After The Pink Goat - Science

Flashes from the Past - amazing discoveries in Bulgaria and more

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:12:00 +0300

Archaeologists Discover Wealthy, 8,000-Year-Old Prehistoric Settlement in Northern Bulgaria - The town, which experts say blossomed between 5800 and 5500 BC, possessed well-organised streets and houses with two floors and oak floors. - Me wants to go there! It sounds marvelous even if they have to dig it first. But imagine 6000BC and they have 2 floors houses! It looks like Thracians loved luxurious items from the very beginning.

Archaeologists Uncover 'Bulgarian Machu Picchu' -
Bulgarian archaeologists have uncovered a unique residence of the rulers of the Odrysian Kingdom, the state of the most powerful tribe of Ancient Thrace.
The construction of the residence near Hissar is believed to have been started by the Thracian ruler Cotys I (384 BC - 359 BC)- I can't believe I was there and this wasn't yet uncovered. But then it was obvious there's something there. When you go there and see the amazing temple in Starosel and look at the mountains around - it's clear they are hiding a lot of secrets.
African Society Revealed in Early Animal, Human Figures - very interesting figures dating from ~1800 y. ago
ПОТОПЪТ В ЧЕРНО МОРЕ И ПОЛИТИКАТА В ИСТОРИЯТА
Khan Tervel coin/seal Kazakh Archeologists Discover Ancient Scythian “Sun Lord” - Archeologists in Kazakhstan have discovered the grave of a gold-clad ancient Scythian warrior who has already earned himself a nickname: “The Sun Lord.” The warrior was likely buried in the 4th or 5th century BC in a grave that was actually discovered half a century ago, though excavation work only started last year. - As far as I know, the Scythian are actually one of the Thracians tribes...it's not the Sun Lord, but just another personification of the Holy Horse Rider - and it connects well with the time (4-5BC) and with the gold.
Ancient Pakistan Civilization Remains Shrouded in Mystery
Today:

Research challenges models of sea level change during ice-age cycles

Thousands of dinosaur footprints uncovered in China

Evidence of Stone Age amputation forces rethink over history of surgery

Skeleton of Western man found in ancient Mongolian tomb

China Discovers Old Bricks Made 7,000 Years Ago

Ancient woman suggests diverse migration

Research challenges models of sea level change during ice-age cycles

February 11, 2010

Theories about the rates of ice accumulation and melting during the Quaternary Period -- the time interval ranging from 2.6 million years ago to the present -- may need to be revised, thanks to research findings published by a University of Iowa researcher and his colleagues in the 12 February issue of the journal Science.

Jeffrey Dorale, assistant professor of geoscience in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, writes that global sea level and Earth's climate are closely linked. Data he and colleagues collected on speleothem encrustations (see photo right), a type of mineral deposit, in coastal caves on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca indicate that sea level was about one meter above present-day levels around 81,000 years ago. The finding challenges other data that indicate sea level was as low as 30 meters -- the ice equivalent of four Greenland ice sheets -- below present-day levels.
He said the sea level high stand of 81,000 years ago was preceded by rapid ice melting, on the order of 20 meters of sea level change per thousand years and the sea level drop following the high water mark, accompanied by ice formation, was equally rapid.
source
My comment: There's something strange about doing that kind of research on Mallorca, because the Mediterranean was a closed sea until the last major flood. Of course, it doesn't make a lot of sense of it having much higher levels than the rest of the water on the planet, but then, it could be some local effect. In space or in time. I mean, if that period was an ice age, it doesn't make sense to have to high level - where that water came from if it was locked in ice? It's very strange.

Thousands of dinosaur footprints uncovered in China

February 7, 2010
Archaeologists in China have uncovered more than 3,000 dinosaur footprints, state media reported, in an area said to be the world's largest grouping of fossilised bones belonging to the ancient animals.

The footprints, believed to be more than 100 million years old, were discovered after a three-month excavation at a gully in Zhucheng in the eastern province of Shandong, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The prints range from 10 to 80 centimetres (four to 32 inches) in length, and belonged to at least six different kinds of dinosaurs, including tyrannosaurs, the report said Saturday.
Wang Haijun, a senior engineer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the prints faced the same direction, Xinhua said.
This indicated a possible migration or a panic escape by plant-eating dinosaurs after an attack by predators, Wang added.
Archeologists have found dinosaur fossils at some 30 sites in Zhucheng, known as "dinosaur city."
sourceMy comment: Or maybe this is another dino-airport site? I remember posting here and article about a dinosaur landing/taking off site. Maybe this is the same and they didn't migrate or escape, just used it periodically. It's kind of strange how we're so sure they didn't possess any intellect at all. Because we have no observation of big flying things living densely packed (or at least I can't think of one). Maybe even birds would develop such landing sites if they were that big and lived packed together.

January 25, 2010

Evidence of Stone Age amputation forces rethink over history of surgery

The surgeon was dressed in a goat or sheep skin and used a sharpened stone to amputate the arm of his patient.
The intervention was a success, and it has shed light on the medical talents of our Stone Age ancestors.
Scientists unearthed evidence of the surgery during work on an Early Neolithic tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 40 miles (65km) south of Paris. They found that a remarkable degree of medical knowledge had been used to remove the left forearm of an elderly man about 6,900 years ago — suggesting that the true Flintstones were more developed than previously thought.
The patient seems to have been anaesthetised, the conditions were aseptic, the cut was clean and the wound was treated, according to the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap).
The revelation could force a reassessment of the history of surgery, especially because researchers have recently reported signs of two other Neolithic amputations in Germany and the Czech Republic. It was known that Stone Age doctors performed trephinations, cutting through the skull, but not amputations.source
My comment: Quite interesting. Not so much because they knew how to cut or to anaesthetise, but because they had an idea of aseptic conditions. That's quite a lot if we considers doctors in the middle ages (or it was later) that killed so many women giving birth just because they couldn't understand why they should at least wash their hands.

Skeleton of Western man found in ancient Mongolian tomb

By Bruce Bower

February 27th, 2010; Vol.177 #5 (p. 14)

Consider an older gentleman whose skeleton lay in one of more than 200 tombs recently excavated at a 2,000-year-old cemetery in eastern Mongolia, near China’s northern border. DNA extracted from this man’s bones pegs him as a descendant of Europeans or western Asians. Yet he still assumed a prominent position in ancient Mongolia’s Xiongnu Empire, say geneticist Kyung-Yong Kim of Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea, and his colleagues.

