Read More

Ex-Samsung exec admits leaking iPad info

Apple iPad

NEW YORK: An ex-Samsung Electronics Co manager, testifying at the insider-trader trial ofPrimary Global Research LLC executive James Fleishman, told jurors he disclosed confidential shipping data for Apple Inc iPad components.

Suk-Joo Hwang, who worked for 14 years at the US division of Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung, told jurors in federal court in New York after he was granted immunity from prosecution by US District Judge Jed Rakoff, who's presiding over the case.

Hwang said that during lunch at a restaurant in Mountain View, California, with Fleishman and a hedge fund manager he identified as "Greg," he gave them confidential information about Samsung's shipment of liquid crystal display screens it was supplying to Apple. The iPad made its US debut in April 2010, four months after the lunch.

"One particular thing I remember vividly was that I talked about the shipment numbers of Apple, it was about iPad," he said. "This is in December 2009, before it came out with the tablet PC, they didn't know the name then, so I talked to them about the tablet shipment estimates in that meeting."

Expert networking
Fleishman, of Santa Clara, California, is charged with two counts of conspiracy for facilitating a scheme in which employees at public companies passed confidential information to fund manager clients of Primary Global, also known as PGR, a Mountain View-based expert-networking firm. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and faces as long as 25 years in prison if convicted.

Samsung was a supplier for the iPad screens along with Seiko Epson Corp and LG Display Co, Hwang said. Assistant US Attorney Antonia Apps asked Hwang how Fleishman and the fund manager reacted to the information he was sharing.

"They didn't know about it," Hwang said, adding that the fund manager "was very excited."

"In fact, I said, 'Please, just keep this to yourself,'" Hwang testified, lowering his voice for the jury and gesturing downwardly with his right hand. "I remember after I said this, James, he was nodding his head."

'Freaked out'
Hwang said that as soon as he spoke he realized that a man at a nearby table was staring at him. He said he became concerned the man was an Apple employee who'd overheard his comments. He told jurors he turned his company badge around to hide his name and Samsung logo.

"After I said it, I looked around," Hwang said. "The first thing I thought was 'Wow, I said it too loud' and then I really freaked out."

Hwang, who said he worked as a consultant for the PGR from 2004 to 2010, said he earned about $38,000 for his work as an expert-networking consultant.

He said he grew concerned about being discovered as a leak on Apple data. Soon after the lunch, Hwang said, he was told by a colleague that Samsung had lost a supply contract with Apple.

"I thought, 'Oh that guy was an Apple guy and they found out,'" Hwang said. "I was scared."

FBI agents
After he received a promotion in February 2010, Hwang notified PGR executives that he wanted to stop working for them. He said Primary Global officials told him they would allow him to work anonymously and said they also offered to raise his consultation fee from $200 an hour to $350.

Hwang agreed and worked for PGR until August 2010. He said he was approached by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in October when they came to his home and asked him about his work with PGR. He said he didn't initially tell agents the truth about his actions.

Hwang said he was fired by Samsung in June 2011 and said he hasn't been charged with any crimes. Under Rakoff's order, Hwang's testimony can't be used against him and he can only be prosecuted if he commits perjury. His testimony continues today.

Chris Goodhart, a Samsung spokeswoman in San Jose, California, declined to comment on Hwang's testimony. Steve Dowling, a spokesman for the Cupertino, California-based Apple, also declined to comment.

The case is US v. Fleishman, 11-cr-00032, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Times Of India.

Read More

Justin Bieber Needs Your Help With Heart Campaign

Justin Bieber is looking to make the world a better place and he’s looking to his fans to help him out as he cannot do it on his own.

Justin is looking to make the biggest digital chain of hearts across the web. If you join his campaign you will be joining a great cause, all you have to do is send him your hearts. Once he has reached his goal donors and proceeds from his fragrance ‘Someday’ he promises to build 50 schools for underprivileged kids. You can check out the campaign below. Joining is fairly simple, all you have to do is upload your picture as if were joining others in the heart chain. Meanwhile, Justin Bieber is getting a lot of help with his forthcoming Christmas album. Already the ‘Baby’ singer has already recorded songs with Taylor Swift, Sean Kingston and even 90′s R&B group Boyz II Men.

