Jørn Hurum has accompanied the fossilized primate he nicknamed Ida on a world tour to fame and notoriety in the last week. The 47-million-year-old fossil is famous for its haunting completeness — the outlines of its fur and its last meal appear like a shadow around the intact skeleton. Yet Hurum has drawn fire for promoting the fossil and its potential links to human ancestors through a multi-platform media campaign alongside the release of a scientific paper that describes the fossil’s genealogy more modestly. Today, he and Ida paused in London to discuss the fallout of the publicity and the next scientific steps. Continue reading Taking a fossil primate on the road
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Reunion of fossil halves splits scientists
Palaeontologists have identified a new species of primate by putting together two halves of an unusually complete fossil, which were separated for decades by the vagaries of the fossil trade. One half of the fossil — which some media reports have been quick to label ‘the missing link’ — was even doctored by a past owner to make it look more impressive.
The relationship of the new species, Darwinius masillae, to other early primates has sparked an academic controversy, a press conference earlier today at the American Museum of Natural History and a television documentary to air next week. Continue reading Reunion of fossil halves splits scientists
Apollo scientist dusts off ‘lost’ lunar data
A new analysis based on an Apollo scientist’s copies of lost NASA data seeks to determine how sticky, abrasive moon dust will affect lengthier future lunar missions.
The author of the new study, Brian O’Brien, was the principal investigator for the dust detectors left behind in 1969 by the first two manned missions to the Moon, Apollo 11 and Apollo 12. At the time, O’Brien was a professor of space science at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Continue reading Apollo scientist dusts off ‘lost’ lunar data
Fake Facebook pages spin web of deceit
In September 2008, Forbes science editor Matthew Herper and former Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss appeared together on a panel at the World Stem Cell Summit in Madison, Wisconsin. In late February, Herper received an invitation to ‘friend’ Weiss on the Internet social-networking site Facebook. On the basis of their acquaintance, Herper accepted, noticing that a number of other people involved with stem cells were listed as friends on Weiss’s profile. However, that profile — and many of those it was linked to — was a fake. Continue reading Fake Facebook pages spin web of deceit