On the basis of previous excavations and descriptions in ancient Chinese texts, researchers suspect that the Xiongnu Empire — which ruled a vast territory in and around Mongolia from 209 B.C. to A.D. 93 — included ethnically and linguistically diverse nomadic tribes. The Xiongnu Empire once ruled the major trading route known as the Asian Silk Road, opening it to both Western and Chinese influences.
Researchers have yet to pin down the language spoken by Xiongnu rulers and political elites, says archaeologist David Anthony of Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. But the new genetic evidence shows that the 2,000-year-old man “was multi-ethnic, like the Xiongnu polity itself,” Anthony remarks.
Two other skeletons from the Xiongnu cemetery in Duurlig Nars show genetic links to people who live in northeastern Asia, according to Kim’s team.The Duurlig Nars man’s genetic signature supports the idea that Indo-European migrations to northeastern Asia started before 2,000 years ago. This notion is plausible, but not confirmed, says geneticist Peter Underhill of Stanford University. One hypothesis holds that Indo-European languages proliferated via several waves of expansion and conquest by nomads known as Kurgans who had domesticated horses and thus could travel long distances. In this scenario, Kurgans left a homeland north of the Black Sea, in what’s now Russia, around 6,400 years ago.
Another view holds that farmers from ancient Turkey spread Indo-European tongues as they swallowed up one parcel of land after another, beginning around 9,000 years ago.
sourceMy comment: Ancient Turkey?! What the fuck was that? Turkey didn't exist as an idea before 13th century or little bit before that. And if we have to be correct, Turkey didn't exist before the revolution in the 20th century. Before that it was Ottoman empire. In the so called Ancient Turkey at the time we're talking about lived Pelasgians and/or Thracians. Nothing more, nothing less. It's interesting how the history gets ironed into a politically correct nonsense. As for the article, Thracian legends tell that at some point in the past, they were migrations to Asia, going all the way to India. Maybe it's the same thing. I'm not saying this is the thing, I think the Indo-European population was actually living all the way around the Black Sea which had lower levels than today. And that population would explain why all the Thracian tribes spoke the same language even though they were so different from one another.

China Discovers Old Bricks Made 7,000 Years Ago

2010-02-20 22:19:42 Xinhua Web Editor: Zhang
Bricks dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years have been unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, adding between 1,000 to 2,000 years onto Chinese brick-making history, archaeologists claimed Saturday.
The bricks, including three red ones and two gray ones, all uncompleted, Yang said. The site under excavation is located at Liaoyuan Village of Baqiao District, and Huaxu Town, Lantian County of Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province. Yangshao Culture is a Neolithic culture that flourished along the Yellow River, which runs across China from west to east.
Archaeologists used to believe the ceramics were applied to architecture in the Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C-1100 B.C.), which had been proved wrong by the new discovery, Yang said.
The smooth surface and rough surface of most well preserved red bricks are vertical to each other, and the rough surface was designed to be stuck to other materials, Yang said.
The world's oldest unearthed bricks date back 8,000 to 10,000 years. They were discovered in Middle East and they were adobes which had not been calcined. sourceMy comment: Duh, 3 000 years more and the Middle East would lose its name "the cradle of civilization". Oh well, next time better I'm not sure if China having that name is politically better, but I guess it's unavoidable. If not...it would be quite interesting. Because if the population was homogeneous in Asia, it doesn't make a lot of sense that in one place it was so much more advanced. I don't believe in some people being more intelligent than others. No matter of the race.

Ancient woman suggests diverse migration

July 23, 2010 By MARK STEVENSON , Associated Press Writer
A scientific reconstruction of one of the oldest sets of human remains found in the Americas appears to support theories that the first people who came to the hemisphere migrated from a broader area than once thought, researchers say.
Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History on Thursday released photos of the reconstructed image of a woman who probably lived on Mexico's Caribbean coast 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. She peeks out of the picture as a short, spry-looking woman with slightly graying hair.
But government archaeologist Alejandro Terrazas says the picture has now become more complicated, because the reconstruction more resembles people from southeastern Asian areas like Indonesia. source
My comment: Hm, if people migrated from southeastern Asia that will post the question how did they come? On boats? It's quite far if you think about it. Very very far. But yet they did it. Could there have been a lot more land between than we know about? After all during that time the sea level is supposed to be much lower. Interesting, heh?

Past hits back, 03, 2010 - Celtic brain surgeons and more

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:18:58 +0200

Today:

Valley in Jordan inhabited and irrigated for 13,000 years
Donegal brain surgeon at work in AD 800, burial site reveals
Indian doctor world's first plastic surgeon?
Did Chinese ships discover America?
Modern man and Neanderthals had sex across the species barrier, according to leading geneticist Professor Svante Paabo.

Shorties:

Archaeologists find mummy of young priestess from 300-450 AD in Peru
New discoveries at world's oldest submerged town
Australian archaeologists uncover 40,000-year-old site

Valley in Jordan inhabited and irrigated for 13,000 years

November 18, 2009

Dutch researcher Eva Kaptijn succeeded in discovering - based on 100,000 finds - that the Zerqa Valley in Jordan had been successively inhabited and irrigated for more than 13,000 years. But it was not just communities that built irrigation systems: the irrigation systems also built communities.

The area where she undertook her research is also called the Zerqa Triangle; it is bounded by the River Zerqa and forms part of the Jordan Valley. The area covers roughly 72 square kilometres. Kaptijn discovered that the triangle had been inhabited, on and off, for thousands of years, but that this habitation was always highly dependent on the irrigation methods used by those who lived there. While the soil in the valley is very rich, there was usually not enough rainfall to cultivate plants without some additional irrigation.

The irrigation methods exerted a major influence on the people who lived in the valley; power was often dependent on controlling the allocation of water. Kaptijn discovered that the type of irrigation system could result in a community of internally egalitarian tribes, with these tribes being linked to each other in a strict, hierarchical order. At other times, the valley was actually dominated by a large-scale, almost capitalist cultivation of sugar cane. source

My comment: Isn't it interesting that something as simple as the irrigation would change the type of the society of the people living there? I find it quite interesting. Too bad the article doesn't specify what type of society lived there 13 000 years ago.

Donegal brain surgeon at work in AD 800, burial site reveals

MARESE McDONAGH

BRAIN SURGERY was being carried out in Ireland more than 1,000 years ago – and patients survived.

People with disabilities were treated with compassion and respect within their communities in medieval Ireland but TB and other diseases, possibly including cancer, claimed many lives while others died by the sword.

A multitude of insights about life and death in Gaelic Ireland were gleaned following the discovery of an unknown medieval church and the graves of about 1,300 men, women and children who lived along the banks of the river Erne at Ballyhanna, Co Donegal, several hundred years ago.

Dr Jeremy Bird, head of the school of science at Sligo IT, who introduced the lecture The Science of a Cemetery, explained that one of the most exciting aspects of the project is an investigation into whether cystic fibrosis was present in the population 1,000 years ago.

Carbon dating has established that people were burying their dead at Ballyhanna from the 7th-9th centuries AD up to the 16th century but with a gap in between, which Mr MacDonagh said might be related to the Viking invasion.

During last night’s lecture, osteoarchaeologists Caitríona McKenzie and Eileen Murphy said that as well as identifying joint diseases, tuberculosis and possible cases of cancer, they concluded that several individuals met untimely deaths through violence, with their skulls displaying deep sword cuts.

One of the most interesting discoveries was the remains of a young female, who lived about AD 800, whose skull showed evidence of brain surgery. “We know that she survived the operation as the skull shows signs of bone growth after the hole was cut into it,” Mr MacDonagh said. source

My comment: A very interesting article for me, since we know that the Celts had connections with the Thracians and are probably also related to the ancient population that inhabited Eurasia 3 000 years ago. And the brain surgery they found is also quite surprising, if they can prove that it wasn't just a fracture that healed, of course.

Indian doctor world's first plastic surgeon?

AFP 29 October 2009, 11:56am IST
EW DELHI: An Indian doctor working in 600 BC might have been the world's first plastic surgeon, according to a new exhibition that challenges Western domination of the history of science and technology.

