In the last 100 years, human civilization has rocketed through the Industrial Age, past the Information Age, and into the unknown digital mystery of the future. We now live in a constant state of change. Everyday computers get faster, smaller, and cheaper. Everyday we wake up and the Earth is a little bit warmer. The only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain. An emerging leader's development opportunity... http://www.nextvoice247.com/blog/2009/11/only-thing-certain-is-nothings-certain-history-of-modern-man/In the last 100 years, human civilization has rocketed through the Industrial Age,... more
They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who made them -- or why? Until just recently, no one even knew how many there were. Now they are everywhere -- thousands -- no, hundreds of thousands of them! And the story they tell is the most important story of humanity. But it's one we might not be prepared to hear.
Something amazing has been discovered in an area of South Africa, about 150 miles inland, west of the port of Maputo. It is the remains of a huge metropolis that measures, in conservative estimates, about 1500 square miles. It's part of an even larger community that is about 10,000 square miles and appears to have been constructed -- are you ready -- from 160,000 to 200,000 BCE!
(more at link)They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who... more
Some of the facts below are trivial, some are ancient history, and some of them may very well save your life one day. So read up, and enjoy this wild and whacky anatomical analysis.
Referring to the 1st edition of Woofers in 2006:
"This delightfully whimsical book from photographer Paul Treacy highlights our fascination and deep love for dogs. This fine collection of color and black and white images expertly captures their amusing canine antics and heartwarming, expressive faces as they accompany their human counterparts in their daily lives in cities and towns around the world. Woofers will bring a smile to your face."
Shutterbug Magazine
December 2006Referring to the 1st edition of Woofers in 2006:
"This delightfully whimsical book... more
LONDON (Reuters) - Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.
Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.
Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.
These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male."
McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.
"If you're reading this then you -- or the male you have bought it for -- are the worst man in history.
"No ifs, no buts -- the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet."LONDON (Reuters) - Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100... more
Among the many surprises associated with the discovery of the oldest known, nearly complete skeleton of a hominid is the finding that this species took its first steps toward bipedalism not on the open, grassy savanna, as generations of scientists – going back to Charles Darwin – hypothesized, but in a wooded landscape.
“This species was not a savanna species like Darwin proposed,” said University of Illinois anthropology professor Stanley Ambrose, a co-author of two of 11 studies published this week in Science on the hominid, Ardipithecus ramidus. This creature, believed to be an early ancestor of the human lineage, lived in Ethiopia some 4.4 million years ago.
One of the crucial pieces of evidence to show that Darwin didn’t get it right, Ambrose said, was the analysis of carbon isotopes in the soil and in the teeth of Ardipithecus and other animals that lived at roughly the same time and in the same location.
The mass of carbon atoms in the atmosphere varies, and during photosynthesis, trees and tropical grasses absorb different proportions of carbon-12, the most common carbon isotope, and carbon-13, which is rare. These isotopes pass into the soil and into the bodies of animals that eat the plants, making it possible to accurately reconstruct the proportions of grass to trees on the landscape and in the diets of the animals that lived there.
Ambrose analyzed stable carbon isotope ratios in the soil in which the bones of 36 Ardipithecus individuals were found. He also analyzed the teeth of five Ardipithecus individuals and 172 teeth of two-dozen mammal species found in the same ancient soil layer.
The fossil-bearing layer, in the Afar Rift region of northeastern Ethiopia, spans a broad arc about 9 kilometers long. Sandwiched between two layers of volcanic ash that both date to about the same age, it provides a well-focused snapshot of an ancient African ecosystem.
The carbon isotope ratios of the soils indicated that in the time of Ardipithecus the landscape varied from woodland in the western part of the study zone to wooded grassland in the east. None of the Ardipithecus specimens were found in the grassy eastern part of the arc.
“Fossils of many species are common all the way across the landscape,” Ambrose said. “But this species is missing in action from the east side of the distribution.”
Isotopic analysis of teeth found on the site gave a more complete picture of the habitat of the animals that lived and died there, Ambrose said.
