Latest news with #Australopithecus
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elon Musk Is So Rich It Would Take You 6.8 Million Years On A Median Salary To Catch Up — That's Over 20 Times Longer Than Humans Have Existed
You've probably seen the Reddit threads. Maybe it was a YouTube video with a scrolling bar chart or a guy counting grains of rice to represent Jeff Bezos' wealth. These visual stunts go viral for one reason: normal people can't wrap their heads around billionaire money. But even those fall short of capturing just how far ahead Elon Musk is. He's not just rich. He's the richest person alive. As of now, Forbes estimates Musk's net worth at $424.7 billion—mostly from Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, and every other empire he's casually juggling. Now let's make this painful. Don't Miss: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — Inspired by Uber and Airbnb – Deloitte's fastest-growing software company is transforming 7 billion smartphones into income-generating assets – The median U.S. salary is $61,984. If you earned that exact amount every year—without spending a cent—it would take you 6,851,768 years to match Musk's net worth. Let that number sit. For comparison, modern Homo sapiens have existed for about 300,000 years. One of our earliest known ancestors, Australopithecus afarensis—nicknamed Lucy—walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. You could have started earning the median salary back then and still be nowhere near Musk's bank account. The math here assumes annual income, not hourly work. So forget 40-hour workweeks or overtime. This is based on a full year of pre-tax, pre-life, pre-anything earnings, stacked for nearly 7 million years. It's wealth on a geologic scale. Trending: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Sure, Musk's net worth fluctuates with Tesla stock and private company valuations. But even on a "bad" day, he's playing a game that isn't relatable. Most people are worrying about 5% raises. He's watching billions go up or down depending on how Cybertruck memes are trending. According to Forbes, the planet has 2,781 billionaires—as of their 38th Annual World's Billionaires List published in October.. And even among that elite crowd, Musk isn't just at the top—he's in another financial galaxy. The gap between Musk and the second-richest billionaire is often larger than the total net worth of hundreds of the world's poorest billionaires combined. So next time you see someone try to visualize billionaire wealth—stretching cash down a highway or stacking rice to the moon—just remember: even those stunts are underestimating it. And if you're earning the median salary? You're not behind. You're on a completely different evolutionary timeline. Read Next: Maximize saving for your retirement and cut down on taxes: . Invest where it hurts — and help millions heal:. Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Elon Musk Is So Rich It Would Take You 6.8 Million Years On A Median Salary To Catch Up — That's Over 20 Times Longer Than Humans Have Existed originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
The Advertiser
21-05-2025
- Science
- The Advertiser
Ask Fuzzy: What happens when you cook meat?
It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast:
NDTV
25-04-2025
- Science
- NDTV
South Africa's 'Cradle Of Humankind' Caves Reopen After Flooding
Seated on sandbags in a knee-deep grid dug in South Africa's Sterkfontein caves, where one of our earliest ancestors was found, Itumeleng Molefe swept ancient soil into a blue dustpan, each brushstroke hunting for hidden clues. Nearby, visitors marvelled at the weathered limestone rocks hanging from the ceiling of the caves, millions of years old. Located 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, the caves closed nearly three years ago due to flooding and reopened in April with a new experience bringing tourists closer to the scientific action. The complex is housed within the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, a rich source of artefacts for palaeontologists since it was first discovered. "My aim is to find important bones here," said the 40-year-old Molefe. His most prized find since joining the excavation team in 2013 was an early human hand bone. His father was part of the team that uncovered South Africa's most famous find, a skeleton dubbed "Little Foot", in the caves. Deriving its name from the size of the bones first discovered in the 1990s, it is the most complete specimen of a human ancestor yet discovered, estimated to be between 1.5 and 3.7 million years old. Little Foot is from a branch of the human family tree called Australopithecus, Latin for "southern ape" -- considered the ancestors of modern humans, with a mixture of ape-like and human characteristics. "This reopening represents a significant evolution in how we share the story of human origins," said Nithaya Chetty, dean of the University of the Witwatersrand faculty of science, which manages the caves and the nearby museum. "Visitors now have unique opportunities to engage with active live science and research, all happening in real time," said the professor. 'Missing something' At their peak before the Covid-19 pandemic, the caves received up to 100,000 tourists a year. The closure had left a lingering feeling of sadness, said Witwatersrand archaeology professor Dominic Stratford, recalling busloads of schoolchildren and inquisitive visitors. "Everyone felt like we were missing something," he told AFP. A temporary exhibit of the fossils has been set up at the museum, where visitors will also get a chance to see "Mrs Ples", the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus, found in South Africa in 1947. Guiding helmet-clad visitors through the 2.5 kilometres of caves bathed in soft blue LED lights, Trevor Butelezi gestures toward a shadowy passage that leads to an underground lake. "It's actually a beautiful cavity," said the 34-year-old tourism graduate, his voice echoing gently off the walls. "Africa gave rise to humanity and it's not a small thing," he said, paraphrasing a quote from the South African palaeontologist Phillip Tobias. For now, those hoping to glimpse the original Little Foot will have to wait for heritage month in September. The skeleton, which took two decades to excavate and assemble, is only displayed on special occasions.
