Tomb dig findings shrouded in mystery

If I ever get to China, by slow boat or otherwise, one place I would definitely visit is Loulan and its environs. Several years ago, a few well preserved mummies were found in and around this region, spanning in age several thousand years.

These mummies were all Caucasian, showing no trace of being indigenous to the land in which they had been laid to rest. As there are no written records of this time and place, it is still a mystery as to how and why native Europeans had travelled and settled so far from their homelands.

In the linked article there is no indication of where these newly discovered mummies originated, but as 170 of the 330 graves appear to be intact, there is a good chance that a wealth of valuable data can be gathered and interpreted.

The boat-shaped wooden coffins sound intriguing, especially as the Vikings used a similar configuration for some of their burials. For the time being however, researchers are still trying to work out the full implications of this dusty and ancient graveyard, which appears to have existed in complete isolation from everyday human life.

The absent traces of human life at megalithic sites like Stonehenge, is probably because all objects and items of normal daily life were prohibited from being brought onto these sanctified sites. It is also thought that only designated priests or other high ranking members of those communities were allowed access, while the uninitiated majority would be completely barred at all times.

So anyway, a book called "The Mummies of Urumchi" provides some excellent insight into the question of exactly who was populating that region of China many thousands of years ago, as well as investigating the tartan-looking and twill fabrics that adorned some of the dead.

Scientists Study Anasazi Calendar

I think if I wrote for a living, or merely for the fun of it, I'd tend to highlight the more interesting parts of the story, and even include pictures to illustrate where appropriate.

Which ostensibly is the case in the linked article, until the reader gets to the following line:

"The face of a bear transforms into a human as the sun moves over a crevice."

Call me old-fashioned, stick-in-the-mud even, but compared to at least one of the photos in the article, i.e. the one that appears right next to the quoted text, (showing nothing more than washed out looking rocks crumbling under a dull matt sky), the image of a bear's face turning human as the sun moves across it, sounds like an outstanding picture opportunity.

But luckily the people at the Smithsonian know better, so the crap picture of rocks in the distance is what we get.

Bad news - we are way past our 'extinct by' date

This is an additional posting to the previous article referring to an extinction cycle that dictates a major event horizon on Earth every 62 million years.

Although the dinosaurs were effectively finished off by the putative asteroid strike of 65 million years bp, as a species they had been in steady decline for the previous 10 million years.

We have been in an extinction event of our own for at least the last 2 million years, the last major pulse of which occurred in the Americas 12,000 years ago, when a huge range of mega fauna suddenly disappeared, giving rise to the term "Pleistocene Overkill'. Although the influences of man and climate have both been cited as possible causes of this mass die-off, we still have no clear idea of what really happened.

But the most interesting part of this article is the following quote from Professor Richard Muller...

"Alternatively, the Sun may possess an undiscovered companion star. It could approach the Sun every 62m years, dislodging comets from the outer solar system and propelling them towards Earth. Such a companion star has never been observed, however, and in any case such a lengthy orbit would be unstable,..."

If you asked someone at NASA if our sun had a companion star they would laugh you out of the building, or maybe have you arrested, who knows. In any event, it would appear that humanity needs to address the question of what we need to do to save ourselves from extinction, and whether that need would best be met by setting up human colonies across space as a matter of some urgency.

What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?

This is The Edge Annual Question for 2005, received 120 contributions, totalling 60,000 words, and as soon as I've read it, I'll get back to you, along with some unproven ideas of my own.

Let's colonize space for fun, noted physicist says

Freeman Dyson sports one of the most remarkable noses I've ever had occasion to study on my TV. There was a documentary, 'By Rocket to Mars' I think, featuring his work on a nuclear powered space ship capable of putting humans on Mars - he did much of this work over 50 years ago, and it's an absolute scandal that we are not there or on the Moon right now.

The only way to save the human race, from extinction events, disasters and most importantly, from itself, is to split it up and disperse it over as wide an area of deep space as possible. Even then it might be necessary to segregate entire planets or solar systems from one another to prevent the outbreak of whatever wars we dream up in the future.

By exploring the wider universe and finding strange new worlds among the stars, we might even cure or purge ourselves of religion, especially those elements of blind ignorance and destructive intolerance that so effectively blight this world.

We might instead become more polarised, hence the need to make warring worlds inaccessible to each other, until such time as we progress to a higher state of civilisation, say a Type 1 or 2, as envisaged by Michio Kaku.

Arthur C. Clarke opined that one day, it would be possible for humans to look up into the night sky, and not be able to point in the direction of Earth, their ancestral planet - I disagree, believing that future humans are likely to have so many chips implanted in their brains that all such knowledge will be available as soon as the thought command is expressed. But I think his comment is profound nonetheless - there will be many humans dotted across the black trackless wastes of space who will never see this glittering blue orb-in-the-void, nor will they have met anyone who has.

Scientists Outraged over Damage to 'Hobbit' Remains

I don't know if there's an ethical or legal code in palaeoanthropology, but if not, one should be drawn up immediately. When important new discoveries are made, there should be no circumstance under which newly discovered fossil material should revert to the care of an individual, particularly when that person is Dr. Teuku Jacob.

I can't even bear to relate the damage done, you'll need to read the linked page for that - however, there is one good piece of news - a CT scan was performed on the remains, that had the consistency of mud when newly discovered, so at least we know what they looked like in their virgin fossil state.

And mud, or something of a similar consistency, is the apposite term with which to describe the reputation and competence of Dr Jacob, whose actions drew the following comment from Dr. Tim White, palaeontologist,

"The equivalent in the world of art would be somebody slashing the Mona Lisa and then trying to fix it with chewing gum,"

image from national geographic which shows a comparison of skull sizes between we moderns and floresiensis, whose head was roughly the size of a grapefruit.

