Almost Human

Almost Human PDF Author: Lee Berger
Publisher: Disney Electronic Content
ISBN: 1426218125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This first-person narrative about an archaeological discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution. A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Berger, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, caught wind of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators—men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through 8-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave 40 feet underground. With this team of "underground astronauts," Berger made the discovery of a lifetime: hundreds of prehistoric bones, including entire skeletons of at least 15 individuals, all perhaps two million years old. Their features combined those of known prehominids like Lucy, the famousAustralopithecus, with those more human than anything ever before seen in prehistoric remains. Berger's team had discovered an all new species, and they called it Homo naledi. The cave quickly proved to be the richest prehominid site ever discovered, full of implications that shake the very foundation of how we define what makes us human. Did this species come before, during, or after the emergence of Homo sapiens on our evolutionary tree? How did the cave come to contain nothing but the remains of these individuals? Did they bury their dead? If so, they must have had a level of self-knowledge, including an awareness of death. And yet those are the very characteristics used to define what makes us human. Did an equally advanced species inhabit Earth with us, or before us? Berger does not hesitate to address all these questions. Berger is a charming and controversial figure, and some colleagues question his interpretation of this and other finds. But in these pages, this charismatic and visionary paleontologist counters their arguments and tells his personal story: a rich and readable narrative about science, exploration, and what it means to be human.

Almost Human

Almost Human PDF Author: Lee Berger
Publisher: Disney Electronic Content
ISBN: 1426218125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book

Book Description
This first-person narrative about an archaeological discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution. A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Berger, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, caught wind of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators—men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through 8-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave 40 feet underground. With this team of "underground astronauts," Berger made the discovery of a lifetime: hundreds of prehistoric bones, including entire skeletons of at least 15 individuals, all perhaps two million years old. Their features combined those of known prehominids like Lucy, the famousAustralopithecus, with those more human than anything ever before seen in prehistoric remains. Berger's team had discovered an all new species, and they called it Homo naledi. The cave quickly proved to be the richest prehominid site ever discovered, full of implications that shake the very foundation of how we define what makes us human. Did this species come before, during, or after the emergence of Homo sapiens on our evolutionary tree? How did the cave come to contain nothing but the remains of these individuals? Did they bury their dead? If so, they must have had a level of self-knowledge, including an awareness of death. And yet those are the very characteristics used to define what makes us human. Did an equally advanced species inhabit Earth with us, or before us? Berger does not hesitate to address all these questions. Berger is a charming and controversial figure, and some colleagues question his interpretation of this and other finds. But in these pages, this charismatic and visionary paleontologist counters their arguments and tells his personal story: a rich and readable narrative about science, exploration, and what it means to be human.

The Next Species

The Next Species PDF Author: Michael Tennesen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451677510
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Delving into the history of the planet and based on reports and interviews with top scientists, a prominent science writer, traveling to rain forests, canyons, craters and caves all over the world to explore the potential winners and losers of the next era of evolution, describes what life on earth could look like after the next mass extinction. Includes timeline.

Robo Sapiens

Robo Sapiens PDF Author: Peter Menzel
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262632454
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Information about intelligent robots and their makers, including photographis, interviews, behind-the-scenes information and technical date about machines that is easy to understand.

Origin of the Human Species

Origin of the Human Species PDF Author: Dennis Bonnette
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004493972
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This book evaluates the claims of scientific creationism versus materialistic evolution, while examining other scenarios. Consistently philosophical in methodology and perspective, the book is radically interdisciplinary in content, examining data and arguments drawn from natural science, philosophy, and theology. This work challenges the limits of human knowledge regarding every major question touching on human origins.

Mankind Evolving

Mankind Evolving PDF Author: Theodosius Dobzhansky
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Examines both the biological and the cultural aspects of human evolution.

The Last Human

The Last Human PDF Author: Esteban E. Sarmiento
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300100471
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Creates three-dimensional scientific reconstructions for twenty-two species of extinct humans, providing information for each one on its emergence, chronology, geographic range, classification, physiology, environment, habitat, cultural achievements, coex

A New Species of Trouble

A New Species of Trouble PDF Author: Kai Erikson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393313192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
In the twentieth century, disasters caused by human beings have become more and more common. Unlike earthquakes and other natural catastrophes, this 'new species of trouble' afflicts person and groups in particularly disruptive ways.

A New Human

A New Human PDF Author: Mike Morwood
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315435632
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
In the most revolutionary archaeological find of the new century, an international team of archaeologists led by Mike Morwood discovered a new, diminutive species of human on the remote Indonesian island of Flores. Nicknamed the “Hobbit,” this was no creation of Tolkien's fantasy. The three foot tall skeleton with a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s was a tool-using, fire-making, cooperatively hunting person who inhabited Flores alongside modern humans as recently as 13,000 years ago. This book is Morwood’s description of this monumental discovery and the intense study that has been undertaken to validate his view of its relationship to our species. He chronicles the bitter debates over Homo Floresiensis, the objections (some spiteful) of colleagues, the theft and damage of some of the specimens, and the endless battle against government and academic bureaucracies that hindered his research. This updated paperback edition contains an epilogue that reports on the most recent debates, findings, and analyses of this amazing discovery.

A New Species of Man

A New Species of Man PDF Author: Gale C. Schricker
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 9780838750339
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
A critical analysis of the persona in the works of Yeats land of its quest for unity of being. Winner of the 1980 Bucknell prize for best manuscript in the field of Contemporary Literary Criticism.

The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack

The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack PDF Author: Ian Tattersall
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466879432
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In his new book The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack, human paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall argues that a long tradition of "human exceptionalism" in paleoanthropology has distorted the picture of human evolution. Drawing partly on his own career—from young scientist in awe of his elders to crotchety elder statesman—Tattersall offers an idiosyncratic look at the competitive world of paleoanthropology, beginning with Charles Darwin 150 years ago, and continuing through the Leakey dynasty in Africa, and concluding with the latest astonishing findings in the Caucasus. The book's title refers to the 1856 discovery of a clearly very old skull cap in Germany's Neander Valley. The possessor had a brain as large as a modern human, but a heavy low braincase with a prominent brow ridge. Scientists tried hard to explain away the inconvenient possibility that this was not actually our direct relative. One extreme interpretation suggested that the preserved leg bones were curved by both rickets, and by a life on horseback. The pain of the unfortunate individual's affliction had caused him to chronically furrow his brow in agony, leading to the excessive development of bone above the eye sockets. The subsequent history of human evolutionary studies is full of similarly fanciful interpretations. With tact and humor, Tattersall concludes that we are not the perfected products of natural processes, but instead the result of substantial doses of random happenstance.