The plastic surgery claim relates to Susruta, who lived 150 years before Greece's "father of medicine," Hippocrates, and who lends his name to a number of modern Indian clinics.

Iyer, citing official records, said the surgeon pioneered nose reconstruction in northern India, which entailed removing skin from the forehead of a person to re-build the facial feature.
Criminals were often punished by having their noses cut off during his time.

He is credited with authoring the Susruta Samhita, a medical text which details 650 types of drugs, 300 operations, 42 surgical procedures and 121 types of instruments, according to available records.

The earliest documentation of Indian medicine is found in holy Hindu scripts of the Vedas compiled between 3,000 and 1,000 BC.

Physicist Manas Bagchi, who helped set up the science heritage exhibition, said India's achievements in pre-Iron Age sectors such as alchemy, astronomy, cultivation, metrology and metallurgy have been especially highlighted.

He also highlighted India's claim to have invented the mathematical zero.

Three civilisations had a notion of the zero, but Indians were the first to use it as the base numeral, giving it the shape '0' which is now used across the world.

The event also showcased advances in zinc smelting in 800 AD, breakthroughs in astronomy between 400 and 1,000 AD, as well as multiple cropping technology practised by Indian farmers as far back as in 2,500 BC. source
My comment: What I always find amazing is how deep the knowledge of mankind was 3000 years ago and how it eroded with time to the Dark Ages (until 14th century). How could possibly a society of farmers know how to smelt, how to create sophisticated golden treasures, how to do nose surgeries? I think people fail to imagine how much devotion and statistics a surgery require. It's not just about cutting, it's about how to be sure you're patient has biggest chances of survival. It took us 600 years to develop that knowledge, but combined with economy and differentiating of the society and stepping on the shoulders of the left-overs of the ancient knowledge that Greek philosophers inherited. Where did the ancient Hindus took that knowledge from?

Did Chinese ships discover America?

By Susan Lazaruk, The ProvinceOctober 18, 2009

History books tell us that the first Chinese settlers to Canada arrived in Victoria about 150 years ago, but a U.S. researcher says she has solid evidence that they came earlier. Some 4,000 years earlier.

That would be 3,500 years before 1492, when European explorer Christopher "Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

Or 10,000 years after nomadic hunters from Eastern Siberia crossed the frozen Bering Strait during the Ice Age, a migration taken by modern scholars to account for North America's native population.

Charlotte Harris Rees, a retired civil servant from Virginia who came to her role as researcher late in life and rather accidentally, says she has proof the Chinese first sailed to the west coast of North and South America, or more specifically, were carried eastward on Pacific currents in 2,000 BC.

That explains, she says, why a number of placenames in the Americas mean something in Chinese, such as Peru, or "white mist," in Chinese, but not in Spanish.

And why certain symbols associated with Indian drawings found in America are nearly identical to Chinese writing; why native American infants share Asian babies' "Mongolian spots," a birthmark near the base of the spine, as well as Asian bloodlines and jawlines; and why ancient villages in China bear a resemblance to native American settlements, right down to the teepees.

But Rees endorses Menzies' work and the support is reciprocal.

She admitted she isn't an academic but said she draws on a variety of academic studies to prove her theory, a labour of love that consumes every day of what was supposed to be a quiet retirement. And she notes she has the endorsement of Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee, retired chief of the Asian division of the U.S. Library of Congress, who studied her dad's maps. source

My comment: It's not hard to believe in that theory. It's almost sure by now that Columbus had a map, something that led him to the Americas. And there are many speculations that the map came from China. And I find the names argument for very convincing. If a name means something in Chinese and not on the local language, then there must be some connection with China. And I didn't know so many people get such birth marks. I think I heard that gypsies(Roma) got such, but I though it's nonsense. Maybe it isn't after all, since they have Asian origin too. This is all very odd.

Modern man had sex with Neanderthals

By Amy Willis
Published: 1:11PM GMT 25 Oct 2009

Professor Paabo, who is director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institution for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, made the claim at a conference in the Cold Springs Laboratory in New York.

But Prof Paabo said he was unclear if the couplings had led to children, of if they were capable of producing offspring.

"I'm sure that they had sex, but did it give offspring that contributed to us? We will be able to answer quite vigorously with the new [Neanderthal genome] sequence."

The phenomenon is already seen in modern animals such as horses and zebras, and lions and tigers, but resulting offspring have always been infertile.

In recent years, fossils with both Neanderthal and modern human features have been found suggesting the two species interbred but previous scans of Neanderthal genes reveal Neanderthal DNA to have a very different make-up from modern man's.

It is hoped the new claim will provide an answer to these conflicting discoveries.

Neanderthals were primitive beings that lived alongside modern man 30,000 years ago. The two species coexisted for 10,000- 12,000 years before Neanderthals eventually died out. source

My comment: "were primitive beings"? I thought at least that is know to be fault by now. It's unbelievable how difficult scientists (and people) change their attitude even when they know it's wrong. In any case, I find it pretty cool that people finally realise that Neanderthals and "modern man" did have sex, after all they were pretty not so different while they coexisted. Sure, they looked different on the outside, but not more than a white girl looks different from a tall and strong black man. Does that stop them from having sex or relationship? No. Not at all. So, it's hard to imagine a good reason why 2 sentient species won't sex, apart from some kind of war. But since wars are not documented, it makes sense that the love was all around

Shorties:

Archaeologists find mummy of young priestess from 300-450 AD in Peru

November 9th, 2009 - 3:07 pm ICT by ANI Lima (Peru), November 9 (ANI): An archaeological excavation has uncovered the mummy of a young priestess, a member of the elite, with several precious items dating from the period of 300-450 AD in Cahuachi, Peru.

According to a report in Travel Culture History News, the mummy was found inside a series of rooms between the Great Pyramid and what is known as the Orange Pyramid.

Giuseppe Orefici, director of the Nasca Project, said that the archaeologists had to remove a layer or reeds and ropes that covered the burial.

The body appeared to have been painted and found with an additional vertebra added. She also had slightly deformed forearms, apparently something self-inflicted by having the arms extended vertically for long periods of time - perhaps as a result of a praying.

She was wrapped in finely woven fabric that had patterns of orcas (killer whales) found in the southern pacific and contained obsidian arrow heads.

Of these one(jewels) in particular stands out; a spectacular golden nose ring bathed in silver, which was found on her nose when uncovered. Also found were necklaces and bracelets of precious spondylus shells among other precious items. (ANI) source

New discoveries at world's oldest submerged town

16 October 2009 Nottingham, University of

Archaeologists surveying the world’s oldest submerged town have found ceramics dating back to the Final Neolithic. Their discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 years ago — at least 1,200 years earlier than originally thought.

As a Mycenaean town the site offers potential new insights into the workings of Mycenaean society. Pavlopetri has added importance as it was a maritime settlement from which the inhabitants coordinated local and long distance trade.

This summer the team carried out a detailed digital underwater survey and study of the structural remains, which until this year were thought to belong to the Mycenaean period — around 1600 to 1000 BC. The survey surpassed all their expectations. Their investigations revealed another 150 square metres of new buildings as well as ceramics that suggest the site was occupied throughout the Bronze Age — from at least 2800 BC to 1100 BC.

