According to Science editor Bruce Alberts:

[The Ardipithecus research] changes the way we think about early human evolution, and it represents the culmination of 15 years of painstaking, highly collaborative research by 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations, who carefully analyzed 150,000 specimens of fossilized animals and plants.

Nicknamed Ardi, the hominid lived in what is now Ethioipa, and is a million years older than Lucy, the ancient hominid sometimes called the "missing link" between apes and humans. In fact, there is likely no one "missing link," and instead scientists have discovered there are many stages between proto-humans and what we would recognize as homo sapiens today.

Indeed, a release about the discovery explains:

After analyzing the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands, feet, and other bones, they determined that Ardipithecus possessed a mix of "primitive" traits, shared with its predecessors-the apes of the Miocene epoch-and "derived" traits, which it shared exclusively with later hominids. However, many of its traits do not appear in modern-day African apes. One surprising conclusion, therefore, is that it is likely that the African apes have evolved extensively since we shared that last common ancestor, which thus makes living chimpanzees and gorillas poor models for the last common ancestor and for understanding our own evolution since that time.

In other words, humans did not evolve from apes at all. Present-day apes and humans are radically different from their common ancestor.

Other breakthroughs this year, according to Science, included:

Pulsars Detected by Fermi: NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope helped to identify previously unknown pulsars-highly magnetized and rapidly rotating neutron stars-and shed light onto their unique gamma-ray emissions.

Rapamycin: Researchers found that tinkering with a key signaling pathway produces life-extending benefits in mice-the first such result ever achieved in mammals. The discovery was particularly remarkable because the treatment did not start until the mice were middle-aged.

Graphene: In a string of rapid-fire advances, materials scientists probed the properties of graphene-highly conductive sheets of carbon atoms-and started fashioning the material into experimental electronic devices.

Plant ABA Receptors: Solving the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts may help scientists design new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods, potentially improving crop yields worldwide and aiding biofuel production on marginal lands.

LCLS at SLAC: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory unveiled the world's first x-ray laser, a powerful research tool capable of taking snapshots of chemical reactions in progress, altering the electronic structures of materials, and myriad other experiments spanning a wide range of scientific fields.

Gene Therapy Comeback: European and U.S. researchers made progress in treating a fatal brain disease, inherited blindness, and a severe immune disorder by developing new strategies involving gene therapy.

Monopoles: In an experimental coup, physicists working with strange crystalline materials called spin ices created magnetic ripples that model the predicted behavior of "magnetic monopoles," or fundamental particles with only one magnetic pole.

LCROSS Finds Water on the Moon: In October, sensors aboard a NASA spacecraft detected water vapor and ice in the debris from a spent rocket stage that researchers deliberately crashed near the south pole of the Moon.

Hubble Repair: In May, a nearly flawless final repair mission by space-shuttle astronauts gave the Hubble Space Telescope sharper vision and a new lease on life, resulting in its most spectacular images yet.

via Science

Today PLoS Biology published a study of fruitflies, a species where the male flies show a marked preference for mating with larger females because they are more fecund. The problem is that the males show such aggressive preferences that they basically badger the females constantly to mate. What this means is that the females are so harried that they have less time to search for food, which degrades their health. Also, among fruitflies, the mating process is itself damaging to the health of the females - fruitfly sperm is toxic.

As a result, the most-desired females become far less capable of generating healthy offspring. And the smaller, less fit females wind up bearing as many offspring as the fitter ones. In the end, the males' aggressive mating with the fittest females ends up preventing their species from evolving into a much fitter group.

Tristan A. F. Long, one of the authors of the study, said:

These larger females are disproportionately harassed and harmed, by males attempting to obtain matings. When these males are ‘choosy' with their courtship, there may be negative consequences to the species' ability to adaptively evolve.

