I have just got back from the physio with a national geographic in my bag. The magazine in question is the February 2009 edition if you were wondering, and I was there for yet more acupuncture and treatment for both of my calves - but that is a whole other story.......

Anyway, I arrived a little early as I like to be, so I can get a chance to quickly flick through at least one National Geographic magazine. It is really my only chance to do this these days so I take the opportunity.

Today I stumbled across an article that left me with a moment of profound confusion. The article was about Darwin and his 1831-36 voyage on The Beagle. Long and complicated but nevertheless very interesting - but what blew my mind was a portion of a diagram kind of unrelated.

It was a little picture of the skeleton of Lucy (as shown with the actual bones recovered shown darker in the illustration) - the now famous 3.2 million year old partial skeleton found in 1974 in Ethiopia that became the base of the human evolutionary lineage. What was shocking was the image - and the fact that the only found 40% of the skeleton. What!!!!!! 40%!!!!!!!!

And we are basing an entire subsection of science on this kind of result!!! 40% of just 1 skeleton creates the basis of human lineage. I am confused. I had a picture of Lucy's skeleton being almost complete, giving a clear picture of what she was actually like......... not just a jumble of random bones pieced back together.......

I have quickly found this BBC clip. As I look for better ones on the subject I will post them here too, so feel free to bookmark the page.