A Slew of Life Sciences Discoveries

It's been a very busy month in the world of biology - testament to the complexity of our living planet and to the limits of our current knowledge.

First (see the title link above), Israeli researchers have found an ancient, sealed-off ecosystem in a cave beneath a quarry. Ayalon Cave is over two kilometers long. New species of strange arthropods are all over the place. Scientists estimate the cave has been isolated for "millions of years."

Second, the Indonesian species of the coelacanth, discovered only in 1998, has been documented in new underwater footage. The actual video has not been released, but the ever-alert folks at cryptomundo.com have an advance report and a still image:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/indocoelfilm/

Third, from the same part of the world, there is more news about the Flores humans (a.k.a. "hobbits"). A team led by Adam Brumm of the Australian National University reports these creatures have overturned previous thinking about the relationship between large brains and tool-making. He said, "Homo floresiensis was capable of making stone tools and therefore the standard story of the relationship between brain size and behavioral complexity in human evolution may be less straightforward than currently assumed."

Two books on the Flores discovery are coming out. For younger readers, there is Linda Goldenberg Atkinson's Little People and A Lost World (Lerner Publishing Group). Co-discoverer Mike Moorwood of the University of New England in Australia has written a book with Penny van Oosterzee with the long title, The Hobbit's Tale: Discovery, Significance and History of a New Human Species on the Island of Flores, Indonesia. (Thanks to Loren Coleman for passing on the advance news of this book, which he received via email from Morwoord.) Both books should be out later this year.

COMMENT: In 1884, naturalist Charles Gould wrote,
"Can we suppose we have at all exhausted the great museum of nature? Have we, in fact, penetrated beyond its antechambers?"
What would no doubt astonish Gould is that his words are still accurate over 120 years later.