Multimedia Reporting (Bradford-Noland)

A professor from the University of Kansas was part of an international team who claims to have dispelled evidence that skeletal remains found in Indonesia in 2003 represent a new species of small humans.

David Frayer, professor of anthropology, says that the specimen, nicknamed “hobbit” after the small creatures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” was actually a female Homo sapiens dwarf.

The remains were found in Liang Bua Cave on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 by a research team led by Mike Morwood, archaeologist from the University of New England in Australia. The 18,000-year-old remains were believed to be a new species and were called Homo floresiensis.

Peter Brown, archaeologist from UNE and co-discoverer of the hobbit, said the hobbit may have evolved from an Australopithecine – the same genus as Lucy – that somehow made it to Flores.

“We initially thought Homo erectus moved to the island,” Brown said. “Now we think it is a small-bodied and small-brained ancestor that came to Flores. We think it was an Australopithecine.”

Frayer said that the hobbit resembles pygmies who live within a mile of Liang Bua Cave today, except that it had a smaller brain. Pygmies are people who have an average height of less than 5 feet, but don’t have dwarfism. He said that the hobbit has similar teeth to the local pygmies, who have a tradition of burying their dead in Liang Bua Cave.

When an article about the original find was published in Nature in 2004, Frayer noticed several things described in the article that indicated that the hobbit skeleton was something other than a new species.

Frayer studied photos of the hobbit and noticed that the two halves of its skull were asymmetrical. He also noted that it had a small braincase. Frayer said the brain-to-body ratio of the hobbit was only one-third of what a human of its size, about 3 feet in height, would be expected to have. This indicated to Frayer and his colleagues that the hobbit had microcephaly, a form of dwarfism characterized by having an abnormally small head with a small braincase.

Brown said that the brain-to-body ratio of the hobbit was not disproportionate. He said the hobbit was about the size of a chimpanzee with the brain the size of a chimp's.

Frayer said: “The reason it was so astounding is because it had a small brain associated with complicated tools. People recognized this immediately about the hobbit. ... It’s a pathology that’s no different than any other pathology.”

Frayer also said that Flores, Indonesia, is not isolated far enough from the other islands of the Indonesian archipelago for a new species to evolve. One of the Frayer’s colleagues demonstrated that during different times of glaciation, sea levels would have been low enough that Flores wouldn’t have been separated by much, if at all, from the other islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Therefore, humans living on Flores would have been subjected to evolutionary forces like genetic drift – gene flow from outside the island – and would not have been isolated enough to evolve into a new species.

In fact, according to Frayer, Flores could have been subjected to genetic drift even if it was separated by large stretches of open sea.

“Modern humans were sailing to Australia by the sea 60,000 years ago. If not, then certainly by 30,000 years ago. It is an underappreciated aspect of human technology that early humans were sailing around a lot.”

Brown said Flores was isolated enough for a new species to evolve. He said that some of the underwater trenches around Flores are 1,000 meters deep so that no animal could have walked to the island. He said that the hobbit had floated to the island by accident.

Frayer said that some scientists would argue for a new species for any skeleton that is slightly different than another specimen.

“There are people who will go find a mandible of living people, say, in Australia and then go find the mandible of a living people in Finland and some people would argue they were different species, but they know they aren't because they can interbreed,” Frayer said.

“Rather than to jumping to the conclusion that we have a new species of humans that is completely off the scale compared to other primates, let alone humans, it seems more reasonable to describe it as a pathological specimen,” Frayer said.

Brown addressed the criticisms to his research.

“They haven’t provided any evidence,” Brown said. “They have not found any modern human in Flores from that time period or any modern human with the pathology described.”

He said that Frayer’s team believes in a single lineage for human evolution and doesn’t acknowledge that there may have been many other hominid species that went extinct.

“We are happy with the belief that there were many branches in the human lineage that went extinct. Some lineages were successful, while others didn’t make it,” Brown said.

