The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor
Search in google:
For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world's leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by forty-four million years.A secret until now, the fossil - "Ida" to theresearchers who have painstakingly verified her provenance - is the most complete primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million years old, Ida rewrites what we've assumed about the earliest primate origins. Her completeness is unparalleled - so much of what we understand about evolution comes from partial fossils and even single bones, but Ida's fossilization offers much more than that, from a haunting "skin shadow" to her stomach contents. And, remarkably, knowledge of her discovery and existence almost never saw the light of day.With exclusive access to the first scientiststo study her, the award-winning science writer Colin Tudge tells the history of Ida and her place in the world. A magnificent, cutting-edge scientific detective story followed her discovery, and TheLink offers a wide-ranging investigation into Ida and our earliest origins. At the same time, it opens a stunningly evocative window into our past and changes what we know about primate evolution and, ultimately, our own. The Barnes & Noble Review Forty-seven million years ago, a young female primate, probably overcome by toxic gas, fell into a volcanic lake. Settling on the bottom, she was quickly covered with fine sediment, which over millennia became compressed into rock. On May 19, 2009, the primate, now a fossil bearing the scientific name Darwinius masillae, was revealed to the world at a press conference in New York City, complete with book and History Channel movie deals, its own web site, "Revealing the Link," and even the presence of Mayor Bloomberg to give an official air to the occasion. The fossil of Darwinius -- also named "Ida" after the discoverer's young daughter -- is a lovely thing, remarkable for its preservation. You can even discern traces of her fur and her last meal. It's the most complete primate fossil ever found. But the excitement was about more than the quality of the fossil: it was about Ida's status as a "missing link." And on this issue the press release -- and the six authors of the scientific paper describing Ida -- didn't pull any punches, touting Ida as the "missing link to all humans," the "eighth wonder of the world," the "Mona Lisa" of fossils, "the Holy Grail for paleontologists," and even "a revolutionary scientific find that will change everything." On May 20th, Ida received the ultimate 21st-century tribute: a one-day appearance as the logo of the Google home page.
