Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
waiting to be discovered. Did BA 10 light up during the REM sleep of
hobbits as they experienced nightmares of trying to escape from giant
Komodo dragons or during the day when they planned how best to
bring down a stegodont? We will never know. Time will tell, however,
whether or not
Homo floresiensis
is really a new human species as its dis-
coverers claim.
It was clear to us that LB1's endocast looked nothing like the human
brains that were described in the clinical literature for microcephaly.
And it sure didn't look like the one endocast from a microcephalic that
we included in our
Science
paper (figure 17). As the March 3, 2005, publica-
tion date for our paper approached, we were tremendously excited. We
had been muzzled because of
Science
's embargo policy and were dying
to see how our paper would be received. The National Geographic
Society was getting ready to air its film and had joined in a coordinated
effort with
Science
magazine to manage the anticipated publicity about
Hobbit's brain. Public-relations people from
Science
alerted members of
the press whom they trusted, so that they could begin preparing stories
ahead of time, which would be released when the embargo lifted. I gave
many telephone interviews to media from around the world, and so did
Morwood.
Just before the embargo lifted on March 3, I went to the Florida State
University radio station to take part in a live international telephone
conference with reporters from around the world. For an hour, an editor
from
Science
(Brooks Hanson), Mike Morwood, and I answered ques-
tions about
Homo floresiensis
and LB1's virtual endocast. The embargo
lifted at two o'clock, and news stories immediately started coming up
everywhere. Later that day, my colleagues from Mallinckrodt and I
were thrilled to see a story on the web about our research on Hobbit's
brain on the front page of the
New York Times.
My only diary notation
that was a portent of things to come was a March 2 comment about the
many telephone interviews I'd given to reporters: “Disappointing that
everyone is so focused on the microcephalic question.”
