|
Fidel Castro owes me blood money.
|
I love my new avatar, but it's a bit dark...
|
i have some really big decisions to make.
|
|
yawn
|
Half Life 2 is amazing.
|
i post halfbaked threads that are usaly as bad as my spelling
|
I'm sitting on a chair...
|
 |
 can't find the hot girls thread. |
|
Well done them.
|
NEANDERTHALS as innovators? That the concept seems amusing goes to show how our sister species has become the butt of our jokes. Yet in the Middle Palaeolithic, some 300,000 years ago, innovation is what the Neanderthals were up to.
This period is usually regarded as undramatic in cultural and evolutionary terms, with little in the way of technological or cognitive development. Palaeoanthropologists get more excited about the changes in tools found later, as the Middle Palaeolithic gave way to the Upper, and as modern humans replaced Neanderthals, some 40,000 years ago. Terry Hopkinson of the University of Leicester, UK, has now challenged this view, showing that Neanderthals were far from behaviourally static. They incorporated different forms of tool construction into a single technique, and learned to cope with the ecological challenges posed by habitats in eastern Europe. "There has been a consensus that the modern human mind turned on like a light switch about 50,000 years ago, only in Africa," says Hopkinson. But the putatively modern traits accompanying the change, such as abstract art, the use of grindstones and elongated stone blades, and big game hunting began to accumulate in Africa from 300,000 years ago, he says. "It was the same in Europe with Neanderthals, there was a gradual accumulation of technology." If Homo sapiens developed human traits gradually, then why not Neanderthals? “As with Homo sapiens in Africa, Neanderthals gradually accumulated technology and developed human traits” Archaeological finds from across Europe show that the Neanderthals fused two forms of toolmaking, the façonnage and the débitage techniques. In the former a stone core is shaped by chipping off flakes of flint, the latter involves producing sharp-edged flakes from a core. In the Lower Palaeolithic, more than 300,000 years ago, the two techniques were practised separately, but Hopkinson argues that during the Middle Palaeolithic they were fused into a single method, the Levallois reduction technique (Antiquity, vol 81, p 294). At the same time as this was occurring, excavations show that Neanderthals spread into central and eastern Europe, regions where they and their forebears, Homo heidelbergensis, had hitherto been unable to settle. In western Europe, the influence of the Atlantic ameliorates the extreme seasonality of the continent, but away from this, the environment was too harsh for them to cope. "The eastern expansion shows that the Neanderthals became capable of managing their lives and their landscapes in strongly seasonal environments," says Hopkinson. This period is commonly thought to be characterised by long periods of little change in technological and perhaps also cognitive development, says Katerina Harvati of the department of human evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. "This analysis highlights important aspects of Neanderthal cultural and cognitive evolution which are not always emphasised," she says. Neanderthals have typically been thought of as incapable of innovation, as it was assumed to be something unique to Homo sapiens, says Hopkinson. "With this evidence of innovation it becomes difficult to exclude Neanderthals from the concept of humanity." From issue 2608 of New Scientist magazine, 13 June 2007, page 12 |
Yes. It is remarkable, but its not doing much for the image of CONCACAF, a tiny island making a mockery of the region in a way.
To think, if they win it all (long shot, but who knows?) they would be participating in the Confederations Cup in 2009. Amazing. |
It does a lot of good to see teams like that succeed. Reminds me of Greece being European champions.
I like this story: Researchers in Brazil are claiming to have established as a scientific fact that the Amazon is the longest river in the world. The Amazon is recognised as the world's largest river by volume, but has generally been regarded as second in length to the River Nile. The claim follows an expedition to Peru that is said to have established a new starting point further south. It puts the Amazon at 6,800km (4,250 miles) compared to the Nile's 6,695km. The precise length of a river is not easy to calculate and depends on correctly identifying the source and the mouth. The new claim in Brazil follows an expedition by scientists which is said to have discovered a new source for the Amazon in the south of Peru and not the north of the country as had been thought for many years. While the exact location has yet to be confirmed from two choices, scientists say either would make the river the longest in the world. Guido Gelli, director of science at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, told the Brazilian network TV Globo that today it could already be considered as a fact that the Amazon was the longest river in the world. The Amazon is now said to begin in an ice-covered mountain in southern Peru called Mismi. Researchers travelled for 14 days, sometimes in freezing temperatures, to establish the location at an altitude of 5,000m. The research was co-ordinated by the National Geographical Institute of Peru, with the help of their colleagues in Brazil. There has been a healthy academic debate over the world's longest river for some years and the claim from Brazil may not go unchallenged. |
 Rude Food A gourmet guide to bananas, cream, peaches, cherries and everything else that's rude about food. Beautifully shot in a classic mid seventies (erm 1981) advertising fashion (I believe the book was an advertising idea anyway), this is an exceptional example of utterly useless publishing in every respect, but it sure has its horny moments. This is car boot fodder these days, and definitely worth investing in. http://www.trunkrecords.com/kitchen/books.shtml  |
 actually my desktop for now |
 |
i am lazy, yet my mind is active and ambitious....therefore, im a dreamer.
