Navigate the brain in a way that was never before possible; fly through major brain pathways, compare essential circuits, zoom into a region to explore the cells that comprise it, and the functions that depend on it.
The Human Connectome Project aims to provide an unparalleled compilation of neural data, an interface to graphically navigate this data and the opportunity to achieve never before realized conclusions about the living human brain.
(via rossexton)
Six day old human embryo. Life is a very beautiful thing.
Photo by: Medico Space
Please visit heythereuniverse for more great pictures!
(submission from luutopia)
‘Game-changer’ in evolution from S. African bones
This image released by the journal Science shows the right hand skeleton of the adult female Australopithecus sediba against a modern human hand. A detailed analysis of 2 million-year-old bones found in South Africa offers the most powerful case so far in identifying the transitional figure that came before modern humans, findings some are calling a potential game-changer in understanding evolution. The hand, seen in a palmar view, lacks three wrist bones and four terminal phalanges, but is otherwise complete. [Read More]
Dolphins May ‘Talk’ Like Humans
The study by biologists at Aarhus University in Denmark concentrated on the dolphin’s whistle, which was believed to be produced by the resonance of air in the dolphin’s nasal air cavities. This would have implications for how dolphins communicate at depth — increased air pressure would affect the size of the nasal air cavities and therefore the pitch of the sounds they can make. Instead, the team discovered that the dolphin’s whistle isn’t in fact a whistle at all; but a sound produced by tissue vibrations. [Read More]
Closest Human Ancestor May Rewrite Steps in Our Evolution
A startling mix of human and primitive traits found in the brains, hips, feet and hands of an extinct species identified last year make a strong case for it being the immediate ancestor to the human lineage, scientists have announced.
These new findings could rewrite long-standing theories about the precise steps human evolution took, they added, including the notion that early human female hips changed shape to accommodate larger-brained offspring. There is also new evidence suggesting that this species had the hands of a toolmaker. [Read More]
Early humans were using stone hand axes as far back as 1.8 million years ago. Credit: Pierre-Jean Texier, National Center of Scientific Research, France
A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced toolmaking methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study, published this week in Nature, raises new questions about where these tall and slender early humans originated and how they developed sophisticated tool-making technology. [Read More]
Karl Ernst Von Baer’s Embryos Von Baer’s laws state that general features of animals appear earlier in the embryo than special features, where less general features stem from the most general, each embryo of a species departs more and more from a predetermined passage through the stages of other animals, and there is never a complete morphological similarity between an embryo and a lower adult. Von Baer’s embryo drawings display that individual development proceeds from general features of the developing embryo in early stages through differentiation into special features specific to the species, establishing that linear evolution could not occur. Embryological development, in von Baer’s mind, is a process of differentiation, “a movement from the more homogeneous and universal to the more heterogeneous and individual.”
Human Embryo
MINNEAPOLIS — Fossils described last year as representatives of an ancient species critical to human evolution have reentered the scientific spotlight and set off a new round of debate over the finds’ true identity. Researchers described analyses of new and previously recovered remains of a South African species called Australopithecus sediba on April 16 at a meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Evidence is accumulating, they reported, that 2-million-year-old A. sediba formed an evolutionary connection between relatively apelike members ofAustralopithecus and the Homo genus, which includes living people. It’s now clear that A. sediba shares more skeletal features with early Homospecimens than any other known Australopithecus species does, said Darryl de Ruiter of Texas A&M University in College Station. “We think A. sediba is a possible candidate ancestor for the genus Homo.” Read more.
![‘Game-changer’ in evolution from S. African bones
This image released by the journal Science shows the right hand skeleton of the adult female Australopithecus sediba against a modern human hand. A detailed analysis of 2 million-year-old bones found in South Africa offers the most powerful case so far in identifying the transitional figure that came before modern humans, findings some are calling a potential game-changer in understanding evolution. The hand, seen in a palmar view, lacks three wrist bones and four terminal phalanges, but is otherwise complete. [Read More]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr80zawQBO1qfsp07o1_400.jpg)
![Dolphins May ‘Talk’ Like Humans
The study by biologists at Aarhus University in Denmark concentrated on the dolphin’s whistle, which was believed to be produced by the resonance of air in the dolphin’s nasal air cavities. This would have implications for how dolphins communicate at depth — increased air pressure would affect the size of the nasal air cavities and therefore the pitch of the sounds they can make. Instead, the team discovered that the dolphin’s whistle isn’t in fact a whistle at all; but a sound produced by tissue vibrations. [Read More]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr807ynA9Z1qfsp07o1_1280.jpg)
![Closest Human Ancestor May Rewrite Steps in Our Evolution
A startling mix of human and primitive traits found in the brains, hips, feet and hands of an extinct species identified last year make a strong case for it being the immediate ancestor to the human lineage, scientists have announced.
These new findings could rewrite long-standing theories about the precise steps human evolution took, they added, including the notion that early human female hips changed shape to accommodate larger-brained offspring. There is also new evidence suggesting that this species had the hands of a toolmaker. [Read More]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr7zxveLqm1qfsp07o1_1280.jpg)
![Early humans were using stone hand axes as far back as 1.8 million years ago. Credit: Pierre-Jean Texier, National Center of Scientific Research, France
A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced toolmaking methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study, published this week in Nature, raises new questions about where these tall and slender early humans originated and how they developed sophisticated tool-making technology. [Read More]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqvnkxQ3x61qfsp07o1_400.jpg)