T. rex fossil has 'soft tissues'

A semi-interesting piece that's on the newswires, but I doubt if we'll be retrieving DNA or much else - nor will we be dining on re-constituted dino-burgers, despite the rather lurid headlines in the print media, suggesting we have found real flesh from an extinct animal - for that we need to time travel back to before the time of their demise, 65 million years and counting.

Cassini Finds an Atmosphere on Saturn's Moon Enceladus

One day, we humans will have Hubble eyes, enabling us look around at our surroundings using all the spectra, singly or in combinations, allowing us to see infra red, microwave and electromagnetic fields, all in the nano-blink of a multi-faceted eye.

Until then, we will have to content ourselves with our own optic wavelengths, and allow cameras and instruments to show us the the Universe through their eyes.

Alternatively we might have to rely on artists' concepts, like the image at the top of the linked page, showing Saturn keeping an eye on Enceladus, while demonstrating an impressive array of magnetic fields.

Colour on Rhea?

Another of Saturn's moons, this time it's Rhea - click on the thumbnail to get a better image - it should be noted, especially by me, to find the TIFF versions of these images, as compressed jpegs lose a lot of definition in the translation.

image by cassini-huygens

Mimas Dreaming of Janus

Check this gif movie of Janus being occulted by Mimas, witnessed by the cameras of Cassini. It's at the top of the linked page, though I don't know for how long it will be there.

nb since posting this the link has either moved or disappeared, so until I re-discover its whereabouts, imagination will have to suffice.

Ghost story angers Malawi leader

I suppose being leader of a country requires the individual concerned to be seen to have fortitude and bravery, among numerous other attributes of the human character. Being seen as fleeing the presidential palace for fear of ghosts probably isn't helpful in maintaining the image of a man of iron resolve and unbreakable will, hence the anger of President Bingu Wa Mutharika at the breaking of this story.

"Sometimes the president feels rodents crawling all over his body but when lights are turned on he sees nothing."

I think many of us would be angry at turning on the lights and finding nothing there, but many more of us might well be as disconcerted as Mr. Mutharika.

Poor president, being forced out of his humble residence - the palace he is reportedly fleeing has a modest 300 bedrooms, costing a paltry $100m over 20 years to construct and furbish. It is squeezed into a mere 1,332 acres of land, so any ghosts in the place must place an unbearable strain on the already cramped living conditions endured by those unfortunate enough to be posted there.

He could have tried to cover himself by saying he was chasing the dead vote, but unkind souls would have accused him of being mad rather than merely a bit chicken. It's tough being a world leader, and thank goodness I will never have to experience that situation for myself.

The two Malawian reporters who broke the story were arrested, and are thankfully now out on bail - the beleagured President is thought to believe the whole story is a concocted hoax, dreamt up by opponents and rivals harbouring grudges and intent on mischief making.

"I have not met any ghosts yet, I have never in my life been afraid of them," he told journalists on his return from a trip to Belgium.

I wonder what he was up to in faraway Belgium.

A Self-replicating Factory in Every Home

Not only will we be able to replace lost or damaged articles around the house, but presumably we will be able to rebuild our homes as well, should we inadvertantly lose or destroy them. But will we be able to do the same with our own bodies and minds?

Hobbit & Goliath

Another article recalling the discovery of Homo Floresiensis in Indonesia, and a brief mention of Lee Berger's discovery in South Africa of a race of giants dating back to over a quarter of a million years . Although not specified in the article, I assume these remains belonged to a branch of the Homo erectus family.

Featured is an interview with Richard Roberts who was on the Flores expedition. The remains of the 3 ft tall humans have caused anthropolgists to re-think brain size as being related to what we term intelligence. Because they are so small, the hobbit people might not be expected to be very advanced, yet so far all the evidence points to them as being as intelligent as modern humans of the same period.

Amongst the artifacts recovered with the remains of seven individuals indicated that these people hunted pygmy Stegodon, weighing up to half a ton, no easy prey for a mini human the size of a modern day 3-year old child.

Other food items on their menu included giant rats and Komodo dragons, themselves hardly tame and docile members of the animal population, leading one to the view that the Flores humans were not easily intimidated. They likely possessed hunting skills and cooperative behaviour involving the use of language, or maybe just good telepathy, on a par with other modern and archaic humans.

The find also tells us that it is only in the last 10,000 to 18,000 years that modern humans have been the sole hominid species alive on the planet; at all other times in prehistory there have been at least two, and sometimes three or more, hominid species walking the Earth.

Saturn's Moons - Iapetus

This page from the European Space Agency, who in tandem with NASA are running the Cassini-Huygens mission, the agenda of which includes visiting and imaging Saturn and some of its 33 known moons.

Iapetus is the same Saturnine moon referred to in Richard Hoagland's recent 5-part 'Moon With A View' essay, in which he makes the ostensibly extravagant claim that Iapetus is artificial.

This page has the original images that Hoagland has used to justify his claims, along with descriptions and comment by ESA scientists. It is included as a reference point to what has been measured, imaged and released to the piublic as the official data set of this moon.

On a purely visual level, Iapetus does indeed exhibit repeated or redundant symmetry, although whether this is a trick of the light, a geological, natural feature of the moon, or whether it really is a giant 1,000 mile long space craft is impossible to tell merely by studying the few images available for analysis.

Whether artificial or not, this moon in particular is an enigma whose mysteries can only be revealed by the acquisition of more data, including the geologic and chemical make up of the moon, as well as more visual material.

This is particularly true for Mr. Hoagland, who contends that Iapetus has numerical and mathematical information encoded into its very orbit and distance from Saturn, as well as on the moon itself.