What's interesting about this study is that it's one of the few to point out how male mate choice affects evolution of a species. Usually female mate choice is emphasized, except in species where females are dominant. Here we can see clearly that male mate choice is having a profound and not very salutary affect on the future of fruitfly fitness. The issue here is obviously not attractiveness, but instead the kind of fitness associated with being larger and more fecund. If larger, "attractive" females are harrassed into reproductive uselessness by the males, then any traits they possess that make them healthier (a trait for metabolic efficiency, for instance) won't be able to spread through the population as quickly as it might if males chose mates randomly.

via PLoS Biology

Evolutionary biologist David Rollo and a team of scientists at McMaster University in Canada stumbled upon the universal death stench while studying how cockroaches avoid their dead. After observing that the insects would avoid fluid extracted from dead cockroaches, they surmised that smell is what allowed them to recognize and avoid these dead bodies. It turned out that they were right - after an animal or insect dies, its cells release fatty acids that carry a distinct odor. This same odor acts as a repellant in ocean-going crustacians too.

And the avoid this "death stench" of fatty acids goes back over 400 million years, around the time that insects and crustacians diverged. Rollo and his colleagues believe this because insects and crustacians share the aversion, which means it most likely evolved before the two families of species split off from one another. In fact, death stench avoidance probably evolved in the ocean.

Why would this be such an ancient trait?

Says Rollo:

Recognizing and avoiding the dead could reduce the chances of catching the disease, or allow you to get away with just enough exposure to activate your immunity . . . As explained in our study, fatty acids-oleic or linoleic acids-are reliably and quickly released from the cells following death. Evolution appears to have favoured such clues because they were reliably associated with demise, and avoiding contagion and predation are rather critical to survival.

Even if the death stench was emitted from a severed limb instead of a dead body, it is still useful as a warning. Rotting limbs could be diseased - or could be a sign that predators are nearby.

So does this mean that the fear of death evolved after the lust for sex? After all, there had been millennia of humping before the proto-crustacian-insects started avoiding the death stench.

via Evolutionary Biology

The team responsible for studying the specimen is led by Salvador Moyà-Solà, director of the Institut Català de Paleontologia (ICP) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He and his colleagues have spent five years examining the fossilized cranium since its discovery in 2004. The fragile remains, which preserve most of the face and mandible, were found in the Abocador de Can Mata area in L'Anoia, Barcelona, a locale known for its fossil-rich terrain.

The specimen has been classified Anoiapithecus brevirostris. The Anoiapithecus genus refers to its L'Anoia origins, while brevirostris is in reference to its unusually modern features. The fossil has been nicknamed "Lluc", probably in homage to the most famous hominid specimen, the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as Lucy.

It's the specimen's facial morphology that has really attracted interest. While most of the primates in the Hominidae family are prognathic, or marked by a protruding jaw, Anoiapithecus brevirostris has a remarkably flat face. Its facial features are comparable only to the Homo genus, of which we're the only living representative and which didn't even exist for nearly ten million years after Anoiapithecus brevirostris.

That's not to say Lluc is some sort of time-displaced missing link between modern humans and ancient apes. Instead, the researchers speculate this may be an example of evolutionary convergence, where similar environmental conditions produce similar adaptations. If nothing else, this discovery may help researchers better understand the occurrence of reduced prognathism in certain strands of the Hominidae family.

Anoiapithecus brevirostris may also help illuminate where hominids originated. Some paleontologists have pointed to the kenyapithecines as the most primitive hominoids, suggesting they are the ancestors of all other hominids. These primates, which have been found in Africa and Eurasia, date back to the Middle Miocene era, roughly the same time period as Anoiapithecus brevirostris. However, Lluc's features are a peculiar mix of those resembling modern hominids, Eurasian kenyapithecines, and afropithecids, another group of primitive hominoids found in Africa.

In trying to make sense of this muddled evolutionary genealogy, Moyà-Solà and his team have turned to the controversial "into Africa" theory. This essentially holds that kenyapithecines initially left Africa for Eurasia around 15 million years ago, at which time a number of hominid species radiated out into several regions. Anoiapithecus brevirostris, which settled in Spain, would have been one of this initial wave of hominids. Later, the ancestors of humans, gorillas, and chimpanzees returned to Africa. It's also possible the ancestors of the great apes and humans never left Africa, but the forebears of the pongines, which includes modern orangutans, did leave for Eurasia.

As always, there's only so much one can conclude from a single cranium, no matter how extraordinary it might be. Anoiapithecus brevistros complicates an evolutionary picture that was already plenty muddled, but one can only hope the continued accumulation of data will someday make the millions of years of our evolutionary history a bit clearer.

