////////////////THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET
////////////////FINAL JEOPARDY
////////////////A TWIST IN THE TALE
/////////////////SOMEBODY SOMEDAY
/////////////////HUMAN JOURNEY-BONES,STONES,BODIES
////////////////////////////Last Titanic survivor dies at 97
Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the Titanic sank
The last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic has died aged 97.
Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of 15 April 1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton.
The disaster resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people in the north Atlantic, largely due to a lack of lifeboats.
Miss Dean, who remembered nothing of the fateful journey, died on Sunday at the care home in Hampshire where she lived, two of her friends told the BBC.
Her family had been travelling to America, where they hoped to start a new life and open a tobacconist's shop in Kansas. They travelled third class.
Miss Dean's mother, Georgetta, and two-year-old brother, Bert, also survived, but her father, Bertram, was among those who perished when the vessel sank.
If it hadn't been for the ship going down, I'd be an American
Millvina Dean
The last Titanic survivor
The family returned to Southampton, where Miss Dean went on to spend most of her life.
Despite having no memories of the disaster, she always said it had shaped her life, because she should have grown up in the US instead of returning to the UK.
She was fond of saying: "If it hadn't been for the ship going down, I'd be an American."
In 1985 the site of the wreck was discovered and, in her 70s, she found herself unexpectedly in demand on both sides of the Atlantic.
"I think sometimes they look on me as if I am the Titanic!" she said after a visit to a Titanic convention in America. "Honestly, some of them are quite weird about it."
Unimpressed
But she never tired of telling her story.
"Oh not at all. I like it, because everyone makes such a fuss of me! And I have travelled to so many places because of it, meeting all the people. Oh I wouldn't get tired of it. I'm not the type."
Millvina Dean in her mother's arms a few weeks after the disaster
She was unimpressed when divers started to explore the wreck, located 3,000m below the surface of the Atlantic, saying: "I don't believe in people going to see it. I think it's morbid. I think it's horrible."
According to BBC South transport correspondent Paul Clifton, she refused to watch James Cameron's epic film of the disaster, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo diCaprio, fearing it would be too upsetting.
In the last years of her life, she began struggling with monthly bills of £3,000 at her care home and had been in danger of losing her room.
She began selling some of her Titanic-related mementoes to raise funds, and in April a canvas bag from her rescue was sold at auction raising £1,500.
TITANIC IN NUMBERS
882ft by 92ft, 46,328 tonnes - largest vessel afloat at time
2,223 passengers and crew left Southampton on 10 April 1912
Struck iceberg, sank in two hrs 40 mins at 0220 GMT on 15 April
1,517 killed, 706 survived
Total lifeboat capacity: 1,178 but ship could carry up to 3,547
Survival rates by ticket class - first: 60%, second: 44%, third: 25%, crew: 24%
It was bought by a man from London who immediately returned it to her.
Actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, who appeared in the 1998 movie Titanic, contributed towards her care costs, along with the film's director James Cameron, by donating to the Millvina Fund which was set up by her friends.
John White, managing director of exhibition company White Star Memories, and organiser of the Mellvina Fund campaign said Miss Dean was always "very supportive", travelling to exhibitions around the country and taking the time to sign autographs and write personal messages for adults and children.
He told BBC News website: "She was a lovely supportive lady and very kind-hearted."
Youngest passenger
Built in Belfast, the White Star Line vessel became infamous for not having enough lifeboats onboard, leading to the deaths of many passengers.
Elizabeth Gladys Dean, better known as Millvina, was the Titanic's youngest passenger, born on 2 February 1912.
Another baby on board, Barbara Joyce West, was nearly 11 months old when the liner sank. She also survived.
Barbara Joyce Dainton, as she became when she married, died in October 2007, leaving Miss Dean the last Titanic survivor.
Millvina Dean displays her Titanic memorabilia - First broadcast 16 October 2008
////////////////////Osculate (verb)
Pronunciation: ['ah-skyê-leyt]
Definition: To come together, to contact (as two osculating circles); to kiss.
Usage: Today's word is for those shy, affectionate people who are willing to talk about kissing in public but not so that other people understand. As you might expect, it comes from a large, happy family with several adjectives, such as osculable "kissable" (such osculable lips), osculant "kissing" (an osculant cousin?), and "osculatory" (an osculatory couple in the shadows). There are two nouns, the expectable osculation "a kiss" and an eccentric osculary "something to be kissed," which might refer to an icon, a rosary, or anything else you find kissable.
///////////////////MUNGO MAN-AUSTARLIA-60KYA
ERADICATED GIANT KANGAROO
///////////////The Mungo Man (also known as Lake Mungo 3) was an early human inhabitant of the continent of Australia, who is believed to have lived about 40,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch. His remains were discovered at Lake Mungo, New South Wales in 1974. The remains are the oldest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia to date, although his exact age is a matter of ongoing dispute. Recent controversial analysis of Mungo Man's mitochondrial DNA has also led some researchers to challenge the single-origin hypothesis of human evolution.
///////////////////........Pre Historic India
Prehistory
The prehistoric period in the history of humankind can roughly be calculated from 200000 BC to about 3500-2500 BC, when the first civilizations began to take shape. The history of India is no exception to the above-mentioned fact. The first modern human beings or the Homo sapiens set their foot on the Indian subcontinent anywhere between 200000 BC and 40000 BC and they soon spread throughout a large part of the subcontinent, including peninsular India. They continuously flooded the Indian subcontinent in wave after wave of migration from what is present-day Iran. These primitive people moved in groups of few 'families' and mainly lived on hunting and gathering. While the males in the group spent most of their time in hunting, fishing, and gathering food like fruits, roots, and berries, the females gathered food, looked after the children and the dwellings where they lived.
Stone Age
The age when the prehistoric man began to use stones for utilitarian purpose is termed as the Stone Age. The Stone Age is divided into three broad divisions-Paleolithic Age or the Old Stone Age (from unknown till 8000 BC), Mesolithic Age or the Middle Stone Age (8000 BC-4000 BC) and the Neolithic Age or the New Stone Age (4000 BC-2500 BC) on the basis of the specialization of the stone tools, which were made during that time.
Paleolithic Age
The human beings living in the Paleolithic Age were essentially food gatherers and depended on nature for food. The art of hunting and stalking wild animals individually and later in groups led to these people making stone weapons and tools. First, crudely carved out stones were used in hunting, but as the size of the groups began to increase and there was need for more food, these people began to make "specialized tools" by flaking stones, which were pointed on one end. These kind of tools were generally used to kill small animals and for tearing flesh from the carcass of the hunted animals. The basic technique of making these crude tools was by taking a stone and flaking its sides with a heavier stone. These tools were characteristic of the Paleolithic Age and were very rough. By this time, human beings had come to make and use fire.
Mesolithic Age
As time passed and the size of "families" grew in small communities, there was a constant need to feed all the members of the community and to lead a life of subsistence. In the Mesolithic Age, the stone tools began to be made more pointed and sharp. To ensure a life that had abundance of food and clothing (rough animal skin garments were being worn by the Stone Age man), the stone tools began to appear in increasingly specialized way.
The simple handheld stone tools were now attached to thick branches from trees with rope made from animal skin and sinew. These tools are known as hand axes, which could be flung at fast-moving animals from a distance. Apart from hand axes, they also produced crude stone-tipped wooden spears, adzes, borers, and burins. This period also saw the domestication of plants and growing of wild varieties of crops. Because of farming, small settlements began to take shape. Archaeological excavations have unearthed Mesolithic sites in the Chotta Nagpur area of central India and the areas south of the Krishna River. The famous Bhimbetka caves near Bhopal belong to the Mesolithic Age and are famous for their cave paintings. The art of the prehistoric man can be seen in all its glory with the depiction of wild animals, hunting scenes, ritual scenes and scenes from day-to-day life of the period. The exact date of these paintings is not certain, but the oldest paintings are as old as 12,000 years. The prehistoric artist used natural white and red pigments in depicting the various themes, which were close to his heart and sustenance.
Neolithic Age
The Neolithic Age (4000 BC-2500 BC) or the New Stone Age was the last phase of the Stone Age and is characterized by very finely flaked, small stone tools, also known as blades and burins. These stone blades are so sharp that the modern blades cannot match their smooth surface and cutting edges. The Neolithic Age also saw the domestication of cattle, horses, and other farm animals, which were used for dairy and meat products. An important invention of this time was the making of the wheel.
The Neolithic Age quickly gave way to a number of small "cultures" that were highly technical. These people used copper and bronze to make a range of utilitarian tools. This phase or period is termed as the Chalcolithic Age (1800 BC-1000 BC). A number of such sites have been found in the Chotta Nagpur Plateau region, the upper Gangetic basin, Karnataka and near the banks of river Narmada.
If these authors are the future of science, then the science of the future will be one exciting ride! Find out what the best minds of the new generation are thinking before the Nobel Committee does. A fascinating chronicle of the big, new ideas that are keeping young scientists up at night. — Daniel Gilbert
WHAT'S NEXT?
Dispatches on the Future of Science
Edited By Max Brockman
"A preview of the ideas you're going to be reading about in ten years." — Steven Pinker
[ED. NOTE: What are "the big, new ideas that are keeping young scientists up at night?" Beginning today with Laurence Smith's "Will We Decamp for the Northern Rim", and in the coming weeks, Edge will publish a selection of the essays in Max Brockman's book What's Next: Dispatches On the Future of Science, published today by Vintage Books. —JB]
[PERMALINK]
NEW Max Brockman: PREFACE
To generate this list of contributors, I approached some of today’s leading scientists and asked them to name some of the rising stars in their respective disciplines: those who, in their research, are tackling some of science’s toughest questions and raising new ones. The list that resulted amounts to a representative who’s who of the coming generation of scientists.
Max Brockman is a literary agent at Brockman, Inc.. He also works with Edge Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit foundation that publishes Edge. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in 2002, he lives in New York City. Max Brockman's Edge Bio page
NEW Laurence C. Smith: "WILL WE DECAMP FOR THE NORTHERN RIM?"
At stake is no less than the global pattern of human settlement in the twenty-first century.
Laurence C. Smith is Professor and vice chairman of geography and professor of earth and space sciences at UCLA. He studies likely impacts of northern climate change including the economic effects in the Northern Rim. Laurence C. Smith's Edge Bio Page
Christian Keysers: "MIRROR NEURONS: ARE WE ETHICAL BY NATURE"
Evolution has equipped our brains with circuits that enable us to experience what other individuals do and feel.
Christian Keysers, a neuroscientist, is professor of the social brain and scientific director at the Neuroimaging Center of the University Medical Center Groningen. His research contributed to the discovery of auditory mirror neurons and enlarged the concept of mirror neurons by applying it to emotions and sensations. Christian Keysers's Edge Bio Page
Nick Bostrom: "HOW SHALL WE ENHANCE HUMAN BEINGS?"
Given our rudimentary understanding of the human organism, particularly the brain, how can we hope to enhance such a system? It would amount to outdoing evolution....
Nick Bostrom, a philosopher and director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. His research covers issues in the foundations of probability theory, global catastrophic risk, the ethics of human enhancement, and the effects of future technologies. Nick Bostrom's Edge Bio Page
Sean Carroll : "OUR PLACE IN AN UNNATURAL UNIVERSE"
The early universe is hot and dense; the late universe is cold and dilute. Well...why is it like that? The truth is, we have no idea.
Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist, is a senior research associate at Caltech. His research ranges over a number of topics in theoretical physics, including cosmology, field theory, particle physics, and gravitation. He is the author if a graduate textbook, Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity and cofounder and contributor to the Cosmic Variance blog. Sean Carroll's Edge Bio Page
Stephon H. S. Alexander: "JUST WHAT IS DARK ENERGY?"
Dark energy, itself directly unobservable, is the most bewildering substance known, the only "stuff" that acts both on subatomic scales and across the largest distances in the cosmos.
Stephon H. S. Alexander is an assistant professor of physics and of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on unresolved problems—such as the cosmological-constant or dark-energy problem—that connect cosmology to quantum gravity and the standard model of elementary particles. Stephon H. S. Alexander's Edge Bio Page
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: "DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL BRAIN IN ADOLESCENCE"
Using modern brain-imaging techniques, scientists are discovering that the human brain does indeed change well beyond early childhood.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London.Her research focuses on the development of mentalizing, action understanding, and executive function during adolescence, using a variety of behavioral and neuroimaging methods. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore's Edge Bio Page
Jason P. Mitchell: "WATCHING MINDS INTERACT"
Perhaps the least anticipated contribution of brain imaging to psychological science has been a sudden appreciation of the centrality of social thought to the human mental repertoire.
Jason P. Mitchell is principal investigator of Harvard University's Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, where he uses functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and behavioral methods to study how perceivers infer the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of others. Jason P. Mitchell's Edge Bio Page
Matthew D. Lieberman: "WHAT MAKES BIG IDEAS STICKY?"
Big Ideas sometimes match the structure and function of the human brain such that the brain causes us to see the world in ways that make it virtually impossible not to believe them.
Matthew D. Lieberman, an associate professor of psychology at UCLA, conducts research in such social cognitive neuroscience topics as self-control, self-awareness, automaticity, social rejection, and persuasion. Matthew D. Lieberman's Edge Bio Page
Joshua D. Greene: "FRUIT FLIES OF THE MORAL MIND"
People often speak of a "moral faculty" or a "moral sense," suggesting that moral judgment is a unified phenomenon, but recent advances in the scientific study of moral judgment paint a very different picture.
Joshua D. Greene, a cognitive neuroscientist and a philosopher, is an assistant professor at Harvard University's Department of Psychology. His primary research interest is the psychological and neuroscientific study of morality, focusing on the interplay between emotional and "cognitive" processes in moral decision making. Joshua D. Greene's Edge Bio Page
Lera Boroditsky: "DO OUR LANGUAGES SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?"
Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.
Lera Boroditsky is an assistant professor of psychology, neuroscience, and symbolic systems at Stanford University. Her research centers on the nature of mental representation and how knowledge emerges out of the interactions of mind, world, and language. Lera Boroditsky's Edge Bio Page
Sam Cooke: "MEMORY ENHANCEMENT, MEMORY ERASURE: IS THIS THE FUTURE OF OUR PAST?"
Once we come to understand how our memories are formed, stored, and recalled within the brain, we may be able to manipulate them—to shape our own stories. Our past—or at least our recollection of our past—may become a matter of choice.
Sam Cooke, a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a neuroscientist who probes the biology of memory. Sam Cooke's Edge Bio Page
Deena Skolnick Weisberg: "THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF IMAGINATION"
The main goal of my research is to discover the nature of the what-if mechanism and how it allows us to create and comprehend fictional worlds.
Deena Skolnick Weisberg is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the psychology department at Rutgers University. Her research focuses primarily on the cognitive skills underlying the creation and representation of non-real scenarios—particularly stories, games of pretending, and counterfactual situations—and on how those skills mature in child development. Deena Skolnick Weisberg's Edge Bio Page
David M. Eagleman: "BRAIN TIME"
The days of thinking of time as a river—evenly flowing, always advancing—are over. Time perception, just like vision, is a construction of the brain and is shockingly easy to manipulate experimentally.
David M. Eagleman is Director of the Laboratory for Perception and Action at Baylor College of Medicine The Dynamically Reorganizing Brain; and a book of fiction titled Sum. David Eagleman's Edge Bio Page
Vanessa Woods & Brian Hare: "OUT OF OUR MINDS: HOW DID HUMANS COME DOWN FROM THE TREES AND WHY DID NO ONE FOLLOW?"