A mix of mice and men | csmonitor.com

An article that discusses how in the future, designer genomes will become a new art form - instead of having separate pets you could combine all your favourite elements into a single chimera - hamster-sized dogs being chased by barking cats will not be a feature of my household however.

North Sea crater shows its scars

No matter how obvious some things appear to be, there's always someone out there willing to defy logic to deny fact. A sizeable crater has been detected lying under the North Sea, which not unreasonably has been identified as the impact site of an asteroid that hit the area when it was a (different) shallow sea.

The estimated age of the crater is 60-65 million years ago, in the same time frame as the putative asteroid strike down Mexico way that helped to finally kill off the dinosaurs, accelerating their demise which had been in progress for the previous 10 million years.

But according to a Professor Underhill, the entire Silverpit feature is caused by migrating salt, which sounds so unlikely it just has to be untrue - but at least the venerable, and not at all opportunistic, debunking Prof. gets to see his name in the news, if only this once.

Dr. Kraterface once gave me the following advice: "Son, as they say in the duck-pond trade, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, the chances are..."

Lab fireball 'may be black hole'

One of these days the Earth will suddenly be shrunk to the size of a pea, probably in an experiment similar to the one described here. Have these people no proper work to get on with in their labs? I'm all for experimentation and discovery, but I think work of this nature should be carried out 'off-planet', and preferably outside our solar system. My concern about creating a black hole, for example, is how to turn it off, should it start growing exponentially bigger at an uncontrollable rate.

I don't know either what the consequences might be for malfunctioning time travel experiments - imagine if we all found ourselves living back in the last Ice Age, or zoomed forward to a point in time when the Earth was just about to be swallowed up by the Sun.

But of more concern right now is that Chelsea have drawn Bayern Munich in the quarter finals of the European Champions League. The first leg is at Stamford Bridge, and although I think it's preferable to play the first leg away from home, my belief is that Chelsea will prevail.

13 things that do not make sense

One thing that definitely makes little or no sense is the idea of which 'this' week we are in, according to the good offices of New Scientist. Luckily I got a copy of last week's issue, touted by them as 'this' week's issue, featuring the Bubble that Ate the Universe, which could have been much better had they dispensed with the large bubble graphic, and included more written information.

I haven't seen the 'new' current issue yet, but this link takes you to their feature of 'this' week. Worth a read, but don't expect any solutions, as that part has been left for us to determine.

Flores Island, Indonesia: Controversy Around "Hobbit" People and 840,000-Year-Old Stone Tools

Bit of a long title, with a longish and illustrated article to go with it. Included is an article reproduced from 'The Australian' followed by an interview with Dean Falk, as well as a brief mention of the very old stone tools found on the island of Flores.

Although there is no discussion of how the people who used those tools came to be on the island in the first place, I have referred to the Homo erectus sea-farers of around 800,000 years ago in previous posts.

Mars still alive, experts agree

Although it's not being shouted from the rooftops, this is a very significant story. Over here in Europe there is strong belief in extant life on Mars, while over at NASA they keep telling us that Mars is stone dead. The position from NASA is appearing to be increasingly untenable, with more and more evidence piling up on the side of the 'Mars lives' camp.

So what were you thinking?

A piece from Christian Science Monitor about a couple of projects relating to pictures of the human face. Both the 'Thought Project' and 'Stereotypes' are linked to below this post.

Once there you can mix and match different parts of different faces, as well as read what people said when stopped on the street by a photographer who asked what they had been thinking about immediately prior to being asked.

THE THOUGHT PROJECT // BY SIMON HOEGSBERG

This a link to the main story from CS Monitor

Flute Dates Origins of Music to Ice Age

This is linked to the story below, and puts the swan flute into context with other finds at the same site.

There was no lack of skill used in the construction of these instruments, and although they were made during what is termed the 'Human Revolution' of the Palaeolithic, I think flutes and other items were in use for many thousands of years beforehand.

Buffalo Museum of Science - Humans and Orangutan

There's an absolute wacastack of news out there today, and I guess getting up at shortly after 3pm this afternoon has left me lagging behind the rest of the world of news, but no matter.

In a way it's a shame I missed most of the day, as the weather was so clement - there's always a day or two around this time of year that is ten times better than all the other days for weeks, and we get lulled into thinking this is the first day of spring and thus walk around generally feeling optimistic about life for no discernible reason at all. Sure, we can feel the warm sun light up the smiles on our faces, the sky is blue and gold, the bare trees look slightly less gloomy, and even the grumpiest shopkeeper can be glimpsed blinking amiably from behind the dark recesses of their under-stocked and over-priced counters - all that in only the first 50 metres walk from home.

But within days we know there will be arctic gales blowing through our bones or typhoon strength rainstorms soaking our skin, that will unkindly remind us that we're still up in the armpit of the year, and that better days are still far away.

So, anyway. I read parts of the linked story, didn't really grasp what they were on about, but obviously that need not stop you from reading it, or indeed understanding the data provided.

What I really don't understand however is this. While we humans, or hominins or hominids have evolved over 6 - 8 million years into a myriad of maybe 20 different forms, including ardipithecus, australopitheicine and through the various Homo lines, the orang utan, chimpanzee and bonobo have undergone more or less zero evolution or change. At all. In over 6 million years.

We are told they are our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom, so how is it they have remained in evolutionary stasis while we have had barely time to catch our breath before the next version of ourselves comes barelling around the corner.
enditem.

NASA Mars Program Under Scrutiny

The cutting edge of NASA's Mars exploration plan, is to put it bluntly, less than keen.

"Nothing is finalized at this point. There have been no final decisions made, or, frankly any interim decisions made as yet."

That's direct from the mouth of the Mars Exploration Program Director, Doug McCuiston, and he should know. While many here on Earth are convinced that not only was Mars once a green planet with oceans, much like our own, there those who believe there is life up there now, albeit microbial rather than man-sized.