Possibly one of the most important discoveries has been the identification of what could be a megaron — a large rectangular great hall — from the Early Bronze Age period. They have also found over 150 metres of new buildings including what could be the first example of a pillar crypt ever discovered on the Greek mainland. Two new stone built cist graves were also discovered alongside what appears to be a Middle Bronze Age pithos burial.source

Australian archaeologists uncover 40,000-year-old site

March 10, 2010 by Amy Coopes

Australian archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the world's southernmost site of early human life, a 40,000-year-old tribal meeting ground, an Aboriginal leader said Wednesday.

The site appears to have been the last place of refuge for Aboriginal tribes from the cannon fire of Australia's first white settlers, said Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.

The find came during an archaeological survey ahead of roadworks near Tasmania's Derwent River and soil dating had established the age of the artefacts found there.

"When the archaeological report came out it showed that (life there) had gone back longer than any other recorded place anywhere else in Tasmania, dating back to 40,000 years," Mansell told AFP.

Up to three million artefacts, including stone tools, shellfish fragments and food scraps, were believed to be buried in the area, which appeared to have been a meeting ground for three local tribes.

They died out after white settlers arrived in the late 18th century.

Paton said luminescence readings -- measuring the age of the artefacts based on how much exposure they had received to sunlight -- had been "nice and statistically tight".

"That suggests to me that they're probably correct, giving us a top reading of 28,000 (years old) and certainly seeming to go back another 10,000 (years) at least beyond that," he said.

Australia's original inhabitants, with cultures stretching back tens of thousands of years, are believed to have numbered around one million at the time of white settlement. There are now just 470,000 out of a population of 21 million and Australia's most impoverished minority. source

Nature can be creepy, very creepy, 02.2010

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:11:00 +0200

Sorry for the delay but I had to work harder than usual these weeks. I have a lot of things to read, so I don't promise quick return to posting, but I'll do what I can. So here's my first one. It's dedicated to the oddities in Nature. You must admit some of them are quite creepy

Today:

Like humans, ants use bacteria to make their gardens grow
Extinct goat was cold-blooded
Orphan army ants join nearby colonies
Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating techniques
Serotonin Made in Breast Cancer Cells, Researchers Show
Blocking 'happiness' chemical may prevent locust plagues
Study confirms that cannabis is beneficial for multiple sclerosis

Like humans, ants use bacteria to make their gardens grow

November 19, 2009 by Terry Devitt
(PhysOrg.com) -- Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.

Here's a new one to add to the list: the ant farmers, like their human counterparts, depend on nitrogen-fixing bacteria to make their gardens grow.

Indeed, the partnership between ant and microbe permits leaf-cutters to be amazingly successful. Their underground nests, some the size of small houses, can harbor millions of inhabitants. In the Amazon forest they comprise four times more biomass than do all land animals combined.

A critical finding in the new study, according to the Wisconsin scientist, is that the nitrogen, which is extracted from the air by the bacteria, ends up in the ants themselves and, ultimately, benefits the nitrogen-poor ecosystems where the ants thrive.source

My comment: If you remember, I posted earlier about the bacteria that was riding zomby-ants to the place where they need them to rot. Also you should have seen the huge ant-cities of thsoe ants. So we're obviously seeing an amazing symbiosis. I can't say more, I find it amazing that both ants and bacteria found each other and are thriving, because of each other, because one doesn't count neither the ants, nor the bacteria for especially intelligent. And Nature proves us that intelligence has different levels and forms.

Extinct goat was cold-blooded

November 18, 2009 by Lin Edwards
(PhysOrg.com) -- An extinct goat that lived on a barren Mediterranean island survived for millions of years by reducing in size and by becoming cold-blooded, which has never before been discovered in mammals.

The goat, Myotragus balearicus, lived on what is now Majorca, a Spanish island. The island had scarce resources, and there was no way for the goats to leave, and so scientists wondered how they had thrived for so long. A recently published research paper reveals the extinct goat survived by adjusting its growth rate and metabolism to suit the available food, becoming cold-blooded like reptiles.

The adult goats stood around 18 inches (45 cm) high, and the kids were around the size of a large rat. Reaching adulthood would have taken many years. Paleobiologist Meike Kohler of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, said the goats would have moved slowly to conserve energy, and probably spent a lot of time lying around basking in the sun. The postcranial skeleton suggested the goat could not jump, run or move fast, which made it easy prey.

Myotragus survived on the island as dwarf cold-blooded animals for millenia because they had no natural enemies (...), in total, the species inhabited the island for over five million years. source

My comment: What an amazing story. You know how much I love goats, so I'm not particularly surprised they found a way to survive. Even if I find the idea of rat-kid little bit nasty. Kids are supposed to be cute after all. And a cold-blooded goat, that sounds like the ideal hero for a horror movie. But anyway, this article is supposed to show the creepiness and creativity of Nature. And of course, someone probably should tell us when did Majorca separate from Spain and why?

Orphan army ants join nearby colonies

November 4, 2009
(PhysOrg.com) -- Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are usually antagonistic to each other, attacking soldiers from rival colonies in border disputes that keep the colonies separate. But new work by a researcher at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen shows that in some cases the colonies can be cooperative instead of combative.

In those cases, when an army ant colony loses its queen(from natural causes), its workers are absorbed, not killed, by neighboring colonies, and within days are treated as part of the family.

Most of the queenless colonies, seven out of 10, simply joined a neighboring colony -- determined by genetic analysis -- with the new workers slowly losing their distinct colony odor, and within days becoming fully integrated.

The last queenless colony stayed on its own, with workers employing a strategy of producing a small brood of winged males. Though these males were removed for analysis, in an undisturbed colony the males would fly off looking for young unmated queens. Though this strategy does provide some chance of passing along the colony's genes, the small number of males produced -- just 31 in this case compared with 3,000 in a fully functioning colony -- illustrates that this strategy may not be efficient. source

My comment: Wow! Another surprise, as I said, intelligence on a number of levels. Can you believe how much sense their actions make? And how "nice" it is of the enemy colonies to allow those ants to join them just like that? Another wow

Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating techniques

November 10, 2009
Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 percent.

In other words, a biological specimen determined by traditional DNA testing to be 100,000 years old may actually be 200,000 to 600,000 years old, researchers suggest in a new report in Trends in Genetics, a professional journal.

The findings raise doubts about the accuracy of many evolutionary rates based on conventional types of genetic analysis.

The findings, researchers say, are primarily a challenge to the techniques used to determine the age of a sample by genetic analysis alone, rather than by other observations about fossils. In particular, they may force a widespread re-examination of determinations about when one species split off from another, if that determination was based largely on genetic evidence. source

My comment: Ok, and now extrapolate this to Homo Sapiens in all of its forms. Interesting, huh? Because most of the theories how different we are from the Neanderthals are based on the early age we separated from them. If this ages is greatly underestimated, that may change the rules of the game a great deal. Can't wait to see that.

Serotonin Made in Breast Cancer Cells, Researchers Show

November 24, 2009
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have documented that the brain hormone serotonin is made in human breast cancer cells and functions abnormally, contributing to malignant growth.

Horseman’s team has previously shown that serotonin, a neurotransmitter best known for its involvement in mood regulation, plays a role in mammary gland development. Armed with that knowledge, researchers analyzed human breast tumors from patients and in a laboratory setting to determine if serotonin played a role in breast cancer.

In a normal mammary gland, serotonin acts as a physiological regulator of lactation and involution (shrinkage of the milk-making system when it’s not needed), in part by favoring growth arrest and cell death. Researchers found that the serotonin system was subverted in two important ways in human breast cancers.