In the 6 million years since hominids split from the evolutionary ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos, something happened to our brains that allowed us to become master cooperators, accumulate knowledge at a rapid rate, and manipulate tools to colonize almost every corner of the planet.
Vanessa Woods, author of It's Every Monkey for Themselves, is an award-winning journalist who has a double degree in biology and English from the University of New South Wales. She is a researcher with the Hominoid Psychology Research Group and studies the psychology of bonobos and chimpanzees in Africa. Vanessa Woods's Edge Bio Page
Brian Hare is an anthropologist and an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke University. His research centers on human cognitive evolution, and his experience in the field includes work in Siberia, the jungle of Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Brian Hare's Edge Bio Page
Nathan Wolfe: "THE ALIENS AMONG US"
While viruses have to infect cellular forms of life in order to complete their life cycles, this does not mean that causing devastation is their destiny. The existing equilibrium of our planet is dependent on the actions of the viral world, and their elimination would have profound consequences.
Nathan Wolfe is the Lorry Lokey Visiting Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University and directs the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative. His research combines methods from molecular virology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology to study the biology of viral emergence. Nathan Wolfe's Edge Bio Page
Seirian Sumner: "HOW DID THE SOCIAL INSECTS BECOME SOCIAL?"
We would like to know what the conditions and selection pressures were that tipped the ancestors of the eusocial insects over the ledge and down toward eusociality.
Seirian Sumner is a research fellow in evolutionary biology at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London. Her research focuses on the evolution of sociality—how eusociality evolves and how social behavior is maintained. She has worked with a variety of bees, wasps, and ants from around the world, studying their behavior through observation, experimental manipulation, and molecular analyses, including gene expression. Seirian Sumner's Edge Bio Page
Katerina Harvati : "EXTINCTION AND THE EVOLUTION OF HUMANKIND"
It is now clear that humans (whether fossil or living) are not immune from biological forces and that extinction was (and, indeed, is) a distinct possibility.
Katerina Harvati is a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology specializing in Neanderthal evolution and modern human origins. Her research interests include evolutionary theory, the relationship between morphological variation and genetic and environmental factors, and the evolution of primate and human life history. Katerina Harvati's Edge Bio Page
Gavin Schmidt: "WHY HASN'T SPECIALIZATION LED TO THE BALKANIZATION OF SCIENCE?"
Even as scientific output has increased exponentially, concerns have been raised that growing specialization will end by making it impossible for scientists in different fields to communicate, let alone collaborate.
Gavin Schmidt is a climatologist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, where he models past, present, and future climate. He is a cofounder and contributing editor of RealClimate.org, which provides context and background on climate science issues that are missing in popular media coverage.Gavin Schmidt's Edge Bio Page
////////////////////////.........The hotter temperatures will increase evaporation, drying soils and raising the frequency of drought, especially in two broad belts from 20° to 40° north and south latitudes — that is, in both hemispheres. The number of extremely dry days will increase sharply in the southwestern United States, southern and eastern Europe, southern Africa, and eastern South America.3 Water vapor in the air will also increase, in obedience to the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, which states that the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere must go up 7 percent for every 1°C rise. Because water vapor fuels weather systems, the frequency of extreme precipitation events — and therefore floods — will go up right along with it. Deadly, power-sucking heat waves — like the killers in France in 2003, the United States in 2006, and Japan in 2007 — will happen more often. Sea level will continue to rise (it's rising now, around three millimeters per year), the only uncertainty being exactly how fast and how high. Low-elevation coastal areas, including Florida, the Netherlands, island nations, and impoverished Bangladesh, will face inundation in the coming decades.
//////////////////In his book Collapse, my UCLA colleague Jared Diamond scours human history to identify five prime factors that determine the likelihood that an existing society will fail: environmental damage, loss of trade partners, hostile neighbors, climate change, and how a society chooses to respond to its environmental problems. Any of these, alone or in combination, can trigger a society's collapse. Turning the question around, what makes a new society likely to successfully establish itself ? First and foremost is economic opportunity, followed by environmental suitability, opportunities for investment and trade (implicit in this is military security and the consistent rule of law, without which investors balk and trade will not be stable), friendly neighbors, and willing settlers.
At present, these requirements are met only to varying degrees around the Northern Rim. Abundant economic opportunities exist in the form of commodities — fossil fuels, minerals, fish, and timber — and, indeed, their exploitation currently generates most of the Northern Rim's gross domestic product, the second contributor being government services. The neighbors are generally friendly; relative to the rest of the world, all eight Northern Rim nations have low internal unrest and share amicable borders — though Finland frets over its long border with Russia, and Russia worries about the United States and (especially) China on its thinly populated eastern flanks.
//////////////////////Why Are Humans Different From All Other Apes? It’s the Cooking, Stupid
By DWIGHT GARNER
Catching Fire” is a plain-spoken and thoroughly gripping scientific essay that presents nothing less than a new theory of human evolution.
Human beings are not obviously equipped to be nature’s gladiators. We have no claws, no armor. That we eat meat seems surprising, because we are not made for chewing it uncooked in the wild. Our jaws are weak; our teeth are blunt; our mouths are small. That thing below our noses? It truly is a pie hole.
To attend to these facts, for some people, is to plead for vegetarianism or for a raw-food diet. We should forage and eat the way our long-ago ancestors surely did. For Richard Wrangham, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard and the author of “Catching Fire,” however, these facts and others demonstrate something quite different. They help prove that we are, as he vividly puts it, “the cooking apes, the creatures of the flame.”
The title of Mr. Wrangham’s new book — “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human” — sounds a bit touchy-feely. Perhaps, you think, he has written a meditation on hearth and fellow feeling and s’mores. He has not. “Catching Fire” is a plain-spoken and thoroughly gripping scientific essay that presents nothing less than a new theory of human evolution, one he calls “the cooking hypothesis,” one that Darwin (among others) simply missed. ...
///////////////////////////////////////..........BOOKS OF THE TIMES
Why Are Humans Different From All Other Apes? It’s the Cooking, Stupid
By DWIGHT GARNER
Catching Fire” is a plain-spoken and thoroughly gripping scientific essay that presents nothing less than a new theory of human evolution.
Human beings are not obviously equipped to be nature’s gladiators. We have no claws, no armor. That we eat meat seems surprising, because we are not made for chewing it uncooked in the wild. Our jaws are weak; our teeth are blunt; our mouths are small. That thing below our noses? It truly is a pie hole.
To attend to these facts, for some people, is to plead for vegetarianism or for a raw-food diet. We should forage and eat the way our long-ago ancestors surely did. For Richard Wrangham, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard and the author of “Catching Fire,” however, these facts and others demonstrate something quite different. They help prove that we are, as he vividly puts it, “the cooking apes, the creatures of the flame.”
The title of Mr. Wrangham’s new book — “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human” — sounds a bit touchy-feely. Perhaps, you think, he has written a meditation on hearth and fellow feeling and s’mores. He has not. “Catching Fire” is a plain-spoken and thoroughly gripping scientific essay that presents nothing less than a new theory of human evolution, one he calls “the cooking hypothesis,” one that Darwin (among others) simply missed. ...
////////////////////.........Learning to Accept the Unknowable
To the Editor:
Re "What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous," by Daniel Gilbert (Op-Ed, May 21):Professor Gilbert is surely right in arguing that uncertainty plays an important role in human unhappiness. But cognitive psychologists, like the late Albert Ellis, would argue that the way we think about uncertainty is also critical. If we catastrophize about the inherent uncertainty in life — “I can’t stand not knowing what the market will do! This is horrible!” — then we will drive our mood much deeper into the ground. ...
///////////////////
//////////////////
Sunday, 31 May 2009
NORTH RIM
WILL WE DECAMP FOR THE NORTHERN RIM?
By Laurence C. Smith
"Already the impacts are obvious in the extreme north, where melting Arctic sea ice, drowning polar bears, and forlorn Inuit hunters are by now iconic images of global warming. The rapidity and severity of Arctic warming is truly dramatic. However, the Arctic, a relatively small, thinly populated region, will always be marginal in terms of its raw social and economic impact on the rest of us. The greater story lies to the south, penetrating deeply into the "Northern Rim," a vast zone of economically significant territory and adjacent ocean owned by the United States, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. As in the Arctic, climate change there has already begun. This zone — which constitutes almost 30 percent of the Earth’s land area and is home to its largest remaining forests, its greatest untouched mineral, water, and energy reserves, and a (growing) population of almost 100 million people — will undergo one of the most profound biophysical and social expansions of this century."
LAURENCE C. SMITH is Professor and vice chairman of geography and professor of earth and space sciences at UCLA. He studies likely impacts of northern climate change including the economic effects in the Northern Rim.
//////////////////
By Laurence C. Smith
"Already the impacts are obvious in the extreme north, where melting Arctic sea ice, drowning polar bears, and forlorn Inuit hunters are by now iconic images of global warming. The rapidity and severity of Arctic warming is truly dramatic. However, the Arctic, a relatively small, thinly populated region, will always be marginal in terms of its raw social and economic impact on the rest of us. The greater story lies to the south, penetrating deeply into the "Northern Rim," a vast zone of economically significant territory and adjacent ocean owned by the United States, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. As in the Arctic, climate change there has already begun. This zone — which constitutes almost 30 percent of the Earth’s land area and is home to its largest remaining forests, its greatest untouched mineral, water, and energy reserves, and a (growing) population of almost 100 million people — will undergo one of the most profound biophysical and social expansions of this century."
LAURENCE C. SMITH is Professor and vice chairman of geography and professor of earth and space sciences at UCLA. He studies likely impacts of northern climate change including the economic effects in the Northern Rim.
//////////////////
DAWKINS-DAVIES-ORIGINS
DARWIN GONE DIGITAL BY GENES
////////////TIME,VARIATION RANDOM,NS NON RANDOM
/////////////PARTICULATE DIGITAL INHERITANCE-GENE
///////////////GENES IS LIKE A COMPUTR TAPE-QUATERNARY,NOT BINARY
///////////////CODED ACCOUNT OF ENV OF OUR ANCESTORS
///////////////DARWIN WAS A BIT UNMATHEMATICAL
////////////////A possible (albeit probably unlikely) link between the lack of evidence of aliens (so far) and the kind of mechanisms of abiogenesis we should be considering.
A great explanation of why Lamarkism won't work for complex organs.
Why proteins were almost certainly not the original replicators.
This really shows what a great producer of ideas Richard i
///////////////ABIOGENESIS-NEEDS RESEARCH
//////////////////RD points out that eyes have evolved 40 times, intelligence only once. But then, whoever's the first intelligence on the planet is clearly only going to see one instance of intelligence around them. And the long-term effect of humanity on the planet is probably gonna prevent intelligence arising in other species, just by our generally being in the way. So even if intelligence is a relatively discoverable trick, I reckon that on any planet it's first come first served. (Unless perhaps it arose separately on isolated continents in a shortish timescale without seafaring...)
////////////////////AGRICULTR,MICROBIOLOGY USE DARWINIAN
////////////////BIOLF-MAXIMISE SURVIVAL OF THEIR DNA
////////////////ORIGIN OF MATTER AND LIFE
/////////////////ORIGINAL SELF REPLICATING MOLECULE-
NOT AS COMPLEX AS DNA
MUCH SIMPLER UNIT OF HEREDITY-TO HAVE BEEN COME FROM ABIOGENESIS
/////////////////EDGE=
"A fascinating chronicle of the big, new ideas that are keeping young scientists up at night."
— Daniel Gilbert
"A preview of the ideas you're going to be reading about in ten years."
— Steven Pinker
//////////////////DNA-mRNA-AMINO ACIDS-PROTEIN-ENZYME
////////////////IS RNA THE BRIDGE-REPLICATION AND CATALYTIC
////////////////SO ?RNA WORLD
/////////////////.........On earth, we only observe 1 instance of evolved sophisticated (human equivalent) language/intelligence, yet many instances of convergently evolved sight/hearing/flight/etc. However, maybe the former is a phenomenon that tends to happen late in a planets evolutionary history and we humans just happen to live in a time when only one has recently happened so far. Sight/hearing/senses deal with a brain processing information so maybe they're building blocks necessary to bootstrap more sophisticated intelligence at a later time (so perhaps we have a sort of time bias in observing its rate of occurance).
On earth, in the present at least, we can see genes for human equivalent brains are successful given their wide replication in the bodies of earth dominating humans. And given that whatever replicators happen to be most successful tend to thrive and dominate replication, perhaps we can expect convergent human equivalent intelligence to be a norm on other planets, given enough time (just an idea/speculation).
///////////////////FERMI PARADOX-WHERE IS EVERYBODY? NO RADIOSIGNAL FROM ALIENS YET
///////////////////........hat inappropriate first question from the crowd for some reason reminded me that this whole religion debate really is nothing more than a distraction from the far more interesting, and, of course, vitally important, business of science.
After that wonderful talk, I almost groaned at the first questioner's attempt to change the subject, and was glad when they decided to set it aside.
//////////////////NATR EVOLN CANNOT LOOK AHEAD
////////////////EVOLN WORKS WITH WHAT IS AVAILABLE NOW
///////////////////......Dawkins has a lot more to offer when he talks about interesting science than repeating himself ad nauseum about religion.
RDF=
/////////////////////NS DONT HAVE LOOKAHEAD CAPACITY
////////////////////BUT EVOLN HAS EVOLVED INTELLIGENCE TO LOOK AHEAD
/////////////////////////NS CANNOT SELECT GENE IN CAMBRIAN WHICH WILL BENEFIT IT IN THE CRETACEOUS
///////////////////,...........Part of the talk dealt with the question of whether Lamarckian evolution might work in some alternative environment. Dawkins did not think so.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that it may possible for Lamarckain evolution to take place in a world of robots - where baby robots can be born with the acquired memories of its parent(s). Would that actually be an example of a Lamarckian process, or am I missing something?
//////////////////INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE EVOLVED ONLY ONCE,NOT IN SAME CATEGORY AS EYES OR WINGS
HARDER THAN FLYING OR SEEING
//////////////////DAWKINS VS GOULD-You and Stephen Jay Gould recently debated the theory of evolution before an audience of a thousand people in Oxford. What was the nature of the debate?
A: I advocate the gene as the level at which natural selection acts, while he advocates a variety of higher levels. Gould wants to be catholic in his approach, while I want to be rigorous. Natural selection has to work on something that's self-replicating, and your individual organism is not a unit of selection. The debate was cordial. It was hard-hitting. But we both went away feeling just the way we did when we came in. (p. 127)
/////////////////DUTCH FAMINE-EPIGENETICS
This famine was unique as it took place in a modern, developed and literate country, albeit suffering under the privations of occupation and war. The well-documented experience has allowed scientists to measure the effects of famine on human health.
The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study, carried out by the departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit of the University of Southampton in Britain, found that the children of pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, microalbuminuria and other health problems.[3]
Dutch Food ration coupons from WW II
Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average.
This data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation.
The discovery of the cause of Coeliac disease may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine. With wheat in very short supply there was an improvement of a children's ward of Coeliac patients. Stories tell of the first precious supplies of bread being given specifically to the (no longer) sick children, prompting an immediate relapse. Thus in the 1940s the Dutch paediatrician Dr Willem Dicke[4] was able to corroborate his previously researched hypothesis that wheat intake was aggravating Coeliac disease.[5] Later Dicke went on to prove his theory.
Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in the Netherlands during the famine. She suffered anaemia, respiratory illnesses and oedema as a result, and her clinical depression later in life has been attributed to malnutrition.[6]
Subsequent research on the children who were affected in the second trimester of their mother's pregnancy, found an increased incidence of schizophrenia in these children.[7] Also increased among them were the rates of schizotypal personality and neurological defects.[8]
/////////////////////NS WILL GRAB THE GENE IF IT INCR CHANCE OF SURVIVAL
/////////////////////ust a minute on "Darwin". No hesitation, repetition, or deviation.
Bzzzzt!
(Kenneth Ham doing camp Kenneth Williams impersonation) "Deviation!"
(Nicholas Parsons) "He did *not* deviate, Mr Ham"
(KH) "I meant that he IS a deviation!"
/////////////LUCA WAS NOT FIRST LIVING THING OF ALL
LUCA LIVED 0.5 BN YRS AFTER FLTA
////////////////...A giraffe doesn't stretch its vertebrae when stretching its neck. Simple biomechanics show that the muscles in the neck execute pressure on the joints and bones, not a tendency to elongate. This is another example of what Richard put forward that an organ isn't neccessarily improved by using it.
//////////////////LAMARCKIAN GIRAFFE
///////////////////EPIGENETICS IS NOT LAMARCKIAN
///////////////
///////////////////
////////////TIME,VARIATION RANDOM,NS NON RANDOM
/////////////PARTICULATE DIGITAL INHERITANCE-GENE
///////////////GENES IS LIKE A COMPUTR TAPE-QUATERNARY,NOT BINARY
///////////////CODED ACCOUNT OF ENV OF OUR ANCESTORS
///////////////DARWIN WAS A BIT UNMATHEMATICAL
////////////////A possible (albeit probably unlikely) link between the lack of evidence of aliens (so far) and the kind of mechanisms of abiogenesis we should be considering.
A great explanation of why Lamarkism won't work for complex organs.
Why proteins were almost certainly not the original replicators.
This really shows what a great producer of ideas Richard i
///////////////ABIOGENESIS-NEEDS RESEARCH
//////////////////RD points out that eyes have evolved 40 times, intelligence only once. But then, whoever's the first intelligence on the planet is clearly only going to see one instance of intelligence around them. And the long-term effect of humanity on the planet is probably gonna prevent intelligence arising in other species, just by our generally being in the way. So even if intelligence is a relatively discoverable trick, I reckon that on any planet it's first come first served. (Unless perhaps it arose separately on isolated continents in a shortish timescale without seafaring...)
////////////////////AGRICULTR,MICROBIOLOGY USE DARWINIAN
////////////////BIOLF-MAXIMISE SURVIVAL OF THEIR DNA
////////////////ORIGIN OF MATTER AND LIFE
/////////////////ORIGINAL SELF REPLICATING MOLECULE-
NOT AS COMPLEX AS DNA
MUCH SIMPLER UNIT OF HEREDITY-TO HAVE BEEN COME FROM ABIOGENESIS
/////////////////EDGE=
"A fascinating chronicle of the big, new ideas that are keeping young scientists up at night."
— Daniel Gilbert
"A preview of the ideas you're going to be reading about in ten years."
— Steven Pinker
//////////////////DNA-mRNA-AMINO ACIDS-PROTEIN-ENZYME
////////////////IS RNA THE BRIDGE-REPLICATION AND CATALYTIC
////////////////SO ?RNA WORLD
/////////////////.........On earth, we only observe 1 instance of evolved sophisticated (human equivalent) language/intelligence, yet many instances of convergently evolved sight/hearing/flight/etc. However, maybe the former is a phenomenon that tends to happen late in a planets evolutionary history and we humans just happen to live in a time when only one has recently happened so far. Sight/hearing/senses deal with a brain processing information so maybe they're building blocks necessary to bootstrap more sophisticated intelligence at a later time (so perhaps we have a sort of time bias in observing its rate of occurance).
On earth, in the present at least, we can see genes for human equivalent brains are successful given their wide replication in the bodies of earth dominating humans. And given that whatever replicators happen to be most successful tend to thrive and dominate replication, perhaps we can expect convergent human equivalent intelligence to be a norm on other planets, given enough time (just an idea/speculation).
///////////////////FERMI PARADOX-WHERE IS EVERYBODY? NO RADIOSIGNAL FROM ALIENS YET
///////////////////........hat inappropriate first question from the crowd for some reason reminded me that this whole religion debate really is nothing more than a distraction from the far more interesting, and, of course, vitally important, business of science.
After that wonderful talk, I almost groaned at the first questioner's attempt to change the subject, and was glad when they decided to set it aside.
//////////////////NATR EVOLN CANNOT LOOK AHEAD
////////////////EVOLN WORKS WITH WHAT IS AVAILABLE NOW
///////////////////......Dawkins has a lot more to offer when he talks about interesting science than repeating himself ad nauseum about religion.
RDF=
/////////////////////NS DONT HAVE LOOKAHEAD CAPACITY
////////////////////BUT EVOLN HAS EVOLVED INTELLIGENCE TO LOOK AHEAD
/////////////////////////NS CANNOT SELECT GENE IN CAMBRIAN WHICH WILL BENEFIT IT IN THE CRETACEOUS
///////////////////,...........Part of the talk dealt with the question of whether Lamarckian evolution might work in some alternative environment. Dawkins did not think so.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that it may possible for Lamarckain evolution to take place in a world of robots - where baby robots can be born with the acquired memories of its parent(s). Would that actually be an example of a Lamarckian process, or am I missing something?
//////////////////INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE EVOLVED ONLY ONCE,NOT IN SAME CATEGORY AS EYES OR WINGS
HARDER THAN FLYING OR SEEING
//////////////////DAWKINS VS GOULD-You and Stephen Jay Gould recently debated the theory of evolution before an audience of a thousand people in Oxford. What was the nature of the debate?
A: I advocate the gene as the level at which natural selection acts, while he advocates a variety of higher levels. Gould wants to be catholic in his approach, while I want to be rigorous. Natural selection has to work on something that's self-replicating, and your individual organism is not a unit of selection. The debate was cordial. It was hard-hitting. But we both went away feeling just the way we did when we came in. (p. 127)
/////////////////DUTCH FAMINE-EPIGENETICS
This famine was unique as it took place in a modern, developed and literate country, albeit suffering under the privations of occupation and war. The well-documented experience has allowed scientists to measure the effects of famine on human health.
The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study, carried out by the departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit of the University of Southampton in Britain, found that the children of pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, microalbuminuria and other health problems.[3]
Dutch Food ration coupons from WW II
Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average.
This data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation.
The discovery of the cause of Coeliac disease may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine. With wheat in very short supply there was an improvement of a children's ward of Coeliac patients. Stories tell of the first precious supplies of bread being given specifically to the (no longer) sick children, prompting an immediate relapse. Thus in the 1940s the Dutch paediatrician Dr Willem Dicke[4] was able to corroborate his previously researched hypothesis that wheat intake was aggravating Coeliac disease.[5] Later Dicke went on to prove his theory.
Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in the Netherlands during the famine. She suffered anaemia, respiratory illnesses and oedema as a result, and her clinical depression later in life has been attributed to malnutrition.[6]
Subsequent research on the children who were affected in the second trimester of their mother's pregnancy, found an increased incidence of schizophrenia in these children.[7] Also increased among them were the rates of schizotypal personality and neurological defects.[8]
/////////////////////NS WILL GRAB THE GENE IF IT INCR CHANCE OF SURVIVAL
/////////////////////ust a minute on "Darwin". No hesitation, repetition, or deviation.
Bzzzzt!
(Kenneth Ham doing camp Kenneth Williams impersonation) "Deviation!"
(Nicholas Parsons) "He did *not* deviate, Mr Ham"
(KH) "I meant that he IS a deviation!"
/////////////LUCA WAS NOT FIRST LIVING THING OF ALL
LUCA LIVED 0.5 BN YRS AFTER FLTA
////////////////...A giraffe doesn't stretch its vertebrae when stretching its neck. Simple biomechanics show that the muscles in the neck execute pressure on the joints and bones, not a tendency to elongate. This is another example of what Richard put forward that an organ isn't neccessarily improved by using it.
//////////////////LAMARCKIAN GIRAFFE
///////////////////EPIGENETICS IS NOT LAMARCKIAN
///////////////
///////////////////
ROTE/INNOVATN
"Karmanye Wadhika Raste Ma Phaleshu Kadachan".So any
service oriented task or any task which involves application in a
predetermined way requiring a lot of patience and determination, Indians
will excel at it. You can find traces of it in Dhoni's speech after a
cricket match. "I want the boys to go there and play to the best of their
ability and have fun.I don't care if they win or lose." You can find
reflection of this in the fact that Indian software companies are good at
routine service oriented tasks.
That also means that India does not see many innovations. I remember Sabeer
Bhatia talking about the differrences between Indian and Western education
system.
////////////////////////////...........our times as many Indians in the world as there are
> British and Americans and other English-speaking nations, therefore
> there is a 4x more chance that they will do better at spelling bees.
////////////////////.........
Multinationals are no different from governments when it comes to human rights abuse
/////////////////sasialit=
//////////////////spread of apps-memes
//////////////////........The white Tiger", I laughed a lot about the innocence, stupidity and unexploited uninhibited exploration of terrains unknown. I think the youngsters who left India at a younger age to study or live abroad have not lived with the poverty and the system that
in someway manages itself even with such adversities, for them it is sort of an awakening to the rude reality, it is refreshing that someone looks at this "system" from outside and shows a degree of sensitivity and I appreciate the young writers in doing so.
/////////////////.......Balzac is a different story. Again, Adiga has nothing in common with Balzac
in the style and the grasp of the subject matter. Balzac is regarded as one
of the founders of realism in European literature. So-called progressive
writers in India are fond of comparing themselves with great realistic
writers like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, Dickens, Flaubert, Balzac etc as
they think that Indian society is in an eternal need of a Bolshevik style
revolution. Taking realism as the most abject form of self-denigration,
Indian writers harp on the "social injustices" of India and feel themselves
to be in the proud company of great writers.
////////////////////..........In 1994 Christian missionary, father Augustine Kanjamala of Pune wrote an
article in Deccan Chronicle titled, "Replies to Arun Shourie". In the
article he wrote, "Harijans worship deities of lower rank, while caste
Hindus worship deities of higher rank. For instance, Hanuman is worshipped
by Harijans and Rama is worshipped by upper caste in the same village....
Hanuman was the servant of Rama; Harijans are servants of higher caste
Hindus. A close affinity between their hierarchy of gods and the hierarchy
of society."21
//////////////////........Most importantly the leftists have infiltrated all the literary, arts and
fine arts institutions in India. Thus pro-communist All India Progressive
Writers" Association (AIPWA) was formed in which eminent people like Mulk
Raj Anand, Munshi Premchand, Sarojini Naidu, Kirshan Chander, KA Abbas,
Shivdan Singh Chauhan, Ramananda Chatterjee and Ram Bilas Sharma
participated. 26 In the field of theater too, the influence of the leftists
was predominant. The Indian People"s Theater Association (IPTA) is still
very influential in India and continues to shape the world-view of the
youth.27
////////////////.........This notion that Hindu includes
> > > > Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs is an origin of the invidious "Indic" vs.
> > > > "foreign" religions idea in India, whereby Judaism and Christianity,
> in
> > > > India since the first century CE, are like Islam and Zoroastrianism
> (also
> > > > there for centuries) thought of as "foreign."
> > >
> > > Of course. The attempt to *not separate* them, on the other hand, is an
> > > encroachment
> > > on their religious rights.
///////////////////
service oriented task or any task which involves application in a
predetermined way requiring a lot of patience and determination, Indians
will excel at it. You can find traces of it in Dhoni's speech after a
cricket match. "I want the boys to go there and play to the best of their
ability and have fun.I don't care if they win or lose." You can find
reflection of this in the fact that Indian software companies are good at
routine service oriented tasks.
That also means that India does not see many innovations. I remember Sabeer
Bhatia talking about the differrences between Indian and Western education
system.
////////////////////////////...........our times as many Indians in the world as there are
> British and Americans and other English-speaking nations, therefore
> there is a 4x more chance that they will do better at spelling bees.
////////////////////.........
Multinationals are no different from governments when it comes to human rights abuse
/////////////////sasialit=
//////////////////spread of apps-memes
//////////////////........The white Tiger", I laughed a lot about the innocence, stupidity and unexploited uninhibited exploration of terrains unknown. I think the youngsters who left India at a younger age to study or live abroad have not lived with the poverty and the system that
in someway manages itself even with such adversities, for them it is sort of an awakening to the rude reality, it is refreshing that someone looks at this "system" from outside and shows a degree of sensitivity and I appreciate the young writers in doing so.
/////////////////.......Balzac is a different story. Again, Adiga has nothing in common with Balzac
in the style and the grasp of the subject matter. Balzac is regarded as one
of the founders of realism in European literature. So-called progressive
writers in India are fond of comparing themselves with great realistic
writers like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, Dickens, Flaubert, Balzac etc as
they think that Indian society is in an eternal need of a Bolshevik style
revolution. Taking realism as the most abject form of self-denigration,
Indian writers harp on the "social injustices" of India and feel themselves
to be in the proud company of great writers.
////////////////////..........In 1994 Christian missionary, father Augustine Kanjamala of Pune wrote an
article in Deccan Chronicle titled, "Replies to Arun Shourie". In the
article he wrote, "Harijans worship deities of lower rank, while caste
Hindus worship deities of higher rank. For instance, Hanuman is worshipped
by Harijans and Rama is worshipped by upper caste in the same village....
Hanuman was the servant of Rama; Harijans are servants of higher caste
Hindus. A close affinity between their hierarchy of gods and the hierarchy
of society."21
//////////////////........Most importantly the leftists have infiltrated all the literary, arts and
fine arts institutions in India. Thus pro-communist All India Progressive
Writers" Association (AIPWA) was formed in which eminent people like Mulk
Raj Anand, Munshi Premchand, Sarojini Naidu, Kirshan Chander, KA Abbas,
Shivdan Singh Chauhan, Ramananda Chatterjee and Ram Bilas Sharma
participated. 26 In the field of theater too, the influence of the leftists
was predominant. The Indian People"s Theater Association (IPTA) is still
very influential in India and continues to shape the world-view of the
youth.27
////////////////.........This notion that Hindu includes
> > > > Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs is an origin of the invidious "Indic" vs.
> > > > "foreign" religions idea in India, whereby Judaism and Christianity,
> in
> > > > India since the first century CE, are like Islam and Zoroastrianism
> (also
> > > > there for centuries) thought of as "foreign."
> > >
> > > Of course. The attempt to *not separate* them, on the other hand, is an
> > > encroachment
> > > on their religious rights.
///////////////////
310509
1223:
Mongol invasions: Mongol forces defeated a combined army of Kiev,
Galich, and the Cumans on the banks of the Kalchik River in present-day
Ukraine.
////////////////////CAPTCHA
A CAPTCHA or Captcha (pronounced /ˈkæptʃə/) is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human. Thus, it is sometimes described as a reverse Turing test, because it is administered by a machine and targeted to a human, in contrast to the standard Turing test that is typically administered by a human and targeted to a machine. A common type of CAPTCHA requires that the user type letters or digits from a distorted image that appears on the screen.
