Humankind can welcome a new member to their evolutionary family, thanks in part to the work of SFU researcher Mana Dembo.

Dembo is a PhD student in the Department of Archaeology and was among the first select group of scientists who examined specimens of Homo naledi in South Africa.

Said Dembo, “What’s really significant about these fossils is [. . .] the sheer number — over 1500 specimens, representing at least 15 individuals. And we have fossils from infants, to adolescents, to adults, and even older adults.” She continued, “We’re lucky if we have a handful of [hominin] fossils from a site.”

SFU has been involved with this project from the beginning. In October of 2013, Marina Elliott, who recently completed her PhD in the Department of Archaeology, was one of 6 scientists chosen to excavate the fossils from a cave within the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site outside of Johannesburg.

Dembo was among over 40 scientists who responded to a call in January of 2014 to travel to Johannesburg to study the fossils at the University of Witwatersrand. She thought her PhD work, using fossils to reconstruct evolutionary relationships, would prove useful.

The international team of scientists, who hailed from the US, Canada, and the UK, among other countries, were divided into teams, each given a different section of the body. Dembo worked on the cranial material.

Said Dembo, “We described [the fossils], we analyzed them, we compared them to other known species of hominins, and eventually came to the conclusion that we had a new species which was distinct from all other species that we know of.”

One challenge facing scientists is the inability to date the fossils, “which makes it difficult to sort of slot them into our understanding of human evolution,” explained Dembo. She remarked that since carbon dating requires destruction of parts of the sample it had not been attempted yet.

She added that “our understanding would change if it [we’re] 3 million years old or 30,000 years old.” Still, Dembo estimates that since Homo naledi is unlikely to be among the first members of the genus, it is most probably younger than 2.8 million years.

“It’s really a mosaic,” said Dembo of the entire body of the specimens. She described the cranial features of Homo naledi as “sort of a mish mash of primitive and derived features.” There are some features that liken it to Homo erectus while the upper and lower jaw look more primitive; these features are similar to Homo rudolfensis and australopithecus.

However, she added that “their foot looks quite modern. It looks like a modern human foot.” Dembo and her team of researchers believe that the species, which stood at a paltry 145 cm, is of the genus Homo, the same genus that human beings belong to.

She hopes that papers from the cranial researchers will be approved for publication “imminently,” however the naming of Homo naledi as a new species has been met with controversy in the scientific community. Tim White of The University of California told Reuters, “New species should not be created willy-nilly.”

White continued, “When you look across those [anatomical features] where it’s claimed to differ from [Homo erectus], you find that the portrayal of [Homo erectus] is often inaccurate. And only 13 of the 83 characters are even alleged to be different.”

Renowned paleontologist and project lead Lee Berger has responded to such criticisms. Berger told the same outlet that critics should not “shoot from the hip based on their pre-conceived ideas but look at these papers and give a thoughtful critique in the peer-reviewed literature.”

U of A students excited about Chitter

[EDMONTON] — A new board-based app, Chitter, has caught U of A by storm, with downloads at 200 times per day. The team of six U of A students and alumni started the project in May, releasing the app in the fall. On Chitter, students post to a board exclusive to the University of Alberta, with content ranging from photos to dirty jokes.

Users must register using their campus email, and may remain anonymous. Users can make comments, linked to Facebook rather than being anonymous as well. “[Chitter] is a way for shy people to connect with people who aren’t shy,” commented developer Mark Galloway.

With files from The Gateway

Queen’s students party too hard

[KINGSTON] — During a ‘homecoming’ street party earlier this month, Queen’s University students swarmed and rocked a car with the driver still inside, causing about $800 in damages. Incidents range from the vehicle’s spoiler being ripped off to a beer bottle being thrown at a police cruiser. Many tickets and arrests were made.

Students took it upon themselves to clean up the mess and have criticized the offenders on social media. They have also raised funds to cover the damage to the car. Principal Daniel Woolf, in an email, calls these incidents an “embarrassment” to both Queen’s University and the city of Kingston.

With files from The Journal

Alberta implements a tuition freeze

[ALBERTA] — Fulfilling their election promise, the NDP has frozen tuition fees for the next two years and promised an increase in funding in post-secondary institutions.

Navneet Khinda, the Students’ Union President at the University of Alberta, is happy with the move, commenting that she has “never seen such large changes come all at once” and is “delighted to see the results.” The freeze will last for the 2015–16 and 2016–17 school years.

With files from University of Alberta Students’ Union, and CTV News Calgary

McGill on unceded territory, is delivered notice of seizure

[MONTREAL] — Kahentinetha of the Bear Clan from the nearby Kahnawake Mohawk community sent a notice of seizure to McGill University, claiming there is “no evidence” that McGill had permission to build the university on the land.

