Hyperconnectivity and A Missing Link

Hyperconnectivity hit home personally when my daughter, a paleomammoligist, called home last summer via a satellite phone from an island in the far north in the region of the North Pole. A storm was raging and she was confined to her tent. Nice to hear her crystal clear voice as if she were down the street!

But the story doesn't end there.

She was leading an expedition that had just found the skull of a 20 million year old fossil that they had found the year before, making her find 65% complete. Extensive research established it as a 'missing link fossil', dubbed puijila darwini, the walking ancestor to seals, sea lions and walruses. Darwin predicted just such an animal when he wrote "A strictly terrestrial animal, by occasionally hunting for food in shallow water, then in streams or lakes, might at last be converted in an animal so thoroughly aquatic as to brace the open ocean."

puijila.jpg

This made world news yesterday (Earth Day), culminating in an article in today's issue of Nature magazine.

But you (and/or your children) may want to get a more layman's explanation, which you can do at the Canadian Museum of Nature website.

A proud dad.

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