Now it’s likely that the Boyz are getting what’s known as a “Bieber Boost” as girls who weren’t yet born when “End of the Road” was the world’s biggest slow jam rush to acquaint themselves with decades of perfect harmonization. Luckily, the Boyz are making it easy on Beliebers, as they’ll soon release the LP Twenty in honor of the group’s two decades in the music business. The album will feature 10 new songs in addition to 10 updated versions of their classic hits. Will you joining Justin’s campaign?

Source News: Twist

Read More

31 JNVan run away from school

At least 31 students of Class 10 of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) at Kauni in Faridk

ot district ran away from the residential school early morning Tuesday and took shelter at Sultanpur Lodhi Gurdwara in Kapurthala district, alleging brutality by the school authorities.

The students walked barefoot for nearly 32 km to Ferozepur railway station and boarded a train to Sultanpur Lodhi.

“We were under stress as we were beaten by the teachers and they used abusive language against us. We were demoralised,” they alleged.

They also alleged that some of the students, who were good in sports, were not considered by the authorities and the principal never paid any heed to their complaints.

They also alleged that they were kept in unhygenic conditions and provided poor quality of food.

The students were later sent back to their school on the orders of Kapurthala deputy commissioner.

Read More

Today's Day in History ( Sep-11)

At 8:45 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more in higher floors. As the evacuation of the tower and its twin got underway, television cameras broadcasted live images of what initially appeared to be a freak accident. Then, 18 minutes after the first plane hit, a second Boeing 767--United Airlines Flight 175--appeared out of the sky, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center, and sliced into the south tower at about the 60th floor. The collision caused a massive explosion that showered burning debris over surrounding buildings and the streets below. America was under attack.

The attackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America's support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War, and its continued military presence in the Middle East. Some of the terrorists had lived in the United States for more than a year and had taken flying lessons at American commercial flight schools. Others had slipped into the U.S. in the months before September 11 and acted as the "muscle" in the operation. The 19 terrorists easily smuggled box-cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports and boarded four flights bound for California, chosen because the planes were loaded with fuel for the long transcontinental journey. Soon after takeoff, the terrorists commandeered the four planes and took the controls, transforming the ordinary commuter jets into guided missiles.

As millions watched in horror the events unfolding in New York, American Airlines Flight 77 circled over downtown Washington and slammed into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters at 9:45 a.m. Jet fuel from the Boeing 757 caused a devastating inferno that led to a structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building. All told, 125 military personnel and civilians were killed in the Pentagon along with all 64 people aboard the airliner.

Less than 15 minutes after the terrorists struck the nerve center of the U.S. military, the horror in New York took a catastrophic turn for the worse when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and smoke. The structural steel of the skyscraper, built to withstand winds in excess of 200 mph and a large conventional fire, could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel. At 10:30 a.m., the other Trade Center tower collapsed. Close to 3,000 people died in the World Trade Center and its vicinity, including a staggering 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers, and 37 Port Authority police officers who were struggling to complete an evacuation of the buildings and save the office workers trapped on higher floors. Only six people in the World Trade Center towers at the time of their collapse survived. Almost 10,000 other people were treated for injuries, many severe.

Meanwhile, a fourth California-bound plane--United Flight 93--was hijacked about 40 minutes after leaving Newark International Airport in New Jersey. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground. Knowing that the aircraft was not returning to an airport as the hijackers claimed, a group of passengers and flight attendants planned an insurrection. One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett, Jr., told his wife over the phone that "I know we're all going to die. There's three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey." Another passenger--Todd Beamer--was heard saying "Are you guys ready? Let's roll" over an open line. Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were "Everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye."

The passengers fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire extinguisher. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. All 45 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard.

At 7 p.m., President George W. Bush, who had spent the day being shuttled around the country because of security concerns, returned to the White House. At 9 p.m., he delivered a televised address from the Oval Office, declaring "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve." In a reference to the eventual U.S. military response he declared: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based there, began on October 7, 2001. Bin Laden was killed during a raid of his compound in Pakistan by U.S. forces on May 2, 2011.