“We believe that Homo floresiensis went extinct from a volcanic eruption on Flores,” Brown said.

Jim Mielke, chairman and professor of the anthropology department, has been following the hobbit controversy.

“I find it very hard to believe that there is a different species on Flores Island,” Mielke said.

Mielke said that according to the out-of-Africa hypothesis, modern humans would have been migrating into Indonesia in the time period that the hobbit lived. The small population on Flores would have experienced genetic drift.

Like Frayer, Mielke also believes that the asymmetry of the hobbit’s skull indicates that it is not a new species.

“The asymmetry is absolutely awful, which you don’t get in human populations without pathology,” Mielke said.

Brown said that research on Homo floresiensis is continuing and that they will have a lot more researching coming out in the next year.

For ongoing commentary about the hobbit controversy, check out the John Hawks Anthropology Weblog.

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Researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center are developing new anti-smoking campaigns that specifically target Native Americans.

Won Choi, associate professor of preventive medicine, is the lead researcher in the project. He believes the reason anti-smoking campaigns in the mainstream media have been ineffective for Native Americans is because the messages aren’t culturally sensitive.

“The main message in the mainstream media is to get rid of all smoking for good,” Choi said. “But some Native Americans use Marlboros for prayer ceremonies.”

Choi hopes to find out through his research if Native Americans are more prone to become habitual smokers because they smoke for ceremonial purposes.

“No one knows the answer to that. That is one of the things we want to answer through our research,” Choi said.

Choi said that some Native Americans will wake up in the morning and light a Marlboro and not smoke it, but just use the smoke to pray.

The participants in the program mainly come from the Lawrence area through the Haskell Health Center. The Haskell Health Center specializes in providing outpatient services to Native Americans with substance abuse disorders. Choi said that the sample of smokers in his study is representative of Native American smokers in the Midwest.

Choi said that 40 percent of Native Americans are habitual smokers; that is almost twice the national average. He said that Native Americans have a larger percentage of smokers than any other ethnic group.

The department of preventive medicine received a grant of $1.2 million from the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association to conduct its research. The money will be paid out over the next three years.

Choi hopes that in three years from now, he would have demonstrated that his research was successful.

Sixty-five percent of the program’s participants quit smoking after three months in the program. Forty-three percent of those who had quit smoking remained non-smokers six months later.

“We want to be able to disseminate our method to other tribes throughout the U.S. and down to other smokers,” Choi said.

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Federal legislators are currently in Kansas campaigning for the midterm elections. But that won’t stop Lawrence city commissioners from going to Washington, D.C., to establish a relationship with congressmen.

The city commissioners will be in Washington, D.C., from Sunday, Oct. 15, until Tuesday, Oct. 17.

Vice-mayor Sue Hack said the city commissioners had not realized the Kansas legislators would not be in Washinton, D.C., when they had planned their trip, but the commission will proceed as planned.

“Now we will meet with the staff. We’ll have work sessions, a meet and greet,” she said. “We have to talk about funding, Internet sales-tax. If we don’t talk about it, nobody else will. It is important to go there twice a year. It is important to have our faces there.”

“We cannot overstate the value of having people in positions of power knowing who you are when you call,” said David Schauner, city commissioner. “A lion’s share of the work is done by staffers, and we don’t normally know staffers. ... If you know staffer X and he can put a face with your name, when you call later, the conversation will be different than an impersonal phone call out of the blue.”

Dave Corliss, city manager, said that there was no definite budget for the trip. He said the budget would be limited to traveling expenses and that the commissioners would carpool to the airport.

“There are no formal earmark requests,” Corliss said, adding that the commission should make formal budget requests in the future.

“It’s a great value to the community to spend a few hours with the staff,” Corliss said.

Schauner said the trip is a good value for tax-payers.