“First, the amount of serotonin that the breast cancer cells synthesize changes abnormally,” Horseman says. “And second, breast cancer cells have receptors for serotonin that are different from normal breast cells, so they receive the serotonin signal in a different way—and that contributes to abnormal growth.” source

My comment: Hm, that's odd, right? What I didn't understand is if too much happiness is good for our breast or bad. Because this is kind of important study, in more than one ways. People usually think that cancer appear when we're not happy with our lives, if it's the other way around...that will turn the things upside-down. What about eating chocolate while fighting cancer, then?

Blocking 'happiness' chemical may prevent locust plagues

19:00 29 January 2009 by Ewen Callaway

Serotonin, the brain chemical that's fired up by such antidepressants, converts normally solitary desert locusts into sociable, swarming insects, capable of mass destruction of crops.

Blocking or reversing this chemical switch could offer a way to battle swarms using more environmentally friendly approaches.

Desert locust populations flourish after rare rainstorms bring sprouting plants to munch on. The eventual return of drought conditions pushes rejuvenated yet hungry locust populations into ever closer contact. Their only choice is to team up and move on.

Initially small groups coalesce into vast swarms that can include billions of individuals and occupy hundreds of square kilometres, eating any greenery in sight.

How locusts, which normally prefer to avoid one another, give up the single life and start to coordinate as a group has long puzzled researchers. An obvious candidate for the trigger was a neurotransmitter, which are potent chemicals that allow brain cells to communicate and underlie animal behaviour.

Levels of one neurotransmitter, serotonin, spike during the two-hour switch from solitary life to swarm, Roger's team had previously found. Tickling their thoraxes or exposing locusts to the sight and smell of others triggers the release of serotonin, they also discovered.

To strengthen the case for serotonin, his team blocked its activity in locusts using several different drugs. They then tickled the locusts to trigger behaviours typical of swarming, such as frequent movement and grooming. Most locusts did not take the bait. On the other hand, serotonin and drugs that ramp up the neurotransmitter made solitary locusts eager to swarm. source

My comment: It's funny how one thing can be beneficial in one case and absolutely devastating in other cases. Serotonin is obviously one of those things. I have long-term interest in locusts swarms so I wonder how this could be interpreted. The serotonin decrease the will to escape from the proximity of other locusts, like it decreases the resistance to collectivity in the individual. That's certainly interesting...Does it do the same in humans?

Study confirms that cannabis is beneficial for multiple sclerosis

December 4, 2009

Cannabis can reduce spasticity in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. A systematic review, published in the open access journal BMC Neurology, found that five out six randomized controlled trials reported a reduction in spasticity and an improvement in mobility.

Shaheen Lakhan and Marie Rowland from the Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation, Los Angeles, USA, searched for trials evaluating the cannabis extracts delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). According to Lakhan, "We found evidence that combined THC and CBD extracts may provide therapeutic benefit for MS spasticity symptoms".

Spasticity, involuntary muscle tension or contraction, is a common symptom of MS. Many existing therapies for this symptom are ineffective, difficult to obtain, or associated with intolerable side effects. In this study, reported incidence of side effects from cannabis, such as intoxication, varied greatly depending on the amount of cannabis needed to effectively limit spasticity, but the researchers note that side effects were also seen in the placebo groups. source

My comment: Oh, well, the conclusion is obvious

Our glorious past turns our to be Indus?, january, 2010

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:47:15 +0200

Today:

World's oldest submerged town dates back 5,000 years (w/ Video)
Giant impact near India -- not Mexico -- may have doomed dinosaurs
Indus script linguistically Dravidian: expert
Frieze dated from 5,000 years ago found in Peru (picture)
Genetic evidence for human-Neanderthal hanky panky?
Did India invent the nose job?

World's oldest submerged town dates back 5,000 years (w/ Video)

October 16th, 2009

Archaeologists surveying the world's oldest submerged town have found ceramics dating back to the Final Neolithic. Their discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 years ago -- at least 1,200 years earlier than originally thought.

These remarkable findings have been made public by the Greek government after the start of a five year collaborative project involving the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and The University of Nottingham.

This summer the team carried out a detailed digital underwater survey and study of the structural remains, which until this year were thought to belong to the Mycenaean period — around 1600 to 1000 BC. The survey surpassed all their expectations. Their investigations revealed another 150 square metres of new buildings as well as ceramics that suggest the site was occupied throughout the Bronze Age — from at least 2800 BC to 1100 BC.

Dr Jon Henderson said: "This site is unique in that we have almost the complete town plan, the main streets and domestic buildings, courtyards, rock-cut tombs and what appear to be religious buildings, clearly visible on the seabed. "

Possibly one of the most important discoveries has been the identification of what could be a megaron — a large rectangular great hall — from the Early Bronze Age period. They have also found over 150 metres of new buildings including what could be the first example of a pillar crypt ever discovered on the Greek mainland. Two new stone built cist graves were also discovered alongside what appears to be a Middle Bronze Age pithos burial.

Dr Gallou said: "The new ceramic finds form a complete and exceptional corpus of pottery covering all sub-phases from the Final Neolithic period (mid 4th millennium BC) to the end of the Late Bronze Age (1100 BC). ". source

My comment:Absolutely awesome! I hope the Greek guys will manage to make the distinction between Mycenaean and Greek, because there were no Greeks at that point of space-time. Not on the Balkans at least. But the underwater city is stunning and I'm waiting for new discoveries to come. It's not very good that they work with British specialists, but let's hope that the Truth will dominate their work. I'm saying that because there is a suspicious silence on Thracians and the people who lived on the Balkans before them in main-stream science and I cannot but wonder if those scientists will be brave enough to connect their discoveries with the Pelasgian people or they will jut make up a new civillization.

Giant impact near India -- not Mexico -- may have doomed dinosaurs

A mysterious basin off the coast of India could be the largest, multi-ringed impact crater the world has ever seen. And if a new study is right, it may have been responsible for killing the dinosaurs off 65 million years ago.

Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and a team of researchers took a close look at the massive Shiva basin, a submerged depression west of India that is intensely mined for its oil and gas resources. Some complex craters are among the most productive hydrocarbon sites on the planet. Chatterjee will present his research at this month's Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

"If we are right, this is the largest crater known on our planet," Chatterjee said. "A bolide of this size, perhaps 40 kilometers (25 miles) in diameter creates its own tectonics."

By contrast, the object that struck the Yucatan Peninsula, and is commonly thought to have killed the dinosaurs was between 8 and 10 kilometers (5 and 6.2 miles) wide.

It's hard to imagine such a cataclysm. But if the team is right, the Shiva impact vaporized Earth's crust at the point of collision, leaving nothing but ultra-hot mantle material to well up in its place. It is likely that the impact enhanced the nearby Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions that covered much of western India. What's more, the impact broke the Seychelles islands off of the Indian tectonic plate, and sent them drifting toward Africa.

The geological evidence is dramatic. Shiva's outer rim forms a rough, faulted ring some 500 kilometers in diameter, encircling the central peak, known as the Bombay High, which would be 3 miles tall from the ocean floor (about the height of Mount McKinley). Most of the crater lies submerged on India's continental shelf, but where it does come ashore it is marked by tall cliffs, active faults and hot springs. The impact appears to have sheared or destroyed much of the 30-mile-thick granite layer in the western coast of India. source

My comment: Nice, now compete for the site of the impact. What would be really interesting, if all of those craters are with the same age. Which wouldn't very unexpected if they were parts of a body that passed near Earth. But it has to be checked.