Read More

Today's Day in History

On this day in 1897, a 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building. Smith later pled guilty and was fined 25 shillings.

In the United State, the first laws against operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol went into effect in New york in 1910. In 1936, Dr. Rolla Harger, a professor of biochemistry and toxicology, patented the Drunkometer, a balloon-like device into which people would breathe to determine whether they were inebriated. In 1953, Robert Borkenstein, a former Indiana state police captain and university professor who had collaborated with Harger on the Drunkometer, invented the Breathalyzer. Easier-to-use and more accurate than the Drunkometer, the Breathalyzer was the first practical device and scientific test available to police officers to establish whether someone had too much to drink. A person would blow into the Breathalyzer and it would gauge the proportion of alcohol vapors in the exhaled breath, which reflected the level of alcohol in the blood.

Despite the invention of the Breathalyzer and other developments, it was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that public awareness about the dangers of drinking and driving increased and lawmakers and police officers began to get tougher on offenders. In 1980, a Californian named Candy Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, after her 13-year-old daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver while walking home from a school carnival The driver had three previous drunk-driving convictions and was out on bail from a hit-and-run arrest two days earlier. Lightner and MADD were instrumental in helping to change attitudes about drunk driving and pushed for legislation that increased the penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. MADD also helped get the minimum drinking age raised in many states. Today, the legal drinking age is 21 everywhere in the United States and convicted drunk drivers face everything from jail time and fines to the loss of their driver's licenses and increased car insurance rates. Some drunk drivers are ordered to have ignition interlock devices installed in their vehicles. These devices require a driver to breath into a sensor attached to the dashboard; the car won't start if the driver's blood alcohol concentration is above a certain limit.

Despite the stiff penalties and public awareness campaigns, drunk driving remains a serious problem in the United States. In 2005, 16,885 people died in alcohol-related crashes and almost 1.4 million people were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Source The History Channel

Read More

I'm extremely moody: Sonam Kapoor

There's something about Sonam Kapoor. She doesn't hard-sell herself like other actors.

She's honest, endearing and wears her attitude well. Here are excerpts from an interview ahead of her new film- Eros International and Vistaar Religare Film Fund's Mausam - produced by Sunil Lulla and Sheetal Vinod Talwar (releasing worldwide on September 16)...

We hear you fainted often on set...
I am perfectly well now but till five months ago I kept falling ill because I was overworked. Mausam has taken a lot from all of us; we have worked very hard on it. In the course of a year, I shot for three films: Mausam, Players and Thank You, and promoted two: Aisha and I Hate Luv Storys.

And you contracted typhoid twice!
Yes, I got typhoid in New York of all places and was hospitalised there.When I returned to India, I went to work almost immediately and had a relapse. I love eating roadside food, so perhaps that also played a part. Now I'm careful.

Like Shahid you gave two years of your life to Pankaj Kapur's Mausam...
I have literally given Mausam my sweat, blood and tears, but I am used to working like that. I gave that kind of time to Saawariya and Delhi 6 too. I would rather do quality work than churn out films like a factory. Whether my films work or not, I want people to remember me and my characters.

You said Shahid Kapoor is the best looking guy in a uniform!
Yes, after my dad! My dad looked the best in a moustache and uniform in Pukar. Shahid is a close second.

Is Shahid a perfectionist?
No, he is a casual, easy-going young actor who can be very spontaneous and fun to work with. He doesn't care about what he wears and how he looks. The only thing he fusses about is his hair! Shahid is the most heterosexual man I have met in my life; he is endearing and very chilled out. He is also respectful of his father (Pankaj Kapur) and loves his family. I like that about him.

Finally how was the experience of working with Pankaj Kapur?
I'm his biggest fan. He's an actor I would love to emulate. As a director, he treats each actor differently. He knows I'm spontaneous and he was happy to let me do my thing. All he looks for in a performance is honesty.

Source : Times OF India

Read More

Mere Brother Ki Dulhan makes the most of the fresh Imran-Katrina pairing

You, me & us!

