A super-mysterious human species!

In a cave in Indonesia, scientists have dug up some fossils of a totally new, extinct human species. Check out the skull on the left, resting on a mirror. These people were very short, about 3 feet tall, so people call them "hobbits."

"Great!" the scientists say, "Let's find out how they relate to other human species!"

And this is when the trouble starts. The bones of these small people look like earlier human species that only lived in Africa. What are they doing thousands of miles and oceans away in Indonesia? And what are they doing in rock that isn't nearly as old as their African cousins?

Scientist #1 says, "They're just regular humans like us with some kind of dwarfism or disease that makes them short."

Scientist #2 says, "No, no, no. They're a new species, and people just came out of Africa to Indonesia way sooner than we thought."

Scientist #3 says, "Naw, you're both crazy. The humans who lived in Indonesia at the time just evolved to be smaller."

Then the three scientists get into a fistfight. Dust flies everywhere in that cave in Indonesia.

Who is right? I sure as heck don't know, but I love to follow these scientific free-for-alls. In a few years someone will probably figure out a story that fits the fossils best, and then everybody will move on to the next mystery.

Read more about the hobbits in this New York Times article today. That's where the image above is from.

BONC#5: Is that Frankenstein? And what’s with the hat and the teeth?

Let’s say you’re a paleontologist. You’re checking out some 500-million-year old rocks when you find some fossil parts of a truly weird sea creature. Then you check out fossil collections in museums all around the world. And hey, wait a minute! Bits and pieces of your weird creature have been found before, but they were mistaken for other things, like jellyfish and plants. Now you paste all these fossil parts together like Frankenstien, and ta-daah, you have Hurdia!

Hurdia looked like Anomalocaris, one of our strange friends from the Giant Evolution Timeline. They both had long bodies made of flappy layered “wings” covered with gills. They also had weird “arms” like two hooks coming off the sides of their mouths. Oh, and of course they both had eyes sticking out on stalks.

But Hurdia is even weirder, people.

First there’s the mouth situation. Anomalocaris’ mouth was weird enough. It was a circle with the opening in the middle, like a donut that could open and close its hole. The donut hole was ringed with sharp teeth. But Hurdia’s mouth had five circles of teeth, like five toothy donuts stacked on top of each other to make a whole tunnel of sharp teeth. Yikes.

Even stranger, Hurdia had this huge hat sticking out from the front of its head, like a lobster whose shell slipped over the top of its head while the rest of its body went around naked. Hurdia’s hat isn’t covering or protecting anything, just hanging out there. What the heck was it for? Nobody knows. Care to post a guess?

Read more about Hurdia here.

Radio interview of the century!

Last week I talked live with Diego Mulligan, the magnificent host of "The Journey Home" on KSFR, Santa Fe's public radio station. Great fun. Listen to the interview here, and discover the answers to your burning questions about Charlie's Playhouse!

Dilbert and Darwin

For anyone who has ever been single, the latest Dilbert strips are for you:

April 10 strip


April 11 strip

The whole nation partied!

Remember Darwin's 200th birthday last February? We're delighted to have received some photos from three 200th birthday events where the Giant Evolution Timeline was in full swing...

On Long Island....



Children's Ethics Program at the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island’s Darwin Day celebration. Everybody pose with the Giant Timeline - Peace out girls! (Photos thanks to Sharon Stanley.)

and in New Jersey....



In New Jersey, the Humanist Families Group hosted a Darwin Day celebration. Look out, kids, you never know what you’ll find in there! (Photos thanks to Tamara Mount.)

and in Austin, Texas!


Austin’s Center for Inquiry held their Darwin Day event at a local bookstore, with a special guest. Hi, Mr. Darwin! (Photos thanks to Jenni Acosta.)

Volcano erupting on Galapagos right now!

Holy smokes, kids. A Galapagos Island volcano named La Cumbre is now erupting with flames, lava and smoke. No people are in near it, but some land and sea animals are in danger.

This is very sad for some of the tortoises, iguanas, wolves and blue-footed boobies that live on the islands, but don't panic! This is also nature taking its normal course.

The Galapagos are volcanic islands -- they have been formed over millions of years by undersea and aboveground volcanos erupting like this all the time. It's just how the environment changes there, and those big, fast changes make animals evolve pretty darn quick.

Most animals will survive this eruption, and those that do will go on to have their babies, and the cycle will continue on. So while changes like this are kinda scary, they also make way for new beautiful species to evolve in future.

Click here for more on the eruption.

Win a free Giant Evolution Timeline!

Is there a kid/church/school you'd like to donate a Giant Evolution Timeline to? The folks over at The Opinionated Parent are giving one away for free! All you have to do is comment on their review of Charlie's Playhouse, posted today, and they'll enter you in a drawing to win the prize.

There are no comments yet, so if only one person comments, well, you do the math on who wins the drawing. Go for it!

PS. The review says, among other nice things, that the Giant Evolution Timeline is "an unequivocally huge hit with the kids around our place." Any reviewer who busts out with a word like 'unequivocally' is ok by me.

Anybody out there speak Norwegian?

Fri Tanke is the newsmagazine of the Norwegian Humanist Association, and they've just put up a nice piece on Charlie's Playhouse. At least I think it's nice. I can't really tell because it's in Norwegian.

But I can tell that that trying to pronounce sentences like this...

"Som mor og vitenskapskvinne ville jeg gjerne kjøpe leker som kunne lære dem om evolusjon og dinosaurenes plass i livets utvikling."

.... totally gives me and the kids the giggles. Try it.

Evolution plush!

We’re always excited to find folks who share our love of evolution. So we were delighted to hear from Avram Kaufman, a NYC-based entreprenuer who is starting a line of plush toys called Evolvems. Each cute animal ingeniously flips inside out to form another animal that evolved from the first. They aren't available in stores yet, but he hopes they will be this summer.

This is the first I've ever heard of another company making evolution toys. Avram and I had coffee yesterday in New York. He's a truly nice guy, and we share a lot of goals, such as helping young kids learn about evolution. But we agreed that so far our products are quite different and would appeal to kids of different ages and temperaments.

I'm happy that the first competition for Charlie's Playhouse is coming from Avram and not some huge corporate Death Star. Hopefully we can help each other out. At the end of the coffee we decided that our companies will either engage in 1) a vicious struggle to the death, or 2) delightful mutual collaboration. Stay tuned.

Either way, it's great news for kids who want to learn about evolution...

Draw a cartoon and win a contest! Yes, you!

Here's how it works. Using your wit and brains, you draw a hilarious cartoon that gets across something important about evolution or science. You submit it to Florida Citizens for Science, which is hosting the contest, and if your entry is selected, not only do you win some awesome prizes but also Florida Citizens for Science promotes your cartoon on websites and elsewhere. Voila, instant celebrity and a better educated public!

It's easy. You don't have to live in Florida or even be able to locate Florida on a map. You don't have to be able to draw. Just draw your entry in stick figures and if you win we'll help redo it as a more professional-looking piece. You don't have to be a kid. There's a kids' division for 12 and under, as well as an adult division.

Most importantly for everyone, I am serving as a celebrity judge for the contest. Yes, it's true. My tiara is at the ready.

I'm also delighted to have the job of re-drawing any stick-figure cartoons that win, and to donate a Giant Timeline and deck of Creature Cards to be used as two of the many prizes.

So call the neighbors! Wake the kids! Game on.

Entry deadline: May 31st
Winners announced: June 19th
Official contest page here.