Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Synchrotron reveals human children outpaced Neanderthals by slowing down

Human childhood is considerably longer than chimpanzees, our closest-living ape relatives. A multinational team of specialists, led by researchers from Harvard University, Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) and the ESRF, applied cutting-edge synchrotron X-ray imaging to resolve microscopic growth in 10 young Neanderthal and Homo sapiens fossils. They found that despite some overlap, which is common in closely-related species, significant developmental differences exist. Modern humans are the slowest to the finish line, stretching out their maturation, which may have given them a unique evolutionary advantage.

Read the rest of this article...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.