////////////////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. ...
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