Oh what a fresh pair can do to a film! How it can make you believe the unbelievable and digest the indigestible. How it can inspire you to take a leap of faith. Imran Khan and Katrina Kaif do that and more in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. Coming together for the first time, two young stars at the top of their game — he’s coming off Delhi Belly and she’s just delivered Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara — Imran and Katrina make sure you sit in that plex chair, eyes wide open with a smile fixated on your face, and just let them happen to you. It’s the oldest story ever. Even by Bollywood standards.Ek phool do maali, with the gardeners being blood brothers. But what writer-director Ali Abbas Zafar does wisely is take the basic knotty premise and turn it on its head using references from DDLJ to QSQT. Even during the stickiest of situations, things never get heavy with the single-point agenda being to offer you a good time. The mood and feel of the film shuttle smoothly between life and larger than life. It has got real Delhi street scuffles and also a girl strumming an electric guitar without any cords in front of the Taj Mahal. You don’t mind either. Of course, not everything that happens could have happened. The big leap of faith? “My brother said he will marry the girl I like!” That’s really asking a lot of suspension in the disbelief department. Especially when the brother stays in London, was going around with a girl for five years and is ecstatic after the break-up. Now Luv (Ali Zafar; not be confused with the director) suddenly wants his brother Kush (Imran) to find a suitable girl for him. Hmmm. So in a medley reminiscent of the other bindaas Katrina film, Namastey London, Kush meets a series of psycho girls (the best one: “Main sab kuch see deti hoon!”) before bumping into Dimple (Katrina) whom he had met five years back on a college excursion trip. When she was Dhunki dhunki lage. “You think I’m a bitch? A tart? A slut?” No. The film’s explanation: “Tum itni saaf ho aas paas ki gandagi dikhti nahin hai!” That free spirit and saaf dil are still intact and after a quick webcam chat with Bhai Sahib, Kush seals the Dimple deal for Luv. Then starts the 48 hours of boisterous bachelorhood and one lipsmacking session of drunken dahi-eating that makes Kush go kuch kuch about bhabhiji. By the time Luv is in, love is on. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’s first half is punctuated with many a tender moment between Imran and Katrina that really make the movie. But in the second half the romance, unfortunately, takes a backseat as the pair is more intent on finding a solution to the family situation. This is where Dilwale... scored so high — Bauji had to be won over but that never put the brakes on Raj and Simran’s prem kahaani. Nothing has changed about the feel-good formula at Yash Raj, though. No one should be hurt and in the last half hour MBKD hurtles towards a perfect feel-good ending. And in the process ends up five scenes and 10 minutes too long. But Imran and Katrina ensure you are there celebrating with them when they finally take the saath phere. Really, there’s nobody who fits the good-natured suitable boy better than Imran. He has almost perfected that irresistible mix of the propah and the puckish. Katrina takes her own leap of faith in this one. Usually seen dolled up in pretty frames, she lets herself go here and also goes overboard every couple of scenes. But she’s graduated to such a major star now, you no longer waste time judging her. You just enjoy her. Also refreshing is Ali Zafar who gets the pitch of the film just right and is the man behind the film’s biggest laughs. And yes, it’s so good to see Parikshit Sahni and Kanwaljeet Singh in action after so long. Even though there is one song too many, Sohail Sen’s tracks work in the film, especially the bhaang-inducedMadhubala which brings the house down. And with Sudeep Chatterjee (Chak De! India, Guzaarish) behind the lens, the frames shine bright. But not brighter than those two young stars in the middle, who know how they make you feel.

Read More

JNV student Demanded cancellation of the transfer order of two teachers from the school.

Students of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV), Yarelpat have demanded cancellation of the transfer order of two teachers from the school.Speaking to mediapersons in this connection at the school premise today, agitated students pointed out that the August 14 agitation was over the demand for transferring the present inefficient principal Moirangthem Nabamani who does not know his duties, from the school.

Subsequently, it was informed that Nabamani has been transferred to Mizoram.

But the transfer order for two more teachers, namely PET teacher L Jugindro and TGT Manipuri T Parijat, who are dedicated and ever ready to help the students, have been also been issued.

The students of the school have been boycotting their classes since September 5 demanding cancellation of the transfer order of the two teachers.

