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POPSStone Age Humans Crossed Sahara in the Rain Wet spells While about 40 per cent of hydrocarbons in today's dust come from water-dependent plants, this rose to 60 per cent, first between 120,000 and 110,000 ago and again from 50,000 to 45,000 years ago. So the region seemed to be in the grip of unusually wet spells at the time. That may have been enough to allow sub-Saharan Stone Age Homo sapiens to migrate north: the first fossils of modern humans outside Africa date from 93,000 year ago in Israel. And both genetic analysis and archaeology show that humans didn't spread extensively beyond Africa until 50,000 years ago, suggesting a second migration at the time of the second wet spell. Fossil record Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York is impressed by the findings. "They tie in approximately with the information we have from the fossil record."
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POPSIs Intelligence Sexy? <<<Many traits in many species have evolved through sexual selection specifically to function as fitness indicators that reveal good genes and good health. Sexually selected fitness indicators typically show (1) higher coefficients of phenotypic and genetic variation than survival traits, (2) at least moderate genetic heritabilities and (3) positive correlations with many aspects of an animal's general condition, including body size, body symmetry, parasite resistance, longevity and freedom from deleterious mutations. These diagnostic criteria also appear to describe human intelligence (the g factor).>>> (from abstract). So then, is there some sort of mirror neuron circuitry in the brain that excites a cortical g spot?
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POPSThe Reassurance of Magic A very straightforward polemic to chew over between the cornflakes and the coffee. (Certainly, almost anything is better than pop science).
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POPSReviewReviewReviewReview The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in PRAISE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR. "Throughout our history' the impetus to using force sometimes has seemed as inevitable as water circling an open drain, but war is not always the best way to defend our security interests. Eugene Jarecki examines the evolution of America's views about war,up through the invasion of Iraq.He knows how to ask the important questions, and he keeps asking until he gets the answers. This is the kind of insightful dialogue that can help ensure that when we act, we act not of fear, but are grounded in confidence in our ideals" - Senator Patric Leahy -
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POPSEvidence vs Dogma This clip pretty well sums up the point. Fundamentalists simply don't realize how abjectly stupid they sound when they constantly parrot the religious right mantra that evolution is "only a theory". No matter how often they hear that they are wrong in their use of the word theory they keep on trying to use the same old tired argument. They truly are ignorant in the manner in which they ignore what is being said. As the article clipped say, they literally stick their fingers in their ears and go la, la, la. How pathetic.
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POPSStudy Finds Humans Still Evolving, and Quickly Human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa, quickening to 100 times historical levels after agriculture became widespread, according to a study published today.
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POPSThe idiocy of claiming non belief is belief This is a common argument presented by the two trolls willhelm and darkeforce. In their world up is down, down is up, and after smearing poop on their own face they point at other people and call them shitheads. It's a world of redefining terms to suit their needs, cherry picking the foundation of their religion (the bible) to shore up their beliefs, and a pathological need to project their own requirements of blind faith on other people. It's the only way they can level the playing field when they know what irrational nuts they sound like when trying to defend their claims. Their only recourse - an ad hominem false equivalency approach in order to appear equal.
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POPSWorld's oldest human-linked skeleton’s found ‘Ardi’ predates Lucy by a million years, changes scientific view of origins WASHINGTON - The story of humankind is reaching back another million years with the discovery of “Ardi,” a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. The 110-pound, 4-foot female roamed forests a million years before the famous Lucy, long studied as the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor. This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.
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POPS Who says it's green to burn woodchips? Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch said: "It's almost unbelievable that we're creating vast areas of monoculture, mile after mile, just to be cut down as fast as they grow, to be shipped thousands of miles to be burned just for people's electricity. It just doesn't make sense. What about all the habitat that gets destroyed along the way?" Arrrghhh!!!! Please pass on ... retweet ... whatever. Somewhere I line must be drawn. See how woodlands can support multiple livings, and how complex they really are... www.worldwidewood.wordpress.com.