NASA meanwhile seems intent on wowing us with pictures of Martian rocks, and there is a feeling that the entire Mars exploratory programme is being planned over a much longer timescale than is desirable or necessary. Whether this has to do with long term budgetary considerations, or just extreme caution on their part, NASA could well find that by the time they do land on Mars, they will have to be cleared for landing by the Russians or Chinese.

Because there are so many questions that can only, or more easily, be addressed by sending a manned mission to Mars, plans should be in hand to make that happen as soon as is humanly posssible.

Neanderthals sang like sopranos

For a supposedly extinct species, the Neanderthals still make a lot of headline news. Once again, it's their voices that are being discussed, though just because they were slightly higher pitched than our own, does not necessarily mean that they ever sang.

Steven Mithen however seems to have different ideas, and his new book, due out in June, should make for fascinating reading.

He thinks Neanderthals may have communicated using a mixture of spoken word and sung word, and my initial judgement is that he may well be correct in his assertions.

One gripe about the abc.au article - Neanderthals did not die out 35,000 years ago as stated - they were around for a good 10,000 years after that, so someone either sack that sub-ed, or get them trained up with a little more basic knowledge. Very shoddy reporting indeed.

'The Singing Neanderthal: the Origin of Language, Music, Body and Mind' by Steven Mithen, coming to an ice cave near you, June 2005.

The bubble that ate the universe

Assuming the Universe is still here this Thursday, I'll buy the print issue and read this up - since I heard this theory in an episode of Millennium,(Owls and Roosters) it's been nagging away at the back of my mind - because anything that can potentially sow the seeds of our destruction, has on another side the potential to allow us to make some incredible discoveries, some that may allow the human species to transcend time, space and matter - I just hope we don't have to take all the idiots with us when we jump on board that Transhuman Express out of here.

Secret of fish oil's healthy effects revealed

'Synthetic version could one day treat range of inflammatory diseases.'

Good news to with which to start the week, especially to those who suffer from inflammatory illnesses and heart disease. Rheumatoid arthiritis and skin conditions can be dramatically ameliorated by daily consumption of fish oil, even if it means 'smelling like a mackerel'. The active ingredient, omega-3 fatty acids convert to lipids, which ease or even prevent inflammation. Taken with aspirin, this process is accelerated, and even acts to arrest the movements of immune cells, which play a major role in some diseases like AS.

Inflammatory diseases weaken gums and cause teeth to fall out, something I didn't know - having contracted just such an illness, and lost a great many teeth, this information comes as a revelation.

Although I've never taken great care of my teeth, I have been constantly surprised at the devastation wreaked upon my dental arcade, particularly over the last 10 years - and in all that time, during numerous trips to the dentist, I do not recall any mention of a connection between my inflammatory ailments and a catalogue of dental disappointments.

I'm off to my excellent dentist this morning, and I intend to relate this news. I hope further that in the future, sufferers of such illlnesses can be suitably advised, warned and treated, especially if the medication involved is a combination of fish oil and aspirin, products that are cheap and plentiful.

I know the pharmaceutical industry disapproves of such simple treatments, because they cannot market and sell something expensive of their own that is exclusively patented to them, but I think they've made enough money on all their other products to let this one through. Indeed, I'm almost surprised that this wasn't supressed, but for once, I'm not complaining.

Homo neanderthalensis

A basic Neanderthal info page, giving the bare bones of who, when and where they were. However, some of the dates given are wrong, such as the Engis child, labelled here as the first Neanderthal found, in 1929 (sic) - so caution is advised throughout.

On the plus side, there are some nice expandable thumbnails, included for you to pick and click.

image depicts Kebara 2

Oldest fossil human protein ever sequenced

Back to Shanidar in Iraq, where fossilised Neanderthal remains have had their proteins sequenced. This caught my attention for two reasons, the first being that I would have thought it very difficult to retrieve such information from material dating back so far, which I had supposed to be 60,000 years old. Human remains going back much over 30,000 years have yielded very little in the way of DNA sequences because that kind of 'soft' material is broken down in the fossilisation process.

The second point that piqued my interest was the Neanderthal material in this study dates to 75,000 years, some 15,000 years earlier than the shadowy 'Shanidar 10' are supposed to have been extant, but there is no mention of them.

I need to go and check dates and data, as well as check the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) for their version of events, so I'll be back later.

New Fossils Help Piece Together Human Origins

I missed this when it came out back in January, but worth looking at nevertheless. It concerns the discoveries made in Ethiopia of early hominids that we call Ardipithecus ramidus - which date from around 4.5 million years ago, a time of which we have very limited fossil hominid material.

What surprised me was that the fragmentary material recovered is thought to have belonged to no less than nine individuals. Whether this means they died together, or that their bodies were were taken to a specific place after they had died, is unclear.

If they had died together in the same place at the same time, we can maybe deduce that they were overtaken by some natural disaster like a lightning strike or rock fall, similar to a find of Neanderthal fossils from Shanidar Cave, Iraq. Known to me as 'The Shanidar 10', these individuals are thought to have been the victims of falling rocks, possibly the result of an earthquake, though it could just as easily have been a meteor strike.

Incidentally, it was among this group of prehistoric humans that the well known skeleton of the Neanderthal man with the withered arm and one eye was found, whom many believe was cared for and fed by his mates. His injuries were such that from an early age he would have been incapable of joining in with hunts, or indeed, a whole range of other outdoor activities.

It is apparent therefore, that this individual was valued by those around him to the extent they kept him with them for reasons other than his physical contribution to their lives. Maybe he was an expert memory man, keen astronomer or just a good baby-sitter; whatever the reason it's heartening to note that altruism was alive and well, so long ago.

