The “hobbit” evolved separate to humans

October 3rd, 2009 LONDON - Earthworms have pipped mankind and dinosaurs to emerge as the most successful 100 species on Earth in a new league table. Christopher Lloyd, the author of 'What on Earth Evolved?', examined the entire history of the planet and its life forms to determine the most successful ones.

October 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Anthropologists took the wraps off the oldest known human ancestor Thursday - a 4.4-million-year-old Ethiopian skeleton named Ardi, which challenges many long-held assumptions about how humans and apes evolved. "It's not a chimp.

September 20th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of researchers is probing the links between modern humans and Neanderthals. Homo neanderthalensis nearly made it through two Ice Ages in Europe, and disappeared roughly 30,000 years ago.

September 9th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists have found a handful of ancient human skulls, dating back to about 1.8 million years ago, at an archaeological site two hours from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, which throws into doubt that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind. According to a report in The Independent, the skulls, jawbones and fragments of limb bones suggest that our ancient human ancestors migrated out of Africa far earlier than previously thought and spent a long evolutionary interlude in Eurasia - before moving back into Africa to complete the story of man.

August 4th, 2009 SYDNEY - Australian scientists have developed new theory about the 'Hobbit' species in the Indonesian island of Flores, that they existed alongside humans. Archaeologists found the 'hobbit' in 2003, while excavating in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores.

July 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has revealed that the sex chromosome that only males carry is deteriorating and could disappear within a few million years. Scientists at Penn State University (PSU) found that the male Y chromosome evolved at a much more rapid pace than X chromosome, which both males and females carry.

July 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The sex chromosome that only males carry is deteriorating and could disappear within a few million years. A pair of Penn State University (PSU) scientists discovered that the male Y chromosome evolved at a much more rapid pace than X chromosome, which both males and females carry.

July 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Rhesus monkeys and humans recognise faces the same way, according to the latest research. The study provides insight into the evolution of the critical human social skill of facial recognition, which enables us to form relationships and interact appropriately with others.

July 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The habit of taking turns is more than just good manners - it's down to evolution, say researchers. According to University of Leicester psychologists, there is an "invisible hand" that guides our actions in this respect.

June 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, a team of scientists has suggested that humans most likely share a common ancestor with orangutans, not chimpanzees and gorillas. The research, done by scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science, reject as "problematic" the popular suggestion, based on DNA analysis, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees, which they maintain is not supported by fossil evidence.

June 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at the University of Leeds claim that they have discovered one of the mechanisms governing how physical features and behavioural traits among humans have evolved over centuries. When Charles Darwin proposed that such traits are passed from a parent to their offspring, with natural selection favouring those that give the greatest advantage for survival, the English naturalist did not have a scientific explanation for this process.

June 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have discovered an 11.9-million-year-old fossil ape species with an unusually flat, "surprisingly human" face in Spain, a find that could prove to be the "missing link" between early human ancestors and more primitive apes. According to a report in National Geographic News, the species, Anoiapithecus brevirostris, suggests humans' ape ancestors split from primitive apes in Europe, not Africa.

June 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A University of Missouri researcher says that there is an ever-widening gap between what humans can naturally learn and what they need to learn to be successful adults in today's modern society. David Geary, Curators' Professor of Psychological Sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science, says that schools might have helped bridge the gap between evolution and new knowledge, but more may need to be done.

June 2nd, 2009 LONDON - Scientists have found a 12-million-year-old fossil hominid in Spain, which suggests that millions of years before early humans evolved in Africa, their ancestors may have lived in Europe. According to a report in New Scientist, the fossil, named Anoiapithecus brevirostris by Salvador Moya-Sola of the Catalan Institute of Palaeontology in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues, dates from a period of human evolution for which the record is very thin.

January 27th, 2009 SYDNEY - Scientists, like primary school kids everywhere, are scratching their heads over lice, but in sheer wonder. 'It will be of little comfort to parents but head lice have the most highly evolved mitochondrial chromosomes of all multi-celled animals,' said associate professor Stephen Barker, parasitologist, University of Queensland (UQ).