Indus script linguistically Dravidian: expert

S. Ganesan

The Indus script is Dravidian linguistically and culturally closer to the old Tamil polity than what has been recognised so far, eminent epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan has said.

He shared some of his recent and still-not-fully-published findings relating to the interpretation of the Indus script, in an endowment lecture on ‘Vestiges of Indus Civilisation in Old Tamil’ at the 16th annual session of the Tamil Nadu History Congress, which opened here on Friday.

Mr. Mahadevan said that though the claim could be met with incredulity, the evidence he had gathered over four decades of intensive study of the sources — the Indus texts and old Tamil anthologies — had led him to the conclusion.

Mr. Mahadevan, who specialises in the Indus script and Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, said there was also substantial archaeological evidence to support the view that Indus Civilisation was pre-Aryan. The Indus Civilisation was urban, while the Vedic culture was rural and pastoral.

The Indus seals, he said, do not depict the horse and the chariot with ‘spooked wheels,’ which were the defining pieces of the Aryan-speaking societies. “The Indus religion as revealed by the pictorial depiction on seals included worship of a buffalo-horned male god, mother-goddesses, the pipal tree and the serpent, and possibly the phallic symbol. Such modes of worship present in Hinduism are known to have been derived from the aboriginal population and are totally alien to the religion of the Rig Veda.”

There was also substantial linguistic evidence “favouring Dravidian authorship of the Indus Civilisation,” he said, citing Brahui, a Dravidian language still spoken in the Indus region, Dravidian loan words in the Rig Veda, the substratum influence of Dravidian on Indo-Aryan as shown by the presence of retroflex consonants in the Rig Veda and major modifications in the Prakrit dialects moving them closer to the Dravidian than the Indo-European family of languages. Computer analysis of Indus texts has also revealed that the language had suffixes only as in Dravidian and no prefixes as in Indo-Aryan or infixes as in Munda.

Clarifying that he was employing the terms, ‘Aryan’ and ‘Dravidian,’ only in linguistic sense, he said speakers of the Aryan languages indistinguishably merged with Dravidian and Munda-speaking people millennia ago, creating a composite Indian society.

Referring to the ‘BEARER’ ideograms in the Indus script, he said the frequent Harappan title, ‘Bearer,’ originally meant a priestly functionary ceremonially carrying, on a yoke, food offerings to the deity. The corresponding Dravidian expression, ‘poray’ (bearer) was translated in the Rig Veda as Bharata (bearer).

The symbols inscribed on a Neolithic axe found at Sembiyan Kandiyur near Mayiladuthurai in 2006, a most significant discovery connecting Indus Civilisation with Tamil Nadu, corresponded to the signs of the Indus script. Symbols found on megalithic pottery and potsherds from Sanur and Mangudi in Tamil Nadu also resembled the signs of the Indus script. source

My comment: Ok, that is certainly interesting. Though I find it hard to understand, why, if Harappa and Mohenjo-daro are so old, they try to connect them with the Aryans. Maybe it has something to do with the Indo-european languages, but still, I get very annoyed when people try to stick Aryans everywhere. So what if that civilisation has nothing to do with them, do this make it worst? It's ridiculous! And I hope that guy did the research right, because we know what kind of attacks the previous similar research had to take. It's a war out there!

Frieze dated from 5,000 years ago found in Peru

Isabel Guerra, 8 October, 2009 [ 12:42 ]

A frieze that would have been sculpted 5,000 years ago, was found at Vichama archaeological complex, some 120km to the north of Lima, according to archaeologists of the Caral-Supe project.

According to a press release, the most notable part of the frieze is one that represents a human hand holding an object like a knife or a spindle.

The archaeologists think that the frieze might be associated with ceremonial activities, and could probably represent a particular scene or ritual slaughter. source
My comment: Note the hand on the picture. Does it look normal? Not to me!

October 27, 2009 6:32 PM

Genetic evidence for human-Neanderthal hanky panky?

Ewen Callaway, reporter

The scientist behind the Neanderthal genome project said he's certain that Neanderthals and our ancestors had sex.

The claim is making its way around the internet today, based largely off of a story in The Sunday Times.

"I'm sure in a way that they had sex, but what I'm interested in was it productive in the sense of giving offspring that contributed to us, and that I think we'll be able to answer quite rigorously with the genome sequence we'll have," said Svante Pääbo, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, during a recent conference.

Pääbo's team is expected to publish a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome by year's end, but it's unclear whether or not there is any indication of admixture.

Preliminary analysis of the nuclear genome has turned up no sign of inbreeding. So why is Pääbo so sure that Neanderthals and humans shared a bed?

His public comments give no indication that the genome sequence offers this proof, and one member of Paabo's team involved in this analysis that I contacted declined to comment until the genome sequence is published. Fair enough. The data analysis is extremely complex and it ought to be vetted by peer reviewers.

Beyond genetics, though, some researchers have interpreted well-known paleontological finds as evidence for human-Neanderthal hanky panky.

For one, the two species seem to have lived close together in parts of Europe and the Middle East, so it is not impossible to imagine that Neanderthals and humans met on occasion.

More direct proof for admixture comes in the skeleton of a child that seemed to possess both human and Neanderthal features, discovered in Portugal in 1999. However, not all paleoanthropologists believe this is a hybrid, and it presupposes what a Neanderthal-human hybrid should look like.

An increasingly popular view is that Neanderthal-human sex could have produced either sterile offspring, like a mule or a liger, or no offspring at all due to chromosomal incompatibility.

"It's possible that Neanderthals and humans were genetically incompatible, so they could have interbred but their children would have been less fertile," the London National History Museum's Chris Stringer told the Sunday Times. source
My comment: I don't see why wouldn't they have sex. I mean, what's to stop them. And the most important question is how different we are genetically, so are fertile babies a no-go, or not. Lol, women even back then liked big and strong males

Did India invent the nose job?

October 29th, 2009 by Pratap Chakravarty

An Indian doctor working in 600 B.C. might have been the world's first plastic surgeon, according to a new exhibition that challenges Western domination of the history of science and technology.

The plastic surgery claim relates to Susruta, who lived 150 years before Greece's "father of medicine," Hippocrates, and who lends his name to a number of modern Indian clinics.

Iyer, citing official records, said the surgeon pioneered nose reconstruction in northern India, which entailed removing skin from the forehead of a person to re-build the facial feature.

Criminals were often punished by having their noses cut off during his time.

He is credited with authoring the Susruta Samhita, a medical text which details 650 types of drugs, 300 operations, 42 surgical procedures and 121 types of instruments, according to available records.

The earliest documentation of Indian medicine is found in holy Hindu scripts of the Vedas compiled between 3,000 and 1,000 BC.

Physicist Manas Bagchi, who helped set up the science heritage exhibition, said India's achievements in pre-Iron Age sectors such as alchemy, astronomy, cultivation, metrology and metallurgy have been especially highlighted.

He also highlighted India's claim to have invented the mathematical zero.

Three civilisations had a notion of the zero, but Indians were the first to use it as the base numeral, giving it the shape '0' which is now used across the world.