I think it unlikely the ancestral humans of 4.5 million years ago were killed in a fight or battle with other members of their species. If there were two or more groups competing for scarce resources like water-holes, or better food opportunities, combat cannot entirely be ruled out. We have no evidence of social conflicts from this time, but we have no evidence that conflict did not take place either. However, a reconstruction of what the area was like at the time these creatures were alive suggests that water, food and shelter were all in abundance.

If bodies were taken to a specific place after they had died, either singularly or en masse, it could be posited that these creatures were engaging in some sort of funerary ritual, or that there was a location specifically pre-selected for the disposal of bodies, possibly to protect them from the ravages of scavengers like hyena. But this is unlikely, as this kind of behaviour in humans is not recorded until the time of the Neanderthals, again involving the Shanidar 10, a very recent 60,000- 75,000 years ago.

There is a fuller version of this excavation reported in Nature, which I shall endeavour to unearth, though that means I will probably have to take out a subscription to access the content. Maybe they will be kind enough to offer me free access to all their material, but I somehow doubt the hand of altruism belonging to that august organisation will reach out and grab me.

Mass Extinction Comes Every 62 Million Years

If extinction events really happen every 62 million years, perceptible as a distinct pattern, why are we 3 million years late? The last event at the end of the Creataceous 65 million years ago saw the end of the dinosaurs, meaning that there should have been an event horizon around the time of Lucy and the australopithecines.

This from the linked article...

With surprising and mysterious regularity, life on Earth has flourished and vanished in cycles of mass extinction every 62 million years, say two UC Berkeley scientists who discovered the pattern after a painstaking computer study of fossil records going back for more than 500 million years.

Their findings are certain to generate a renewed burst of speculation among scientists who study the history and evolution of life. Each period of abundant life and each mass extinction has itself covered at least a few million years -- and the trend of biodiversity has been rising steadily ever since the last mass extinction, when dinosaurs and millions of other life forms went extinct about 65 million years ago.

The Berkeley researchers are physicists, not biologists or geologists or paleontologists, but they have analyzed the most exhaustive compendium of fossil records that exists -- data that cover the first and last known appearances of no fewer than 36,380 separate marine genera, including millions of species that once thrived in the world's seas, later virtually disappeared, and in many cases returned.

Richard Muller and his graduate student, Robert Rohde, are publishing a report on their exhaustive study in the journal Nature today, and in interviews this week, the two men said they have been working on the surprising evidence for about four years.

"We've tried everything we can think of to find an explanation for these weird cycles of biodiversity and extinction," Muller said, "and so far, we've failed."

But the cycles are so clear that the evidence "simply jumps out of the data," said James Kirchner, a professor of earth and planetary sciences on the Berkeley campus who was not involved in the research but who has written a commentary on the report that is also appearing in Nature today.

Maybe the current extinction, held by some to have been under way for at least the last 40,000 years will unfold more slowly, and it has been noted that the dinosaurs themselves had been slowly dying off over the last 10 million years of their existence.

Mass Extinction Underway | Biodiversity Crisis | Global Species Loss

When there is nothing else left, does extinction itself become 'extinct'?

While we often discuss the possibility of creating genetically advanced humans, eradicating disease and extending the average life-span to hundreds of years, it might be as well to consider doing the same for animal species.

When everything else has become extinct, and all that reamins are we humans, in whatever advanced configuration, what will life be like without any animals around?

In all the literature and celluloid I've seen regarding ET, or aliens, I can't once recall any mention of whatever other animals or pets they might share their world with.

Are we then to suppose that alien races live in splendid isolation, their worlds inhabited only by one type of creature? Mankind today is probably the only species of Homo not to have shared the world with other species of man, Neanderthal, Florienensis and Erectus to name three of the more recent, and they're all extinct as well.

Would aliens on one planet have regional variations of language and dialect, or have their linguistics succumbed to extinction as well? Maybe spoken and regionally variable language is a uniquely human trait, so let's hope it isn't about to experience an extinction event any time soon.

Shuttle to deliver fresh supplies

Very handy machines, these shuttles. They can travel from Earth into space, hook up with the International Space Station, deliver supplies and equipment, and even bring back redundant items from the ISS. Good to know we're at least doing something to keep our part of space neat and tidy.

Two of the STS-114 crew will carry out repairs to the space station during a spacewalk, replacing a failed gyroscopic unit that will help the space station to orient itself properly.

So what I want to know is, why can't NASA do the same for the soon to be lamented Hubble Telescope. Despite having enormous sums of money at their disposal, along with some of the best trained and most capable people on the planet, NASA have decreed that Hubble must die.

In their opinion, a mission to replace parts and batteries is so risky that they dare not risk the lives of the astronauts needed to be sent there. A robotic mission is out of the question, so depriving the human race of one of the most remarkable applications ever devised.

The only money that will be spent on the Hubble from now on is the planning and execution of a series of moves that will end with the telescope being taken out of orbit and dumped in the ocean. It's difficult to imagine a more disrespectful way of decommissioning an object of such value that has provided such sterling service.

The planned replacement is the Webb telescope, which can only take images in the infra red, a pale substitute for a leviathan in the golden age of space observation.

Alarm Sounded Over Super Volcanoes

Not that I'm of a gloomy disposition, but after listening to Charles Seife talking about how the Universe is being pulled or pushed apart by dark energy, reducing it in the process to a lifeless irradiated soup, today's news from Betterhumans has prompted me to think seriously about heading off to the nearest wormhole, in the hope of finding a quieter corner of the multiverse.

What with pole shifts, earthquakes, asteroid strikes and global warming induced Ice Ages, I supppose super volcanic eruptions are just another disaster quielty waiting their turn . When past civilisations ended suddenly, it was often a combination of two or more catastrophic events that did the job, and pessimists among us may well be tempted to consider that a similar series of disasters await us.

