Word: brained
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...name roughly means "grandmother who eats everything") were assumed by anthropologists to be mythical. That was until a team of Australian and Indonesian researchers excavating a cave on the island uncovered ancient bones that included the 18,000-year-old skeleton of a 1-m-tall female with a brain the size of a grapefruit. In 2004, they announced in Nature magazine that the bones were the remains of a previously unknown species of human?which they named Homo floresiensis?that coexisted for a time with modern Homo sapiens. The remarkable discovery of this ancient hobbit meant the history...
...their first-hand examination of the bones, the scientists concluded that Flores man isn't a member of a distinct human species. They claim instead that the specimen is the remains of an unfortunate pygmy with a form of microcephaly, a developmental disorder that shrinks the head and brain. Homo floresiensis "are just like hobbits," sniffs archaeologist Alan Thorne, one of the authors of the PNAS paper. "They're the products of someone's imagination...
...handing our child a paint set, we want to know we're doing something grander than simply keeping her occupied until dinner. (Expressive planning! Original art!) And since so much of child rearing involves playing the same games, singing the same songs and answering the same questions until your brain goes soft, it's arguably even more important for parents to be reassured that seemingly trivial activities serve a higher calling...
...team of researchers from the U.S., Indonesia and Australia report on their own investigation of the Flores bones and conclude that the so-called hobbit isn't a separate species, but just an unfortunate pygmy with a form of microcephaly, a developmental disorder that shrinks the head and the brain. Or as the archaeologist Alan Thorne, one of the authors of the PNAS paper, says: "They are just like hobbits. They're the products of someone's imagination." (See TIME's photo-essay "Where Did the Hobbit Come From...
...Smiling Through Surgery Re Michael Kinsley's essay written in anticipation of brain surgery [July 24]: I again see the man I frequently admired on the television program Crossfire, someone with whom I disagreed politically but who was analytical and fair. I think that better understanding our frailty helps us keep a balanced perspective. I hope that he continues along that path. As a Republican, I would welcome the old Kinsley back. Bill Kistulinec Warren, New Jersey...