The term "CAPTCHA" (based upon the word capture) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper (all of Carnegie Mellon University), and John Langford (then of IBM). It is a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." Carnegie Mellon University attempted to trademark the term,[2] but the trademark application was abandoned on 21 April 2008.[3] Currently, CAPTCHA creators recommend use of reCAPTCHA as the official implementation
///////////////////CAPTCHA Completely Automatic Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart
////////////////////
Mongol invasions: Mongol forces defeated a combined army of Kiev,
Galich, and the Cumans on the banks of the Kalchik River in present-day
Ukraine.
////////////////////CAPTCHA
A CAPTCHA or Captcha (pronounced /ˈkæptʃə/) is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human. Thus, it is sometimes described as a reverse Turing test, because it is administered by a machine and targeted to a human, in contrast to the standard Turing test that is typically administered by a human and targeted to a machine. A common type of CAPTCHA requires that the user type letters or digits from a distorted image that appears on the screen.
The term "CAPTCHA" (based upon the word capture) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper (all of Carnegie Mellon University), and John Langford (then of IBM). It is a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." Carnegie Mellon University attempted to trademark the term,[2] but the trademark application was abandoned on 21 April 2008.[3] Currently, CAPTCHA creators recommend use of reCAPTCHA as the official implementation
///////////////////CAPTCHA Completely Automatic Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart
////////////////////
POMPEI
MANAGE HUNGER BY THE HOUR
////////////////HNGR MX
/////////////////PIANO MAN
/////////////////RANDOM COLLAGE OF OPAN-CBTAR=RCOC
///////////////////Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, its sister city, Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in AD 79.
The volcano collapsed higher roof-lines and buried Pompeii under 60 feet of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire. Today, it is both one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with 2,571,725 visitors in 2007,[1] and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
////////////////////800 Britons on waiting list for Swiss suicide clinic
• Record numbers want assisted death
• Lords will hear plea to overturn law
Buzz up!
Digg it
Denis Campbell, health correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 31 May 2009
Article history
Record numbers of Britons who are suffering from terminal illnesses are queueing up for assisted suicide at the controversial Swiss clinic Dignitas, the Observer can reveal.
Almost 800 have taken the first step to taking their lives by becoming members of Dignitas, and 34 men and women, who feel their suffering has become unbearable, are ready to travel to Zurich and take a lethal drug overdose.
The tenfold increase in the number of Britons who have joined Dignitas since 2002 will raise questions about the law that bans assisted suicide in Britain.
On Tuesday, 46-year-old Debbie Purdy, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, will go to the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, asking it to determine whether her husband Omar Puente will be prosecuted if he helps her to travel abroad to die.
The 34 Britons given what Dignitas calls a "provisional green light" to die have provided documentary evidence of their condition and been interviewed by both a doctor and Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, and satisfied them that they are mentally fit to make such a decision.
One of the 34 is due to undertake an accompanied suicide very soon. Four have already secured fixed dates for their deaths, but adjourned them. The remaining 29 have not yet arranged a specific date.
A further four British people failed to get Dignitas's permission after the Swiss doctor who examines all applicants said they should not be helped, either because they did not have an incurable illness or were judged not of sound enough mind to reach such a decision.
Dignitas figures also show that 15 Britons took their lives there in 2003, 26 in 2006, eight in the first five months of 2008 and 23 in the past 12 months.
The disclosures will reopen the highly charged debate about euthanasia. This week, an influential group of peers, led by two former ministers in Tony Blair's cabinet, will seek to end what they see as the outdated and inhumane situation in which relatives or friends risk up to 14 years in prison if they travel with a loved one undertaking assisted dying overseas.
The peers - led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords - will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.
The 1961 Suicide Act criminalises anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else's suicide, and some relatives who have travelled have been questioned by police on their return. However, government law officers have already admitted that no one who goes abroad for that purpose is likely to face prosecution.
"It's a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under threat of 14 years' imprisonment if they do," Jay said last night. "Having made the very difficult decision to travel abroad to somewhere like Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, someone would want the sort of support they would expect here from a husband, wife or loved one. The law in this area is a fudge and parliamentarians are lagging behind public opinion on this."
Prominent peers with legal or medical backgrounds are backing the move, including Lib Dem barrister Lord Lester, Baroness Greengross, the former head of Age Concern England, and Lord (Naren) Patel, chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency.
If they win - and they are increasingly confident - it would force the government to take a view. It used parliamentary procedure to prevent voting in March on an identical amendment in the Commons, which had been proposed by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary until 2007.
Lesley Close, who travelled to Dignitas with her brother, John, in 2003 when he ended a life overshadowed by motor neurone disease, said: "More and more British people will be joining Dignitas and travelling to Switzerland to die because more people are aware of the compassionate and peaceful death you can achieve there.
"The interest in Dignitas among Britons underlines the case for reform of the law here. We need the same facility here [as Dignitas]. It's a perfectly rational and humane decision to end your life if you are suffering intolerably at the end of a terminal illness."
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a new right to assisted dying, said: "These figures show that the situation in this country is forcing people into difficult and dangerous decisions - to go abroad for an assisted death, or ask their doctor or a relative to help them die, or to attempt suicide themselves, some of which end up being botched.
"There is clearly a growing demand in this country for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness, who are mentally competent, to end their life if they choose to."
/////////////////////Herculaneum (in modern Italian Ercolano) is an ancient Roman town, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano. Its ruins can be found at the co-ordinates 40°48′21″N 14°20′51″E, in the Italian region of Campania.
It is most famous for having been lost, along with Pompeii, Stabiae and Oplontis, in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius beginning on August 24, 79 AD, which buried them in superheated pyroclastic material that has solidified into volcanic tuff. Since the discovery of bones in 1981, some 150 skeletons have been found. Herculaneum was a smaller town with a wealthier population than Pompeii at the time of its destruction.
//////////////////BOILT BRAIN BURSTS THRU SKULL-HORRIFIC DTH
TEMP OF EXPOSR-500 DEG C
//////////////////SOCIAL FN TENSION
////////////////////A FUTUURE VESUVIUS WAITING TO HAPPEN TOWARDS BAY OF NAPLES
//////////////////
////////////////HNGR MX
/////////////////PIANO MAN
/////////////////RANDOM COLLAGE OF OPAN-CBTAR=RCOC
///////////////////Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, its sister city, Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in AD 79.
The volcano collapsed higher roof-lines and buried Pompeii under 60 feet of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire. Today, it is both one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with 2,571,725 visitors in 2007,[1] and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
////////////////////800 Britons on waiting list for Swiss suicide clinic
• Record numbers want assisted death
• Lords will hear plea to overturn law
Buzz up!
Digg it
Denis Campbell, health correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 31 May 2009
Article history
Record numbers of Britons who are suffering from terminal illnesses are queueing up for assisted suicide at the controversial Swiss clinic Dignitas, the Observer can reveal.
Almost 800 have taken the first step to taking their lives by becoming members of Dignitas, and 34 men and women, who feel their suffering has become unbearable, are ready to travel to Zurich and take a lethal drug overdose.
The tenfold increase in the number of Britons who have joined Dignitas since 2002 will raise questions about the law that bans assisted suicide in Britain.
On Tuesday, 46-year-old Debbie Purdy, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, will go to the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, asking it to determine whether her husband Omar Puente will be prosecuted if he helps her to travel abroad to die.
The 34 Britons given what Dignitas calls a "provisional green light" to die have provided documentary evidence of their condition and been interviewed by both a doctor and Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, and satisfied them that they are mentally fit to make such a decision.
One of the 34 is due to undertake an accompanied suicide very soon. Four have already secured fixed dates for their deaths, but adjourned them. The remaining 29 have not yet arranged a specific date.
A further four British people failed to get Dignitas's permission after the Swiss doctor who examines all applicants said they should not be helped, either because they did not have an incurable illness or were judged not of sound enough mind to reach such a decision.
Dignitas figures also show that 15 Britons took their lives there in 2003, 26 in 2006, eight in the first five months of 2008 and 23 in the past 12 months.
The disclosures will reopen the highly charged debate about euthanasia. This week, an influential group of peers, led by two former ministers in Tony Blair's cabinet, will seek to end what they see as the outdated and inhumane situation in which relatives or friends risk up to 14 years in prison if they travel with a loved one undertaking assisted dying overseas.
The peers - led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords - will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.
The 1961 Suicide Act criminalises anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else's suicide, and some relatives who have travelled have been questioned by police on their return. However, government law officers have already admitted that no one who goes abroad for that purpose is likely to face prosecution.
"It's a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under threat of 14 years' imprisonment if they do," Jay said last night. "Having made the very difficult decision to travel abroad to somewhere like Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, someone would want the sort of support they would expect here from a husband, wife or loved one. The law in this area is a fudge and parliamentarians are lagging behind public opinion on this."
Prominent peers with legal or medical backgrounds are backing the move, including Lib Dem barrister Lord Lester, Baroness Greengross, the former head of Age Concern England, and Lord (Naren) Patel, chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency.
If they win - and they are increasingly confident - it would force the government to take a view. It used parliamentary procedure to prevent voting in March on an identical amendment in the Commons, which had been proposed by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary until 2007.
Lesley Close, who travelled to Dignitas with her brother, John, in 2003 when he ended a life overshadowed by motor neurone disease, said: "More and more British people will be joining Dignitas and travelling to Switzerland to die because more people are aware of the compassionate and peaceful death you can achieve there.
"The interest in Dignitas among Britons underlines the case for reform of the law here. We need the same facility here [as Dignitas]. It's a perfectly rational and humane decision to end your life if you are suffering intolerably at the end of a terminal illness."
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a new right to assisted dying, said: "These figures show that the situation in this country is forcing people into difficult and dangerous decisions - to go abroad for an assisted death, or ask their doctor or a relative to help them die, or to attempt suicide themselves, some of which end up being botched.
"There is clearly a growing demand in this country for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness, who are mentally competent, to end their life if they choose to."
/////////////////////Herculaneum (in modern Italian Ercolano) is an ancient Roman town, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano. Its ruins can be found at the co-ordinates 40°48′21″N 14°20′51″E, in the Italian region of Campania.
It is most famous for having been lost, along with Pompeii, Stabiae and Oplontis, in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius beginning on August 24, 79 AD, which buried them in superheated pyroclastic material that has solidified into volcanic tuff. Since the discovery of bones in 1981, some 150 skeletons have been found. Herculaneum was a smaller town with a wealthier population than Pompeii at the time of its destruction.
//////////////////BOILT BRAIN BURSTS THRU SKULL-HORRIFIC DTH
TEMP OF EXPOSR-500 DEG C
//////////////////SOCIAL FN TENSION
////////////////////A FUTUURE VESUVIUS WAITING TO HAPPEN TOWARDS BAY OF NAPLES
//////////////////
Saturday, 30 May 2009
SUPERSTTN
Loss of Control Leads People to Seek Order Through Superstition, Ritual (10/5/2008)
Tags:
perception, pattern recognition, emotions
Individuals who lack control seek to find and impose order in the world through superstition, rituals and conspiratorial explanations, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin and published in Science.
The research was done by lead author Jennifer Whitson, an assistant professor at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with Adam Galinsky, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Through a series of six experiments, the researchers showed individuals who lacked control were more likely to see images that did not exist, perceive conspiracies and develop superstitions.
Tags:
perception, pattern recognition, emotions
Individuals who lack control seek to find and impose order in the world through superstition, rituals and conspiratorial explanations, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin and published in Science.
The research was done by lead author Jennifer Whitson, an assistant professor at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with Adam Galinsky, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Through a series of six experiments, the researchers showed individuals who lacked control were more likely to see images that did not exist, perceive conspiracies and develop superstitions.
HANNIBAL- AGNST RMN TYRANNY
//////////////he act of withdrawal -- the male pulling out before ejaculation -- is a long controversial method of birth control, one many sex education classes have condemned as risky.
But Jones' findings, based on several studies and data from the Guttmacher Institute , a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health where she is a senior research associate, were just the opposite.
Her studies found that in perfect use -- meaning the man pulls out every time -- withdrawal has a 4 percent failure rate, as compared to condoms, which have a 2 percent failure rate.
"But nobody's perfect," said Jones, who published her commentary in the June issue of Contraception magazine.
In typical use, when used consistently and correctly, coitus interruptus and condoms have an 18 and 17 percent failure rate, respectively.
//////////////////COLLAGE OF RANDOMITY
////////////////HANNIBAL-ELEPHANTS OVER THE ALPS
/////////////////////but ALL ELEPHANTS DIED
//////////////////The Edward VIII abdication crisis occurred in the British Empire in
1936, when the desire of King-Emperor Edward VIII to marry Wallis
Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite, caused a constitutional
crisis.
/////////////////The Edward VIII abdication crisis occurred in the British Empire in
1936, when the desire of King-Emperor Edward VIII to marry Wallis
Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite, caused a constitutional
crisis.
//////////////////1956:
The first ever competition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in
Lugano, Switzerland.
///////////////////////Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false
directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting
form of error.
--William Whewell
//////////////////GRT LAST STAND AGNST ROME
///////////////////////////////An unfulfilled vocation drains the colour from a person's entire existence." -- Balzac
///////////////////SD GET ON
/////////////////////All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up... that growing is an ever ongoing process."-- M. Scott Peck
//////////////////////Russian Scientist: UFO Crashed Into Meteorite to Save Earth
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
ADVERTISEMENT
Did a UFO deliberately crash into a meteor to save Earth 100 years ago? That's what one Russian scientist is claiming.
Dr. Yuri Labvin, president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, insists that an alien spacecraft sacrificed itself to prevent a gigantic meteor from slamming into the planet above Siberia on June 30, 1908.
The result was was the Tunguska event, a massive blast estimated at 15 megatons that downed 80 million trees over nearly 100 square miles. Eyewitnesses reported a bright light and a huge shock wave, but the area was so sparsely populated no one was killed.
Most scientists think the blast was caused by a meteorite exploding several miles above the surface. But Labvin thinks quartz slabs with strange markings found at the site are remnants of an alien control panel, which fell to the ground after the UFO slammed into the giant rock.
"We don't have any technologies that can print such kind of drawings on crystals," Labvin told the Macedonian International News Agency. "We also found ferrum silicate that can not be produced anywhere, except in space."
/////////////////////The OECD data shows that another important factor is work-life balance. While Scandinavian countries boast a high GDP per capita, the average workweek in that part of the world is no more than 37 hours. In China, which got a low score of just 14.8, the workweek is 47 hours and the GDP per capita is just $3,600.
Low unemployment also contributes to happiness. "One thing we know for sure," says the OECD's Chapple, "not having a job makes one substantially less satisfied." Denmark's unemployment rate is just 2%, according the C.I.A.'s World Factbook. Norway's is just 2.6%. The Netherlands: just 4.5%. Many economists concur that a 4% unemployment rate reflects a stable economy. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently 9%.
//////////////////////THE SECRET OF LETTING GO-JAANE BHI DO YAARO
/////////////////Modern Pied Piper Cheats Death
By Steve Hartman / Source: CBS News
Every time 70-year-old Andy Mackie draws a breath, it's music to his ears - whether there's a harmonica there or not. As CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports, Mackie's just glad to be alive.
Mackie jokes, "I guess they don't need a harmonica player in heaven yet."
