australopithecus Sediba , which lived 1. 95 million years ago in South Africa , we see "a relatively easy birth process", says study researcher Dr Natalie Laudicina.
"The foetal head and shoulder breadth have ample space to pass through even the tightest dimensions of the maternal birth canal," she says.
It's a different story today, where the size and shape of the modern pelvis (a trade-off needed for walking upright), and the large size of a baby's head, make for a Tight Fit .
Human infants have to make several rotations through the birth canal during labour, rather than popping straight out.
By studying The Few female pelvises we have of our ancient human-like Relatives - Only six spanning More Than three million years of Evolution - researchers can get an idea of what birth might have been like further back in the human Family Tree .
Reconstructing birth in Australopithecus SedibaIt's not the case, though, that birth became progressively more difficult during the course of Human Evolution .
As the University of Boston anthropologist explains, the fossil "Lucy" (Australopithecus Afarensis ) had a more difficult birth process than A. sediba, in terms of a tighter fit between the foetus and the birth canal, but lived about a million years earlier.
"There is a tendency to think about the Evolution of human birth as a transition from an 'easy', ape-like birth to a 'difficult', modern birth," says Dr Laudicina, who reports The Team 's findings in the journal,
"Instead, what we are seeing is that is not the case. "
Answering the question of when modern childbirth evolved is complicated, she says, because each fossil in the human Family Tree exhibited their own obstetric challenges.
And even today we see variation in how women give birth: some women have relatively easy births that take no time at all, while other women have births that last More Than 20 hours with extreme pain.
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evolution, childbirth, fossils, pregnancy
Source of news: bbc.com
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