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Weekend


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June 20, 2003

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q. Evolutionists have debated the existence of an "Eve," a common female ancestor to the human race going back 300,000-400,000 years, in Africa. How do biologists today go the Eve story one better?

    A. Most systematists now agree that this commonality can be taken much farther back, to ALL OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. "If we could trace all animal lineages back to their origin, they would converge on a common ancestor," say Neil A. Campbell and Jane B. Reece in "Biology: Sixth Edition." "That ancestor was most likely a colonial flagellated protist that lived over 700 million years ago in the Precambrian era."


     
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