The event also showcased advances in zinc smelting in 800 AD, breakthroughs in astronomy between 400 and 1,000 AD, as well as multiple cropping technology practised by Indian farmers as far back as in 2,500 BC.

source

My comment: Amazing! I mean, how many things Indians came up with. Now, I cannot judge if everything they say is true, but there are not too many reasons to doubt it. We all know that Greek philosopher took their knowledge from somewhere - India is a sensible choice for storage of the ancient wisdom. The main question is did they only store the information, or they invented it? Without being a racist, I don't think they invented it. There is a missing period and a missing civilisation. And I get more and more convinced that this civilisation was very wide-spread across the Earth, if we account for all the precious bits of knowledge different culture kept.

Times speaks to us - humans get younger and younger, 2009

nospam@example.com (Denitsa) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:25:53 +0200

The Phoenicians were a trading people with settlements or colonies in many parts of the Mediterranean. Their origins have been traced to about 2300 BC and had declined by the early part of the 1st century AD.(source)
Few interesting links:
-link to Thracian mask-
-Aramaean sculptures(6000BC) -
-Lost cities of the world-
-Bactrian gold treasures- in Afganistan
-Cave Complex Allegedly Found Under Giza Pyramids -a giant complex of cave found underneath the pyramids.
Today:

Mammals’ family tree predates the dinosaurs
Human Population Expanded During Late Stone Age, Genetic Evidence Shows
Was T. rex a chicken and baby killer?
Early modern humans use fire to engineer tools from stone
Evidence for Use of Fire Found at Peking Man Site
Fossil find in Georgia challenges theories on early humans
Chinese challenge to 'out of Africa' theory

Ok, many articles, but then I edited them very carefully, so they became quite short. I hope you enjoy them, but if you're too lazy to read them all - please know that they all push further and further back in time the dawn of human civilization. And this is VERY exciting.

Human Population Expanded During Late Stone Age, Genetic Evidence Shows

ScienceDaily (Aug. 4, 2009) — Genetic evidence is revealing that human populations began to expand in size in Africa during the Late Stone Age approximately 40,000 years ago. A research team led by Michael F. Hammer found that sub-Saharan populations increased in size well before the development of agriculture. This research supports the hypothesis that population growth played a significant role in the evolution of human cultures in the Late Pleistocene.

There has been a longstanding disagreement whether humans began to increase in number as a result of innovative technologies and/or behaviors formulated by hunter-gatherer groups in the Late Pleistocene, or with the advent of agriculture in the Neolithic. Hammer's research integrates empirical genetics with discoveries in paleontology and archeology to help provide answers to interdisciplinary questions about which kinds of innovations led to the evolutionary success of humankind.

The researchers found that both hunter-gathers and food-producing groups best fit models with approximately ten-fold population growth beginning well before the origin of agriculture.

The team's finely executed experimental design and use of supercomputing power enabled them to determine that this expansion in population size likely began at the start of the Late Stone Age—a period in prehistory that shows an intensification of archeological sites, an increased abundance of blade-based lithic technologies, and enhanced long-distance exchange. source

My comment: Recently I had a major quarrel with an archaeologist, about the possible existence of an unknown ancient civilization. I don't get why those people are so convinced in their theories, when every day we witness discoveries that push the timing of Homo Sapiens development earlier and earlier in time. And how much a civilization needs to rise (and to fall)? It's hard to tell, but our own civillisation ha memories from say 7000 years ago. If that's all it takes, then every 10 000 years extra we get can hide a civilization. And note, I'm not even talking about civillisations as ours (although why not in 10 000 year, you have 7000 years to get to our level and 3 000 to fall and forget everything) . All I talk about is a civilization from say Roman style. I think it's fail enough to keep our minds open for such possibilities.

Was T. rex a chicken and baby killer?

By Charles Q. Choi

Aug. 7, 2009

Although past research has suggested Tyrannosaurus rex was related to chickens, now findings hint this giant predator might have acted chicken too.

Instead of picking on dinosaurs its own size, researchers now suggest T. rex was a baby killer that liked to swallow defenseless prey whole.

Fossil evidence of attacks of tyrannosaurs or similar gargantuan "theropods" on triceratops and duck-billed dinosaurs has been uncovered before, conjuring images of titanic clashes.

However, although there were a great many such giant carnivores over the course of the age of the dinosaurs, there are surprisingly few bite marks in the fossil record when compared to the age of mammals. Indeed, details of the scratches and punctures from most examples of dinosaur attacks seem to suggest these collisions between teeth and bone were accidents.

"The very few fossils that reflect the hunt of predatory dinosaurs on large herbivores tell a tale of failure — the prey either got away, or both prey and predator were killed," Rauhut noted.

This all hints that while conflicts between T. rexes and prey likely occurred, these were probably the exception and not the rule.

Instead, Rauhut and Hone suggest large theropods stuck mostly to devouring youngsters, including their bones, thus explaining why fossils bearing toothmarks are rare.

The fact that large theropods ate bones is certain. Fossilized dung, or coprolites, from large theropods often contain scraps of bone, suggesting these carnivores gulped down fragments of ribs, vertebrae, and other relatively small bones while feeding.

As further evidence for their idea, the researchers point out past finds of dinosaur nests "indicate that they contained large numbers of eggs which should have resulted in a high number of offspring," Rauhut said. "But little of this is reflected in the fossil record. Juvenile dinosaurs are surprisingly rare, maybe because many of them have been eaten by predators."

It makes sense that even a mighty carnivore like T. rex would aim young. The very rare finds of stomach contents of predatory dinosaurs suggest that small prey was swallowed whole.

Actually confirming or refuting this idea will be hard, since most of the possible evidence that large theropods preferred youngsters might have been destroyed "by theropods digesting it completely," Rauhut explained.

A number of alternative explanations for the lack of juvenile dinosaur bones exist as well. "Maybe juvenile bones naturally did not preserve as well, lived in environments where they wouldn't preserve as well," Hone said.

My comment: Here is one more article(Velociraptor's 'killing' claws were for climbing) suggesting that the claws weren't made for killing. I find it difficult to accept the mere lack of baby bones for a proof that the big guys ate them. Maybe they simply had extremely little juvenile mortality, right? It becomes harder and harder for me to imagine how the dinosaurs actually lived, because, well, it all points to a much more complicated "society" (or whatever the word is) than what movies like Jurassic park make us believe. And note - in most fairy tales, dragons were actually symbol of majesty and wisdom, even of danger too.

Early modern humans use fire to engineer tools from stone

TEMPE, Ariz. – Evidence that early modern humans living on the coast of the far southern tip of Africa 72,000 years ago employed pyrotechnology – the controlled use of fire – to increase the quality and efficiency of their stone tool manufacturing process, is being reported in the Aug. 14 issue of the journal Science. An international team of researchers deduce that "this technology required a novel association between fire, its heat, and a structural change in stone with consequent flaking benefits." Further, their findings ignite the notion of complex cognition in these early engineers.

"We show that early modern humans at 72,000 years ago, and perhaps as early as 164,000 years ago in coastal South Africa, were using carefully controlled hearths in a complex process to heat stone and change its properties, the process known as heat treatment," explains Brown.

This creates a long-chain technological process that the researchers explain requires a complex cognition, and probably language, to learn and teach.