“It will be pretty bare bones. Just a plane ticket, a hotel, a taxi-cab,” Schauner said. “It is a very good value. I have other things to do. I’m taking two days off work. It’s cutting into my weekend. But I feel this is an important trip, both for the city council and for tax-payers.”

Mayor Mike Amyx said the trip could actually save money because the city commissioners will be present for budget discussions.

“We will see how tax dollars come back to us from taking part in these discussions,” he said.

The city commissioners plan to meet with legislators in Washington, D.C., twice a year.

“We’re looking to reinforce relationships with senators and representatives,” Schauner said. “We want to get onto their radar screen.”

Schauner said since Kansas senators and representatives would be in Kansas, the commission may plan an event to meet them in Lawrence.

“We may plan a gathering for Ryun and Moore, or whoever is elected in November, here in town,” he said.

The city commissioners will return in time for the City Council meeting Tuesday night.

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The University of Kansas will not renew its subscription to Turnitin, which will expire Oct. 3. Turnitin is an online service that helps professors catch students they suspect of plagiarism.

The Provost Office decided not to renew the annual license due to the cost of the service and copyright concerns.

“We were motivated primarily by being stunned by the sharp increase in price for what is essentially the same service,” said Lynn Bretz, director of communications.

Bretz said that when the University first subscribed to Turnitin four years ago, the price was $6,000. The next year, the price increased 67 percent to $10,000. Last year, the price increased 40 percent to $14,000. And this year, Turnitin upped the price 57 percent to $22,000. With the new price increase, the Provost Office decided not to renew the service.

The $22,000 price tag is still 39 percent less than the $36,000 a year the University of Arizona is paying for the service, Bretz said.

John Barrie, CEO of iParadigms, Turnitin’s parent company, did not return repeated phone calls.

Another concern the University has about Turnitin is intellectual property issues. Faculty and students scan documents onto Turnitin’s database and the company then makes a profit using those examples.

“If we’re scanning documents and providing them with examples for their service, why are they charging us? If anything, the price should go down,” Bretz said.

According to an August 2004 memo from then-Provost David Shulenburger, the University subscribed to Turnitin after a survey found that 22 percent of a random sample of 1,250 students admitted to plagiarism. The same survey found that 50 percent agreed that it was easy to get away with academic misconduct at the University.

Stefani Rahardja, De Soto freshman, said that Turnitin is a deterrent to plagiarism.

“Plagiarism is what a lot of students do to get things done,” Rahardja said. “So I do think Turnitin.com is useful. They should keep using it.”

Jessica Mulvaney, Leavenworth sophomore, does not think that Turnitin is a useful tool.

“I don’t see the point in it,” Mulvaney said. “Even if you didn’t plagiarize, if you change one word, a Web site can have the same sentence.”

Mulvaney said she would not be tempted to plagiarize even if the University cancels Turnitin.

“There are still ways to get caught, even without Turnitin,” she said.

Latchit Patel, Leavenworth junior, said he would be tempted to plagiarize if there was no way to get caught.

Frank Cai, graduate assistant of Humanities and Western Civilization, thinks the University’s decision to cancel Turnitin was prudent.

“The University should spend a reasonable amount of money on reasonable things,” Cai said. “It is good for the University to not spend a substantial amount for only a few plagiarists. … I believe that the majority of students are good; only a handful plagiarizes.”

Cai did say that it could be dangerous if the University did not find a replacement to Turnitin.

“It could be a signal that the administration is loosening tight control,” he said. “If you can’t find an exact replacement, something is better than nothing.”

Cai suggested that the University should plan an anti-plagiarism day to inform students of the bad effects of plagiarism.

But students should not see the expiration of Turnitin as an opportunity for a plagiarism free-for-all.

“The faculty will have the necessary tools,” Bretz said. “I think there was some misinformation in the early press releases.”

The University is currently looking for alternatives to Turnitin. The Provost Office is also trying to persuade Turnitin to renew the service at last year’s rate or to offer a multiple-year fixed rate.

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