Mackie, a Scottish-born retired horse trainer, lives in a camper in northwest Washington state - he lives there, even though technically -- medically -- he should have died long ago.
After his ninth heart surgery, Mackie's doctors had him on 15 different medicines. But the side effects made life miserable. So one day he quit taking all 15 and decided to spend his final days doing something he always wanted to do.
//////////////////////
But Jones' findings, based on several studies and data from the Guttmacher Institute , a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health where she is a senior research associate, were just the opposite.
Her studies found that in perfect use -- meaning the man pulls out every time -- withdrawal has a 4 percent failure rate, as compared to condoms, which have a 2 percent failure rate.
"But nobody's perfect," said Jones, who published her commentary in the June issue of Contraception magazine.
In typical use, when used consistently and correctly, coitus interruptus and condoms have an 18 and 17 percent failure rate, respectively.
//////////////////COLLAGE OF RANDOMITY
////////////////HANNIBAL-ELEPHANTS OVER THE ALPS
/////////////////////but ALL ELEPHANTS DIED
//////////////////The Edward VIII abdication crisis occurred in the British Empire in
1936, when the desire of King-Emperor Edward VIII to marry Wallis
Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite, caused a constitutional
crisis.
/////////////////The Edward VIII abdication crisis occurred in the British Empire in
1936, when the desire of King-Emperor Edward VIII to marry Wallis
Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite, caused a constitutional
crisis.
//////////////////1956:
The first ever competition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in
Lugano, Switzerland.
///////////////////////Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false
directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting
form of error.
--William Whewell
//////////////////GRT LAST STAND AGNST ROME
///////////////////////////////An unfulfilled vocation drains the colour from a person's entire existence." -- Balzac
///////////////////SD GET ON
/////////////////////All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up... that growing is an ever ongoing process."-- M. Scott Peck
//////////////////////Russian Scientist: UFO Crashed Into Meteorite to Save Earth
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
ADVERTISEMENT
Did a UFO deliberately crash into a meteor to save Earth 100 years ago? That's what one Russian scientist is claiming.
Dr. Yuri Labvin, president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, insists that an alien spacecraft sacrificed itself to prevent a gigantic meteor from slamming into the planet above Siberia on June 30, 1908.
The result was was the Tunguska event, a massive blast estimated at 15 megatons that downed 80 million trees over nearly 100 square miles. Eyewitnesses reported a bright light and a huge shock wave, but the area was so sparsely populated no one was killed.
Most scientists think the blast was caused by a meteorite exploding several miles above the surface. But Labvin thinks quartz slabs with strange markings found at the site are remnants of an alien control panel, which fell to the ground after the UFO slammed into the giant rock.
"We don't have any technologies that can print such kind of drawings on crystals," Labvin told the Macedonian International News Agency. "We also found ferrum silicate that can not be produced anywhere, except in space."
/////////////////////The OECD data shows that another important factor is work-life balance. While Scandinavian countries boast a high GDP per capita, the average workweek in that part of the world is no more than 37 hours. In China, which got a low score of just 14.8, the workweek is 47 hours and the GDP per capita is just $3,600.
Low unemployment also contributes to happiness. "One thing we know for sure," says the OECD's Chapple, "not having a job makes one substantially less satisfied." Denmark's unemployment rate is just 2%, according the C.I.A.'s World Factbook. Norway's is just 2.6%. The Netherlands: just 4.5%. Many economists concur that a 4% unemployment rate reflects a stable economy. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently 9%.
//////////////////////THE SECRET OF LETTING GO-JAANE BHI DO YAARO
/////////////////Modern Pied Piper Cheats Death
By Steve Hartman / Source: CBS News
Every time 70-year-old Andy Mackie draws a breath, it's music to his ears - whether there's a harmonica there or not. As CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports, Mackie's just glad to be alive.
Mackie jokes, "I guess they don't need a harmonica player in heaven yet."
Mackie, a Scottish-born retired horse trainer, lives in a camper in northwest Washington state - he lives there, even though technically -- medically -- he should have died long ago.
After his ninth heart surgery, Mackie's doctors had him on 15 different medicines. But the side effects made life miserable. So one day he quit taking all 15 and decided to spend his final days doing something he always wanted to do.
//////////////////////
PORRIDGIC CHARISMA
//////////////////////Shekhar Gupta. I
> think all he means is that the American bigots -- oops,
> -- have stopped obsessing about and negatively stereotyping B, while
> their Indian counterparts remain obsessed about M
////////////////////////..........And with the belief that sex dominates and informs most of our thoughts. It finds expression in the pseudofinding that we think of sex 37 times a day on average. (I do, too, but what about the 43 times I think of bagels and the 51 times I think of getting my car's turn signal fixed?). I really think most cultures not infected with modernity screw happily when they feel like it, but then move on to other activities and thoughts, and don't obsess about sex.
///////////////////.......aren't boatloads of racial
> bigots among Am conservatives.? But these days it
> is mostly their ECONOMIC conservatism and not SOCIAL
> conservatism which makes B shun them.
> > >
/////////////////////
Boys outperform girls in school science in the UK more than in any other developed country, a study shows. The OECD analysed results from 57 countries in its 2006 PISA study of 15-year-olds.
/////////////////An act of kissing puts 29 facial muscles in motion.
//////////////////////
> >
> think all he means is that the American bigots -- oops,
> -- have stopped obsessing about and negatively stereotyping B, while
> their Indian counterparts remain obsessed about M
////////////////////////..........And with the belief that sex dominates and informs most of our thoughts. It finds expression in the pseudofinding that we think of sex 37 times a day on average. (I do, too, but what about the 43 times I think of bagels and the 51 times I think of getting my car's turn signal fixed?). I really think most cultures not infected with modernity screw happily when they feel like it, but then move on to other activities and thoughts, and don't obsess about sex.
///////////////////.......aren't boatloads of racial
> bigots among Am conservatives.? But these days it
> is mostly their ECONOMIC conservatism and not SOCIAL
> conservatism which makes B shun them.
> > >
/////////////////////
Boys outperform girls in school science in the UK more than in any other developed country, a study shows. The OECD analysed results from 57 countries in its 2006 PISA study of 15-year-olds.
/////////////////An act of kissing puts 29 facial muscles in motion.
//////////////////////
> >
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
ASPERSION
Aspersion (noun)
Pronunciation: [ê-'spêr-zhên]
Definition: (1) The act of sprinkling or spattering, especially the sprinkling of water in religious ceremonies. (The sense of spattering with mud or dirt has given way to Definition 2.); (2) An act of slander, impugning, or besmirching (a reputation).
///////////////////Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer." - William S. Burroughs
////////////////////May 15, 2009 12:55 AM
"Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium" - Cyril Connolly
//////////////////////SOUTH PACIFIC
MOBY DICK
////////////////////////Plan your "eating" day. If you are going out
for dinner choose a light breakfast and lunch.
Save the bulk of your calories for the evening
meal.
(2.) If you are a dessert lover like me, choose
something like grilled chicken or fish for your
entree' and share that dessert with a friend.
Choose lots of fruits and veggies.
(3.) Get in as much activity as possible. Walk to
restaurants that are close to your hotel. Find out
what your hotel has to offer in the way of fitness
equipment and take advantage of it. You are paying
for it you know. Walk everywhere you can.
(4) If on a road trip, be sure to pack healthy
snacks to eat along the way. Instead of soft
drinks, carry lots of bottled water. (Be sure to
get the sodium free type.)
(5) And if you feel that just maybe you have
enjoyed yourself a little too much on the trip,
DON'T beat yourself up. Get back to your weight
loss program as soon as possible when you get back
home.
////////////////////DARWIN-VERY SMALL CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN
////////////////////S PACIFIC-SO LITTLE PLANKTON-SO MUCH BLUE
/////////////////////RAVING THIRST-HUMAN CALAMITY-SHIPWRECK FLOATSOM
///////////////////EVER WONDER HOW MUCH A CLOUD WEIGHS?
Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud - a cumulus cloud. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh?
Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers. "The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tons," she calculates. "Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful … think of elephants."
Floating Masses
Assume an elephant weighs about six tons, she says, that would mean that water inside a typical cumulous cloud would weigh about one hundred elephants.
//////////////////////////////////LOST CITY OF PETRA-SN -TV
Coordinates: 30°19′43″N 35°26′31″E
Petra*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
State Party Jordan
Type Cultural
Criteria i, iii, iv
Reference 326
Region** Arab States
Inscription history
Inscription 1985 (9th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.
** Region as classified by UNESCO.
Petra ("petra-πέτρα", cleft in the rock in Greek; Arabic: البتراء, Al-Batrāʾ) is an archaeological site in the Arabah, Ma'an Governorate, Jordan, lying on the slope of Mount Hor[1] in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is renowned for its rock-cut architecture. Petra is also one of the new wonders of the world. The Nabateans constructed it as their capital city around 100 BCE.[2]
The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced to the West by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was famously described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate prize-winning sonnet by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage."[3] In 1985, Petra was designated a World Heritage Site.
/////////////////////The History of Petra begins with the Kites and cairns of gazelle hunters going back into the aceramic neolithic.[clarification needed] Evidence suggests that settlements had begun in and around there in the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. It is listed in Egyptian campaign accounts and the Amarna letters as Pel, Sela or Seir). Though the city was founded relatively late, a sanctuary existed there since very ancient times. Stations 19 through 26 of the stations list of Exodus are places associated with Petra. [9] This part of the country was biblically assigned to the Horites, the predecessors of the Edomites.[10] The habits of the original natives may have influenced the Nabataean custom of burying the dead and offering worship in half-excavated caves. Although Petra is usually identified with Sela which also means a rock, the Biblical references[11] refer to it as "the cleft in the rock", referring to its entrance. 2 Kings xiv. 7 seems to be more specific. In the parallel passage, however, Sela is understood to mean simply "the rock" (2 Chr. xxv. 12, see LXX).
On the authority of Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews iv. 7, 1~ 4, 7), Eusebius and Jerome (Onom. sacr. 286, 71. 145, 9; 228, 55. 287, 94), assert that Rekem was the native name and Rekem appears in the Dead Sea scrolls as a prominent Edom site most closely describing Petra. But in the Aramaic versions Rekem is the name of Kadesh, implying that Josephus may have confused the two places.[citation needed] Sometimes the Aramaic versions give the form Rekem-Geya which recalls the name of the village El-ji, southeast of Petra. The capital, however, would hardly be defined by the name of a neighboring village.[citation needed] The Semitic name of the city, if not Sela, remains unknown. The passage in Diodorus Siculus (xix. 94–97) which describes the expeditions which Antigonus sent against the Nabataeans in 312 BC is understood to throw some light upon the history of Petra,[citation needed] but the "petra" referred to as a natural fortress and place of refuge cannot be a proper name and the description implies that the town was not yet in existence.[citation needed]
The Rekem Inscription in 1976
The only place in Petra where the name "Rekem" occurs was in the rock wall of the Wadi Musa opposite the entrance to the Siq. About twenty years ago the Jordanians built a bridge over the wadi and this inscription is now buried beneath tons of concrete.[12]
More satisfactory evidence of the date of the earliest Nabataean settlement may be obtained from an examination of the tombs. Two types may be distinguished—the Nabataean and the Greco-Roman. The Nabataean type starts from the simple pylon-tomb with a door set in a tower crowned by a parapet ornament, in imitation of the front of a dwelling-house. Then, after passing through various stages, the full Nabataean type is reached, retaining all the native features and at the same time exhibiting characteristics which are partly Egyptian and partly Greek. Of this type there exist close parallels in the tomb-towers at el-I~ejr [?] in north Arabia, which bear long Nabataean inscriptions and supply a date for the corresponding monuments at Petra. Then comes a series of tombfronts which terminate in a semicircular arch, a feature derived from north Syria. Finally come the elaborate façades copied from the front of a Roman temple; however, all traces of native style have vanished. The exact dates of the stages in this development cannot be fixed. Strangely, few inscriptions of any length have been found at Petra, perhaps because they have perished with the stucco or cement which was used upon many of the buildings. The simple pylon-tombs which belong to the pre-Hellenic age serve as evidence for the earliest period. It is not known how far back in this stage the Nabataean settlement goes, but it does not go back farther than the 6th century BC.
A period follows in which the dominant civilization combines Greek, Egyptian and Syrian elements, clearly pointing to the age of the Ptolemies. Towards the close of the 2nd century BC, when the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms were equally depressed, the Nabataean kingdom came to the front. Under Aretas III Philhellene, (c.85–60 BC), the royal coins begin. The theatre was probably excavated at that time, and Petra must have assumed the aspect of a Hellenistic city. In the reign of Aretas IV Philopatris, (9 BC–AD 40), the fine tombs of the el-I~ejr [?] type may be dated, and perhaps also the great High-place.
Urn Tomb
[edit]Roman rule
In 106, when Cornelius Palma was governor of Syria, that part of Arabia under the rule of Petra was absorbed into the Roman Empire as part of Arabia Petraea, becoming capital. The native dynasty came to an end. But the city continued to flourish. A century later, in the time of Alexander Severus, when the city was at the height of its splendor, the issue of coinage comes to an end. There is no more building of sumptuous tombs, owing apparently to some sudden catastrophe, such as an invasion by the neo-Persian power under the Sassanid Empire. Meanwhile, as Palmyra (fl. 130–270) grew in importance and attracted the Arabian trade away from Petra, the latter declined. It seems, however, to have lingered on as a religious centre. Epiphanius of Salamis (c.315–403) writes that in his time a feast was held there on December 25 in honor of the virgin Chaabou and her offspring Dushara (Haer. 51).[citation n
WIKI
/////////////////////
Pronunciation: [ê-'spêr-zhên]
Definition: (1) The act of sprinkling or spattering, especially the sprinkling of water in religious ceremonies. (The sense of spattering with mud or dirt has given way to Definition 2.); (2) An act of slander, impugning, or besmirching (a reputation).
///////////////////Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer." - William S. Burroughs
////////////////////May 15, 2009 12:55 AM
"Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium" - Cyril Connolly
//////////////////////SOUTH PACIFIC
MOBY DICK
////////////////////////Plan your "eating" day. If you are going out
for dinner choose a light breakfast and lunch.
Save the bulk of your calories for the evening
meal.
(2.) If you are a dessert lover like me, choose
something like grilled chicken or fish for your
entree' and share that dessert with a friend.
Choose lots of fruits and veggies.
(3.) Get in as much activity as possible. Walk to
restaurants that are close to your hotel. Find out
what your hotel has to offer in the way of fitness
equipment and take advantage of it. You are paying
for it you know. Walk everywhere you can.
(4) If on a road trip, be sure to pack healthy
snacks to eat along the way. Instead of soft
drinks, carry lots of bottled water. (Be sure to
get the sodium free type.)
(5) And if you feel that just maybe you have
enjoyed yourself a little too much on the trip,
DON'T beat yourself up. Get back to your weight
loss program as soon as possible when you get back
home.
////////////////////DARWIN-VERY SMALL CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN
////////////////////S PACIFIC-SO LITTLE PLANKTON-SO MUCH BLUE
/////////////////////RAVING THIRST-HUMAN CALAMITY-SHIPWRECK FLOATSOM
///////////////////EVER WONDER HOW MUCH A CLOUD WEIGHS?
Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud - a cumulus cloud. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh?
Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers. "The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tons," she calculates. "Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful … think of elephants."