The heating transformed a stone called silcrete, which was rather poor for tool making, into an outstanding raw material that allowed the modern humans to make highly advanced tools.

"In numerous field surveys with co-author David Roberts, who is a leading expert on silcrete formation, we were unable to locate stone outcrops with material that matched the fine-grained texture and often reddish color of the silcrete artifacts we excavated at Pinnacle Point," Brown says. "The silcrete we had collected was just not suitable for tool production."

Most of the silcrete they found was intensively flaked. It was unusual to find a piece larger than a few centimeters. However, one day in 2007, while Brown and Marean were at the Pinnacle Point Site 5-6 (PP5-6) they found a huge flake of silcrete embedded in ash – the largest piece of silcrete they had ever seen on an archaeological site, nearly 10 centimeters in diameter.

"It looked like it had been accidentally lost in a fire pit," Brown notes. He recalls how many of the silcrete tools from the site had a sheen or gloss that reminded him of tools he had examined in North American collections that were heat-treated.

To test their theory, Brown placed some of the silcrete stone beneath their fire pit one evening, building a hot fire over the top.

"When I returned to dig the stone out the following day, the results were amazing. After heating, the silcrete became a deep red color and was easily flaked. Most importantly, it looked exactly like silcrete from site PP5-6. Using heated silcrete we were then able to produce realistic copies of the actual silcrete tools," Brown says.

"Here are the beginnings of fire and engineering, the origins of pyrotechnology, and the bridge to more recent ceramic and metal technology," Brown says.

According to Marean, the silcrete bifaces are re-usable tools with many potential functions: effective hunting weapons, excellent knives and items of value for exchange.

"Prior to our work, heat treatment was widely regarded as first occurring in Europe at about 25,000 years ago," Marean says. "We push this back at least 45,000 years, and, perhaps, 139,000 years, and place it on the southern tip of Africa at Pinnacle Point."

source
My comment: Awesome, right! Continuing my comment from before - this new result push a specific epoch in our evolution as a specie with at least 45 000 years. This isn't little. True, on the scales of evolutions, it's not too much too. But this isn't so long ago from our point of view! And adoption of fire is one of the first myths in the Greek mythology, right? So this is obviously a turning point for mankind. So setting this time to 45 000 years earlier is quite interesting.

Evidence for Use of Fire Found at Peking Man Site

2009-08-11 12:26:22 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: Xu Leiying

Archaeologists have discovered several vertebrate fossils, ashes, burned bones and charcoal remnants at the Zhoukoudian caves, also known as the "Peking Man" site, China News Service reported on Monday.

The discovery proves that Peking man was able to use fire roughly 200-000 to 500,000 years ago, the article said. Many foreign experts once cast doubt on whether Peking Man could use fire at that time, because in past decades they found no direct evidence for its use. The recent archaeological discoveries directly refute their doubts, the article said.

Nearly 1,000 vertebrate fossils and a collection of stone tools were found at the excavation site about 45 km southwest of Beijing, according to Gao Xing, vice-director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP). source

My comment: A little sidetrack: earliest flax fibers that are more than 34,000 years old. Ok, I take this with a pinch of salt, because Chinese archaeology is like unleashed. I'm not saying they are lying, they probably are not. But until it gets very confirmed, I'd go with the previous article. Not because I prefer Africa as an origin, not at all. Simply because it's more conventional. But if this discovery is true, just extrapolate my previous comment!

Fossil find in Georgia challenges theories on early humans

8 September 2009 19.29 BST

Early humans may have taken a detour into Eurasia before embarking on their epic journey out of Africa, according to new fossil evidence.

Palaeontologists in Georgia have unearthed remains of five primitive humans that date back to 1.8m years ago, suggesting some of our oldest ancestors lived in the region at the time.

The partial skeletons, which represent the earliest humans discovered outside Africa, challenge the theory that our ancestors evolved entirely on the continent and left the cradle of humanity only 60,000 years ago.

David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, said the primitive humans were short, with small brains and strongly developed legs. Other remains suggest they lived alongside predators including sabre-toothed cats.

The fossils are thought to be early Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans, which lived in Africa 2m years ago. Lordkipanidze said some Homo erectus may have left Africa for Eurasia before returning much later.

The fossils were uncovered at the Dmanisi archaeological site south-west of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Remains thought to belong to two males and three females were found next to stone tools and animal bones bearing cut marks, suggesting the species prepared meat for food.

source

My comment: Hm, isn't this the description of Neanderthal? I know we're talking of different species, but I hope they did a very good DNA study. And anyway, the interesting part is that those guys used tools, so their brains wasn't that small. Though even monkeys (or most of the other animals) can learn to use tools.

Chinese challenge to 'out of Africa' theory

00:01 03 November 2009 by Phil McKenna

Jin Changzhu and colleagues of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, announced to Chinese media last week that they have uncovered a 110,000-year-old putative Homo sapiens jawbone from a cave in southern China's Guangxi province.

The mandible has a protruding chin like that of Homo sapiens, but the thickness of the jaw is indicative of more primitive hominins, suggesting that the fossil could derive from interbreeding.

If confirmed, the finding would lend support to the "multiregional hypothesis". This says that modern humans descend from Homo sapiens coming out of Africa who then interbred with more primitive humans on other continents. In contrast, the prevailing "out of Africa" hypothesis holds that modern humans are the direct descendants of people who spread out of Africa to other continents around 100,000 years ago.

source

My comment: The same a before. I find this news for extremely exciting, but I'd really like to see confirmation and analysis of the new results. Because, ok, Homo Sapiens came out of Africa and interbred with other species. But what are those speices and why Homo Sapiens, who at that time probably used fire and traded interbred with lower species? It's not like we like to have sex with monkeys (I hope we don't!). And I don't get it, why all those species are considered interbredable. And where did the other species come from?

Mammals’ family tree predates the dinosaurs

By Jennifer Viegas

July 29, 2009

The world's first known tree-dwelling vertebrate has just been identified, according to a new study. The tiny, agile animal lived 30 million years before the first dinosaurs and was a distant relative of mammals, including humans.

More than 15 near-complete skeletons of the 260-million-year-old animal, named Suminia getmanovi, reveal that it was built for an arboreal lifestyle.

"As the first tree-climbing vertebrate, Suminia had very long fore and hind limbs, with especially long hands and feet," lead author Jorg Frobisch told Discovery News.

"In particular, its long fingers, or digits, contributed to these large hands and feet," added Frobisch, a Field Museum paleontologist. "It further had long, strongly-curved claws — terminal phalanges — that helped with clinging onto tree trunks and branches."

He and co-author Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto made these determinations after studying multiple skeletons, which were encased in a big, Late Paleozoic mudstone block excavated from central Russia.

The recent analysis, outlined in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows the vertebrate was about 20 inches long from its nose to the tip of its grasping tail. It had an opposable thumb and belonged to a class of animals known as the Synapsida.

The word "synapsid" comes from the name of an opening behind the eye socket. Only one other group, mammals, possesses this opening, thought to have provided space for jaw muscles needed for chewing, according to information provided by the American Museum of Natural History, which supports the human-Synapsida connection.

Other Paleozoic synapsids included Edaphosaurus and Dimetrodon, which both looked somewhat like a cross between an iguana and a dinosaur with a boat sail tacked on its back. source

My comment: Nice, huh