“The distribution of plant carbon isotope ratios conveniently separates out grasslands from forests,” he said. “And it also separates out grazing animals, like zebras, from browsing animals that eat the leaves off of trees, like giraffes.”
The distribution of the fossil browsers and grazers echoed that of the habitat, he said.
“On the west we find lots of Ardipithecus fossils and they’re associated with a lot of woodland and forest animals,” he said. “And then there’s a break; Ardipithecus and most of the monkeys that live in trees disappear, and grass-eating animals become more abundant.”
The carbon isotope ratios of the Ardipithecus teeth also tell the story of a woodland creature, he said.
“The diet of the Ardipithecus is much more on the woodland and forest side,” he said. “It’s got a little bit more of the grassland ecosystem carbon in its diet than that of a chimpanzee but much less than its fully bipedal savanna-dwelling descendents, the australopithecines.”
This evidence, along with the anatomical studies indicating that Ardipithecus could walk upright but also grasped tree limbs with its feet, suggests that this early hominid took its first steps on two legs in the forest long before it ventured very far into the open grassland, Ambrose said.
“Multiple lines of evidence now suggest that they were beginning to leave the trees before they left the forest,” he said.Among the many surprises associated with the discovery of the oldest known, nearly... more
Are humans hard-wired to be ruthlessly competitive or supportive of one another?
The behavior of our ape relatives, known as peaceful vegetarians, once bolstered the view that our actions could not be traced to an impulse to dominate. But in the late 1970s, when chimpanzees were discovered to hunt monkeys and kill each other, they became the poster boys for our violent origins and aggressive instinct.
I use the term "boys" on purpose because the theory was all about males without much attention to the females of the species, who just tagged along evolutionarily. It was hard to escape the notion that we are essentially "killer apes" destined to wage war forever.
Doubts about this macho origin myth have been on the rise, however, culminating in the announcement this past week of the discovery of a fossil of a 4.4 million year old ancestor that may have been gentler than previously thought. Considered close to the last common ancestor of apes and humans, this ancestral type, named Ardipithecus ramidus (or "Ardi"), had a less protruding mouth equipped with considerably smaller, blunter canine teeth than the chimpanzee's impressive fangs. This ape's canines serve as deadly knives, capable of slashing open an enemy's face and skin, causing either a quick death through blood loss or a slow one through festering infections. Wild chimps have been observed to use this weaponry to lethal effect in territorial combat. But the aggressiveness of chimpanzees obviously loses some of its significance if our ancestors were built quite differently. What if chimps are outliers in an otherwise relatively peaceful lineage?
Consider our other close relatives: gorillas and bonobos. Gorillas are known as gentle giants with a close-knit family life: they rarely kill. Even more striking is the bonobo, which is just as genetically close to us as the chimp. No bonobo has ever been observed to eliminate its own kind, neither in the wild nor in captivity. This slightly built, elegant ape seems to enjoy love and peace to a degree that would put any Woodstock veteran to shame. Bonobos have sometimes been presented as a delightful yet irrelevant side branch of our family tree, but what if they are more representative of our primate background than the blustering chimpanzee?
The assumption that we are born killers has been challenged from an entirely different angle by paleontologists asserting that the evidence for warfare does not go back much further than the agricultural revolution, about 15,000 years ago. No evidence for large-scale conflict, such as mass graves with embedded weapons, have been found from before this time. Even the walls of Jericho—considered one of the first signs of warfare and famous for having come tumbling down in the Old Testament—may have served mainly as protection against mudflows. There are even suggestions that before this time, about 70,000 years ago, our lineage was at the edge of extinction, living in scattered small bands with a global population of just a couple of thousand. These are hardly the sort of conditions that promote continuous warfare.Are humans hard-wired to be ruthlessly competitive or supportive of one another?... more
Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.
The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi." (See pictures of Ardipithecus ramidus.)
The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.
Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas (interactive: Ardi's key features). As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.
more at link...Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human... more
Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.
Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.
The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi." (See pictures of Ardipithecus ramidus.)
The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.
Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas (interactive: Ardi's key features). As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.
Announced at joint press conferences in Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the analysis of the Ardipithecus ramidus bones will be published in a collection of papers tomorrow in a special edition of the journal Science, along with an avalanche of supporting materials published online.