World's oldest biped skeleton unearthed

This is the New Scientist version of the recent fossil finds in Ethiopia - though if it was an upright walker, it is unlikely that we will be able to pinpoint the moment or reason that bi-pedalism emerged. When studying evolution we see the results of that 'evolution' but not the processes by which it occurred, and no amount of fossil material will provide the answers we seek. In my opinion.

Early Paleolithic sites, tools, hominids

This is to put into context the article below, and shows how the boat builders of Flores were at comparative genius level, compared with the general abilities of other Homo erectus from the Early Palaeolithic.

Palaeolithic essentially means 'old (palaeo)stone age (lithic)'. Of course we can only judge the skills and technical abilities of these people by looking at what has survived from their time. Most of what we find is the durable stuff - stone tools, and fossilised fragments of bone. Everything else they might have made is unknown to us, principally because they would have been manufactured using either plant derived materials, or items made from animal skins and other fragile, perishable media.

That is to say nothing of their oral traditions, by which means all knowledge was passed on down through the generations, for as long as there were people to relay the data. It has been found that song is a very effective way of both transmitting data, as well as an aide to retrieving such information - again, all this has been lost, and there is no way of us being able to recover any of it.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to travel back in time to observe our forebears, and whether it would be possible to understand them, their beliefs or ideas, or whether they were so different from us that we could not even begin to imagine the thoughts that ran through their heads.

But if some of them were building boats and setting out to sea, it is likely there would be some points on which both ancient and moderns would understand one another, discussing the commonality of planning and carrying out such expeditions.

Homo erectus at Sea

This post is to illustrate some of the points raised below, discussing Homo erectus, the original ancient mariner.

What makes this find so important is that the date of 800,000 years bp, is in a period of almost no innovations in technolgy - at 1.5 million years, a new Acheulian tool culture emerged, followed by a million years of virtually no change in lithic technology, or the way life was lived. So it's an anomaly of human evolution to see a sudden leap in capabilities that saw ancient men planning and building a boat suitable for the open seas, as well as navigating to a place that they would have been unable to see over their horizon. The oldest known depiction of a boat is in Australia, painted on to a rock face, and dated to only 40,000 years ago - so what happened to ocean travel in the intervening three quarters of a million years? Even now, there is some debate over whether Homo erectus was even able to use spoken language, let alone plan seafaring expeditions.

Mike Morwood is featured, and it was he who made the recent discoveries of the hitherto unknown diminutive Homo species.

Critics silenced by scans of hobbit skull

I know that hobbits are popular, but a new species of human being, especially one as completely unexpected and unique as this, deserves better nomenclature.

And still there is almost no mention of the equally unexpected finds of Homo erectus tools dating back nearly 800,000 years, indicative that these early people were also very advanced and special, as they would have had to sail on the open sea to reach the island of Flores. What was it about this tiny island that made these events in our prehistory come about - were the newly discovered species descended from the original erectus stock, and if not, how did they come to be on the island, and from whence?

I believe Flores was featured in a documentary called something like 'Out of Asia' or possibly 'Man on the Rim' from some time back in the 1990's - I have a small portion of video tape from that, inexplicably taped over half way through. If anyone knows of this programme and/or has a copy, please, and pretty please with sugar on top, contact me. It could well have been a Horizon or Timewatch production for the BBC - and I cannot believe that the BBC, funded by public money to the tune of £9 billion per annum, does not make vhs copies of it's documentaries available to the same public - it could easily do so, charge a nominal £15-£20, make loads of money, and keep some of us happier.

Failing that, I'll have to dust off the submarine and make an undercover journey out there myself, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Fossils Push Human Emergence Back To 195,000 Years Ago

This is a re-run of news that broke about a month ago, but I post it here with reference to the 4 million year old skeleton find from Ethiopia described below.

Most finds of this date are extremely fragmentary, and nearly all the material is either cranial or restricted to a few pieces of post-cranial material - scavengers from long ago account for most of the limb bones and ribs, where most of the meat of a carcass is to be found.

This is illustrated by the picture in the linked article, which shows human fossils which are about 3.8 million years younger than the claimed Ethiopian find, and as you can see, there is nowhere near the full set of bones.

So if it's true, and they really have found a complete, or most of a skeleton, 4 million years old, it will truly be a remarkable discovery.

Scientists unearth early skeleton

News from Ethiopia where a 4 million year old skeleton has been unearthed.

Not a very good article, but none of the others I have seen are much better. Whenever news of this sort is announced, journalists are very quick to use words like 'first' and 'earliest', and this article is neither the first or the earliest to use these terms. For a better and more detailed account, we will have to wait for Nature or Betterhumans to come up with the goods.

Thanks again to Ana for sending the link during my sleep time.

Bradshaw Foundation - Rock Art, Archaeology & Anthropology

This is a link to the front page of a petroglyph site, not as news but for something to look at if you get bored of reading from time to time.

There is a Brian Lee link further down this page, dealing with petroglyphs from the Four Corners region in the US - this Bradshaw Foundation link features rock art from across the world, all of which is worth checking at least once in a lifetime.

Cassini-Huygens: Iapetus

Nice image, and plenty of info on the rest of the page, from NASA. Whatever the many criticisms people, including myself, have of NASA, it is apparent that they take a lot of time and trouble to publish a great deal of excellent web content - although I still don't understand why black and white instead of colour is used in much of their photographic material.

The most visibly striking feature of Iapetus is the bulge that runs around its equator, several miles high, a topic that has been extensively analysed by R. Hoagland on his enterprisemission site.