Floating Masses
Assume an elephant weighs about six tons, she says, that would mean that water inside a typical cumulous cloud would weigh about one hundred elephants.
//////////////////////////////////LOST CITY OF PETRA-SN -TV
Coordinates: 30°19′43″N 35°26′31″E
Petra*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
State Party Jordan
Type Cultural
Criteria i, iii, iv
Reference 326
Region** Arab States
Inscription history
Inscription 1985 (9th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.
** Region as classified by UNESCO.
Petra ("petra-πέτρα", cleft in the rock in Greek; Arabic: البتراء, Al-Batrāʾ) is an archaeological site in the Arabah, Ma'an Governorate, Jordan, lying on the slope of Mount Hor[1] in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is renowned for its rock-cut architecture. Petra is also one of the new wonders of the world. The Nabateans constructed it as their capital city around 100 BCE.[2]
The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced to the West by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was famously described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate prize-winning sonnet by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage."[3] In 1985, Petra was designated a World Heritage Site.
/////////////////////The History of Petra begins with the Kites and cairns of gazelle hunters going back into the aceramic neolithic.[clarification needed] Evidence suggests that settlements had begun in and around there in the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. It is listed in Egyptian campaign accounts and the Amarna letters as Pel, Sela or Seir). Though the city was founded relatively late, a sanctuary existed there since very ancient times. Stations 19 through 26 of the stations list of Exodus are places associated with Petra. [9] This part of the country was biblically assigned to the Horites, the predecessors of the Edomites.[10] The habits of the original natives may have influenced the Nabataean custom of burying the dead and offering worship in half-excavated caves. Although Petra is usually identified with Sela which also means a rock, the Biblical references[11] refer to it as "the cleft in the rock", referring to its entrance. 2 Kings xiv. 7 seems to be more specific. In the parallel passage, however, Sela is understood to mean simply "the rock" (2 Chr. xxv. 12, see LXX).
On the authority of Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews iv. 7, 1~ 4, 7), Eusebius and Jerome (Onom. sacr. 286, 71. 145, 9; 228, 55. 287, 94), assert that Rekem was the native name and Rekem appears in the Dead Sea scrolls as a prominent Edom site most closely describing Petra. But in the Aramaic versions Rekem is the name of Kadesh, implying that Josephus may have confused the two places.[citation needed] Sometimes the Aramaic versions give the form Rekem-Geya which recalls the name of the village El-ji, southeast of Petra. The capital, however, would hardly be defined by the name of a neighboring village.[citation needed] The Semitic name of the city, if not Sela, remains unknown. The passage in Diodorus Siculus (xix. 94–97) which describes the expeditions which Antigonus sent against the Nabataeans in 312 BC is understood to throw some light upon the history of Petra,[citation needed] but the "petra" referred to as a natural fortress and place of refuge cannot be a proper name and the description implies that the town was not yet in existence.[citation needed]
The Rekem Inscription in 1976
The only place in Petra where the name "Rekem" occurs was in the rock wall of the Wadi Musa opposite the entrance to the Siq. About twenty years ago the Jordanians built a bridge over the wadi and this inscription is now buried beneath tons of concrete.[12]
More satisfactory evidence of the date of the earliest Nabataean settlement may be obtained from an examination of the tombs. Two types may be distinguished—the Nabataean and the Greco-Roman. The Nabataean type starts from the simple pylon-tomb with a door set in a tower crowned by a parapet ornament, in imitation of the front of a dwelling-house. Then, after passing through various stages, the full Nabataean type is reached, retaining all the native features and at the same time exhibiting characteristics which are partly Egyptian and partly Greek. Of this type there exist close parallels in the tomb-towers at el-I~ejr [?] in north Arabia, which bear long Nabataean inscriptions and supply a date for the corresponding monuments at Petra. Then comes a series of tombfronts which terminate in a semicircular arch, a feature derived from north Syria. Finally come the elaborate façades copied from the front of a Roman temple; however, all traces of native style have vanished. The exact dates of the stages in this development cannot be fixed. Strangely, few inscriptions of any length have been found at Petra, perhaps because they have perished with the stucco or cement which was used upon many of the buildings. The simple pylon-tombs which belong to the pre-Hellenic age serve as evidence for the earliest period. It is not known how far back in this stage the Nabataean settlement goes, but it does not go back farther than the 6th century BC.
A period follows in which the dominant civilization combines Greek, Egyptian and Syrian elements, clearly pointing to the age of the Ptolemies. Towards the close of the 2nd century BC, when the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms were equally depressed, the Nabataean kingdom came to the front. Under Aretas III Philhellene, (c.85–60 BC), the royal coins begin. The theatre was probably excavated at that time, and Petra must have assumed the aspect of a Hellenistic city. In the reign of Aretas IV Philopatris, (9 BC–AD 40), the fine tombs of the el-I~ejr [?] type may be dated, and perhaps also the great High-place.
Urn Tomb
[edit]Roman rule
In 106, when Cornelius Palma was governor of Syria, that part of Arabia under the rule of Petra was absorbed into the Roman Empire as part of Arabia Petraea, becoming capital. The native dynasty came to an end. But the city continued to flourish. A century later, in the time of Alexander Severus, when the city was at the height of its splendor, the issue of coinage comes to an end. There is no more building of sumptuous tombs, owing apparently to some sudden catastrophe, such as an invasion by the neo-Persian power under the Sassanid Empire. Meanwhile, as Palmyra (fl. 130–270) grew in importance and attracted the Arabian trade away from Petra, the latter declined. It seems, however, to have lingered on as a religious centre. Epiphanius of Salamis (c.315–403) writes that in his time a feast was held there on December 25 in honor of the virgin Chaabou and her offspring Dushara (Haer. 51).[citation n
WIKI
/////////////////////
PERSUADE NOT PUNISH-PNP
STORY OF IDA
///////////////PROSIMIANS OR ANTHROPOIDS
/////////////LEMUR EVOLN SIDE BRANCH
/////////////////Statistics means never having to say you're certain.
////////////////////How's Your Baby? Recalling The Apgar Score's Namesake
By MELINDA BECK
Article
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Comments (7)
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In the 1950s, babies named Linda and Bobby came home from the hospital in Studebakers with Fats Domino on the radio. Many were given a new score a minute after birth to assess how well they made the transition from womb to room. Today, the Apgar score is still given to nearly every baby born in a hospital world-wide.
Many parents know Apgar as an acronym for what it measures: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity and Respiration. But the score was first named for Virginia Apgar, the gutsy anesthesiologist who, in 1949, scribbled it on the back of a card in a hospital cafeteria that read "Please Bus Your Trays."
View Full Image
Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections
Dr. Virginia Apgar, circa 1950
The score laid the foundation for the field of neonatology, and Dr. Apgar became a legendary figure in medicine. She died in 1974. She would have been 100 years old next month. She was also my friend.
The score came about, indirectly, because of the sexism long rampant in medicine. The cash-strapped graduate of Mount Holyoke waited tables and caught stray cats to sell to the lab while earning her medical degree from Columbia University in 1933. She excelled at surgery, but a mentor convinced her she'd never make a living that way. "Even women won't go to a woman surgeon," Dr. Apgar said.
She went into anesthesiology and helped build it into a medical specialty. But she was passed over for a man to head the new department at Columbia. So she threw herself into teaching and patient care, becoming the first woman full professor at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was particularly drawn to obstetrical anesthesia, and was increasingly concerned about what she saw.
As late as the 1940s, delivery-room doctors focused on mothers and paid little attention to babies. Those who were small or struggling were often left to die, since doctors assumed little could be done for them. "It was considered better not to be aggressive. You dried them, you shook them, and some doctors patted them on the backside and that was it," says Alan Fleischman, medical director of the March of Dimes.
Assigning an Apgar Score to Newborns
5:50
It's said that "every baby born in a modern hospital in the world is looked at first through the eyes of Dr. Virginia Apgar." In a 1964 video, Dr. Apgar assists a nurse through checking a newborn's reflexes.
In the cafeteria one morning, a med student asked Dr. Apgar how a newborn might be evaluated. "That's easy, you'd do it like this," she said, dashing down heart rate, respiration, muscle tone, color and reflexes. Then she rushed off to try it, according to Selma Calmes, a retired anesthesiologist who has written about her. After testing the score on more than 1,000 newborns, Dr. Apgar presented it at a conference in 1952 and it caught on quickly.
As simple as it was, the score transformed deliveries by requiring staffers to carefully observe and assess each baby, assigning a score of 0, 1 or 2 to each of the five categories. Then, as now, few babies get a perfect 10 one minute after birth, since most have bluish toes and fingers until oxygenated blood starts circulating fully. Some doctors became competitive about the scores, and many hospitals began repeating the test at five or 10 minutes to measure whether newborns had improved.
Discussion
Do you know your Apgar score -- or that of your child? Was the test , named for its inventor, Dr. Virginia Apgar, useful in getting needed attention to your newborn? Share your experiences.
Most importantly, babies who needed care started to get it, gradually spurring the development of newborn-size resuscitation tools, infant heart-rate monitors and neonatal intensive-care units. Thanks to all those efforts, and the philosophy that came with them, U.S. infant mortality dropped from 58 per 1,000 in the 1930s to 7 per 1,000 today. By the 1970s, it was said, "every baby born in a hospital around the world is looked at first through the eyes of Virginia Apgar."
Dr. Apgar, who never made any money from the test, moved on to become a senior medical official at the March of Dimes in 1959, devoting the rest of her life to preventing birth defects and other conditions that caused newborns to have low Apgar scores. She was among the first to recognize and warn pregnant women about the dangers that infections, viruses, RH incompatibility and certain medications could pose to unborn babies. After a rubella outbreak in 1964 caused 20,000 birth defects and 30,000 fetal deaths, she helped win funding for widespread vaccinations. Dr. Apgar was also one of the first at the March of Dimes to look for ways to prevent preterm birth, the organization's current focus, and coined the slogan, "Be good to your baby before it's born."
View Slideshow
March of Dimes
Apgar Test Still Helping Newborns
I knew Dr. Apgar because she co-authored a book to help would-be parents avoid birth defects, entitled "Is My Baby All Right?," with my mother, Joan Beck. Dr. Apgar was in her 60s then, with a corona of white hair, a wicked sense of humor and more energy than anybody I've ever met. This eminent physician sometimes met me at the school bus. She would regale us with tales of resuscitating collapsed strangers; she carried a pen knife and an airway tube just in case. "Nobody, but nobody, is going to stop breathing on me," she'd say.
Another of her favorite sayings was, "Do what is right, and do it now."
Dr. Apgar took up flying in her 50s, and also played -- and made -- stringed instruments. One night, she and a colleague famously snuck into Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital and stole a maple shelf from a phone booth that she thought would make a splendid violin. She died in 1974, having never married. "I never found a man who could cook," she often said.
These days, there are many high-tech ways to evaluate newborns, and some doctors say they would assign more importance to heart rate than the other conditions if the score were being designed today. But much of its genius was its simplicity: the Apgar score can be taught quickly and administered almost anywhere, from a remote hospital to a mobile emergency van. And despite other innovations, The New England Journal of Medicine concluded in 2001 that the Apgar score "remains as relevant for the prediction of neonatal survival today as it was almost 50 years ago."
Apgar scores are also listed on birth certificates, used in epidemiological studies, and bragged about, so they have taken on social as well as medical value. "Moms want a good grade. Doctors want a good grade, too," says the March of Dimes's Dr. Fleischman. That's just what Dr. Apgar would have wanted.
Write to Melinda Beck at HealthJournal@wsj.com
////////////////Did you hear about the politician who promised that if he were elected he'd make certain that everybody would get an above-average income? (And nobody laughed....)
////////////////////Numbers are like people; torture them enough and they'll tell you anything.
Lottery: A tax on the statistically-challenged.
////////////////ida the lemur-monkey
HOW MUCH MONKEY?
/////////////////ife would be a hell of lot better and more productive if you have the energy of a teenager for many more years then we have now. Think about it . Remember what it was like? Ahh, to be young again. If you are older let me know if you agree, if not you don’t count yet. Wait a few years , you’ll be on my side. Normally my blogs are funny but,the health care systems treament of my uncle has got me down.
////////////////////When? The optimum timing for the use of MRI in the term infant with suspected perinatal injury is within 1 to 3 weeks postdelivery, when the lesions are the most obvious on conventional sequences. In the severely ill neonate, information may be required earlier, in order to make informed decisions about the withdrawal of intensive care. In such situations, diffusion-weighted imaging should always be used, as recently acquired lesions may not be obvious on conventional sequences. In the preterm infant, the best prognostic information may be obtained at term-equivalent age, although with severe lesions, an earlier image may have the ability to predict a poor outcome.
In summary, MRI is a valuable adjunct to ultrasound in preterm and term infants. Correct timing and appropriate imaging techniques are critical in obtaining relevant information.
//////////////////A Recipe For Longevity: 33 Of The Healthiest Foods On Earth
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Read More: Aging, Aging Well, Diet, Dole, Dole Nutrition Institute, Fitness, Food, Fruit, Healthy Eating, Longevity, Nutrition, Personal Health, Table, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Wellness, Living News
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Is it possible to live to 125 or maybe 150? It's certainly a possibility, as discussed on Oprah Winfrey's recent show on longevity. She visited me at my farm to learn how, at 86, I am enjoying the robust health, energy, and mental creativity of someone many decades younger. My secret: large quantities of fruit and vegetables, plus an hour of daily exercise.
No pills, not even aspirin, and certainly no supplements ever enter my mouth -- everything I need comes from my fish-vegetarian diet, which incorporates 30-40 different kinds of fruit and vegetables every week. Even though I am Chairman and Owner of Dole Food Company, I do most of my own grocery shopping, and even took Oprah on an impromptu trip to Costco, in a day that included bike riding, exercise in the gym, and juicing vegetables in the kitchen. Oprah marveled at how much I eat, and yet never gain a pound. In fact, I expend a lot of energy in my 50-60 minutes of cardio and strength training every day. Plus there's the fact that fruit and vegetables tend to be lower in calories, but higher in filling fiber and other nutrients that help you feel satisfied.
////////////////////"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless." - Bill Watterson
/////////////////////////ida-has humanoid talus -KEY TO BEAR WT-TO WALK UPRIGHT-NOT FOUND IN PROSIMIANS BUT ONLY IN ANTROPOIDS
///////////////////SO IDA IS ONE OF US-VERY VERY EARLY ANTHROPOID
/////////////////Scientists hail stunning fossil
By Christine McGourty
Science correspondent, BBC News
Christine McGourty takes a look at the beautifully preserved primate fossil
The beautifully preserved remains of a 47-million-year-old, lemur-like creature have been unveiled in the US.
The preservation is so good, it is possible to see the outline of its fur and even traces of its last meal.
The fossil, nicknamed Ida, is claimed to be a "missing link" between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives.
But some independent experts, awaiting an opportunity to see the new fossil, are sceptical of the claim.
And they have been critical of the hype surrounding the presentation of Ida.
The fossil was launched amid great fanfare at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, by the city's mayor.
Although details of the fossil have only just been published in a scientific journal - PLoS One - there is already a TV documentary and book tie-in.
She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct line
Dr Jens Franzen
Ida was discovered in the 1980s in a fossil treasure-trove called Messel Pit, near Darmstadt in Germany. For much of the intervening period, it has been in a private collection.