|
When in doubt, cite
|
Stones confirm golden past of ancient African kingdom * 12:00 19 June 2007 * NewScientist.com news service * Roxanne Khamsi A black-topped beaker. Both pieces were found at the burial site and date back to the Classic Kerma period (1750-1550 BC) (Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago) The discovery of a gold "factory" and burial sites along the Nile in Sudan reveals that the ancient African kingdom of Kush was more vast and powerful than realised, and traded heavily in gold. But archaeologists fear that a planned dam will flood the area and destroy yet-uncovered evidence of this first sub-Saharan kingdom. Much of what is currently known about the kingdom of Kush, which covered parts of what is now northern Sudan, comes from Ancient Egyptian texts. The Kushites fought battles and traded materials, such as gold, with their Egyptian neighbours. For many years, researchers had thought that the kingdom of Kush extended some 600 kilometres from the last stretch of the Nile in Egypt to the point at which the river starts to turn in northern Sudan. But a team of archaeologists led by Geoff Emberling at the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago, Illinois, US, has uncovered new evidence to support the idea that sometime between 2000 BC and 1500 BC, the Kushite territory reached at least 300 kilometres further down the Nile, to the town of Hosh-el-Geruf. At a point along the Nile near Hosh-el-Geruf, the archaeologists unearthed 55 grinding stones made of the granite-like rock gneiss. "This large number of grinding stones and other tools used to crush and grind [gold] ore shows that the site was a centre for organised gold production," says Emberling. "This is the first concrete evidence of gold extraction from the Kingdom of Kush," he adds. Bruce Williams, another member of the team, explains that the scale of gold production they found must have required the direct oversight by the Kush kingdom in order to function. "[The Kushites] weren't just projecting power to this part of what is now Sudan, they were projecting organisation." Without proper oversight and security, the area would have been vulnerable to attack and conflicts between gold scavengers. "The opportunities for mischief are really huge," says Williams. The team also uncovered a burial site nearby where they found individuals laid to rest in typical Kushite fashion alongside burial items such as black-topped drinking beakers. The researchers fear, however, that a planned flooding of this and nearby areas due to the construction of a dam at Merowe will destroy as yet undiscovered artefacts belonging to the Kush kingdom. |
an actual recording of the loudest noise my ears have ever heard (they were still ringing 10 days later):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RxY1PhkBnY what did you say dude? |
found it !
|
Odd and loud occurrence happened in these parts yesterday:
Officials say sonic boom was made by an F-16 BY JON NYATAWA WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER It was just before 11 a.m. Wednesday when a Bellevue police captain heard the boom. Herb Evers was in the city's fleet maintenance facility, talking to a mechanic. "The windows in the garage doors rattled," Evers said. "It was like you could feel the concussion." He thought a plane had exploded and called the base police at Offutt Air Force Base. The person who answered the phone said, "Yeah, I know. We heard it, too." They weren't alone. People heard the boom from Cunningham Lake on Omaha's northern edge to Cass County, from La Vista to the west end of Council Bluffs. Sarpy County emergency dispatchers fielded about 100 calls, while Douglas County dispatchers were just as busy. OPPD also received a number of calls. Officials ruled out several possibilities: fire, explosion, earthquake, meteorite. So what caused metro-area residents to momentarily question their safety around 11 a.m. Wednesday? An F-16 exceeding the speed of sound, an event known as a sonic boom. The fighter plane, which can fly at twice the speed of sound, took off from McEntire Joint National Guard Base in Eastover, S.C., and was flying over the central United States, said Lt. Col. Les Carroll, a McEntire base spokesman. Offutt has no planes that can make a sonic boom. Carroll said planes aren't legally allowed to fly fast enough to create a sonic boom over U.S. land, except over some remote areas. They do conduct training missions over the ocean, where speed isn't restricted the same way. "It's rare," he said. "I'm sure . . . they didn't intend to do it." Carroll did not identify the plane's destination, but said it was scheduled for a paint job. The lower the aircraft is traveling, the louder a sonic boom would sound, said Ken Plotkin, chief scientist at Wyle Laboratories in Virginia. He said sonic booms aren't dangerous, but they can be startling to unsuspecting people and damaging to fragile objects, such as glass. |
|
Quote:
whoa |
|
son of a bitch, shit. I hate this board sometimes. it wont put somepics into img tags...
