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Additional Funding for Human Evolution

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https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-are-humans-going-to-evolve-again-116990 The next federal budget should include additional spending for the study of human evolution because studying the origins of humans helps researchers understand genetic variation and how modifying genes can impact the immune systems of modern humans. It appears that there was some interbreeding between humans and other hominin species because their DNA is is modern humans today. Studying human evolution can help us understand what might have been beneficial to the hominins that could be used today. Studying how the hominins adapted to their changing environment can tell us how humans might adapt to the changes going on in the world. Studying genes and how they evolved, especially the ones that are likely to cause illness, can benefit people suffering with hereditary diseases. Funding should should be put towards the study of human evolution so that we can better understand our origins and what might be poss...
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A Meeting Between 2 Hominins

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What would happen if two hominin species met?  I think everyone will have their own opinions and ideas about what a meeting between two hominin species would have looked like. We will never know if two different hominin species did meet but I would like to think that if they did meet that they would have gotten along. It is hard to imagine them getting along since they have many differences and were uncivilized, especially when civilized humans today are having trouble getting along with each other. I think because they were uncivilized it might have made it easier to get along because they were not used to constantly judging each other and would have been intrigued by meeting someone else that is not exactly like them. 
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Ardipithecus ramidus

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https://www.icr.org/article/did-humans-evolve-from-ard Ardipithecus ramidus is one of our early relatives that gives us insight as to how humans and chimps diverged from our ancestors. We are able to understand how human got some of our traits due to Ar. ramidus's both ape-like and human-like features.  The article I read focused on the foot of Ar. ramidus and how it shows that our human foot probably did not evolve from one similar to that of modern African apes because Ar. radius's foot turns out to be unlike the feet of the African apes in multiple ways. The partial skeleton of Ar. ramidus preserves most of the foot and includes a special bone called the os peroneum, which is critical for understanding foot evolution. The os peroneum is embedded with a tendon that helps with the primary muscle that draws in the big tow when grasping. African apes modified their foot to be more effective for grasping than leaping and the modifications made it difficult to distinguish their fe...
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Bipedalism

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Bipedalism was an adaption that our ancestors developed as a necessity due to their surroundings and changes in living environment. Being able to tell if a creature was bipedal is possible by the different aspects of the skeleton like the shape or length of the bones. The curvature of the lumbar section of the spine in humans helps to bring the center of gravity over the feet and closer to the midline of the body as apposed to  most quadrupeds who's center of gravity is located near the middle of the torso. The number and size of the lumbar vertebrae is different between humans and apes. The larger size and number of lumbar vertebrae allows for a more flexible back to help with the hips and trunk when walking.
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Why are there still Chimps?

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https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/chimps-cant-tell-us-much-about-being-human If humans come from chimps, then why are there still chimps? This question can be difficult to answer because there is no right answer. I think there are still chimps because humans didn't evolve from every single chimp. Some chimps lead to the evolution of humans  and others kept reproducing chimps with vary little variation. The chimps that didn't evolve were doing fine in their natural habitat. The changes in habitats and what skills were needed lead to human evolution. Human evolution happens through a period of time and not just right away so at one point chimpanzees and humans branched off from each other. Everywhere in the world is not the same and that is why chimps and humans are both coexisting.
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Human Evolution and Racism

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https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/chimps-cant-tell-us-much-about-being-human What is the first thing that comes to mind when evolution or human evolution is brought up? "Survival of the fittest" is the first thing that comes to mind but how does this describe the story behind human evolution? Going beyond the creationism of human evolution is not often done in classroom settings. Holly Dunsworth wrote an article in 2018 that talked about teaching evolution and my favorite quote from the article was, " Evolution educators—even if sticking to E.coli, fruit flies, or sticklebacks—must confront the ways that evolutionary science has implicitly undergirded and explicitly promoted, or has naively inspired so many racist, sexist, and otherwise harmful beliefs and actions." There is a lot of stigma around racism and sexism and talking about it at school which is not right because school is a place where people go to learn. Talking about racism and how evolutionary sci...
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About Me

My name is Tori Schatzel and I am a junior at App State. I am majoring in Biological Anthropology and minoring in Spanish. My main interest within anthropology is forensic anthropology but I am also interested in primates and human evolution.
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