The investigation of the fossil's significance was led by Jorn Hurum of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway.
He said the fossil creature was "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor" and described the discovery as "a dream come true".
The female animal lived during an epoch in Earth history known as the Eocene, which was crucial for the development of early primates - and at first glance, Ida resembles a lemur.
But the creature lacks primitive features such as a so-called "toothcomb", a specialised feature in which the lower incisor and canine teeth are elongated, crowded together and projecting forward. She also lacks a special claw used for grooming.
In a David Attenborough-narrated BBC programme, the fossil is revealed in virtual reality
The team concluded that she was not simply another lemur, but a new species. They have called her Darwinius masillae, to celebrate her place of origin and the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
Dr Jens Franzen, an expert on the Messel Pit and a member of the team, described Ida as "like the Eighth Wonder of the World", because of the extraordinary completeness of the skeleton.
It was information "palaeontologists can normally only dream of", he said.
In addition, Ida bears "a close resemblance to ourselves" he said, with nails instead of claws, a grasping hand and an opposable thumb - like humans and some other primates. But he said some aspects of the teeth indicate she is not a direct ancestor - more of an "aunt" than a "grandmother".
"She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct line."
Independent experts are keen to see the new fossil but somewhat sceptical of any claim that it could be "a missing link".
Dr Henry Gee, a senior editor at the journal Nature, said the term itself was misleading and that the scientific community would need to evaluate its significance.
"It's extremely nice to have a new find and it will be well-studied," he said. But he added that it was not likely to be in the same league as major discoveries such as "Flores man" or feathered dinosaurs.
The BBC's Fergus Walsh takes a look inside the Messel Pit
Dr Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and author of The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey, said he was "awestruck" by the publicity machine surrounding the new fossil.
He argued that it could damage the popularisation of science if the creature was not all that it was hyped up to be.
Dr Beard has not yet seen scientific details of the find but said that it would be very nice to have a beautiful new fossil from the Eocene and that Ida would be "a welcome new addition" to the world of early primates.
But he added: "I would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans."
In the PLoS paper itself, the scientists do not actually claim the specimen represents a direct ancestor to us. But Dr Hurum believes that is exactly what Ida is.
He told BBC News that the key to proving this lay in the detail of the foot. The shape of a bone in the foot called the talus looks "almost anthropoid".
He said the team was now planning a 3D reconstruction of the foot which would prove this.
"We're not finished with this specimen yet," said Dr Hurum. "There will be plenty more papers coming out."
A TV documentary about Ida will be broadcast on BBC One at 2100 BST, Tuesday, 26 May
///////////////PROSIMIANS OR ANTHROPOIDS
/////////////LEMUR EVOLN SIDE BRANCH
/////////////////Statistics means never having to say you're certain.
////////////////////How's Your Baby? Recalling The Apgar Score's Namesake
By MELINDA BECK
Article
Video
Slideshow
Comments (7)
MORE IN HEALTH »
EmailPrinter
FriendlyShare:
Yahoo Buzz
↓ More
Save This
↓ More
Text
In the 1950s, babies named Linda and Bobby came home from the hospital in Studebakers with Fats Domino on the radio. Many were given a new score a minute after birth to assess how well they made the transition from womb to room. Today, the Apgar score is still given to nearly every baby born in a hospital world-wide.
Many parents know Apgar as an acronym for what it measures: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity and Respiration. But the score was first named for Virginia Apgar, the gutsy anesthesiologist who, in 1949, scribbled it on the back of a card in a hospital cafeteria that read "Please Bus Your Trays."
View Full Image
Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections
Dr. Virginia Apgar, circa 1950
The score laid the foundation for the field of neonatology, and Dr. Apgar became a legendary figure in medicine. She died in 1974. She would have been 100 years old next month. She was also my friend.
The score came about, indirectly, because of the sexism long rampant in medicine. The cash-strapped graduate of Mount Holyoke waited tables and caught stray cats to sell to the lab while earning her medical degree from Columbia University in 1933. She excelled at surgery, but a mentor convinced her she'd never make a living that way. "Even women won't go to a woman surgeon," Dr. Apgar said.
She went into anesthesiology and helped build it into a medical specialty. But she was passed over for a man to head the new department at Columbia. So she threw herself into teaching and patient care, becoming the first woman full professor at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was particularly drawn to obstetrical anesthesia, and was increasingly concerned about what she saw.
As late as the 1940s, delivery-room doctors focused on mothers and paid little attention to babies. Those who were small or struggling were often left to die, since doctors assumed little could be done for them. "It was considered better not to be aggressive. You dried them, you shook them, and some doctors patted them on the backside and that was it," says Alan Fleischman, medical director of the March of Dimes.
Assigning an Apgar Score to Newborns
5:50
It's said that "every baby born in a modern hospital in the world is looked at first through the eyes of Dr. Virginia Apgar." In a 1964 video, Dr. Apgar assists a nurse through checking a newborn's reflexes.
In the cafeteria one morning, a med student asked Dr. Apgar how a newborn might be evaluated. "That's easy, you'd do it like this," she said, dashing down heart rate, respiration, muscle tone, color and reflexes. Then she rushed off to try it, according to Selma Calmes, a retired anesthesiologist who has written about her. After testing the score on more than 1,000 newborns, Dr. Apgar presented it at a conference in 1952 and it caught on quickly.
As simple as it was, the score transformed deliveries by requiring staffers to carefully observe and assess each baby, assigning a score of 0, 1 or 2 to each of the five categories. Then, as now, few babies get a perfect 10 one minute after birth, since most have bluish toes and fingers until oxygenated blood starts circulating fully. Some doctors became competitive about the scores, and many hospitals began repeating the test at five or 10 minutes to measure whether newborns had improved.
Discussion
Do you know your Apgar score -- or that of your child? Was the test , named for its inventor, Dr. Virginia Apgar, useful in getting needed attention to your newborn? Share your experiences.
Most importantly, babies who needed care started to get it, gradually spurring the development of newborn-size resuscitation tools, infant heart-rate monitors and neonatal intensive-care units. Thanks to all those efforts, and the philosophy that came with them, U.S. infant mortality dropped from 58 per 1,000 in the 1930s to 7 per 1,000 today. By the 1970s, it was said, "every baby born in a hospital around the world is looked at first through the eyes of Virginia Apgar."
Dr. Apgar, who never made any money from the test, moved on to become a senior medical official at the March of Dimes in 1959, devoting the rest of her life to preventing birth defects and other conditions that caused newborns to have low Apgar scores. She was among the first to recognize and warn pregnant women about the dangers that infections, viruses, RH incompatibility and certain medications could pose to unborn babies. After a rubella outbreak in 1964 caused 20,000 birth defects and 30,000 fetal deaths, she helped win funding for widespread vaccinations. Dr. Apgar was also one of the first at the March of Dimes to look for ways to prevent preterm birth, the organization's current focus, and coined the slogan, "Be good to your baby before it's born."
View Slideshow
March of Dimes
Apgar Test Still Helping Newborns
I knew Dr. Apgar because she co-authored a book to help would-be parents avoid birth defects, entitled "Is My Baby All Right?," with my mother, Joan Beck. Dr. Apgar was in her 60s then, with a corona of white hair, a wicked sense of humor and more energy than anybody I've ever met. This eminent physician sometimes met me at the school bus. She would regale us with tales of resuscitating collapsed strangers; she carried a pen knife and an airway tube just in case. "Nobody, but nobody, is going to stop breathing on me," she'd say.
Another of her favorite sayings was, "Do what is right, and do it now."
Dr. Apgar took up flying in her 50s, and also played -- and made -- stringed instruments. One night, she and a colleague famously snuck into Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital and stole a maple shelf from a phone booth that she thought would make a splendid violin. She died in 1974, having never married. "I never found a man who could cook," she often said.
These days, there are many high-tech ways to evaluate newborns, and some doctors say they would assign more importance to heart rate than the other conditions if the score were being designed today. But much of its genius was its simplicity: the Apgar score can be taught quickly and administered almost anywhere, from a remote hospital to a mobile emergency van. And despite other innovations, The New England Journal of Medicine concluded in 2001 that the Apgar score "remains as relevant for the prediction of neonatal survival today as it was almost 50 years ago."
Apgar scores are also listed on birth certificates, used in epidemiological studies, and bragged about, so they have taken on social as well as medical value. "Moms want a good grade. Doctors want a good grade, too," says the March of Dimes's Dr. Fleischman. That's just what Dr. Apgar would have wanted.
Write to Melinda Beck at HealthJournal@wsj.com
////////////////Did you hear about the politician who promised that if he were elected he'd make certain that everybody would get an above-average income? (And nobody laughed....)
////////////////////Numbers are like people; torture them enough and they'll tell you anything.
Lottery: A tax on the statistically-challenged.
////////////////ida the lemur-monkey
HOW MUCH MONKEY?
/////////////////ife would be a hell of lot better and more productive if you have the energy of a teenager for many more years then we have now. Think about it . Remember what it was like? Ahh, to be young again. If you are older let me know if you agree, if not you don’t count yet. Wait a few years , you’ll be on my side. Normally my blogs are funny but,the health care systems treament of my uncle has got me down.
////////////////////When? The optimum timing for the use of MRI in the term infant with suspected perinatal injury is within 1 to 3 weeks postdelivery, when the lesions are the most obvious on conventional sequences. In the severely ill neonate, information may be required earlier, in order to make informed decisions about the withdrawal of intensive care. In such situations, diffusion-weighted imaging should always be used, as recently acquired lesions may not be obvious on conventional sequences. In the preterm infant, the best prognostic information may be obtained at term-equivalent age, although with severe lesions, an earlier image may have the ability to predict a poor outcome.
In summary, MRI is a valuable adjunct to ultrasound in preterm and term infants. Correct timing and appropriate imaging techniques are critical in obtaining relevant information.
//////////////////A Recipe For Longevity: 33 Of The Healthiest Foods On Earth
digg stumble reddit del.ico.us
Read More: Aging, Aging Well, Diet, Dole, Dole Nutrition Institute, Fitness, Food, Fruit, Healthy Eating, Longevity, Nutrition, Personal Health, Table, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Wellness, Living News
Be the First to Submit
This Story to Digg
Buzz up!
Get Breaking News Alerts
never spam
Share Print Comments
Is it possible to live to 125 or maybe 150? It's certainly a possibility, as discussed on Oprah Winfrey's recent show on longevity. She visited me at my farm to learn how, at 86, I am enjoying the robust health, energy, and mental creativity of someone many decades younger. My secret: large quantities of fruit and vegetables, plus an hour of daily exercise.
No pills, not even aspirin, and certainly no supplements ever enter my mouth -- everything I need comes from my fish-vegetarian diet, which incorporates 30-40 different kinds of fruit and vegetables every week. Even though I am Chairman and Owner of Dole Food Company, I do most of my own grocery shopping, and even took Oprah on an impromptu trip to Costco, in a day that included bike riding, exercise in the gym, and juicing vegetables in the kitchen. Oprah marveled at how much I eat, and yet never gain a pound. In fact, I expend a lot of energy in my 50-60 minutes of cardio and strength training every day. Plus there's the fact that fruit and vegetables tend to be lower in calories, but higher in filling fiber and other nutrients that help you feel satisfied.
////////////////////"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless." - Bill Watterson
/////////////////////////ida-has humanoid talus -KEY TO BEAR WT-TO WALK UPRIGHT-NOT FOUND IN PROSIMIANS BUT ONLY IN ANTROPOIDS
///////////////////SO IDA IS ONE OF US-VERY VERY EARLY ANTHROPOID
/////////////////Scientists hail stunning fossil
By Christine McGourty
Science correspondent, BBC News
Christine McGourty takes a look at the beautifully preserved primate fossil
The beautifully preserved remains of a 47-million-year-old, lemur-like creature have been unveiled in the US.
The preservation is so good, it is possible to see the outline of its fur and even traces of its last meal.
The fossil, nicknamed Ida, is claimed to be a "missing link" between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives.
But some independent experts, awaiting an opportunity to see the new fossil, are sceptical of the claim.
And they have been critical of the hype surrounding the presentation of Ida.
The fossil was launched amid great fanfare at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, by the city's mayor.
Although details of the fossil have only just been published in a scientific journal - PLoS One - there is already a TV documentary and book tie-in.
She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct line
Dr Jens Franzen
Ida was discovered in the 1980s in a fossil treasure-trove called Messel Pit, near Darmstadt in Germany. For much of the intervening period, it has been in a private collection.
The investigation of the fossil's significance was led by Jorn Hurum of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway.
He said the fossil creature was "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor" and described the discovery as "a dream come true".
The female animal lived during an epoch in Earth history known as the Eocene, which was crucial for the development of early primates - and at first glance, Ida resembles a lemur.
But the creature lacks primitive features such as a so-called "toothcomb", a specialised feature in which the lower incisor and canine teeth are elongated, crowded together and projecting forward. She also lacks a special claw used for grooming.
In a David Attenborough-narrated BBC programme, the fossil is revealed in virtual reality
The team concluded that she was not simply another lemur, but a new species. They have called her Darwinius masillae, to celebrate her place of origin and the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
Dr Jens Franzen, an expert on the Messel Pit and a member of the team, described Ida as "like the Eighth Wonder of the World", because of the extraordinary completeness of the skeleton.
It was information "palaeontologists can normally only dream of", he said.
In addition, Ida bears "a close resemblance to ourselves" he said, with nails instead of claws, a grasping hand and an opposable thumb - like humans and some other primates. But he said some aspects of the teeth indicate she is not a direct ancestor - more of an "aunt" than a "grandmother".
"She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct line."
Independent experts are keen to see the new fossil but somewhat sceptical of any claim that it could be "a missing link".
Dr Henry Gee, a senior editor at the journal Nature, said the term itself was misleading and that the scientific community would need to evaluate its significance.
"It's extremely nice to have a new find and it will be well-studied," he said. But he added that it was not likely to be in the same league as major discoveries such as "Flores man" or feathered dinosaurs.
The BBC's Fergus Walsh takes a look inside the Messel Pit
Dr Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and author of The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey, said he was "awestruck" by the publicity machine surrounding the new fossil.
He argued that it could damage the popularisation of science if the creature was not all that it was hyped up to be.
Dr Beard has not yet seen scientific details of the find but said that it would be very nice to have a beautiful new fossil from the Eocene and that Ida would be "a welcome new addition" to the world of early primates.
But he added: "I would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans."
In the PLoS paper itself, the scientists do not actually claim the specimen represents a direct ancestor to us. But Dr Hurum believes that is exactly what Ida is.
He told BBC News that the key to proving this lay in the detail of the foot. The shape of a bone in the foot called the talus looks "almost anthropoid".
He said the team was now planning a 3D reconstruction of the foot which would prove this.
"We're not finished with this specimen yet," said Dr Hurum. "There will be plenty more papers coming out."
A TV documentary about Ida will be broadcast on BBC One at 2100 BST, Tuesday, 26 May
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
INEQLITY
Richard Wilkinson, a professor of medical epidemiology at Nottingham University, and Kate Pickett, a lecturer in epidemiology at York University, emphasise that it is not only the poor who suffer from the effects of inequality, but the majority of the population. For example, rates of mental illness are five times higher across the whole population in the most unequal than in the least unequal societies in their survey. One explanation, they suggest, is that inequality increases stress right across society, not just among the least advantaged. Much research has been done on the stress hormone cortisol, which can be measured in saliva or blood, and it emerges that chronic stress affects the neural system and in turn the immune system. When stressed, we are more prone to depression and anxiety, and more likely to develop a host of bodily ills including heart disease, obesity, drug addiction, liability to infection and rapid ageing.
