Thoughts on Human Genetic Evolution

It is interesting how the fabric of life can be theoretically woven to bring us to present day. These articles were very informative and covered a lot of terrain. A few of the studies I found interesting were the connections to agricultural based societies and what that did to the population, the fact that mtDNA can tell us that we are all connected to a single female, and the fact that life may have began around underwater thermal vents. I also found it intriguing that primitive cells were created in a space lab and their possible involvement in the beginnings of life as we know it (NASA). It makes perfect sense to me that we could have come in with the comets and meteorites, isn't that how we got Samuel Clemens here?

This was my first introduction to the story of the Taung child, and how it was discovered that the positioning of the foramen magnum allowed them to determine that he must have been bipedal. Also, the fact that his canine teeth were short, allowing them to determine that he was more human than ape. I also found it interesting that approximately 3.7 million years ago they found bipedal footprints in volcanic ash which looked like those of modern humans.