Piltdown Hoax

  In 1912 Charles Dawson found a piece of an ancient human skull. He then invited Arthur Smith Woodward, and a French paleontologist to continue the search for earlier human life. Until this date no fossil had been found in England. Then Dawson found a jawbone that had the shape of the ape. Dawson made the announcement that England had discovered what could have possibly have been the oldest fossil and called it Piltdown man. England rejoiced and he became one of the most respected men in science until it was discovered that the whole thing was a hoax. Dawson dies in 1916 and in 1920 Asia and Africa found more human fossils that dated back to earlier times.  Suspicions started arising because Africa and Asia's fossils were supposed to younger than the Piltdown man but for some reason their fossils were less human than the Piltdown man, not more which did not make any sense. In 1949 Fluorine test showed that the fossil was stained which meant the Piltdown man was tampered with. This outraged the scientific community as this made them look bad in the way that they were not able to detect that it was a fraudulent fossil for forty years.
   Human do have faults which we clearly saw in this video. Dawson was a very ambitious man who wanted to fit in and stand out in the scientific community. He wanted it so badly that he forged the Piltdown man. After his death it was discovered that Dawson had tampered with half a dozen more artifacts. This impacted the scientific process because instead of taking the evidence and making sure that the jaw bone was human Dawson made it look like it was by breaking off the end of the jawbone. Dawson violated the scientific process by making his own conclusion and striving for fame in his scientific community. He needed to be patient and keep looking for evidence and testing out more fossils instead of just forging them . Instead of taking all the steps he jumped to the last step in the scientific process and reported his findings.
   The whole scientific process was responsible for the finding of the fraudulent Piltdown man. Asking a question led the scientific community to wonder and form a hypothesis as to  why the fossils in Africa were younger than the Piltdown man, yet they were less human. Then testing the hypothesis by doing an experiment led scientist to try the fluorine test. This advent came after WWII with the technology that helped measure the fluorine content and scientist could roughly date them. After the scientist analyzed their data they came up with their conclusion and in 1949 the fluorine test revealed that the fossil was about 100,000 years old. This could only mean that the fossil was a fake.  They then communicated their findings with the rest of the world.
    I do not believe we can remove the human factor from science. As much as humans want to be professional and not let their ambitions get in the way , they always will. I just believe that there are good ambitions and greedy ones. If we did not have the human factor in the scientific world, I believe nothing would get done. Ambition is what drives scientist to great discoveries. I just think you have to learn to control your ambitions, and how you perceive things. Getting rid of the human factor, would turn us into robot like people. We would just go through the motions without really caring.  So no I do not think that we can remove the human factor from science and I don't think that if we could, we should. Being human even in science is what helps get things done. Good science depends on objectivity and when national pride or self interest overcome objectivity, then that's when mistakes happen.
  What I took from this lesson is that scientist make mistakes just like the rest of us. They can also be very vulnerable. Up to this point in history nothing this drastic had ever occurred. Which shows that everyone trusted each other's work. After the news broke out, doubt was on every ones mind on how far one can go to just gain the five minutes of fame. I ultimately learned that ambition and self greed can drive even the most respected people out there to do the most outrageous things.
   

comparative primate blog post

Lemurs are the lesser known primates. Most Lemurs live in Madagascar which is home to about 60 different species of Lemurs  ranging from the world’s largest lemur to the smallest primate. The forests have provided shelter and food for lemurs since they have lived there which may have been more than 60 million years ago. Many scientist assume that the ancestor's of todays lemurs hopped on a log and traveled from Africa to Madagascar. Scientist do not know exactly how many different types of lemur species there are.  The lemurs’ strong hands and fingers help them to climb trees easily. Their muscular legs are adapted for jumping. When they need a change of scenery, they hop to another branch. The Ring-tailed lemurs live in multi male and female groups of about 11 to 17 animals.Ring-tailed lemur social groups are centered around a group of related adult females and their offspring. There is often a single female that is the head of the group and determines which direction the group will go. Daughters of these lemurs do not inherit their rank but must fight for their class rank. In male lemurs there is usually one to three high ranked lemurs at this is determined byn their age. One of the benefits to being a high-ranking male is increased social interaction with the high-ranking females which may confer benefits such as decreased risk of predation, increased access to food resources, and increased access to reproductively receptive females.Females are sexually receptive for one to two days each year, and estrus may be as short as six to 24 hours. In the wild, the breeding season lasts between seven and 21 days in May and both males and females have multiple mates. During this time the males come to the females and try to mate. If the female lemur doesn;t want to accept she becomes very aggresive. What I found very interesting was The order of mating reflects the male dominance hierarchy , the highest-ranking, central male is the first male to successfully approach and mate when a female becomes receptive. He is followed by the second-ranking male and then by transfer males or non-troop males.The reproductive success of lemurs is highly dependent on environmental conditions. In exceptionally good years in the wild, age of maturation is earlier and birthrate and infant survival are much higher compared to years with severe environmental conditions such as drought. Because of harsh conditions it is a good thing that lemurs have a high reproduction rate. Even if the harshest conditions kill some, many are born after.