The South African
25-04-2025
- Science
- The South African
South Africa's 'cradle of humankind' caves reopen to public
Seated on sandbags in a knee-deep grid dug in South Africa's Sterkfontein caves, where one of our earliest ancestors was found, Itumeleng Molefe swept ancient soil into a blue dustpan, each brushstroke hunting for hidden clues. Nearby, visitors marvelled at the weathered limestone rocks hanging from the ceiling of the caves, millions of years old. Located 50km northwest of Johannesburg, the caves closed nearly three years ago due to flooding and reopened in April with a new experience bringing tourists closer to the scientific action. The complex is housed within the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, a rich source of artefacts for palaeontologists since it was first discovered. 'My aim is to find important bones here,' said the 40-year-old Molefe. His most prized find since joining the excavation team in 2013 was an early human hand bone. His father was part of the team that uncovered South Africa's most famous find, a skeleton dubbed 'Little Foot', in the caves. Deriving its name from the size of the bones first discovered in the 1990s, it is the most complete specimen of a human ancestor yet discovered, estimated to be between 1.5 and 3.7 million years old. Little Foot is from a branch of the human family tree called Australopithecus, Latin for 'southern ape' – considered the ancestors of modern humans, with a mixture of ape-like and human characteristics. 'This reopening represents a significant evolution in how we share the story of human origins,' said Nithaya Chetty, dean of the University of the Witwatersrand faculty of science, which manages the caves and the nearby museum. 'Visitors now have unique opportunities to engage with active live science and research, all happening in real time,' said the professor. At their peak before the Covid-19 pandemic, the caves received up to 100 000 tourists a year. The closure had left a lingering feeling of sadness, said Witwatersrand archaeology professor Dominic Stratford, recalling busloads of schoolchildren and inquisitive visitors. 'Everyone felt like we were missing something,' he told AFP. A temporary exhibit of the fossils has been set up at the museum, where visitors will also get a chance to see 'Mrs Ples', the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus, found in South Africa in 1947. Guiding helmet-clad visitors through the 2.5 kilometres of caves bathed in soft blue LED lights, Trevor Butelezi gestures toward a shadowy passage that leads to an underground lake. 'It's actually a beautiful cavity,' said the 34-year-old tourism graduate, his voice echoing gently off the walls. 'Africa gave rise to humanity and it's not a small thing,' he said, paraphrasing a quote from the South African palaeontologist Phillip Tobias. For now, those hoping to glimpse the original Little Foot will have to wait for heritage month in September. The skeleton, which took two decades to excavate and assemble, is only displayed on special occasions. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news. By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse
Daily Maverick
22-04-2025
- Science
- Daily Maverick
Itumeleng Molefe follows in his father's footsteps to unearth the links to humanity's deep past
Like his father before him and his cousin and his cousin's father, Itumeleng Molefe is a fossil technician at the Sterkfontein Caves, which contain one of the richest collections of hominin fossils in the world. Itumeleng Molefe has one of those jobs that you probably have never heard of, but it is at the core of understanding and unearthing — literally — who we are as humans and how we've evolved. Like his father before him, Molefe is a fossil technician at the Sterkfontein Caves, a dolomite cave system formed between 20 and 30 million years ago. Part of the Unesco-listed Cradle of Humankind, northwest of Johannesburg, the caves contain one of the richest collections of hominin fossils in the world. Fossil technicians are behind the scenes of many major palaeoanthropological discoveries, responsible for much of the careful excavation, preparation and curation of fossil material, working closely with local and international researchers. 'I would say, generally speaking, fossil preparators are the foundation on which all of our sciences are based,' said Professor Dominic Stratford, a geoarchaeology lecturer at Wits University and research permit holder at the Sterkfontein Caves. 'Without fossil preparators, there would be no fossils, no material to analyse.' Like many at the Sterkfontein Caves, Molefe comes from a line of fossil technicians. 'My cousin's father worked here; he was the first person to work here in our family,' said Molefe. 'And after that, he brought my father here.' His father, Nkwane Molefe, became a fossil technician in 1972 and worked at the Swartkrans and Sterkfontein caves for 40 years. Nkwane Molefe was part of the historic excavation of Little Foot, the most complete Australopithecus skeleton ever found. In 1994, Professor Ronald Clarke discovered hominid foot bones in the Sterkfontein caves. In 1997, he enlisted technicians Stephen Motsumi and Nkwane Molefe to help locate the rest of the skeleton in the Silberberg Grotto in the Sterkfontein Caves. And they did. 'He gave Stephen and my father a piece of bone to match,' said Molefe. 'They put it on the rock — and it matched. Then they started digging and found the most complete skeleton in the world.' About 90% of Little Foot's skeleton was preserved. The next most complete Australopithecus skeleton, 'Lucy', discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, is only 40% complete. 'It took 20 years to excavate to a point where we are now,' said Stratford. 'Initial stages isolated large blocks that could be removed and then the excavations carried on in the lab.' Molefe's cousin Abel Molepolle and another fossil technician, Andrew Phaswana, worked on Little Foot in the casting lab with Clarke for almost 15 years. Young Itumeleng spent his school holidays visiting the caves where his father worked. 