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SCIENCE NEWS OF THE YEAR |
Humans
10
Wandering minds
A cell phone–based survey
finds that people frequently
feel worse when their minds
wander than when they
focus on the moment (SN:
that evolution produced an
innate expression for that
emotion (SN: 6/19/10, p. 10).
12/4/10, p. 11).
Neandertals blown away
Volcanic eruptions may
have wiped out Neandertals
in Europe and western Asia,
clearing the region for Stone
Age Homo sapiens (SN:
10/23/10, p. 12).
Duds for tots Best-selling
videos marketed as vocabulary boosters for toddlers
don’t work as advertised,
though some parents mistakenly think they see
results (SN: 9/25/10, p. 15).
Bridge species Fossils discovered in a South African
cave may come from a hominid species that lived nearly
2 million years ago and
provided an evolutionary
bridge to the Homo genus
(SN: 5/8/10, p. 14).
Ancient mariners Stone
tools found on the Mediter-
ranean island of Crete may
have belonged to a Homo spe-
cies that used rafts or other
seagoing vessels to jour-
ney from northern Africa to
Europe at least 130,000 years
ago (SN: 1/30/10, p. 14).
Delayed disgust It takes kids
until about age 5 to understand facial expressions of
disgust, challenging the view
Gene trek DNA extracted
from 4,000-year-old hair
points to a previously
unknown migration of
northeastern Asians into
the New World about 5,500
years ago (SN: 3/13/10, p. 5).
Iceman’s demise A controversial analysis of artifacts
found near a prehistoric
man’s frozen body (above)
in the Italian Alps argues
that he was ritually buried
there (SN: 9/25/10, p. 14).
Stranger beside me Young
couples are better than long-term partners at discerning each other’s preferences
for food, movies and home
decor (SN: 11/6/10, p. 16).
Genetic victims Bullied
kids who carry one form of a
stress-related gene have an
elevated risk of emotional
problems by age 12, a study
finds (SN: 6/19/10, p. 10).
Heading north Stone tools
unearthed in England suggest that human ancestors
settled in northern Europe
at least 800,000 years ago
(SN: 7/31/10, p. 5).
Memory boosts By creating associations, quizzes
improve recall more effectively than just reviewing
notes (SN: 11/6/10, p. 16).
Extreme makeover for Lucy’s kind
Recent fossil discoveries suggest that the early hominid species represented by the
famous bones of Lucy, who lived 3. 2 million years ago in Ethiopia, may have been
more like modern humans than previously thought. The skeleton of a 3.6-million-year-
old male of the same species, Australopithecus afarensis, shows that he had a nearly
humanlike gait and ground-based lifestyle, says a team led by anthropologist Yohannes
Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Dubbed Big Man, the male
stood an estimated 5 to 5. 5 feet tall and would have towered over the 3.5-foot-tall
Lucy (SN: 7/17/10, p. 5). Big Man’s anatomy challenges an in;uential view, largely
based on analyses of Lucy’s remains, that A. afarensis had a chimplike build suited
to frequent tree climbing. The team contends that, instead, a skeleton enabling a
smooth, upright stride was established by the time Lucy’s kind evolved around 4 million years ago. In another revelation, butchery marks on animal bones from about
3. 4 million years ago suggest that Lucy’s species wielded stone tools, making it the
oldest known group to do so (SN: 9/11/10, p. 8). Other scientists reject this claim,
saying that marks found on the bones could have resulted from trampling by animals
or from incidental movement across abrasive soil following burial (SN: 12/18/10, p. 8).
A 3.6-million-year-old skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis suggests an upright gait.
