so this is kinda a big discovery, right?
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6...ion-years.html


The seven stone, four-foot tall female roamed forests 4.4 million years ago – a million years before the previous oldest discovered fossil.
Her skeleton promises to fill in gaps about how we became human and evolved from apes. It has already reversed some common assumptions of evolution.

Rather than humans evolving from chimps, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved together from another common more ancient ancestor.

Each has evolved and changed separately along the way, it is believed.

Formally known as Ardipithecus ramidus — which means root of the ground ape — the find is detailed in 11 research papers published in the journal Science.

“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever been able to come,” said Dr Tim White, an anthropologist and one of the researchers at the University of California.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor six million to seven million years ago, the research suggests.
Ardi has many traits that do not appear in modern-day African apes, leading to the conclusion that the apes evolved extensively since they shared that last common ancestor with humans.

A study of Ardi, under way since the first bones were discovered in 1994 in the Afar region of Ethiopia, indicates her species lived in the woodlands and could climb on all fours along tree branches.

But the development of arms and legs indicates she did not spend much time in the trees, the study claims.
Her pelvis suggests she walked upright and her teeth are closer to humans than primates. While she would have had a muzzle, it did not project out as much as modern apes.

Dr White described her as a “mosaic” that was neither human or chimpanzee.

“The only way we’re really going to know what this last common ancestor looked like is to go and find it,” he said. “Well, at 4.4 million years ago we found something pretty close to it.” Dr David Pilbeam, palaeoanthropology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, said: “This is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution.

“It is relatively complete in that it preserves head, hands, feet, and some critical parts in between.”
Until the discovery of Ardi, the earliest well-known stage of human evolution was Australopithecus, the small-brained, fully bipedal “ape man” that lived between four million and one million years ago.

The most famous Australopithecus fossil is the 3.2-million-year-old “Lucy,” found in 1974 about 45 miles north of where Ardi would later be discovered.
Lucy was described as the “mother of man” and the missing link between humans and chimps. Before Ardi, she was thought to be the oldest fossil of a human ancestor that walked on two legs.

hoax
not a real person

;).

atsonicpark - ironically (to the whole rape tunnel thing), i actually co-author a feminist zine called hoax. it's being distributed now. :D

Hahaa.

That's amazing!

Sexy.

"common assumptions about evolution" are ussually completely wrong, much like most "common sense"

no scientists ever claimed we descended from apes, but that apes and humans descended from common ancestors,. it is the ignorant idiots that push that angle.

to @sonicpark: yup! I was kinda in a really bad mood yesterday and didn't feel like mentioning that in case it got me berated. But yeah, we just finished our first issue & have started distributing/trading all over. exciting.

i wasn't sure if i should even mention it at on this board at all because people here seem to avoid talking about feminism/anything too politicized.

So Earth was originally populated entirely by women until male UFOnauts appeared on the scene, right?

I ran 50 issues of a video game zine back when I was 13. So fun. I love zines.

I like zines!

can I send ya some $$ to get one?

...on a self-indulgent note, my gf works @ science magazine. she hinted to me that something was going to break today but i didnt know what...until now.

I did several, one was called Vigilante Death, part comic, part rant zine

another was called DME-AM, about a supposedly fictional cabal operating inside the auspices of a "men's club"

another was called CHUCK's FRIENDS and it was just art

Huh, I was already under the impression of this.

My ignorance is FUTURE KNOWLEDGE!

cool. science mag is great

yeah, totally! pm me yr address and i'll mail it out!

i'll send it to anybody who wants it! i already mailed jenn a copy. :-D

just warning though - it's really riot grrl-este. i co-authored it with the person who i trained to direct the vagina monologues in the future (i organized it for a while) so yeah....

i also love zines. i had always wanted to do one. the ideas for this particular one just kinda came organically.

ps - we should do zine trading.

Isn't this the sort of stuff the CIA doesn't want the public to know about? And have I stumbled upon something that will result in my disapperance?

yeah, it's a great job...although a 4 hr commute (we live in baltimore, the office is in downtown dc). she actually decided to quit it because waking up at 5am and getting home at 8-9pm was killing her. she wants to be a musician and there was no way that could possibly happen with the job at science. but yeah. it's a pretty awesome thing to say that you've done.

Thanks for sharing!

I bet the "Illuminati" already knew about it.

I've put my own writing aside long enough to digest "Hoax" today. You will
definitely get feedback.

haha, it's okay jenn don't worry. i understand what it's like to be busy! but feedback is awesome. i kinda feel all vulnerable having put myself and some of my radicalism so out there. thanks! :D

without risk there is no reward

Yessir.

yeah. whats funny is that i actually didn't put in 3/4 of the shite that i wanted to talk about. ever since i went abroad to amsterdam/denmark to study human trafficking and prostitution i've kinda been fucked, unable to stop thinking about how much both patriarchy and global capitalism together suck.

id like to read your stuff too but first i'll say it's funny (both funny haha + funny peculiar) that the vagina monologues includes a story where a 13 year old girl is polansky'd by an older woman and she recalls it fondly and all is well.

double standards i say. :p

funny story, i actually really hate the vagina monologues. seriously.

still, like the masochist i can be, i produced/directed/organized it for three years to raise money for a non profit called Y.A.N.A. which helps local prostitutes and human trafficking victims. once again, that trip fucked w me.

human trafficking is fucking horror

yeah, seriously.

when i went abroad, i actually met trafficked victims. women who had been sold into prostitution. it was really really fucking intense. i entered the program completely sex-positive. i left with more questions than answers.


ps - as passe as it is, i've thought about writing a zine about the sonic youth....just about my own experiences growing up with the youth, how experimental jet set completely turned my life around etc.

i love the vagina but hate the monologues


interesting use of masochism for a so-called "higher purpose". good job.

madame !@#$%! often shows "rape in the congo" to her students. it never fails to make her ill.

Read of how Gore Vidal says "America is rotting away. The worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which advertisers know how to provoke.”
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/l...cle6854221.ece

i prefer vaginas that don't speak.

and apes that i don't have to call uncle

I was going to point that out too.

Surely that's just cunts rather than "patriarchy" and "global capitalism". By labelling it "patriarchy" you seem to be suggesting all men are involved in this.

^ interesting article above. i only got a chance to skim through it (i'm finally getting shit to do @ my job) but i'll be sure it read it later!

of course not all men are involved with trafficking. however, human trafficking is a direct result of both global trade and a supply and demand "rape culture." on the supply side, people living in third world conditions have been raped by capitalism. women are desperate to leave their situations and easily lured into being trafficked, families in dire poverty will sell daughters (because they can't support their children and they are worth less than men), poor men pimp out women to make enough money to live (after all, pimping is the only profession older than prostituion) ...on the demand side, we are taught that we can and should be able to get what we want when we want it, including sexually. men want prostitutes/sex workers at a cheep price.

not to sound like a party pooper (and i know i'm gonna get a lot of shit for saying this) but i really do believe that if people are going to look at porn they need to be doing a weeeee bit of research. whenever i look at porn (and yes, i do enjoy pornography), i make sure that it's made by companies who actually are legitimate because otherwise, you never know. especially for those of you out there who like kinky shit - so many women are trafficked and forced to do that stuff. the fact we are taught that it's a given right that you should be able to jack off freely does, in fact, harm women.

and that's just a brief summary of how patriarchy and capitalism come together to make human trafficking one of the worst underground trades...

You're right.

I don;t like porn where you can tell the chick's been dosed with e, or coked up, or half roofied. fucking sick shit.

i don't like porn

I don't pay for porn.

FOR PORN!!

Sorry, Kate Monster.