'So he was always at the site as a child, always aware of what his father was doing and always exposed to what the fossil preparators were doing,' said Stratford. 'This was part of their family.' After leaving high school, Molefe got a job in ventilation control at a platinum mine. When he was 29, he joined the Sterkfontein team, just a few months before his father retired. One of Molefe's most exciting moments at Sterkfontein was when he found a hominin phalange (fingerbone) in 2015. 'We knew it was a phalange, so we took it to the casting lab, compared it to a model, only to find out it was hominin. Then we all got excited,' recalled Molefe. 'Joh, it was my happy time, that time.' In 2017, while sorting through a bucket of material from Kromdraai — a nearby fossil site in the Cradle of Humankind — he discovered a trove of hominin teeth. 'I was just sorting material, only to find we had plenty of teeth. Not one — plenty. I can't count them,' he said. 'That day we were very, very excited.' Stratford said, '[Molefe] is deeply invested and really proud of what he does, and of his dad and the contributions his family have made in Sterkfontein and to general discoveries in the Cradle. He's been incredible to work with.' How do fossil technicians excavate? Slowly Excavating fossils is a slow, delicate process. 'We try to excavate extremely slowly so we can document everything,' said Stratford. The first step is capturing 3D coordinates with a laser survey device so any fossil can be precisely relocated. In soft sediment, brushes and trowels are used to expose the fossil. Once uncovered, it's documented and bagged or wrapped for lab analysis. Most fossils in the Cradle of Humankind are found in hard breccia (a sedimentary rock). In these cases, entire blocks are removed to the lab, where technicians use air scribes — 'like a dentist's drill,' said Stratford — to chip away at the sediment, grain by grain, to reveal the fossil without damaging it. 'It's a really difficult thing to do, because the fossil is in most cases softer than the sediment around it,' said Stratford. 'So it's really easy to damage the fossil, and it takes years of experience to learn how to predict and understand where the fossil might be going.' Stratford said fossil technicians often work blind, not knowing whether a visible fragment is part of a larger bone or just a shard. 'It's all very exploratory and all very gentle,' he said. Lab preparation is preferred because of better lighting and controlled conditions. To prevent damage, fossils may be stabilised with paraloid — a reversible adhesive — or wrapped in bandages until they can be properly prepared in the lab. In complex cases like Little Foot, where hundreds of bones are interwoven, the process can take years. 'Ron Clarke once described it as like excavating a delicate pastry pie from a block of cement,' said Stratford. 'If we think we've found something particularly interesting and it's too delicate to excavate, we can CT-scan the whole block and digitally excavate it. We can even 3D-print the fossil before doing any physical work.' Learning through generations 'The really nice thing about Sterkfontein and its having such a long legacy of excavation is that most of the fossil technicians have been doing this as a family trade,' said Stratford. 'We joke that Abel was the last hominin to be born on Sterkfontein because he was actually born on the property,' added Stratford, referring to Abel Molepolle, who started working at the caves in 1999. Like his cousin Molefe and many others, Abel followed in his father's footsteps. The specialised work of technicians is passed down through a combination of hands-on experience and formal training. The technicians gain skills through practical training and extensive fieldwork, often starting with apprenticeship-style learning and formal workshops in casting and fossil preparation. 'But now, people like Abel and Andrew are so good at what they do, we often go to them and ask how we should approach something or what part of the fossil we're dealing with,' said Stratford. 'They are some of the best fossil preparators and cast-makers in the world, actually, that I've worked with.' Despite their expertise, some technicians haven't finished school. Molefe plans to begin the process of completing his matric in May. Spotlighting technicians At first, Molefe didn't realise the importance of his father's work at the caves. 'When I was coming here, there weren't many students. But after I joined under Dominic, more students were coming. I saw that my job is very important because of the Wits students, primary school students and high school students that come here, and we teach them,' he explained. Visitors often ask how he distinguishes bones from rocks. 'The more you do something every day, the more you recognise it — you can do it with your eyes closed,' he smiled. Despite the repetitive nature of the work, Molefe says it's never boring. 'Imagine you're looking for diamonds or gold — same like us. The more you excavate, the more you find bones, and the more excited you get.' Stratford highlighted the vital role of the technical team, noting that their contributions were often overlooked. To recognise their efforts, he designed the new lab with a team wall on which technicians can share their own stories and experiences. 'Which are incredible and have changed their own lives but also changed, in many ways, all our lives — in terms of our understanding and accessibility to these incredibly rich stories of human evolution,' said Stratford. With the reopening of the Sterkfontein Caves last week after a two-year closure caused by safety concerns, visitors can now also visit the laboratories at the site and see how fossils are prepared by the technicians. 'They are the lifeblood of the research,' Stratford said, stressing that more recognition and support were needed, particularly to secure funding for the technicians' salaries. 'It's easy enough to find money for a fancy piece of equipment or a student bursary, but finding funds for technical positions is really difficult. The more we can highlight them, the better.' DM
