Word: skulled
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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SEPARATED. CONJOINED TWINS, in a 22-hour operation; in Los Angeles. Year-old Guatemalan sisters Maria Teresa and Maria de Jesus Quiej-Alvarez, who were joined at the skull and faced different directions, are progressing well after a 50-member team at Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA worked around the clock to separate the shared skull and untangle the blood vessels that connected them. Born to Alba Leticia Alvarez, 23, and Wenceslao Quiej Lopez, 21, a banana packer, the girls, whose development prior to the surgery was normal, have been given a good chance of survival...
Beyond that, the animal's habitat may cast further doubt on the already beleaguered notion that our ancestors first emerged on a treeless savanna. It now looks as though this pivotal event happened in a setting that was at least partly wooded. Most remarkable of all, though, is the skull itself. The creature, known formally as Sahelanthropus tchadensis (roughly translated "Sahel hominid from Chad") and informally as Toumai ("hope of life," in the local Goran language), has a mix of apelike and hominid features. And to some paleontologists, the hominid features, especially the face, are a lot more modern-looking...
...months, the team found pieces of what it believes are at least five individuals of the same species, including two lower-jaw fragments and three isolated teeth. Without a telltale foot, leg or other skeletal feature, the team could not be positive that the animal walked upright, but its skull is similar in important ways to those of hominids that...
...replete with fossils from all sorts of other primitive animals, including fish, crocodiles, rodents, elephants, giraffes, aardvarks and more--42 types in all. Many were identical to specimens that have been radiometrically dated with great precision elsewhere. As a result, a team led by Vignaud confidently pinpointed the skull's age at between 6 million and 7 million years, probably much closer to the latter...
...contentious field of human paleontology, "could well have been" leaves plenty of room for heated argument. There seems little doubt, at least, that Toumai was truly a hominid. Though the skull and brain are no bigger than a chimp's, that is no surprise. Our characteristically large brains did not evolve until about 2 million years ago, well after Lucy's time. But features like a short face with a massive brow ridge, a mouth and jaw that protrude less than in most apes, and relatively small canine teeth make it clear that this creature was not a chimpanzee...