Word: apes
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...well-preserved skull of a chimp-size animal, probably a male, that doesn't fit any known species. According to paleontologist Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers in France, whose team reported the find in Nature last week, there is no way it could have been an ape of any kind. It was almost certainly a hominid--a member of a subdivision of the primate family whose only living representative is modern man. And it has left scientists gasping with astonishment for several reasons...
That puts the new Sahelanthropus tchadensis at a crucial evolutionary crossroads. Scientists have long believed that apes and humans share a common ancestor. But recently, comparisons of fossil and modern primates and analyses of modern ape and modern human DNA have independently indicated that a single ancestral ape gave rise to both chimps and hominids between 5 million and 7 million years ago. That presumed great-great-great-grandape almost certainly swung from trees in the African forest. If so, then Sahelanthropus, or Toumai, could well have been the very first hominid, or at least one of the first...
...decade ago, the leading theory suggested that climate change had dried Africa out, replacing the forests, where apes thrived, with grasslands. A walking ape would be better suited to this environment, since tree climbing would be useless. Standing would give a better view over the top of the grasses of potential enemies. Also, a vertical position would offer less exposure to the harsh rays...
...ape walking on two legs could traverse these open expanses, much as the earlier theory contended, to get to a safe and comfortable habitat in the next forest over. With its free hands, the ape could carry extra food--very useful when crossing expanses where fruit might not be available for the plucking. Free hands might also be useful for sex, although not in the way you might think. The best male upright walkers could bring back food for the females of their species, increasing their chances of winning a mate and passing on their genes--or so suggests...
...Outside, vendors are hawking cheap sunglasses, fabrics, and Star Cola in bottles that ape the ones made by Pepsi?one of the many multinationals that once operated in Burma and have since fled. This office, which belongs to a friend, is less ersatz, less dilapidated than most. It is stocked with sophisticated soundboards and equipment, including two Mac G4s with big color monitors. An engineer cues up a video and Zaw Win Htut appears onscreen, earnestly singing and strumming on a river barge, then walking down a dusty road. This is interspersed with stills of his mother in her youth...