Science Special News

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Did climate change trigger human evolution ?

It may be a threat to humans' long-term future on the planet, but climate change may have helped bring us into being in the first place, some scientists say. Some human-origins theories suggest that ancient climate changes acted as powerful evolutionary drivers, spurring our ancestors to stand tall on two legs, grow large brains, and develop other human traits. The evolution of early human species, so the theories go, was concentrated in periods marked by fluctuating environmental conditions. Other theories suggest that humankind emerged independently of climatic swings, with adaptations arising, for example, out of competition between or within species. While more evidence is needed to settle the debate, experts say the answer may lie at the bottoms of ancient African lakes.

The main challenge for researchers is to find out whether prehistoric shifts in climate coincided with key stages of development in the early human fossil record, writes ancient-biology expert Anna K. Behrensmeyer in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science. Behrensmeyer is a paleobiologist at Washington, D.C.'s National Museum of Natural History. Records of ancient global climate change come mainly from ocean sediments. These suggest cooler, drier, and more variable conditions kicked in some three million years ago.

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The darkness inside of everything

Studies of supernovas and the developing concept of dark energy have thrown theories on the nature of the universe and its future into free-fall, writes Katherine Kizilos. In 1998, an astronomer working with Brian Schmidt from the Australian National University published a paper about supernovas that, for those who understood it, revealed the universe to be more unfathomable than had previously been imagined.The supernova research led to a strange conclusion: that the universe is filled with a dark energy that is causing galaxies to move away from each other at an accelerated rate. It is now believed that dark energy makes up 73 per cent of the universe; the twist is that nobody knows what dark energy is. Not so long ago, physicists speculated that an all-encompassing Theory of Everything, describing the universe and all its wonders, was within mankind's reach. That is looking less likely now.When Schmidt began searching the skies for supernovas he had no clue that their behaviour would lead to revelations about dark energy. Supernovas are spectacular eruptions that occur at the end of a star's life. These massive blazes, which in some cases can rival the brightness of the surrounding galaxy, are rare events, and useful to astronomers.They use them as signposts (standard candles is the astronomical term) which help them calculate the size and age of the universe. Schmidt and his team were searching for type Ia supernovas, which burn with an intense light for about 100 years before their final collapse."We can see them three-quarters of the way across the universe," says Schmidt, "so they allow us to look back in time." The oldest supernova that has been observed is 9 billion light years from earth, which means that it exploded 9 billion years ago. (The universe is now believed to be about 13.7 billion years old, with a 5 per cent margin for error.) The team was searching for supernovas as a way of determining how the expansion of the universe has changed over time.The idea here is that geometry is destiny. It was believed that if the shape of the universe were known, astrophysicists would be able to predict how it would eventually end. If the shape was a plane, say, or an open curve - like a wide-mouthed letter C in which the two ends point away from each other - then the universe could, theoretically at least, expand forever. But if space was found to curve inwards, the universe could end in a final crunch; an event Schmidt calls the "gnaB giB", which is Big Bang backwards and an example of the little jokes astronomers like to tell.Since 1995, Schmidt and his team had been in a race with astronomers led by Saul Perlmutter at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who were also studying supernovas for the same reasons. By the end of 1997, Perlmutter's team had found more supernovas than Schmidt's team, but the type Ia supernova that Schmidt's team was looking for was yielding better results.What both teams discovered, independently of each other, was surprising and bizarre. (For the record, the Perlmutter team made the announcement first, but Schmidt's team was the first to publish a paper.) Each observed that the rate of the universe's expansion was not slowing, as expected, but speeding up. In Schmidt's words "the universe was behaving in a way that could not be explained".The expanding universe is sometimes compared to a currant cake rising in the oven, with the currants representing galaxies and the dough of the cake representing expanding space.

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1.8 million year old skull unearthed

Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old, representing part of a find that holds the oldest traces of humanity's closest ancestors ever found in Europe. The Homo erectus skull was found this month in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, said Georgian National Museum director David Lortkipanidze, who took part in the dig. In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found in the area, including a jawbone discovered in 1991, Lortkipanidze said by telephone. The skull, however, was in the best condition of the five. It was unearthed on Sunday and sent to the museum for further study. "Practically all the remains have been found in one place. This indicates that we have found a place of settlement of primitive people," he said of the spot, where archaeologists have been working since 1939.



The findings in Georgia, which researchers said were a million years older than any widely accepted pre-human remains in Europe, have provided additional evidence that Homo erectus left Africa a half-million years or more earlier than scientists had previously thought.A well-preserved skull from the Dmanisi site would be "very important" in helping to track the development and migration of human ancestors, said Brian Richmond, a professor at the Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology at George Washington University in Washington.

