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Evolutionary Insights from Australopithecus

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Evolutionary Insights from Australopithecus the precursors must infiltrate the pores of Ryong Ryoo is at the Center for 8. Ryoo, R., Joo, S. H. & Jun, S. J. Phys. Chem. B 103, the mould uniformly, without accumulating on Nanomaterials and Chemical Reactions, 7743–7746 (1999). 9. Joo, S. H. et al. Nature 412, 169–172 (2001). the external surface; and the precursors must Institute for Basic Science, Daejeon 34141, 10. Yang, H. & Zhao, D. J. Mater. Chem. 15, 1217–1231 (2005). convert completely into the desired product. South Korea, and in the Department of 11. Liang, C., Li, Z. & Dai, S. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn 47, Chemistry, KAIST, Daejeon. 3696–3717 (2008). The method does, however, work particularly 12. Nengqin, J., Wang, Z., Yang, G., Shen, H. & Zhu, L. well when high temperatures (of the order e-mail: [email protected] Electrochem. Commun. 9, 233–238 (2007). of 500 °C or more) are needed to synthesize 13. Li, W. et al. Carbon 45, 1757–1763 (2007). 1. Kresge, C. T., Leonowicz, M. E., Roth, W. J., Vartuli, J. C. & 14. Ji, X., Lee, K. T. & Nazar, L. F. Nature Mater. 8, 500–506 a mesoporous material. This contrasts with Beck, J. S. Nature 359, 710–712 (1992). (2009). the use of surfactant-based soft templates, 2. Yanagisawa, T., Shimizu, T., Kuroda, K. & Kato, C. Bull. 15. Vallet-Regi, M., Balas, F. & Arcos, D. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn which typically decompose at temperatures Chem. Soc. Jpn 63, 988–992 (1990). 46, 7548–7558 (2007). 3. Cao, L., Man, T. & Kruk, M. Chem. Mater. 21, 1144–1153 16. Han, Y., Stucky, G. D. & Butler, A. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121, above 200 °C. (2009). 9897–9898 (1999). Nanocasting was first used to make ordered 4. Stein, A. et al. Chem. Mater. 7, 304–313 (1995). 17. Kresge, C. T. & Roth, W. J. Chem. Soc. Rev. 42, 3663–3670 8 5. Zhang, F. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 13508–13509 (2005). (2013). mesoporous carbon , but has since been devel- 6. Attard, G. S. et al. Angew. Chem. 109, 1372–1374 (1997). 18. Choi, M. et al. Nature 461, 246–249 (2009). oped as a general approach for synthesizing 7. Zhao, D. et al. Science 279, 548–552 (1998). 19. Na, K. et al. Science 333, 328–332 (2011). nanowires and nanoporous materials of var- ious compositions, including metal oxides, Palaeontology organic polymers and metals10. Mesoporous carbons have garnered much interest because of their high electrical conductivity11, and because they can accommodate a large volume Evolutionary insights from of guest atoms, molecules or particles inside the mesopores. For this reason, mesoporous Australopithecus carbons are considered to be particularly attractive candidates for electrode materials Dean Falk in chemical sensors12, supercapacitors13 and high-performance batteries14. In 1925, a Nature paper reported an African fossil of a previously Mesoporous materials are also gaining unknown genus called Australopithecus. This finding attention for biomedical applications such as 15,16 revolutionized ideas about early human evolution after human drug or gene delivery . Mesoporous silicas, in particular, can be synthesized in various shapes ancestors and apes split on the evolutionary tree. and sizes, are often biocompatible and sponta- neously degrade in human tissues — a property that could be used to release drugs trapped in Australian-born Raymond Dart had barely human-like jaw and teeth. In Dart’s view, the the silica. Moreover, the ability to accurately started his job as chair of the anatomy depart- Taung Child looked more primitive and older control the diameters of mesopores in silica is ment of the University of the Witwatersrand than the main existing candidates for the ear- expected to provide tremendous advantages in Johannesburg, South Africa, when he made liest ancestral human relative — Piltdown Man in biomedical applications, because the pore a momentous discovery. Using his wife’s and Java Man (Homo erectus) from Indonesia. sizes directly affect the loading and release knitting needles, he painstakingly extracted Dart therefore described the Taung Child as kinetics of drugs in delivery systems. a fossil (Fig. 1) from a chunk of rock found in a ‘man-ape’ rather than an ‘ape-man’, like Java The main uses envisaged for mesoporous Taungs (now known as Taung), South Africa. Man, and named the species Australopithecus materials include as adsorbents in industrial As he recalled1, “the rock parted … What africanus, which means southern ape from processes for separating chemicals, and as emerged was a baby’s face, an infant with a Africa. catalysts in petrochemical refinery processes. full set of milk teeth … I doubt if there was Dart declared that humankind’s cradle was Indeed, the original motivation for Kresge and any parent prouder of his offspring than I not in Indonesia or Britain as his contempo- colleagues’ MCM-41 research was to synthesize was of my ‘Taungs baby’ on that Christmas of raries thought, but was instead