I have in my e-mail a new article from ABC Science (Australia) that starts this way:
The controversy over whether the hobbit is just a sick member of the human race has flared up again, this time in the pages of a prestigious scientific journal.
Dr Jochen Weber of the Department of Neurosurgery at Leopoldina Hospital in Germany and team report they have found a tiny human brain that looks like a hobbit's.
Their study, to be published in the journal Science, looked at the brain casts of 19 humans with microcephaly, an illness that causes a small brain.
They disagree with an earlier study of brain casts, by Professor Dean Falk of Florida State University in the US and team, which ruled out the hobbit brain as being that of a microcephalic.
Later, there is this:
The researchers also picked out one particular microcephalic specimen with a capacity of 415 cubic centimetres and found it was "nearly identical" to the hobbit's brain, based on six dimensions or "diagnostic indices".
The researchers also cite other evidence that the microcephalic brain is comparable to that of early hominids and conclude that it is not possible to rule out the hobbit was a microcephalic human.
From the detail of the article, as well as the critical commentary by Dean Falk and Mike Morwood, it appears that this will be in Science this week. If so, I'll certainly report more later.
