October 16, 2024: The 50th anniversary of discovering Lucy, the fifth test flight of the SpaceX Starship is a success, and dialysis treatments are in short supply after Hurricane Helene. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Flying conservationists guide Northern Bald Ibises on their migration to Spain. Waldrappteam Conservation and Research | | | • Conservationists are raising baby endangered Northern Bald Ibises and reintroducing them to Europe. They even teach them to fly. | 6 min read | | | • Hurricane Helene devastated a North Carolina plant that supplies dialysis fluid to 40,000 people in the U.S. Patients are facing rationing and delayed care. | 4 min read | | | In 1972 researchers traveled to the Afar region of northeastern Ethiopia to look for hominin fossils dating to more than three million years ago. A site called Hadar looked especially promising, its rugged landscape chock-full of mammal fossils that erode out of the hillsides over time. David L. Brill | | | Fifty years ago this November, paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson spotted a human-looking elbow bone jutting out of a gravely hillside in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Johanson had discovered a preserved skeleton (40 percent complete) of "Lucy," a hominin called Australopithecus afarensis, who had a combination of apelike and humanlike features, and lived some 3.2 millions years ago. Even 50 years later, Lucy remains the likeliest ancestor to all later human species, including us, Homo sapiens.
What they found: The Lucy fossil find contained skull fragments and a lower jaw with teeth, as well as parts of the arm, leg, pelvis, spine and ribs—47 bones in all. Based on the size of her femur bone, the team estimated that Lucy stood only three and a half feet tall and weighed 60 to 65 pounds. Her skull size would have held a very small brain.
| | | The 3.2 million years old fossilized bones of Lucy. Robert Preston Photography / Alamy Stock Photo | | | Why this matters: At the time of Lucy's discovery, the oldest hominin fossils were 2.5 million years old of a species called Australopithecus africanus discovered in South Africa. Lucy had several humanlike traits, including upright walking (based on her pelvic bone alignment and spinal cord anatomy) and a protruded face and curved fingers and toes, which made her a more compelling common ancestor of later hominins.
What the experts say: Au. afarensis might not have been alone—even in eastern Africa. Paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie discovered several fossils of other hominins dating to 3.8 million to 3.0 million years ago, contemporaries of Lucy. "As additional fossils of these more recently identified hominins come to light, perhaps one of them might emerge as the front-runner," write Johanson and Haile-Selassie in the November issue. "Until then, Au. afarensis remains the most likely ancestor and one of the most important species in human evolutionary history." | | | • In the early 20th century many scientists embraced eugenics. And publications, including Scientific American, endorsed the idea of "the science of breeding better men." Later discredited by science, eugenics led to rampant state sterilizations of poor women and inspired the Nazi's murders of millions. The language and attitudes of eugenics remain prominent in our culture, most recently front and center in attacks on immigrants by former President Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, writes senior opinion editor Dan Vergano. "To everyone's shame, racism thrives in a significant part of the population, which cloaks prejudices in the leftover language of eugenics," he says. | 4 min read | | | • Bill Nye, the science guy, speaks out about the neurological condition ataxia and how it has affected his family. | STAT | • A fascinating six-part series on how Indigenous communities are confronting climate change. | VOX | • The Sahara Desert received eight inches of rain over several days in September. Check out these cool photos of the lakes that formed in the sand. | CNN | | | The story of humans goes back millions of years, and researchers are still uncovering the events and species that led to us. For a fabulous overview of how this evolutionary tale came about (and is still unraveling), I recommend this article by senior editor Kate Wong, who has spent her career telling stories of paleoanthropologists working in the field. | If you're enjoying this newsletter and would like to dive deeper into the topics I write about every day, consider a subscription! We have special discounts just for Today in Science readers. Let me know if you decide to subscribe: newsletters@sciam.com. Thank you for reading and supporting science journalism! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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