"This find is far more important than Lucy," said Alan Walker, a paleontologist from Pennsylvania State University who was not part of the research. "It shows that the last common ancestor with chimps didn't look like a chimp, or a human, or some funny thing in between."Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.
Scientists today announced the... more
WASHINGTON – The story of humankind is reaching back another million years as scientists learn more about "Ardi," a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. The 110-pound, 4-foot female roamed forests a million years before the famous Lucy, long studied as the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor.
This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.
Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimp-like creature, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor — but each evolved and changed separately along the way.WASHINGTON – The story of humankind is reaching back another million years as... more
The Napo Runa tribe of the Ecuadorian amazon relies on CHICHA, a fermented beverage made from manioc root, for strength in daily activities. This documentary shows the origins, process, and uses of this mystical drink.The Napo Runa tribe of the Ecuadorian amazon relies on CHICHA, a fermented beverage... more
Women in Albania...living as men - Their number is diminishing but a good handful of elderly women, several in their late 70s still live on in northern Albania. These ladies lead typical manly lifestyles...often serving as a family's patriarch - serving up wisdom and providing guidance to family members.Women in Albania...living as men - Their number is diminishing but a good handful of... more
Archeologists unearthed 16,000 year-old mother goddess figurine during excavations in Direkli Cave in the southern province of Kahramanmaras.
Gazi University Archeology Department lecturer Cevdet Merih Erek told A.A on Monday that the excavations in Direkli Cave, 65 km away from Kahramanmaras, started on July 15.
Noting that it was the third cave excavation of Turkey, Erek said that the clay mother goddess figurine they found was 16,000 years old.
Erek said that the figurine showed that the social status of women was very important 16,000 years ago.
Erek noted that the oldest fired clay god or goddess figurines
--unearthed in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Near East-- were made in 5,000 BC. He added that experts believed that the clay was used earliest in that period, however, the goddess figurine showed that this method was older than thought.Archeologists unearthed 16,000 year-old mother goddess figurine during excavations in... more
Ancient, 8,000-year-old shoes found in a Missouri cave show that fashion in footwear is nothing new and, in fact, is much older than anyone thought. Scientists said that high-tech dating procedures indicate that the shoes are at least 2,000 years older than previously believed.
The shoes were found 40 years ago in the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri, but, due to the mixing of deposits around the shoes at the dig site, researchers were unable to assign an age to them.
Michael O’Brien of the University of Missouri and colleagues at Louisiana State University used an accelerator mass spectrometer to carbon-date the shoes. It dated the oldest shoes at up to 8,300 years old, the researchers reported in a study published in the journal Science.
“I was surprised,” O’Brien said. “I would have guessed 3,000 but not 8,000. I thought it was so outrageous that I took a second sample.”
Most of the shoes were made with fibrous plants that could be woven into a tough fabric used for the top, bottom and sides of the footwear. O’Brien said the most common material was from a yucca-like plant called rattlesnake master. The leaves were dried and shaped into cording that was woven like modern-day espadrilles.
Both sandal and slip-on styles were found There were also comfort innovations. The moccasins were cushioned with grass that functioned “like a Dr. Scholl’s foot pad,” said O’Brien.
“There’s nothing new under the sun,” he said. “Some of these shoes you would swear were made in a Mexican market.”
The shoes were also very durable, he said. Of 35 samples recovered, 20 were complete or nearly complete. Even though the shoes spanned thousands of years, O’Brien said the basic craftsmanship was about the same.
“They did not invent something flimsy that then got better over time,” said O’Brien. “The earliest shoe is every bit as well-made and as complex as those from later on.”
‘They wore the heck out of these things’
O’Brien said the variety of styles and differences in details suggests that there may have been concessions to style or fashion. “There was no ornamentation or color that we know about, but my guess is that these shoes were very stylish for the time,” he said. “We know that people then were wearing jewelry,” and that it was likely that such artistic interest carried over into the footgear.