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POPSBye Bye Birdie: Famed Fossil Loses Avian Perch just one of several species of feathered dinosaurs preceding modern birds. It may not even be a direct ancestor. Such revisions make paleontology a science of second thoughts. Reconstructing the history of life, researchers thrash out theories of ancestry, behavior and biomechanics guided by hints from ancient bones. Archaeopteryx -- combining the feathers, wishbone and wings of a bird with the reptilian tail, teeth and claws of a dinosaur -- had already become a question mark. Newly discovered fossils have prompted scientists to revamp their assumptions about archaeopteryx's distinguishing features over the last decade. A cornucopia of fossil finds in China demonstrated that feathers coated many dinosaur species, not just birds. The newest finding, though, demonstrates that our understanding of even well-studied fossils like archaeopteryx -- scrutinized, measured, modeled for 150 years -- can still be upended.
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POPSSet Your Alarm For The Orionids!
"Last but not least, the display will be framed by some of the prettiest stars and planets in the night sky. In addition to Orionids, you'll see brilliant Venus, red Mars, the dog star Sirius, and bright winter constellations such as Orion, Gemini and Taurus. Even if the shower is a dud, the rest of the sky is dynamite." "According to Japanese meteor scientists Mikiya Sato and Jun-ichi Watanabe, 2006 marked Earth's first encounter with some very old debris. "We have found that the was caused by dust trails ejected from 1P/Halley in 1266 BC, 1198 BC, and 911 BC," they wrote in the August 2007 edition of Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. In their paper "Origin of the 2006 Orionid Outburst," Sato and Watanabe used a computer to model the structure and evolution of Halley's many debris streams stretching back in time as far as 3400 years. The debris that hit Earth in 2006 was among the oldest they studied and was rich in large fireball-producin
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POPSDavid Wilcock - Coast 2 Coast AM - October 6, 2009 But the Illuminati's agenda could be halted by a full-scale disclosure of the ET presence, Wilcock asserted. His sources have told him that such a disclosure is planned to occur before the end of 2009, and a 2-hour international TV special has already been booked that will introduce an alien species, similar to humans, to the world. Yet, a variety of ET species are visiting the Earth, including the Annunaki, who are reptilian in appearance, and a controlling force behind the Illuminati, he continued. The entire solar system is undergoing change as a galactic wave or energy field comes in, making the planets hotter, brighter and more magnetic, said Wilcock. This wave is pushing humanity to evolve to the next level or frequency, he added. But according to his sources, a spacecraft was secretly sent out to study the wave, and it was determined it will lead to planetary cataclysm between 2012-2017.
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POPSSelf Proclaimed Elites and Tyranny
"there’s little or no distinction between Nazism and socialism. Even the word Nazi is short for National Socialist German Workers Party. The origins of the unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism did not begin in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. Those horrors were simply the end result of long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for “social justice.” "Few Americans have the stomach or ruthlessness to do what is necessary to make their governmental wishes come true. They are willing to abandon constitutional principles and rule of law so that the nation’s elite, who believe they are morally and intellectually superior to the rest of us, can have the tools to implement “social justice.” "Those tools are massive centralized government power. "It just turns out last century’s notables in acquiring powerful central government, in the name of social justice, were Hitler, Stalin, Mao, but the struggle for social j
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POPSDiscovering Ardi My son just called to let me know this was on--good son, hey? He knows what i like :)
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POPSThe roving runner goes barefoot More: Web sites on barefoot running recommend starting slowly to acclimate your feet, and they are right. Although I wasn’t feeling any pain during the run, my feet were indeed hurting a bit the next day on the top and outside. But it felt more like the soreness of underused muscles rather than an injury. As for the soles of my feet, they were fine… My facial muscles felt a bit tired, but that was from smiling most of the way. I’m not sure if it was the liberating feeling of running barefoot, or chatting with an author whose book I had just devoured, or if I was just enjoying other runners’ reactions to two guys running barefoot in Central Park, but this was fun, just as running should be. Near the end of our run, as we passed Tavern on the Green, a runner sidled up alongside us. “You guys enjoying your barefoot run?” he asked. Sure are, we responded. “Well listen, there’s this book you have to check out,” he said. “It’s called ‘Born to Run.’”
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