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Jennifer Viegas the American Discovery News reporter has published an article on io9 titled ‘This Fish Fossil Shows Why Humans Have Two Arms and Two Legs’. In the article Viegas states “An unusual prehistoric fish with fins near its butt has helped to solve the mystery over why most animals, including humans, have paired limbs. The fish, Euphanerops, is possibly the first creature on the planet to have evolved paired appendages, which in this case were fins. The 370-million-year-old species is described in the latest issue of Biology Letters. …This was a jawless fish that lived long before dinosaurs first emerged. Many living fish have a single anal fin, located at the center back of the fish’s underside near its rear end. The fin is thought to help maintain control of body position. Euphanerops, however, evolved two such fins. Some subsequent fish did not evolve the paired appendages, so fish with all sorts of fin combinations existed for a while. …later helped some species make the transition from water to land.  Heather King of the University of Chicago and colleagues studied living lungfish to see how that transition might have happened. "Lungfish are very closely related to the animals that were able to evolve and come out of the water and onto land, but that was so long ago that almost everything except the lungfish has gone extinct," she explained. King and her team found that lungfish could, as their name suggests, blow up with air like a balloon, giving their body buoyancy. Their scrawny back paired appendages can then either sort of hop or actually walk by alternating the movement of these limbs. …Since those first steps from water to land were taken, some animals evolved four limbs for walking. Even for these animals, like dogs and cats, the limbs come in pairs. For that innovation, we can probably thank the unusual, long-extinct jaw-less fish Euphanerops.”  Inspired by Jennifer Viegas, io9 ow.ly/k8YXQ Image source Twitter ow.ly/k8Zwf Why humans have two arms and two legs (May 15 2013)

 

Jennifer Viegas the American Discovery News reporter has published an article on io9 titled ‘This Fish Fossil Shows Why Humans Have Two Arms and Two Legs’. In the article Viegas states “An unusual prehistoric fish with fins near its butt has helped to solve the mystery over why most animals, including humans, have paired limbs. The fish, Euphanerops, is possibly the first creature on the planet to have evolved paired appendages, which in this case were fins. The 370-million-year-old species is described in the latest issue of Biology Letters. …This was a jawless fish that lived long before dinosaurs first emerged. Many living fish have a single anal fin, located at the center back of the fish’s underside near its rear end. The fin is thought to help maintain control of body position. Euphanerops, however, evolved two such fins. Some subsequent fish did not evolve the paired appendages, so fish with all sorts of fin combinations existed for a while. …later helped some species make the transition from water to land.  Heather King of the University of Chicago and colleagues studied living lungfish to see how that transition might have happened. “Lungfish are very closely related to the animals that were able to evolve and come out of the water and onto land, but that was so long ago that almost everything except the lungfish has gone extinct,” she explained. King and her team found that lungfish could, as their name suggests, blow up with air like a balloon, giving their body buoyancy. Their scrawny back paired appendages can then either sort of hop or actually walk by alternating the movement of these limbs. …Since those first steps from water to land were taken, some animals evolved four limbs for walking. Even for these animals, like dogs and cats, the limbs come in pairs. For that innovation, we can probably thank the unusual, long-extinct jaw-less fish Euphanerops.”

 

Inspired by Jennifer Viegas, io9 ow.ly/k8YXQ Image source Twitter ow.ly/k8Zwf

Ian O’Neill the Space Science Producer for Discovery News, and founding editor of Astroengine, has published an article on Aljazeera questioning if there is life on one of Jupiter’s moons Europa, where it is thought to have conditions that are ‘ripe for life’. In the article O’Neill states “Jupiter: the largest planet in the solar system, “protector” of the terrestrial planets, host to 66 moons and, potentially, home to life. The Jovian system is therefore one of the most intriguing and enigmatic targets for future space missions. And now, nine years after our most recent robotic foray to Jupiter, NASA has a mission powering its way through interplanetary space. …since life started to form on Earth over the past four billion years, a long period of calm has allowed life to evolve from single-celled microorganisms to the thriving ecosystem we know today. …It is thought that Jupiter’s largest moons, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, have extensive sub-surface oceans that may make ideal habitats for life. The most interesting moon of the trio is Europa, a world that is long thought to host the conditions ripe for life. …internal heating of the moon keeps a subsurface ocean in a liquid state, cycling it toward the surface, replenishing the surface ice through the cracks.”

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/brX6A image source Facebook ow.ly/brWVc

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