'Blogger fear' in Apple leak case

"Given that so many journalists correspond with their sources via e-mail, this would severely undermine those journalists' abilities to guarantee their sources any kind of confidentiality" Annalee Newitz, EFF

No surprises from this preliminary ruling, this could represent a huge loss of journalistic freedom, or protect the innocent from rumour and random innuendo, depending on which part of the fence one is sitting on.

Expect the final ruling in this case to go the same way as this initial ruling, with journalists online unable to guarantee the anonymity of their sources, which of course will make many potential sources a lot more wary and a lot less wordy.

Hobbit was 'not a diseased human'

They got that right - this is the best article on the topic I've come across so far, with better background and graphics.

Noah's Cosmic Ark: Preserving DNA on the Moon

Imagine it's you who decides whose DNA makes the trip to the storage vaults on the Moon, and whose get left behind. Would you send yourself for instance, and if so, would you include DNA from friends and family, or opt for other social configurations, like mathematical music-doctors, super-soldier techno men, or semi-silica psyche girls?

Professor Michio Kaku recently proposed that future generations of humans might be able to preserve their DNA by sending it as code, into a new home in a newer, younger Universe - even suggesting that this may already have happened in the past, with aliens from distant dying parallel worlds, firing their genetically encoded alter-egos down cosmic wormholes into our own Universe, so mastering the techniques of parallel life-swapping.

It is thought possible that we might find traces of an alien bio-engineeered ancestry for mankind by looking at our own genome, trying to spot non-human strands of code.

Since we split from a common ancestor several million years ago, we have shared the planet with chimpanzees and bonobos, two of our closest living relatives. Yet in all that 6 million years or so, the chimp and the bonobo are much the same as they were back then - having hardly evolved at all.

This raises the intriguing question of why there have been up to 20 different types of hominin living over the same 6 or 7 million years - was it evolution, God in Creation Mode, or visitors from outer space and other dimensions, devising terraforms and designing life-forms, for reasons we can barely imagine.

There have been suggestions that not only are we modern humans partly artificial, but archaic Homo species like erectus and Neanderthal were also the result of alien hybridisation programmes or experiments. If that was the case, one wonders how successful or effective they would consider their efforts to have been. Maybe archaic humans, as we think of them, never actually suffered extinction events, instead being gathered up by their creators and shipped off to parallel pastures new.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

This refers to the post below, and has further articles and news regarding RFIDs and electronic surveillance, the rights of online journalists not to have to reveal their sources, plus a host of similar related issues.

Because electronic bugging devices are often small and unobtrusive, we are quite unaware of the huge effects that this future technology will have on us, the private citizenry.

The knowledge available as electronic data on any given person would allow for a reproduction of them as a sim, enabling him or her to live in a virtual world of their own.

There are many informative articles and news items on this site, worth reading because as we know, technical innovations in the US often materialise in the UK a short while later.

Controversial Melatonin Confirmed as Sleep Aid

Here's one for all you melatonin takers out there - I have used it as a help getting to sleep over the course of several years, so there's nothing new about this information as such.

However, the most important aspect of this article concerns the over-use of melatonin, and this is of primary importance for those of us who buy the commercial product.

And that point is, don't take more than you need - often the tablets sold over the counter contain many times the dosage required to help you sleep. Although this in itself is not harmful (meaning you wont collapse into a coma), the short-term effects can be harmful in the way described below:

"The researchers found, however, that commercially available melatonin pills can contain 10 times the effective amount.

At that dose, says Wurtman, the hormone's effects end after a few days because melatonin receptors in the brain become unresponsive when exposed to too much of the hormone."

So when you get ready for your bedtime tab, just take a small bite from it, or break off a small piece, and you will be fine. If you still can't sleep, try lying right on the very edge of your bed, until you drop off.

Apart from that, your supply of this product should last you up to ten times longer than before, which I doubt will impress the manufacturers, but they should have put clearer dosage advice on their packaging.

Credit to Marcopolo who gave me this same info about 2 years ago, so now it's official we can all officially take heed by taking less.

"Hobbits" Likely New Species

Another piece from Flores, over at Betterhumans, and I prefer this article to the one posted previously - included is a graphic of the cranial cavity, which is inconclusive; we really need to see a 360 degree version, but for the time being, this will suffice.

I had half expected to hear that the fossils would not after all be returned, or they had become the subject of a legal dispute, like Kennewick Man.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a piece about their return from their captive audience of an Indonesian professor whose name eludes me (sorry, Prof.)

I haven't yet read it as I was required to register for access to the article, but I wasn't in the mood - good thing I'm not a professional journalist, editors get very irate about such laxity.

Twin Mars rovers in instrument mix-up

I quote from the article, and I'm not smirking or giggling in any way.

Squyres is "not embarrassed at all" about the slip-up with the rovers. "It was an easy mistake to make," he says. "It happened during some very busy and stressful times." He also says it is not fair to compare it to past mishaps (see Box) because the spacecraft suffered no damage. "There isn't going to be an investigation. We know when it happened," he says. "There was a point when both of them were sitting on the same bench, and that has to have been it."

When someone tells you they are not embarrassed at all, you know that's it's gone way beyond embarrassment.

Richard Hoagland has long been claiming that many of these NASA missions are sabotaged from the outset, by various shady individuals with dark agendas, so this will surely have him choking and spluttering into his froot-loops.

Powerful radio pulses puzzle astronomers

It seems that every time I venture out into Space, it gets ever stranger by the visit - Seti are the people who monitor the place for incoming radio signals from ET ham operators, and I will be interested to see what they have to say about this. Not a lot, is my guess.

And where has Dr. Kraterface got to? - I sense his sinister hand behind this, and my bet is that this is just a clever ruse to divert our attention away from something else.

Brain reconstruction hints at 'hobbit' intelligence

Back to the island of Flores, and the recently discovered H. floresiensis, the diminutive nano-humans, whose existence and evolution no-one can either deny or explain.

