{"id":2660,"date":"2014-08-04T14:02:07","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T19:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2660"},"modified":"2014-08-05T11:24:11","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T16:24:11","slug":"hobbit-homo-floriensis-may-not-be-a-new-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/hobbit-homo-floriensis-may-not-be-a-new-species\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hobbit\u2019 Homo floriensis may not be a new species"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2640\" style=\"width: 298px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pngbase64d70e4b3f05186136.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2640\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2640\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pngbase64d70e4b3f05186136.png\" alt=\"Cast of Homo floresiensis compared to a small braincase skull. (Photo: Jan Kamenicek)\" width=\"288\" height=\"216\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2640\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cast of Homo floresiensis compared to a small braincase skull. (Photo: Jan Kamenicek)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The newly discovered \u2018hobbit\u2019-sized <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic; color: #000000;\">Homo floriensis<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> found in Indonesia may only have been regular individual with Down syndrome, a new study suggests. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A team of researchers shows in a <\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #1155cc; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/jrnls\/pnas\/pdfs\/pnas.201407385.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">first paper<\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> that the asymmetry of the skull and its small brain can be explained by some genetic disorder, and that it doesn\u2019t provide enough evidence to claim the discovery of a new species. In a <\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #1155cc; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/jrnls\/pnas\/pdfs\/pnas.201407382.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">second paper<\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">, they show that Down syndrome could explain the small brain size of the specimen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2014\/07\/31\/1407382111.abstract?sid=c89ecc01-6929-4aa8-a197-0fe69d142ac0\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in\u00a0<em>PNAS<span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em>on\u00a0<strong>August 4, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a style=\"color: #1155cc;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hhdev.psu.edu\/profile\/RobertEckhardt\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Eckhardt<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">, Pennsylvania State University, USA<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The newly discovered \u2018hobbit\u2019-sized Homo floriensis found in Indonesia may only have been regular individual with Down syndrome, a new study suggests. A team of researchers shows in a first paper that the asymmetry of the skull and its small brain can be explained by some genetic disorder, and that it doesn\u2019t provide enough evidence [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1851,917,909,2076],"class_list":["post-2660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-anthropology","tag-evolution","tag-genetics","tag-human-evolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pngbase64d70e4b3f05186136.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-GU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2678,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions\/2678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}