Spider monkeys live in the tropical rainforests of central and south America. They have long arms and gripping tails that allow them to move from tree to tree. They have great grip on trees even though they have no thumbs!The new world monkeys are social and gather in groups of two to three dozen animals. At night they split up into smaller groups and sleep together.Foraging also occurs in smaller groups and mostly during the day.The spider monkey knows when to reproduce by watching at the female monkey getting her cycle to start to reproduce. The female monkey has a monthly cycle from 24 to 27 days long. Mating occurs from 2 to 3 days. If they don't stay together for the length of 3 days then no baby can be conceived. Spider monkeys find food in the treetops and feast on nuts, fruits, leaves, bird eggs, and spiders. Typically females give birth to one spider monkey once every two to five years. These spider monkeys depend on their environment to help them hide from predators such as humans that hunt them .

There are different types of baboons and most of them live in Africa or Arabia. Baboons generally prefer savanna and other semi-arid habitats, though a few live in tropical forests Baboons do not have gripping tails but they can still climb tress to sleep , eat , or look out for trouble. Baboons are sociable and they groom each other eating off dead skin. This piece of article that I found on the Discovery website I found was very interesting. "With the male grunting and the female emitting loud and long operatic calls, mating chacma baboons produce an incredible amount of noise. And a new study has found that other males take advantage of the din by eavesdropping on mating couples to determine the status of relationships.

If the couple quarrels or parts, for even just a brief moment, the snooping male then takes advantage of the situation by mating with the female, himself." This trait has been adapted since there are more female baboons than males so they need to fight to find a mate. The head baboon picks out a female baboon and then he protects her for about a week from other males who want to mate with her. Kinda human like behavior which i thought was interesting.

The Gibbon is a small sized ape that is found in the dense jungles and tropical rainforests across the South East Asia. Gibbons spedn most of their time in trees which helps them hide from predators and also has food up in the safe distance. Gibbons are social and live in groups known as troops which consists of the alpha male and female and their offspring. I found it super cute that Gibbons stay together for life. A gibbon family is terrotorial and defends their property through morning songs performed by the breeding male and female. This song lasts ten to thirteen minutes sometimes longer if its raining or shorter if its reallt dry. This trait was adapted because of the limited number of Gibbon being able to stay up in atree. They must sing songs to mate and to wanr off other gibbons.

Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, sharing more than 98 percent of our genetic blueprint.Chimpanzees live in central and west central Africa in the tropical rainforests.
Chimpanzees live in social communities of several dozen animals, and can habituate themselves to African rain forests, woodlands, and grasslands.There are no actual seasons of chimpanzee reproduction. They mate throughout the year when the females are receptive. However, there are cycles where the females are infertile.There is hardly any independence between chimpanzees. They are very social. Chimps that are just born can survive without their mothers and orphan chimps would be adopted by relative chimps that would take care of them like a mother. These chimps learned to adapt to their environment by mating as much as they could whether the female is fertile or not.

Through my research of all of these primates I found out that the environment does have a huge influence on their physical and behavioral traits. These primates have leanred to adapt to their environments based on their needs. for example the lemurs are good at jumping from tree to tree to receive food. The Gibbons used their environment to help stay away from predators and sleep at night. These are important traits of these primates. So in conclusion the environment does have a huge influence on these primates behavior.

homologous

Homologous


The beaver and the elephant are two different species that possess the homologous trait. Did you know that the beaver is actually one of the largest rodents in America. The beaver uses its flat hairless tail for balancing which I thought was pretty interesting. The beavers main habitat is the water and they can actually grow to be four feet long. Some can way anywhere from 40 to 60 lbs!

Now the elephant is one of the largest mammals on earth. The elephant's shoulder  can actually weigh over 16,000lbs. They can also grow to be 5 foot thirteen inches, which I know doesn't seem very tall but with that kind of weight, it can kill you. They have thick skin almost a coarse like feel, which helps them keep cool during the summer. They have long tusks and hair very think covering their bodies. A common ancestory for both is Mammalia because they both have teeth structures .






Analogous

The snail and the turtle are two species that possess the analogous trait. Both of these species  have an outer shell which they use as protection from their predators. If you have every picked up a snail or approached it, when you get to close they hide back in their shell. Same thing with a turtle, when they are scared they hide in their shell and this is for protection. Turtles and snails have no common ancestor and so they evolved independently of one another from different methods/structures.

Guess my DNA :)

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