If the transfer order of the two teachers were not cancelled by the awere not cancelled by the authority concerned, all the students would leave the school, they declared.

Read More

Magnets can defeat lies

Scientists have found that magnetic interference with the brain makes it impossible to lie, a discovery they say could be the most effective way to extract information from crime suspects unwilling to tell the truth.
Estonian researchers found that stimulating part of the front brain with magnets alters the simplicity of lying.
The team found that when magnets were applied to either the right or left side of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, found directly behind the forehead, it makes a person lie or tell the truth, depending on which side was stimulated. However, magnetic interference directed at another part of the brain, the parietal lobe, was found to have no impact on the people’s decision-making, the researchers said.
“Spontaneous choice to lie more or less can be influenced by brain stimulation,” study researchers Inga Karton and Talis Bachmann were quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. For their study, published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, the researchers recruited a small group of 16 volunteers who were given coloured disks. Then, half of them were given magnetic stimulation on the right side of their prefrontal cortex, half on the left. They then had two options: to lie about what colour their disks were, or tell the truth. Results showed that the volunteers who had their left DPC stimulated lied more often, while the ones with the right DPC stimulated were more likely to tell the truth.
The experiment was repeated while a different brain region — the parietal lobe — was stimulated and it produced no effect, the researchers said.

Source : NASA news

Read More

Nasa warns of fresh risk from £468m satellite falling from space

A six tonne Nasa satellite is set to fall uncontrolled out of orbit, potentially raining debris over swathes of the planet including Britain, the US space agency has admitted.

Read More

Another terror email, now Ahmedabad added to ‘hit list’

During two days after the blast in Delhi high court, security agencies have received four emails claiming responsibility for the carnage and threatening more action on at least three targets — the Supreme Court and Narendra Modi’s Ahmedabad, and a shopping mall in the Capital.PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh asked home minister P Chidambaram and law minister Salman Khurshid on Friday to call on Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia and beef up the security in the Supreme Court complex. The Modi government has also been alerted on the threat.

Chidambaram said in a press briefing of Friday that though there were promising, but not very convincing leads so far, all the emails were being taken seriously. The third received on Thursday night — investigators, however, suspect — was amateurish, as the coded target mentioned by it could be decoded in minutes.

The sender identified himself as Ali Saed El-Hoorie and sent the mail from the ID, ‘kill.india@Yahoo.com’. It also claimed to be from the IM and gave a numeric code for the identity of its next target that was decoded as Ahmedabad.

So far, the agencies have been able to nab the sender of the first email, Muhammad Sayeed Sheikh, in Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir for sending the first email which claimed that the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) was behind the blast.

Two more persons were detained in Srinagar. One of them, Farooq Ahmad, had visited the high court on the day of the blast. Farooq’s accomplice, Ejaz Ahmed, had also been under police surveillance for quite some time as he had made a suspicious call to Srinagar central jail after the blast.

Sheikh, an undergraduate student, got help from two more persons, Muhammad Imran and Ashiq Hussain, for drafting the email.

The fourth email was received by television news channels on Friday. It was sent from the same email ID,‘chotoominani5@gmail.com’, from which the second mail reportedly from the Indian Mujahideen was sent.

The sender claimed to be a member of the terror outfit held responsible for almost all the blasts took place in major Indian cities during the last few years. Investigators from the special task force of Kolkata Police suspect that the second email was sent from a mobile phone in the city.

Delhi distributes compensation to blast victims

Even as Delhi government on Friday distributed 41 cheques to the next of kin of the blast victims as compensation, several of the injured in the terror attack claimed that the amount was insufficient as they have been maimed for life.

AVM, Parliament Street, KP Suhag said that compensation has already been distributed to 41 relatives of victims including the 13 who died in the blast.

“We have distributed 41 cheques till now and are waiting to deliver more as many victims who have undergone treatment at the Delhi High Court dispensary need to be identified and given the cheques,” the AVM said. However, relatives of the patients were unhappy as they felt the amount delivered to them was insufficient in comparison to the nature of the injuries.

