More...

This picture shows how the pelvis of a chimp (Pan) is long and narrow, and does not have a sciotic notch.

This picture shows how the sciotic notch on a human pelvis forces the pelvis to be short. This is not the case with Pan.

Ardipithecus ramidus. This picture of the pelvic bone of Ardi shows that a sciotic notch is present.

Sahelanthropus tchadensis. This picture shows that the supraorbital bar is straight and that there is no sulcus.

The start of many, MANY sketches and pictures

This picture shows that there is no Anterior Inferior Iliac Spine (AIIS) on a chimp (Pan).

The Innominate. This bone is made up of three bones: the Ilium, the Ischium, and the Pubis

This sketch shows where the three gluteal muscles (Gluteus Maximus, Gluteus Medius, and Gluteus Minimus) are located, relative to each other on a human pelvis. It also shows the muscle insertions for the G. Maximus and G. Medius.

Backlog of entries...transferring physical notebook material and pictures to this nice little handy-dandy blog

Question to think about: Is the population of the United States evolving?

Because this question does specify that what is evolving is a population, my reaction to this question is that yes, the population of the US is evolving. One way this may not seem completely obvious is that evolution is occurring at the gene level, and we simply cannot see genotypes; evolution is a change in the genetic constitution of a population. Also, I think that the average generation time of a human plays largely into not being able to see changes in a population. If you had a population of fruit flies, on the other hand, who have a life expectancy in terms of weeks to a month or so (and have to be born, reproduce, and then die in that time frame), it's easy to observe changes in the population, just because genetic information is being passed on at a faster rate than it is in human populations. Bottom-line, I do think the population of the US is evolving, it may just not be that evident and as easily observed.
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 Making cladograms...
We spent most of lab just trying to shift through different characteristics, so we never came close to writing a somewhat complete cladogram and phylogenetic tree. However, we ended lab by putting Orrorin and Sahelanthropus branching out of two separate branches, as well as having a third branch (with a separate origin) that diverges to produce Ar. ramidus and Ar. Kadabba (neither one leading to the other).