Paranthropus Should Not Be Called Nutcracker Man, New Study Says

A photo of a Neanderthal man ancestor's reconstruction, displayed in a 2004 show at the Prehistoric Museum in Germany. (AFP)
A photo of a Neanderthal man ancestor's reconstruction, displayed in a 2004 show at the Prehistoric Museum in Germany. (AFP)
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Paranthropus Should Not Be Called Nutcracker Man, New Study Says

A photo of a Neanderthal man ancestor's reconstruction, displayed in a 2004 show at the Prehistoric Museum in Germany. (AFP)
A photo of a Neanderthal man ancestor's reconstruction, displayed in a 2004 show at the Prehistoric Museum in Germany. (AFP)

A new study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, found that the genus Paranthropus, one of the prehistoric humans species, does not deserve the Nutcracker Man title.

The Paranthropus group stands out in this family tree because of their massive back teeth, several times the size of ours, and their extremely thick enamel (the outer-most layer of our teeth). But the new study that examined Paranthropus' fossilized teeth and enamel found new evidence on its diet.

Researchers Ian Towle and Carolina Loch from the University of Otago, New Zealand, in collaboration with researcher Joel Irish from the University of Liverpool's School of Biology and Environmental Science, found that Paranthropus had very low rates of enamel chipping (a common type of tooth fracture), comparable to living primates such as gorillas and chimpanzees. This supports other recent research about the diet of this group and should finally put to rest the nutcracker hypothesis.

"Our understanding of diet and behavior during human evolution has changed markedly over the last decades — partly due to new technologies but also because of some spectacular fossil discoveries, mainly teeth," the researchers said in a report posted on The Conversation website, on July 24.

They explained that teeth are by far the most abundant resource because they survive fossilization better than bones. This is a fortunate circumstance because teeth also offer other information that helps us to reconstruct the environment of our fossil ancestors and relatives. We can glean a lot of information from the microscopic scratches created by foods scraping along the tooth surface during chewing, the tiny particles preserved in dental plaque and the chemical composition of the teeth themselves, they added.

Before such techniques were developed and refined, researchers relied on looking at the overall shape and size of teeth, as well as wear and chipping visible with the naked eye. Small sample sizes and a lack of comparative material hampered these studies, but they provided some bold claims about the diet of our fossil ancestors, including its reliance on hard foods.

"In our recent research, we have studied a broad range of living primates and compared that information with data on fossil species. The results were surprising, with our species Homo sapiens and fossil relatives in our genus commonly showing high rates of chipping, similar to living primates that eat hard foods habitually," they concluded.



Research: Walking 7,000 Steps a Day a Huge Boost to Health

Step up: Walking even just a little more every day could have big health benefits. Tolga Akmen / AFP/File
Step up: Walking even just a little more every day could have big health benefits. Tolga Akmen / AFP/File
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Research: Walking 7,000 Steps a Day a Huge Boost to Health

Step up: Walking even just a little more every day could have big health benefits. Tolga Akmen / AFP/File
Step up: Walking even just a little more every day could have big health benefits. Tolga Akmen / AFP/File

People who walk 7,000 steps a day have a dramatically lower risk of a broad range of serious health problems, the largest review of the evidence yet said Thursday.

The most widely promoted target for people tracking their number of steps is 10,000 -- but that figure reportedly originally came from a 1960s marketing campaign for a Japanese pedometer, AFP said.

To find a more scientific target, an international team of researchers sifted through 57 previous studies that covered 160,000 people.

The results published in the Lancet Public Health journal found that walking 7,000 steps a day nearly halved people's risk of early death from all causes, compared to 2,000 steps.

The study also looked into health problems not previously covered by research into step counts.

Walking 7,000 steps a day was linked to people's risk of dementia falling by 38 percent, depression dropping 22 percent and diabetes decreasing 14 percent.

It was also associated with lower rates of cancer and falls, though the researchers warned this was based on less evidence.

"You don't need to hit 10,000 steps a day to get major health benefits," Paddy Dempsey, a study co-author and medical researcher at Cambridge University, told AFP.

"The biggest gains happen before 7,000 steps, and then benefits tend to level off," he said.

While people's speeds vary widely, 7,000 steps adds up to roughly an hour of walking throughout the day.

Dempsey emphasized that people already managing 10,000 or more steps should keep it up.

But he had a message for people who might find 7,000 steps daunting: "don't be discouraged".

"If you're only getting 2,000–3,000 steps a day, aim to add an extra 1,000 steps. That's just 10–15 minutes of light walking spread across the day," he said.

Andrew Scott, a researcher at the University of Portsmouth not involved in the study, said that "it demonstrates that overall more is always better".

"People should not focus too much on the numbers, particularly on days where activity is limited," he added.

The World Health Organization recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate to intense physical activity a week. Nearly a third of people worldwide do not reach this target, according to the WHO.