Societies where incomes are relatively equal have low levels of stress and high levels of trust, so that people feel secure and see others as co-operative. In unequal societies, by contrast, the rich suffer from fear of the poor, while those lower down the social order experience status anxiety, looking upon those who are more successful with bitterness and upon themselves with shame. In the 1980s and 1990s, when inequality was rapidly rising in Britain and America, the rich bought homesecurity systems, and started to drive 4x4s with names such as Defender and Crossfire, reflecting a need to intimidate attackers. Meanwhile the poor grew obese on comfort foods and took more legal and illegal drugs. In 2005, doctors in England alone wrote 29m prescriptions for antidepressants, costing the NHS £400m.
////////////////////Eczema's link to asthma uncovered
Eczema causes red itchy patches on the skin
Scientists believe they have found what triggers many children with eczema to go on to develop asthma.
The Public Library of Science Biology study points to a way to stop what is known as the "atopic march".
The US team at the Washington University School of Medicine showed that a substance made by the damaged skin triggered asthma symptoms in mice.
The same substance, thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), is also produced in the lungs of asthma patients.
//////////////////..........Why Accountants are Dull and Guitarists are Glamorous - The End of Intellectual Property
Adrian Bowyer
"Intellectual property is dead." Eric von Hippel, Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, in his keynote address to the World Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization, MIT, October 2007.
Go up to a stranger in the street and ask them to give you the keys to their car, and you will receive an abrupt and unhelpful reply. Go up to a stranger in the street and ask them to give you their most interesting idea, and fifteen minutes later you will be glancing at your watch and inventing fictitious dentist's appointments.
This prompts a profound biological question: if information is such valuable property, what is the Darwinian selective advantage in the ubiquitous impulse to give it away?
The answer was worked out a few years ago by the evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. He realised that the human mind did not just evolve as a problem-solving device, it also evolved by sexual selection - like the peacock's tail - to waste resources in a way that cannot be faked. Peahens admire peacocks with fancy tails, because those peacocks are strong enough to waste the resources needed to grow the tail and to drag it about. That peacock has good genes for strength, growth, and endurance, and so is worth mating with.
//////////////////////
Societies where incomes are relatively equal have low levels of stress and high levels of trust, so that people feel secure and see others as co-operative. In unequal societies, by contrast, the rich suffer from fear of the poor, while those lower down the social order experience status anxiety, looking upon those who are more successful with bitterness and upon themselves with shame. In the 1980s and 1990s, when inequality was rapidly rising in Britain and America, the rich bought homesecurity systems, and started to drive 4x4s with names such as Defender and Crossfire, reflecting a need to intimidate attackers. Meanwhile the poor grew obese on comfort foods and took more legal and illegal drugs. In 2005, doctors in England alone wrote 29m prescriptions for antidepressants, costing the NHS £400m.
////////////////////Eczema's link to asthma uncovered
Eczema causes red itchy patches on the skin
Scientists believe they have found what triggers many children with eczema to go on to develop asthma.
The Public Library of Science Biology study points to a way to stop what is known as the "atopic march".
The US team at the Washington University School of Medicine showed that a substance made by the damaged skin triggered asthma symptoms in mice.
The same substance, thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), is also produced in the lungs of asthma patients.
//////////////////..........Why Accountants are Dull and Guitarists are Glamorous - The End of Intellectual Property
Adrian Bowyer
"Intellectual property is dead." Eric von Hippel, Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, in his keynote address to the World Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization, MIT, October 2007.
Go up to a stranger in the street and ask them to give you the keys to their car, and you will receive an abrupt and unhelpful reply. Go up to a stranger in the street and ask them to give you their most interesting idea, and fifteen minutes later you will be glancing at your watch and inventing fictitious dentist's appointments.
This prompts a profound biological question: if information is such valuable property, what is the Darwinian selective advantage in the ubiquitous impulse to give it away?
The answer was worked out a few years ago by the evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. He realised that the human mind did not just evolve as a problem-solving device, it also evolved by sexual selection - like the peacock's tail - to waste resources in a way that cannot be faked. Peahens admire peacocks with fancy tails, because those peacocks are strong enough to waste the resources needed to grow the tail and to drag it about. That peacock has good genes for strength, growth, and endurance, and so is worth mating with.
//////////////////////
HMN ORIGINS
Eden? Maybe. But Where’s the Apple Tree?
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By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: April 30, 2009
Locations for the Garden of Eden have been offered many times before, but seldom in the somewhat inhospitable borderland where Angola and Namibia meet.
Multimedia
Map
Tracing Early Migration
RSS Feed
Get Science News From The New York Times »
A new genetic survey of people in Africa, the largest of its kind, suggests, however, that the region in southwest Africa seems, on the present evidence, to be the origin of modern humans. The authors have also identified some 14 ancestral populations.
The new data goes far toward equalizing the genetic picture of the world, given that most genetic information has come from European and Asian populations. But because it comes from Africa, the continent on which the human lineage evolved, it also sheds light on the origins of human life.
“I think this is an enormously impressive piece of work,” said Alison Brooks, a specialist on African anthropology at George Washington University.
The origin of a species is generally taken to be the place where its individuals show the greatest genetic diversity. For humans, when the new African data is combined with DNA information from the rest of the world, this spot lies on the coast of southwest Africa near the Kalahari Desert, the research team, led by Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, said in this week’s issue of Science.
Dr. Brooks, who spent many years in the area, said that it had some trees but that it also had deep sand and was not particularly garden-like. The area is a homeland of the Bushmen or San people, whose language is distinguished by its many click sounds.
But the San in the past might not have been restricted to where they are now, she said. The San are thought to have once occupied a much larger area, one that probably stretched from southern Africa up the east coast to as far as present-day Ethiopia.
Since the geneticists’ calculations refer to people, not geography, the San — and therefore the site of greatest human diversity — might have been located elsewhere in the past.
Christopher Ehret, an expert on African languages at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a member of Dr. Tishkoff’s team, has detected traces of words borrowed from click languages in East African languages. This suggests that proto-Khoisan, the inferred ancestral language of all click-speakers, may have originated in East Africa, Dr. Brooks said.
The language of the first modern humans may have undergone a very early branching, Dr. Ehret said, with the Khoisan click languages on one branch and the other three language groups of Africa — Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian and Afroasiatic — on the other branch. Clicks are difficult to pronounce fluently and with a single exception no click languages are known outside Africa.
Another finding of the Tishkoff-Ehret team is that African languages tend to be highly correlated with the genetics of their speakers, a finding that helps indicate cases of language replacement. The various Pygmy groups in Africa, the team has found, show distant genetic relationships to the San and other click-speakers, suggesting the pygmies, too, once spoke Khoisan languages but have now adopted those of their neighbors.
Another instance of a mismatch between language and genetics concerns the Luo, an ethnic group in Kenya to which President Obama’s father belonged. The Luo speak a Nilo-Saharan language and are thought of as a people of Sudanese origin, but genetically they have a heavy mixture of Bantu speakers’ genes, Dr. Tishkoff said.
Dr. Tishkoff’s team has also calculated the exit point from which a small human group — maybe a single tribal band of 150 people — left Africa some 50,000 years ago and populated the rest of the world. The region is near the midpoint of the African coast of the Red Sea.
Dr. Tishkoff and her colleagues found that the 14 ancestral African populations they detected are now highly mixed, with the exception of the Bantu speakers.
////////////////May 1, 2009 6:51 PM
Garden of Eden: The Origin Of Modern Humans
by prancingpapio
A new genetic survey by Dr. Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania and her team has found that modern humans originated in an area between Namibia and Angola, on the coast of southwest Africa. Read the New York Times Article: Eden? Maybe. But Where’s the Apple Tree?
However, this harsh and inhospitable area is nothing Eden-like, they said. The origin of a species, like modern humans, is generally pinpointed to a place where its individuals show the highest genetic diversity. After comparing genetic data from populations around the world, the researchers pinpointed the population with the highest genetic diversity – somewhere on the coast of southwest Africa near the Kalahari Desert. The Bushmen or San people currently call this area their home.
The researchers have also calculated the exit point of modern humans that left Africa about 50,000 years ago. The exit point lies in an area of the African coast of the Red Sea. If the “Out Of Africa” theory holds true, this tribal group of about 150 people that left Africa at that exit point displaced other archaic Homo sapiens populations from different continents, giving rise to the current modern human populations.
//////////////SPTAPADI-RELIGN IS CAUSE OF CONFLICT
//////////////Why having girls makes fathers more leftwing
It's no secret that daughters have a special relationship with their dads. But their influence may be even more profound. Two new studies suggest that daughters - who are more likely to favour higher taxes and public spending - cause fathers to become more compassionate and move to the left
Buzz up!
Digg it
Amelia Hill
The Observer, Sunday 24 May 2009
Article history
Colin Brazier with wife Jo, expecting their first son, and five daughters. Photograph: Russell Sach/Rex Features
Long before he had a tribe of children to call his own, Brad Pitt broke down in tears on primetime television when talking about how much he wanted to have a daughter. "Little girls, they just crush me - they break my heart," he said.
Now with three daughters - and three sons - Pitt has more than achieved his dream. He will also have had ample opportunity to experience the powerful influence that little girls have on their fathers: the most masculine man will learn to love pink, take part in endless games of dressing up, and even bake fairy cakes if that's what his little princess desires.
According to new research, however, daughters have an even more profound effect on their daddies: fathers, say Professor Andrew Oswald, from Warwick University, and Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee, of York University, will shift their political allegiance for their daughters. Using research from the British Household Panel Survey, the two economists found that the more daughters there are in a household, the more likely their father is to vote Labour or Liberal Democrat.
//////////////////ALSO ANGL-IND BVCHAR
/////////////////////
SIGN IN TO RECOMMEND
SIGN IN TO E-MAIL
REPRINTS
SHARE
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: April 30, 2009
Locations for the Garden of Eden have been offered many times before, but seldom in the somewhat inhospitable borderland where Angola and Namibia meet.
Multimedia
Map
Tracing Early Migration
RSS Feed
Get Science News From The New York Times »
A new genetic survey of people in Africa, the largest of its kind, suggests, however, that the region in southwest Africa seems, on the present evidence, to be the origin of modern humans. The authors have also identified some 14 ancestral populations.
The new data goes far toward equalizing the genetic picture of the world, given that most genetic information has come from European and Asian populations. But because it comes from Africa, the continent on which the human lineage evolved, it also sheds light on the origins of human life.
“I think this is an enormously impressive piece of work,” said Alison Brooks, a specialist on African anthropology at George Washington University.
The origin of a species is generally taken to be the place where its individuals show the greatest genetic diversity. For humans, when the new African data is combined with DNA information from the rest of the world, this spot lies on the coast of southwest Africa near the Kalahari Desert, the research team, led by Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, said in this week’s issue of Science.
Dr. Brooks, who spent many years in the area, said that it had some trees but that it also had deep sand and was not particularly garden-like. The area is a homeland of the Bushmen or San people, whose language is distinguished by its many click sounds.
But the San in the past might not have been restricted to where they are now, she said. The San are thought to have once occupied a much larger area, one that probably stretched from southern Africa up the east coast to as far as present-day Ethiopia.
Since the geneticists’ calculations refer to people, not geography, the San — and therefore the site of greatest human diversity — might have been located elsewhere in the past.
Christopher Ehret, an expert on African languages at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a member of Dr. Tishkoff’s team, has detected traces of words borrowed from click languages in East African languages. This suggests that proto-Khoisan, the inferred ancestral language of all click-speakers, may have originated in East Africa, Dr. Brooks said.
The language of the first modern humans may have undergone a very early branching, Dr. Ehret said, with the Khoisan click languages on one branch and the other three language groups of Africa — Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian and Afroasiatic — on the other branch. Clicks are difficult to pronounce fluently and with a single exception no click languages are known outside Africa.
Another finding of the Tishkoff-Ehret team is that African languages tend to be highly correlated with the genetics of their speakers, a finding that helps indicate cases of language replacement. The various Pygmy groups in Africa, the team has found, show distant genetic relationships to the San and other click-speakers, suggesting the pygmies, too, once spoke Khoisan languages but have now adopted those of their neighbors.
Another instance of a mismatch between language and genetics concerns the Luo, an ethnic group in Kenya to which President Obama’s father belonged. The Luo speak a Nilo-Saharan language and are thought of as a people of Sudanese origin, but genetically they have a heavy mixture of Bantu speakers’ genes, Dr. Tishkoff said.
Dr. Tishkoff’s team has also calculated the exit point from which a small human group — maybe a single tribal band of 150 people — left Africa some 50,000 years ago and populated the rest of the world. The region is near the midpoint of the African coast of the Red Sea.
Dr. Tishkoff and her colleagues found that the 14 ancestral African populations they detected are now highly mixed, with the exception of the Bantu speakers.
////////////////May 1, 2009 6:51 PM
Garden of Eden: The Origin Of Modern Humans
by prancingpapio
A new genetic survey by Dr. Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania and her team has found that modern humans originated in an area between Namibia and Angola, on the coast of southwest Africa. Read the New York Times Article: Eden? Maybe. But Where’s the Apple Tree?
However, this harsh and inhospitable area is nothing Eden-like, they said. The origin of a species, like modern humans, is generally pinpointed to a place where its individuals show the highest genetic diversity. After comparing genetic data from populations around the world, the researchers pinpointed the population with the highest genetic diversity – somewhere on the coast of southwest Africa near the Kalahari Desert. The Bushmen or San people currently call this area their home.
The researchers have also calculated the exit point of modern humans that left Africa about 50,000 years ago. The exit point lies in an area of the African coast of the Red Sea. If the “Out Of Africa” theory holds true, this tribal group of about 150 people that left Africa at that exit point displaced other archaic Homo sapiens populations from different continents, giving rise to the current modern human populations.
//////////////SPTAPADI-RELIGN IS CAUSE OF CONFLICT
//////////////Why having girls makes fathers more leftwing
It's no secret that daughters have a special relationship with their dads. But their influence may be even more profound. Two new studies suggest that daughters - who are more likely to favour higher taxes and public spending - cause fathers to become more compassionate and move to the left
Buzz up!
Digg it
Amelia Hill
The Observer, Sunday 24 May 2009
Article history
Colin Brazier with wife Jo, expecting their first son, and five daughters. Photograph: Russell Sach/Rex Features
Long before he had a tribe of children to call his own, Brad Pitt broke down in tears on primetime television when talking about how much he wanted to have a daughter. "Little girls, they just crush me - they break my heart," he said.
Now with three daughters - and three sons - Pitt has more than achieved his dream. He will also have had ample opportunity to experience the powerful influence that little girls have on their fathers: the most masculine man will learn to love pink, take part in endless games of dressing up, and even bake fairy cakes if that's what his little princess desires.
According to new research, however, daughters have an even more profound effect on their daddies: fathers, say Professor Andrew Oswald, from Warwick University, and Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee, of York University, will shift their political allegiance for their daughters. Using research from the British Household Panel Survey, the two economists found that the more daughters there are in a household, the more likely their father is to vote Labour or Liberal Democrat.
//////////////////ALSO ANGL-IND BVCHAR
/////////////////////
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