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Ancient Apes vs. Homotherium

This is a Australopithecus news story, published by Phys Org, that relates primarily to Lucy news.

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Phys Org

Phys Org

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Science

Science

We modeled how early human ancestors ran—and found they were surprisingly slow

Phys Org

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88% Informative

Researchers reconstructed the skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis to find out how well they could run.

Lucy , or Dinkinesh, is iconic as a representation of early bipedalism (the ability to walk on two legs) Lucy wasn't as good at running as modern humans, they say.

Lucy 's metabolic cost of transport (how much energy it takes to move) was between 1.7 and 2.9 times higher in Lucy than in a modern human.

This means it was probably not physiologically possible for Australopithecus afarensis to engage in persistence hunting.

VR Score

94

Informative language

95

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58

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informal

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English

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53

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not offensive

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possibly hateful

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not detected

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not detected

Time-value

long-living

External references

25

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0901280106 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248407001327?via%3Dihub http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1140799 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978012815764000023X#:~:text=Geometric%20morphometrics%20is%20a%20morphometric,of%20just%20using%20single%20measurements.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248417303196?via%3Dihub https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2025/we-modelled-how-early.jpg https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/australopithecus-afarensis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20703305/https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.14354 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.11.025 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0021-8782.2004.00289.x https://worldhistoryedu.com/history-of-the-lucy-fossil-origin-story-and-major-facts/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/what-lucy-one-of-the-worlds-most-important-fossils-has-taught-scientists-in-the-50-years-since-her-discovery-180985541/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14464.epdf?sharing_token=fbuIjlha4YtKMwspjmmxq9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PrP4pFoPKFqqJh3oivPrrqY1slKTWkSnbn4u_a1E01CFW0Gl4EU64dcj7FaXZJMQS768RtGE82zOWmtEJ8HTlUkHtsZ6Hi9PH8QTnxMO36_TbddGcBkyJ5CnAZNEF0lEHot_ei9MCvAKaQcxXV5yExY3phlUBwFEM_pTCEIvo8drj1qHHWaEaquUT--ea-5i9gIVWpRNXi_dAImX5fd9NjRIOI4ZnkxJPwaRiHJCTs8SY89WwxzqJN86DOTaiO_BPiEvbZLBO3wx9p8lGQWU45&tracking_referrer=www.smithsonianmag.com https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.13002 https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.13437 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1175822 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reconstruction_of_the_fossil_skeleton_of_%22Lucy%22_the_Australopithecus_afarensis.jpg https://theconversation.com/we-modelled-how-early-human-ancestors-ran-and-found-they-were-surprisingly-slow-248964 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79546-1 https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Afar_Depression https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.02728 https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/cpa/article/view/5212 https://theconversation.com

Source diversity

15

doi.org www.sciencedirect.com creativecommons.org www.science.org scx2.b-cdn.net humanorigins.si.edu pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov onlinelibrary.wiley.com worldhistoryedu.com www.smithsonianmag.com www.nature.com commons.wikimedia.org theconversation.com www.newworldencyclopedia.org ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de

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