in Africa, as catalytic materials for petroleum refining17. But 1924.” Better yet, the fossil fitted neatly with Charles Darwin had previously suggested3. although MCM-41 had sufficiently large pores another type of fossil, called an endocast, The comfortable habitats favoured by African for this purpose, its glass-like amorphous formed from sediments accumulated inside chimpanzees and gorillas in Dart’s time were framework showed poor catalytic activity. the skull. The endocast reflects brain-surface more than 3,200 kilometres north of where the Ever since, enormous efforts have been details stamped on the braincase’s inner walls. Taung Child dwelled, and Dart suggested in his made to synthesize mesoporous materials that These fossils revealed a combination of ape- 1925 Nature paper that intense competition for contain crystalline, microporous, zeolite-like like and human-like features never previously limited resources in harsh southern African frameworks, which exhibit high catalytic reported together. landscapes “furnished a laboratory such as was performance. A breakthrough was made Convinced that the specimen, called the essential to this penultimate phase of human ten years ago, with the report of a specially Taung Child, represented an extinct link evolution”. In the paper, he also reasoned designed surfactant molecule that enables between humans and our ape ancestors, Dart that “enhanced cerebral powers possessed by the synthesis of such materials18,19. The cata- dispatched a report2 to Nature by mail boat. this group … made their existence possible lytic properties of the resulting mesoporous He probably felt some trepidation because in this untoward environment”, attributing zeolites have not been fully explored for indus- several fellows of the Royal Society in London, intelligence based on his interpretation of trial processes, because the required surfactant who had mentored and taught with him, con- human-like brain convolutions at the back of is costly and not yet commercially available. sidered the human forerunner to be the Brit- the specimen’s endocast. However, I expect that mesoporous zeolites ish specimen known as Piltdown Man (which When the paper appeared, the Taung Child will trigger the next explosion of research in was later exposed as a hoax). Piltdown Man’s and 32-year-old Dart became world famous this field, by opening up many opportunities human-sized brain and ape-like jaw contrasted overnight. Yet not everyone was receptive to for catalytic applications. with the Taung Child’s ape-sized brain and new ideas about human evolution. Indeed, Nature | Vol 575 | 7 November 2019 | 41 ©2019 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. ©2019 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. 10 extraordinary papers as he surmised because the skull opening that accommodates the spinal cord is positioned centrally at the base of the specimen’s cra- nium. Dart correctly inferred9 that hominins originated in Africa, and that our genus Homo arose from Australopithecus. Happily, he lived long enough to see his initially iconoclastic ideas become widely accepted. I cannot help but wonder what Dart would have thought about another notable discov- ery reported in Nature10 — the 2004 identifi- cation of a species called Homo floresiensis (the most complete specimen is nicknamed the Hobbit) from remains in Indonesia dating to approximately 100,000–60,000 years ago. Like the Taung Child, the H. floresiensis specimens showed a combination of features never previously found in a fossil specimen. Homo flores iensis had ape-like, Australo- pithecus-like and human-like traits, as well as a tiny brain, leading some to suggest that this species might be a lineage descended from a previously unknown early hominin migration out of Africa11. The parallels with Dart’s discovery are remarkable. Homo floresiensis drew world- wide attention, but was also met with scorn from some scientists (who argued that the Hobbit represents an abnormal human). Homo floresiensis-like fossils dating to 700,000 years ago have since been reported12, and its legitimacy as a species is gaining traction. It might be equally crucial for unrav- elling the evolution of early members of the SCIENCES/WITS SCHOOL OF ANATOMICAL Figure 1 | Raymond Dart in 1925 holding the Australopithecus africanus fossil called the Taung Child. human family tree outside Africa in the way that the Taung Child was essential for under- five months later, a court case known as the skull imprint as a brain groove similar to a standing the evolution of human ancestors Scopes monkey trial began in the United States human one, a feature that is inconsistent with in Africa. Only time will tell. One thing is cer- to settle whether evolution could be taught in the Taung Child’s otherwise ape-like brain8. tain, however; the more palaeo anthropology Tennessee schools. The immediate reaction to Dart’s 1925 Nature paper describes two endo- changes, the more palaeopolitics stays Dart’s paper was mainly enthusiastic, but he cast brain grooves, but his book identifies the same.
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