[Science Daily]

Hailing from the Middle Eocene (about 47 million years ago), this discovery will help to shed light on the early history of a potential human ancestor. Discovered in the late 1980s, the specimen was divided into two separate parts and sold to different buyers, and wasn't reassembled until 2007.

This new species, now called Darwinius masillae, is named for Charles Darwin, and is believed to exist very close to an evolutionary branch that would eventually lead to modern primates and humans. This specimen in particular is a young female, named Ida, and is so highly preserved that soft tissues and fur impressions were preserved, along with the digestive tract that allowed researchers to discover the last meal that it ingested - fruits and leaves. She also had a broken wrist, which had since healed, and it is believed that she would have been about 9 months old. Alive, she would have weighed around two pounds, and about two feet in length.

This finding is a remarkable one, not only for the high preservation of the fossil, but for the potential implications for paleontologists. A mere twenty million years prior to this is the KT boundary, a major extinction line that saw the demise of the Dinosaurs. With their passing came the rise of the mammals, and a world that looked much like ours today. The location where Ida was discovered is known as the Grube Messel, a World Heritage Site, and 47 million years ago, it was a para-tropical rain forest.

Complete specimens are also extremely useful for scientists, to learn as much as possible about the species. This particular find is missing an arm, and is somewhat crushed, but remains the most complete primate ever discovered, which will yield an enormous amount of information on how Ida and her kind moved, what they ate and what their life cycle would likely have been. Certain changes between this and earlier fossils also helps to uncover information about the evolution of this group, and Ida seems to represent a certain amount of diversification within this group of primates. Scientists believe that this species falls at an early time in the ancestral line that would eventually lead to humans.

Source: /PLoS ONE/

Let's get a few possible misconceptions out of the way first. The Princeton group, composed of researchers Raj Chakrabarti, Herschel Rabitz, Stacey Springs and George McLendon, haven't proven that intelligent design is a valid scientific theory. Nor are they claiming that DNA is making a set of conscious decisions about growing extra legs or wings (though that would admittedly be cool).

What they are saying is that evolution is not entirely random, as Darwin believed. The researchers were tinkering with a set of proteins forming the electron transport chain, a system that regulates energy use in cells. They discovered that the proteins were correcting any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations, constantly restoring the chain to working order. A mathematical analysis revealed that these proteins seem to make these minute corrections all the time, steering organisms toward evolutionary changes that make the creature fitter.

Said Chakrabarti:

The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random, operating like a 'blind watchmaker'? Our new theory extends Darwin's model, demonstrating how organisms can subtly direct aspects of their own evolution to create order out of randomness.

Their work seems to confirm ideas held by Darwin's colleague Alfred Wallace, who co-discovered the theory of evolution. Wallace believed that life forms undergoing natural selection could adjust their evolutionary course "exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident." In other words: Wallace believed that organisms had a kind of evolutionary feedback control mechanism.

Added Rabitz:

What we have found is that certain kinds of biological structures exist that are able to steer the process of evolution toward improved fitness. The data just jumps off the page and implies we all have this wonderful piece of machinery inside that's responding optimally to evolutionary pressure.

The researchers put together a paper recently published in Physical Review Letters, which suggests that control theory could help explain evolution. This is likely to spark a lot of debate. But Chakrabarti says their ideas fit neatly within theories of evolution:

Biological change is always driven by random mutation and selection, but at certain pivotal junctures in evolutionary history, such random processes can create structures capable of steering subsequent evolution toward greater sophistication and complexity.

In other words, organisms are evolving ways to evolve better.

Evolution's New Wrinkle [via Princeton University]

Evolutionary anthropologist Gottfried Hohmann, a co-author of the study, says this discovery might change how we understand male dominance in society:

In chimpanzees, male-dominance is associated with physical violence, hunting, and meat consumption. By inference, the lack of male dominance and physical violence is often used to explain the relative absence of hunting and meat eating in bonobos. Our observations suggest that, in contrast to previous assumptions, these behaviors may persist in societies with different social relations.

Now all that awesome feminist science fiction from the 1970s about women who fight like crazed weasels has been validated!

Photo by Emmanuelle Grundmann.

Primate hunting by bonobos at LuiKotale, Salonga National Park [Coming Oct. 14 in Current Biology]