|
I'm watching the very heavy rain that's just started.
|
Ancient trade-off may explain why humans get HIV * 19:00 21 June 2007 * NewScientist.com news service * Roxanne Khamsi A protein that protected our human ancestors against a virus that ravaged other primates may now be responsible for our susceptibility to HIV, a new study suggests. The discovery could help scientists predict which viruses found in other species are most likely to cross over and lethally infect humans. The idea that early humans had an immune system that differed from other primates first came about after biologists sequenced the chimp genome. The chimp sequence contains 130 copies of a virus called Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus, or PtERV1. Retroviruses often have the ability to insert themselves into an organism's DNA. But PtERV1 is completely absent from the human genome. Reviving ancient life Studies have also shown that the human version of an antiviral protein called TRIM5-alpha differs dramatically to the version of this protein found in other primate species. TRIM5-alpha offers immune protection by binding to virus-containing capsules inside cells and prompting their destruction. Michael Emerman at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, US, and colleagues decided to test whether our unique version of TRIM5-alpha could explain why PtERV1 did not invade our genome. The team generated TRIM5-alpha from human, chimp and gorilla genes in order to see how well various versions of the protein protected against PtERV1 in cat cells grown in a laboratory dish. There was one problem though: active versions of PtERV1 no longer exist and the copies of this retrovirus found in primate DNA are woefully degraded. So Emerman's team looked for commonalities among the chimp versions of the virus to partly reconstruct the ancient form of PtERV1. From this ancient sequence they produced part of the PtERV1-containing capsule, and attached it to a harmless mouse virus. HIV vulnerability About 4% of the cat cells exposed to this resurrected PtERV1 capsule combination became infected within a day. And those cat cells that also contained the gorilla version of TRIM5-alpha did no better. But human TRIM5-alpha protected the cat cells, leaving them 100 times less susceptible to PtERV1 infection – only 0.04% of the cells became infected. On the flipside, Emerman notes that the human version of TRIM5-alpha does not recognise the capsule containing HIV inside cells, whereas other primate versions of this protein can. Non-human primates do not normally get infected with HIV. So he speculates that the same attributes of TRIM5-alpha that make it effective against PtERV1 might explain why it cannot bind and destroy HIV. Emerman suggests that monitoring how well the human version of TRIM5-alpha protects against viruses related to HIV, could help scientists predict which pathogens have the potential to cross into our species from other primates. Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1140579) |
hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<< <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< <<Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuoooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
|
i just got a msg from someone i don't know saying
"sorry woogy cant make it tonight, I'm menstruating" hahahah what an odd msg to accidently send to someone |
it hasnt stopped raining for two days now. its like a nick cave novel.
|
Quote:
I'm quite enjoying it. Mind you, I don't live on a floodplain; I saw the pictures from Sheffield and they don't look good. |
Nearly forgot to update the Gold Cup, which concluded yesterday, with the United States coming out on top again, at Mexico's expense (joyous occasion!).
Benny Feilhaber's monster, game winning goal. The Spanish broadcast is always more exciting. |
Wasim Akram : The Greatest bowler of all time.
Best delivery ever bowled in cricket ? (the whole thing is superb, but the ball bowled by Wasim at Approx 1:08 is the one in question). Wasim Akram is a true sporting hero. |
I only wish I understood cricket a bit more, I'm sure its simple, and I see the obvious similarities baseball shares with it.
Strange song choice for the video. |
Yes indeed, awful track. I've put a second one up. I was hoping to find a partiular hat-trick he took against England; I'm still searching.
Cricket is one of mankind's cowning achievements, in my opinion. |
I thought you were talkin' about the SY Gossip Tribute Albums thing :(.
OH, what would you suggest to "replace" Buffy? Which shows are funny/smart enough? I already watched firefly... |
Nooouh, I mean, something to watch instead of buffy's reruns/dvds episodes... (ha ha, you still remember that link??)
|
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 07:53 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin Version 3.5.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
All content ©2006 Sonic Youth
