Hominids for Dinner by Scott LaFee - Eureka! on Creators.com

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Paleoanthropological evidence indicates Neanderthals living 50,000 or so years ago in Europe were big meat eaters. Some of them, it now appears, may have dined upon their own kind.

Researchers in Spain have unearthed 1,700 Neanderthal bones representing at least 11 children and adults. Many of the recovered and more complete bones from the arm, leg and skull show cut marks, pitting, scarring and deliberate breakage consistent with bodies that were cut up in the same way that early humans butchered animals.

The research isn't conclusive. But the work does suggest a reason why at least some Neanderthals may have indulged in cannibalism. Surviving teeth and bones show evidence that the Spanish Neanderthals were stressed and possibly malnourished. They may have eaten each other out of necessity, though one scientist says there is evidence of "a ritualistic side to it."

'TRUE FACTS'

Two nearby stars have been found harboring "super-Earths," rocky planets larger than Earth but smaller than the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. Unlike previously discovered super-Earths, the stars involved are similar to the sun, suggesting that low-mass planets may be common around nearby stars.

The finding improves (however slightly or immeasurably) the chance of discovering an Earthlike planet capable of sustaining life.

BRAIN SWEAT

Below are the names of famous playwrights with vowels and spaces removed. Can you identify them?

1. DWRDLB (American)

2. NLCWRD (English)

3. LGPRNDLL (Italian)

4. JNRCN (French)

5. SPHCLS (Greek)

REQUIEM FOR A ROVER

Originally designed for a 90-day mission in early 2004, the rover Spirit had until recently been industriously working its way across the Martian surface for the past five years. Alas, one of its wheels has gotten stuck, and repeated attempts to free it via remote control have failed. The Spirit is willing, but the sand's too deep.

BRAIN SWEAT ANSWERS

EDWARD ALBEE, NOEL COWARD, LUIGI PIRANDELLO, JEAN RACINE, SOPHOCLES

QUIRKS OF NATURE

The American coot may be a drab-looking bird common to marshes and golf courses, but its reproductive life is filled with remarkable deception and violence.

Biologists at the University of California Santa Cruz report coots have evolved a rare ability to recognize their own young and reject chicks from eggs surreptitiously deposited in their nest by other coots.

The finding is striking because many bird species seem unable to recognize chicks of parasitic species like cowbirds and cuckoos. "When you see a little songbird struggling to feed an enormous cowbird chick, you have to wonder why it can't recognize the parasitic chick when it's so obvious to us," said UCSC ecologist Bruce Lyon.

But coots can. Researchers said coots learn to recognize their own chicks each year by using the first-hatched chicks as a template to which other chicks are compared. This may answer why songbirds don't do the same thing with cowbirds and cuckoos. The latter tend to hatch before the songbird's own chicks.

Coots may use other cues as well, though researchers don't know for sure. Scientists do know, however, what happens to coot chicks exposed as family impostors. They are violently ejected from the nest to almost certain death.

VERBATIM

"If I believed in God, I would start every morning by saying, 'Thank you, my Lord, for making me a theoretical physicist.'"

— Vitaly Ginzburg, who helped design the Soviet hydrogen bomb and who died this month at age 93. Ginzburg also shared a Nobel Prize for his work on superconductors

WHERE IN THE WORLD? ANSWER

The community of Craco in Italy was first developed between the 10th and ninth centuries B.C. with work continuing thereafter. The watchtower overlooking the village, for example, was built in A.D. 1000.

The town is recognized as a world monument but is no longer occupied. It was abandoned in 1991 when a landslide and precarious soil conditions drove out the last residents.

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