Only the moccasins were made of leather, and O’Brien said it is likely that the cave dwellers did not use leather for shoes much earlier than that. The style and construction of the Missouri shoes are similar to specimens unearthed from a nearby site in the Ozark Mountains but are different from shoes found in caves in Kentucky. They are also very different from shoes constructed by the Anasazi people who inhabited Southwest deserts.
Footwear got hard use among the prehistoric Americans. They had to walk most places since there were no horses. They had to hunt or gather all of their food and to haul water back to the cave — all jobs that took much walking. “Many of the shoes wore down exactly the way that our shoes do — the ball of the foot and the heel,” said O’Brien. “In some instances there were repairs where they wove fiber back into them. Other shoes were just tossed, but they wore the heck out of these things.”
"A woman’s 8 1/2 foot size," he said, appears to be much like that of modern humans. There is no way to tell if wearers of the ancient shoes were male or female, but the average length was about 10 1/2 inches — about an 8 1/2 in modern American women’s sizes.
“That suggests that these people fell within the size range of people today,” he said. The cave, which is in a bluff not far from the Missouri River, was a spectacular home by the standards of the time.
“It was really perfect,” said O’Brien. “A great place to live.” O’Brien said that people lived there for hundreds of generations, leaving layer after layer of debris: bone and stone tools, animal bones, char from campfires and even some human remains.Ancient, 8,000-year-old shoes found in a Missouri cave show that fashion in footwear... more
Older and less understood than other Arab cultures in South Paterson, the Syrians have an ancient story to tell. And much like the Road to Damascus there is an "ah hah" pay off at the end. It is Bible-speak… Read full post »Older and less understood than other Arab cultures in South Paterson, the Syrians have... more
I was really interested in this video because it talks about what Youtube is to many different types of people. This is being presented by a Kansas State University professor by the name of Mike Wesch
ENJOY!!!!!I was really interested in this video because it talks about what Youtube is to many... more
Young environmentalists might think that the "old school green" means hippies from the 1960s, but that's actually quite young compared to what the Mayans were doing 3,000 years ago. A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science concludes that the ancient Mayans not only practiced effective forest management and conservation, but also that when they abandoned that practice, it was detrimental to their entire civilization (those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it).
When They Stopped Good Forest Management, Things Went South
The the researchers discovered prohibited people from cutting trees in certain areas until the Late Classic period when Jasaw Chan K’awiil beat the Tikal Maya. The reconstruction of the city of Tikal required a lot of resources, and so the new rulers decided to tap into the off limit forests to find the tall straight trees they needed.
The stands of virgin timber were more than 200 years old in some areas. After building a few of the temples, the Maya ran out of timber from the Manilkara zapota (sapodilla) tree, so they switched to an inferior tree —Haematoxylon campechianum, logwood or inkwood — which is found in swamps.
When you clear all the forests, it changes the hydrologic cycle. The world is like a flat surface with all the trees acting as sponges on it. The trees absorb the water. Without the trees, there is no buffer to stop the water from runoff. That causes soil erosion, which then chokes the rivers and streams. With no trees, you lose water retention in the soil or aquifers so the ground dries up and then there is less transpiration, so therefore less rainfall as well.
Forests provide many benefits to society. The Maya forests provided timber, fuel, food, fiber and medicine in addition to the ecosystem services of cleansing the air and water. Just as forests provided essential resources for the ancient Maya, the same is true for our civilization today.
The Mayans might not have been doing forest conservation for the same reasons, but the result was the same. When they destabilized the ecosystems on which they relied, bad things started to happen.
I certainly hope we've learned a few things since then... After all, Earth is just a big Easter Island.Young environmentalists might think that the "old school green" means hippies from the... more
What makes a man a man? Socially, that is a complicated question. Genetically, however, it is as simple as a single Y chromosome. But guys, that chromosome is in trouble.
In a new study, researchers say there is a dramatic loss of genes from the human Y chromosome that eventually could lead to its complete disappearance -- in the next few millennia. While the Y chromosome's degeneration has been known to geneticists and evolutionary biologists for decades, the study sheds new light on some of the evolutionary processes that may have contributed to its demise and posits that, as the degeneration continues, the Y chromosome could disappear from our genetic repertoire entirely.