Read More

Fossils Reveal Creature Both Human and Ape

Scientists in South Africa announced a hoard of fossil finds documenting a puzzling forerunner to modern mankind belonging to the prehuman species Australopithecus Sediba that lived nearly two million years ago. WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz has details on Lunch Break.

Scientists in South Africa announced a hoard of fossil finds Thursday documenting a puzzling forerunner to modern mankind that lived nearly two million years ago, with human-like hands and ape-like feet.

Unearthed near Johannesburg, the extensive collection of fossils—including the most complete early specimen of a hand known—highlights a sparsely documented era of evolution when four or more ape-like hominid species roamed Africa, each one a natural experiment in anatomy and dawning intelligence. The new finds all belong to a prehuman species of that time calledAustralopithecus sediba, discovered in 2008.

From head to toe, the bones reveal an unexpected patchwork of primitive and advanced traits, the researchers reported in the journal Science. The tiny skulls, long arms and diminutive bodies were all chimp-like; yet the hands, ankles and pelvis were surprisingly modern.

View Interactive

U. of Witwatersrand

A model of the creature's grapefruit-size brain, based on a three-dimensional X-ray scan of its fossilized cranium, hinted that its structure had been growing more advanced, heralding perhaps the first glimmer of sophisticated mental abilities.

"It's as if evolution is caught in one vital moment, a stop-action snapshot of evolution in action," said paleoanthropologist Richard Potts, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program, who wasn't involved in the discoveries.

Based on its analysis, the international research team of 80 scientists and technicians, led by Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said the species was the most probable ancestor of the family to which all modern humans belong, the genus Homo.

"They do represent a model that could lead to the genus Homo," Dr. Berger said.

Enlarge Image

Brett Eloff/Lee Berger and the University of Witwatersrand

Prof. Lee Berger with the Australopithecus sediba cranium.

Four independent experts in the field of human origins, however, strongly discounted that claim. The species, which stood about four feet tall, was more likely an evolutionary dead end, they said.

"Just because it shares a bit of anatomical morphology with Homo does not mean it is Homo or ancestral to Homo," said anthropologist Bernard Wood at George Washington University. "It looks increasingly that these bits of morphology are appearing more than once, independently, in the tree of life."

Even so, the bones are invaluable. "They're stunning," Dr. Wood acknowledged. The fossils challenge some assumptions about human origins and are certain to prompt years of scholarly debate. "This is an incredible trove for anything that early in time," said anthropologist Ian Tattersal, at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York.

So far, Dr. Berger and his colleagues have discovered 220 bones from skeletons of five individuals, including infant, juvenile and adult remains representing both sexes, in the Malapa Cave at the United Nations Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, about 28 miles from Johannesburg.

They dated the finds at 1.977 million years old, based on a laboratory estimate of the rate of decay of uranium traces in the cave sediments.

Enlarge Image

Brett Eloff/Lee Berger and the University of Witwatersrand

The cranium of the juvenile skeleton of Australopithecus sediba.

The creatures may have belonged to a family group that died by falling into the deep cave. Their remains came to light when erosion exposed the ancient sediments that had buried them. Some of the bones were found still connected to each other, as they would have been in life.

The creature's right hand featured a long thumb and short fingers able to grip tools, yet the curvature of the hand and the gangling arms appear more suitable for swinging on branches. There were no stone tools in evidence.

In the same way, the arch of its foot and its leg bones were well suited for human-like upright walking—with a slightly knock-kneed gait—while its heel and shin bone were more like those of a chimpanzee, better configured for climbing trees.

To the researchers' surprise, the primitive creature's pelvis was "the most human-like" ever discovered among a prehuman species, Dr. Berger said.

Enlarge Image

ESRF/Lee Berger and the University of Witwatersrand

Australopithecus sediba skull reconstruction.

source : Stv

Most scientists have longed believed that the pelvis evolved to accommodate the birth of big-brained infants. But this early species had very small brains, leaving researchers wondering whether the need to walk more efficiently, rather than the demands of childbirth, shaped the biomechanics of the pelvis and hip joints.

"This hand is wonderful. The foot is fine. And the pelvis is spectacular," said anthropologist Philip Rightmire at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. "Evolution is more convoluted than we thought."

Read More