There were some cool stories out there this week…
Early Hominins Outside Africa
A recent discovery puts the timeline of when early hominins (this includes the bipedal ancestors that include the Homo genus) reached Asia back to 2 million years ago. This is such a cool story because it shows that we still know so little about our origins. 
What drives me crazy though is when I see the news articles about this type of thing and it says “time to rewrite the textbooks.” It is so stupid. Are we talking about textbooks for high school kids? Then they should probably teach kids that we do not know everything and that the picture of human evolution is fairly incomplete. Maybe teach the history of the subject. Mention how we used to think that the evolution was a straight line, but now we know that many groups lived around the same time and probably interbred or wiped each other out. If it is a college course, well the professor should probably be up to date on the latest findings.
Ancient Dogs
I read another story about how the original dogs in North America were derived from the earliest Siberian dogs (not the North American gray wolves). The crazy thing is that dog line was pretty much wiped out when the Europeans came to the Americas. The rise of dogs throughout the world is pretty fascinating. I think I read before that it may have arisen multiple times around the world then converged. Also, there are cool things about the big cats of North America and how their amazing abilities are what led wolves to form packs (I cannot seem to find that article, but you should definitely look into it).
The Odyssey
There was a cool story about archaeologists finding what could end up being one of the oldest copies of Homer’s Odyssey. The tablet looks to be from Roman times. The poem was originally composed (orally most likely) back in the 8th century BCE. I realize that most evidence points to the idea that the Iliad and Odyssey were not actually written by one person. However, I always thought the idea that Homer was perhaps a young poet when he wrote the Iliad. Someone that was writing about the glory of war and how dying in battle was the most glorious thing a person could do, but had never been to battle. How many times does Achilles talk about his glory? But then in the Odyssey when Odysseus meets Achilles in Hades, the dead hero says that being dead sucks and that it never really mattered how many people sang his praises, he ended up in Hades with everyone else. Always seemed like an older guy, who may have been to war and realized that surviving was much more important than glory. It always seemed like such a cool idea.
Golf!!!
I rarely watch golf. I mean, I like to golf, but I will be the first to admit that watching golf on television is pretty boring. It is great to see some awesome individual holes, shots, etc. However, there is usually not too much exciting drama. They try to make it seem dramatic, but then you realize that the leader is winning by ten strokes and was done for two hours.
The other day though, I happened to stop on the Golf Channel and watched the end of the Irish Open. Russell Knox was down a stroke going into the final hole. His drive ended up right in the high grass. Knox hit a blind shot uphill and landed on the green, but left himself with about a fifty foot putt. He sinks the putt to force a playoff with Ryan Fox. They both are on the green in two, but Knox is looking at another very long putt (almost in the same spot), whereas Fox is sitting pretty with a ten footer. Knox drops it in for the second time and Fox ends up missing his putt. It was pretty crazy and exciting!
Hopefully you can enjoy some of these stories!