Wired News: Planets Lurk on Your Desktop

If you participated in the Seti@home project, you will be familiar with the thinking behind this. Seti wants us to think that there are aliens out there sitting with radio sets beaming messages at us from far away, and so far, we are still waiting.

This planetary search sounds a more realisitic proposition - and as an added bonus, if you discover a planet, you get to name it. But will anyone stump up the cash needed to get the project off the ground?

The recent discovery of two lookalike galaxies has led physicists closer to finding the ultimate theory of everything

"This has raised the possibility that our universe is a three-brane - a three-dimensional "island", adrift in a 10-dimensional space."

A semi-complicated article, but today that's more than enough to befuddle me completely, so I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. My son just asked me what string theory was, and in response I mumbled something about nothing much and gave up.

Lost society tore itself apart

This is a piece from the BBC, discussing the fate of the Moche civilisation of Peru, which flourished and disappeared for reasons that were unclear.

Tonight's edition of Horizon seeks to solve the mystery, and will look at many aspects of this society, including their use of human sacrifice, as depicted on their pottery.

Dramatic and severe climate change wreaked havoc on their ability to feed themselves, and over a period of 60 years, Moche society was almost brought to its knees.

Having survived ecological disaster, Moche society finally fell apart as a result of internal feuding and consequently, conflict and war. Considering their brutal use of human sacrifice as a means of attempting to influence the weather, maybe that was no bad thing.

Collapse of Societies: From Easter Island to Iraq - to Western World?

This from Linda Moulton-Howe, interviewing Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize winner, who has recently published his new book on this topic.

"Dr. Diamond concludes that Easter Island is "the closest approximation that we have to an ecological disaster unfolding in complete isolation."

More on this when I've read "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed"

Ancient sky map or fake? German experts row over star disc

More intrigue from Germany - the Nebra star disc might not be Bronze Age after all. I recall thinking at the time of its discovery that it was odd that such an object would be lost or mislaid in the first place.

It was found in isolation from any other artifacts that might have confirmed its age, and has been dated by examining the green patina on it. If it proves to be fake, the two people arrested for trying to sell it, and convicted on a stolen goods charge, should have that conviction overturned.

A judge will give his ruling next week, although how he is going to evaluate its authenticity, I'm uncertain.

Most distant galaxy cluster yet is revealed

Looks as though we'll soon be revising upwards the age of the Universe. Not only is this galaxy further away than any other by some 500 million light years, but the galaxy itself appears to be older than it should.

image from Hubble

Brian Lee's Rock Art Photos

I'm posting this as an addition to the previous article by the Smithsonian on American Rock art, which managed to convey very little information, and almost no pictures.

There are many good websites depicting a plethora of these stunning and distinctly mysterious paintings on the rock faces of the Four Corners region of the US, and this one from Brian Lee is among my favourites - loads of pictures, very well presented.

The internet has been instrumental in bringing this aspect of ancient culture to the public eye; it is precisely this same medium that has alerted thieves and in some cases, vandals, to their presence, often with predictably familar results.

Located on exposed rock faces, these paintings are gradually being eroded away by the elements, while their meaning and import were long ago washed clean from the memories of humans.

On that rather pedestrian note, I'm going to call it a day.

Rainbows on Titan

February is drawing to a close, and I think this will be my last entry until next month, which begins in a little over 20 minutes. This from NASA...

When the European Space Agency's Huygens probe visited Saturn's moon Titan last month, the probe parachuted through humid clouds. It photographed river channels and beaches and things that look like islands. Finally, descending through swirling fog, Huygens landed in mud.

To make a long story short, Titan is wet.

Archaeologist's cave bear study leads to early humans

This is partly a note to myself to investigate further this site of the Sopena cave in northern Spain, but that should not detract in any way from the work and research of Ana Pinto, who has just been awarded a prize of some sort. Here are some details from the linked story...

About three years ago, Dr. Ana Pinto, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, was driving past a natural outcropping in northwest Spain and - screech! - she put the brake to her car.

Pinto had just spotted a limestone cave that she sensed might have once been used by prehistoric humans. For the next six months, she excavated the cave by hand, pushing through animal waste, bones, mud, and human artifacts.

By the time she had dug some 9 feet deep, Pinto knew she had hit the archaeological jackpot.

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"This cave at Sopena is almost unique because it has signs of continuous hominid habitation for at least 60,000 years," she said. "This is an incredibly rare find."

Pinto, 45, who was born in Spain, went to New York City recently to receive an award from Wings WorldQuest, a foundation supporting women who make careers as explorers and scientists.

For people in her field, she said, it often pays to think "like a Neanderthal."

Check th erest of the article for an interview with Ana Pinto

Russia refuses to give up Trojan treasure

Not that it's any of my business, but the news of Russia and Germany squabbling over war booty is a little sad, 60 years after the fighting finished.

Apart from anything else, the Trojan artifacts all come from Turkey, to where the treasure should be returned. Just because the archaeologist, Hermann Schliemann, the man who dug them up was himself German, I don't follow the logic that this then becomes the property of the German state.

That having been said, the British Museum here in London would be out of business within a week, if all its artifacts were returned to their respective countries of origin.

Traces of a Lost People

Many of us are familiar with the famous rock art of Palaeolithic Europe, especially the caves of Chauvet, Lascaux and Altamira, but to many, the rock art of the Americas is more or less unknown.

Unfortunately, articles like this from the Smithsonian, will do little to broaden our knowledge or understanding of this subject. There is a link at the bottom that exorts us to read the full article - I did, and it looks just like the abstract but lacking any pictorial content. But for anyone interested I'll try and locate a better page with more pictures and more informed comment.

image from smithsonian

update 20/12/06 Brian Lee's Rock Art pages are definitely worth a browse