"It's certainly possible, but it's difficult to predict when it will happen," said Kateryna Makova, an associate professor of biology at Penn State University, who led the study, which was published Thursday in the journal PLoS Genetics.
Although geneticists and evolutionary biologists agree that the Y chromosome is degenerating -- and far more rapidly than its X counterpart -- they reject the idea of a world far in the future where men are obsolete.What makes a man a man? Socially, that is a complicated question. Genetically,... more
The Dallas City Council thinks it has a strategy for ending homelessness in the city, and it's fabulously uncomplicated: housing for the homeless. Not shelters, but actual apartments. Next American City reports:
According to the U.S. Inter-agency Council on Homelessness, it costs more to maintain someone in homelessness than to offer permanent shelter. The group's study of 65 cities found that support services like hospitals, courts and police intervention cost between $35,000 and $150,000 per person per year. Providing housing runs between $13,000 and $25,000.
So Dallas has approved "a multimillion-dollar plan to provide 700 housing units over five years as permanent shelters throughout the city for the homelessness." The price tag for the plan could be as high as $18 million.
A recent study focusing solely on medical care for the homeless found hospitals that reach out to help homeless people before they pass through emergency room doors can save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
There's a pattern here. All roads lead to giving a damn.The Dallas City Council thinks it has a strategy for ending homelessness in the city,... more
Her work has brought her death threats. Rugiatu Turay, 32, helps girls avoid the cruel and internationally condemned ritual of female genital mutilation (FGM).
Speaking about the millennia-old practice, which affects 8,000 girls worldwide daily, is taboo in Turay's homeland Sierra Leone, as it is in many other African countries.
But she refused to remain silent. In 2003, Turay founded the Amazonian Initiative Movement (AIM), a women's rights group that fights FGM.
'It's my heart's desire to spare girls the brutal genital mutilation that I myself experienced,' she said.
Turay was 12 years old when she fell victim to female circumcision, a procedure in which the clitoris and labia are removed with knives and razor blades. It happened 10 days after the death of her mother, when Turay was taken to a secluded place along with her sisters and female cousins.
'We were glad. We didn't know what awaited us. We thought it was an outing,' she emotionally recalled in the Hamburg office of the children's rights organization Plan International, which backs AIM.
'It was horrible,' she said. 'My sister lay screaming on the ground. I was blindfolded. I resisted with all my strength because my mother had told me that no one should touch me there.'
Turay lost so much blood that she was unable to walk for seven days. She was not taken to hospital and nearly died.
'I fled to my father and showed him my wounds,' she said. Her father could not help her, however.
'It's almost impossible to talk about it. They want you to be afraid. But I have no fear,' Turay said. By 'they' she meant the men of Poro, a powerful secret society in Sierra Leone. The Poro men tried to intimidate Turay by laying supposedly magic objects in front of her house.
But she went to the police and asked the Poro chief, 'What would you do if someone wants to kill your child?'
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), there are 150 million girls and women worldwide whose genitals have been mutilated. Most of them are in African and Arab countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Sudan, Somalia and Sierra Leone.
Meant to prepare girls for marriage and motherhood, female circumcision is often associated with Islam. Neither the Koran nor the Bible mention it, however. But girls who have not been circumcised are considered 'unclean.'
The circumcisers, who are female, are highly respected and well paid. AIM does not try to publicly shame them, but to persuade them that circumcisions are a bad idea.
'We educate them about the consequences of genital mutilation and suggest alternative sources of income,' Turay said, adding that she had converted the Poro chief by showing him a video of FGM.
Through Plan International, AIM also offers school seminars informing children of their human rights. Though an increasing number of girls are aware of the dreadful consequences of FGM, many are unable to overcome the power of the authorities and the circumcisers, as well as pressure from their families, and so have no choice but to flee.
'Since 2005, we've had a least three girls a year who ran away from genital mutilation,' Turay said. They found shelter at an AIM centre in the African nation of Guinea, and two of the girls live in Turay's house in Lunsar, her home village.
'With the help of donations, we want to establish a women's refuge there, too,' she said.Her work has brought her death threats. Rugiatu Turay, 32, helps girls avoid the cruel... more
