Science and Medical Writer, Los Angeles Times
Science and medical writer at the Los Angeles Times
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Tom Maugh
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FROM Tom Maugh
To the Point
Skeleton of 4.4 Million-Year-Old Human Ancestor Discovered A 4.4 million year-old skeleton has been uncovered in the Ethiopian desert, which is adding some new insight into how our evolutionary ancestors looked and behaved. The nearly complete skeleton, dubbed "Ardi," doesn't look at all like a chimpanzee or other large primate, and that has researchers intrigued. Tom Maugh is the science writer for the Los Angeles Times .
To the Point
The Real Eclipse in the 'The Odyssey' Myth According to Homer, it took the Odysseus ten years to get home to Greece after the Trojan War some 3000 years ago. Upon arriving, he had to kill off a crowd of rowdy suitors vying for the hand of his wife, all presuming him dead. Though The Odyssey was composed 400 years after the alleged events, there's now astronomical evidence he knew what he was talking about. Homer says the death of Penelope's suitors was prophesied by a seer who said, "The Sun has been obliterated from the sky and an unlucky darkness invades the world." Was that a poetic metaphor or was it a solar eclipse? Scientists think they have the answer, as Thomas Maugh explains in today's Los Angeles Times .
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