One of the numerous allegations is the university was formed with a foreign royal charter rather than from the law of the land, and McGill is violating Kaia’nere:kowa (the law of Great Turtle Island)  “by staying on [their] land without [their] permission.” The notice also demands the school’s military programs are halted, and the university pays its debt $1.7 billion back to the Six Nations Trust Fund.

With files from The McGill Daily

An SFU alumna’s initiative has spurred Vancouverites to get colourful to help benefit grey matter.

Lauren Eadie, a 2014 graduate, organized what she hopes to be the first of an annual event called Light Up the Night, where participants adorn their bicycles with glow sticks and ride through the night to raise awareness for mental illnesses.

Eadie, who was a kinesiology major, now works as a personal trainer and rehabilitator. She said the motivation for Light Up the Night came from earlier this year, when she was having patients referred to her by doctors who felt that physical training would be good for their mental health.

“It was the first time I had experienced people coming up with not physical disabilities, but mental illnesses,”explained Eadie.

“A lot of the time, doing these activities and exercises puts you in a meditative state of mind, a moving meditation that some people might need.”

The result was a 20 km bike ride held on Sept. 12 from Science World to Second Beach, a purposely flat route. Dozens of people showed up, ranging from riders in their early twenties to more than a few senior cyclists. Once they completed the ride, a glow yoga session was held at Second Beach.

Since Eadie was busy taking care of all the details of the night, she was not able to ride herself. She asked Dylan Martyn, a good friend she made in residence her first year at SFU, to lead the ride and maintain safety.

Martyn said it was easy for him to get involved when Eadie asked, and that his biking effort was partially for himself.

“I just care about talking about mental health to the Greater Vancouver area, because a lot of people — men in particular — have struggles talking about their mental issues,” he said.

“Our philosophy is that things like exercise can go a long way when it comes to dealing with your mental health issues.”

Eadie was main driving force behind the event, with support from friends, family, and sponsors. She added that she was going to participate in it even if only ten people she knew also did so. Now, she is looking towards capitalizing on the momentum of the event and using it moving forward.

“I hope to keep this event growing, and have it get bigger and bigger, and I hope that people talk about it,” she said. “I want to make this event something that everyone feels that they want to participate in.”

The next steps may include getting officially registered as a charity and growing this from one woman’s idea, taking the success of the inaugural event and using it to make next year even better.

In the meantime, Eadie will be doing her best to try and remove the stigma that surrounds people who suffer from mental health issues.

“These things are not forever,” she said. “It does not define a person.”

A recent SFU study found that bullies have the lowest levels of depression, the highest levels of self-esteem, and the highest social status. 

The study counters what the researchers believe to be a commonly held view — that the source of bullies’ aggression is that they are victims themselves. Often their behaviour is theorized to stem from them being maladjusted, having low self-esteem, or coming from a dysfunctional family.

However, the study found that some bullies, whom researchers called “pure bullies,” were genetically inclined toward the behaviour, as it gained them advantages over their peers.

“We were testing the idea of evolutionary theory [and the] idea that bullies evolved to exhibit certain behaviours, because those behaviours increased their ability to survive and reproduce,” explained Jennifer Wong, associate professor in SFU’s School of Criminology.

Human aggression has been known to be instrumental to our ancient ancestors for survival — in order to defend their territory, protect their young, and to attract the most ideal mate.

The researchers posed the question: is bullying an evolutionary behaviour — and is it perhaps a contemporary version of a thousand year-old trend of aggression?

The pilot study surveyed a total of 135 students from a local Vancouver high school. More tests are needed to determine whether or not the results are consistent.

“[The research] is really there to help understand why bullying is occurring,” said Wong. Future plans to research bullying at SFU will include a larger and more diverse sample, hopefully across multiple schools, and possibly with an expanded questionnaire to look at the differences within the different types of bullying.

In an interview with Global News, Rob Frennette, from Bullying Canada, expressed concerns around how parents and victims of bullying were going to interpret the information, and worried about the possibility of bullies thinking that they cannot change because it is in their genetics.

Wong clarified that a bullying gene was not what the results of the study was suggesting, and neither that bullying was somehow okay because it may have evolutionary explanations. 

She added that if it was not possible to completely suppress the tendency to bully, perhaps those with bullying tendencies could be re-directed to something more productive and constructive.

Wong suggested that having more supervised competitive activities that will allow youth to “demonstrate their prowess and establish rank in a safer environment that doesn’t have victims.”

The more that can be understood about the causes for bullying, the better the researchers will be able to generate solutions and ways to intervene and prevent bullying from happening.