It was always believed that the earliest of the human genus, Homo habilis (Handy Man) were the first toolmakers. That was until recently when a team of international researchers discovered two ribs of a large hoofed animal that roamed modern Ethiopia nearly 3.5 million years ago.

The evidence came to life when the ribs were studied, revealing slices in the bone, suggesting the use of tools 800,000 years beyond what was previously believed. From the ancestor known as Australeopithecus aferensis, the genus from which the famous “Lucy” came, the bones are believed to have been cut with tools the primates used in skinning the meat. “In this part of the world, at this time period, the only [hominid] species found to this point has been afarensis,” Shannon McPherron said. McPherron, an archaeologist from The Max Plancke Institute, is the co-author of the study that was published yesterday in Nature magazine.

Though it stands as reasonable to believe that tool-use was much older than previously thought simply by the sophistication of what we’ve discovered and marked as being the “oldest tools”. It’s easy to understand tools as originating from rocks being used in their natural state. A rock with a naturally sharp edge would’ve been used to cut, while those with more of a blunt edge would’ve been used to crush objects like bone to get inside to the marrow. As with anything, tools went through stages of evolution, as their function was passed down through generations over millions of years. “We’ll have to find more than these two bones, but if we fill in the record and we find more evidence of this, then we might be looking at a kind of learned behavior that was then shared and passed along in and amongst these groups,” McPherron said.

Though Lucy and her peers might not have been manufacturing tools, it appears they were using them almost a million years before we ever knew.

It wasn’t a very good week for religion. First we were introduced to pseudo-science teachers who brand their students with crucifixes, and now we have proof of the existence of the ’selfish’ gene. Initially introduced to us in 1976 by the famed biologist and author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, the idea of a ’selfish’ gene was one in which our genes carry an independent drive to survive and carry on into future generations.

In a study involving the reproductive behavior of honey bees, University of Western Ontario biology professor Graham Thompson, with help from the University of Sydney’s Peter Oxley, has discovered the location in which a genome harbors the ’selfish’ gene. As somewhat of an extension to the Honey Bee Genome Project of 2006, Thompson noticed the ’selfish’ behavior of the worker bee’s genetics as all of the females are sterile. This led him to the discovery which has been considered a key element in the process of evolution.

This new stamp of evolutionary proof not only adds to the resoundings of Charles Darwin’s works, but as Thompson says, “…provides a validation for a huge body of socio-biology.”

image courtesy of Nicolle Rager-Fuller/National Science Foundation

It isn’t so surprising that life is constantly being formed in our oceans. Considered the “Garden of Eden” to Evolutionists, it is where the chemistry of life forms single-celled organisms which then split. Eventually we have all of the living creatures we have today. Though even Evolutionists are wrong once in awhile; not by their belief that life came from the primordial muck of the oceans, but by how much proof they have that life is still being formed in those very oceans.

Click here to read more about those at the top of our family tree.

Because of the slowness in their sexual maturation sharks and rays have a tendency to be overfished. Now, because the human palate finds the meat and fins particularly savory, over half of the various species of oceanic sharks are threatened with extinction.

Click here to read why Hooper, Brody, and Quint need to stay out of the water.

By Charlie Riedel, AP – Courtesy of USA Today

It isn’t very shocking to hear that PETA has made the headlines again, considering the fate of Eight Belles during Saturday’s running of the Kentucky Derby. Many race fans find themselves on the fence on this issue, as nearly all who love the sport of horse racing also have a soft spot in their hearts for the health and welfare our equine friends.

Click here to read why many believe jockey Gabriel Saez should’ve stopped listening to Devo many years ago.