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Voodoo Day celebrated in Benin

Thousands of followers have gathered in Benin in the seaside town of Ouidah to celebrate National Voodoo Day. They met at a beach called the point of no return, where slaves left on ships for the Americas centuries ago, taking their religion with them. Followers of the once-banned religion have been dancing, drumming, praying as animals are slaughtered in ceremonies. Of Benin's seven million citizens, 65% believe in Voodoo. The day has been a national holiday for a decade. "There is little resembling the popular western imagination on show - no dolls with pins stuck in them and certainly no zombie-like creatures lumbering around," described the BBC's James Copnall, who is at the festival. "Instead there were speeches praising the religion, emphasising the positive impact it has on people's lives."



One of the many revellers who count their ancestors as slaves, Faith McDouglas, 37, a nurse from Nebraska in the US spoke of being, "very moved," explaining, "I've understood many things regarding my origins, because I'm a descendant of slaves." Voodoo followers believe that all life is driven by spiritual forces of natural phenomena such as water, fire, earth and air and that these should be honoured through rituals like animal sacrifices. Followers acknowledge the existence of both a supreme being and many smaller gods which can intercede with the supreme being on behalf of humans.

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30 c is nothing...here temperture goes up to 55c in summer

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Mystery baboon killed in Sierra Leone

Awareness Times has been authoritatively informed at a usual police weekly press briefing that a fierce looking baboon which has been terrorizing some parts of Pujehun has been killed in a joint operation of the police and youths in the township, on 29th January 2006. It could be noted that a few weeks ago, there were reports that a mysterious baboon was causing havoc in the Kpanga Kabonde chiefdom in the Pujehun district. According to police sources, the mysterious animal was notorious for terrorizing women and children, thus making the entire population to live in perpetual fear. Accordingly, the strange beast attacked and inflicted serious bodily harm on a number of people, some of whom taken for emergency treatment.



The killing of the said animal came as welcomed news to the entire inhabitants of the chiefdom.Amidst jubilation, some of the inhabitants expressed the view that they can now sleep in peace as their tormentor had been killed.Some even had the view that the animal was not ordinary.It could be noted that only three months ago, a similar strange animal was reported to have been killed in the Koinadugu district, after killing a number of people and cows.

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Countdown to contact

The treasurer of a pensioners' campaign group has quit his full-time position to form an organisation dedicated to helping humanity establish contact with alien life forms. Phillip Snow, who will continue to assist the North Staffordshire Pensioners' Convention on a part-time basis, believes a rise in UFO sightings is a sign of the dawning of a new age.He is convinced this is a time when first contact will be established with extra-terrestrial beings.Ministry of Defence records show that 158 unexplained sightings were reported nationally in 2005, up from 86 in 2004 and 99 in 2003.Mr Snow, aged 60, of Betley Court, Betley, has set up the New Living group, which is dedicated to easing the public into an era when the prospect of alien sightings will no longer be a source of panic.It will raise awareness of its beliefs and offer advice to anyone concerned about other life forms.The group has no affiliation with the pensioner's convention.

Mr Snow is a devotee of the Mayan calendar, which is a series of prophesies and predictions left by the ancient indigenous people of Central America.Some people believe the Mayans were visited by aliens, who taught them the advanced understandings their race is famous for. Experts are still baffled as to how the Mayans were able to master mathematics, create accurate astrological calendars and build massive pyramids in the jungle.Some believe the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world in the year 2012 when the calendar - which started in 3115BC - draws to a close.

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Lifting the lid on 'Operation Blackbird'

A West crop circle expert has lifted the lid on a previously long-forgotten chapter in the bizarre history of the West's 1990 crop circle mystery. Colin Andrews revealed to a coast-to-coast audience in America the goings-on under the cover of a summer night 15 years ago.Mr Andrews, who left his West home for the US a decade ago, said that, far from being an embarrassing flop, the three-week vigil on the hilltops of Wiltshire was an astounding and secret success.Listeners on US radio heard claims yesterday that the British Army watched and filmed a UFO making a ground-breaking crop circle near Silbury Hill while the world's media were camped 20 miles away.Back in 1990, it was the high point of the crop circle hysteria gripping the world.Dozens of volunteers, a host of foreign TV cameras, the world's foremost crop circle experts and the British Army launched a round-the-clock vigil from the famous white horse above Bratton, near Westbury, in a bid to spot a crop circle being made.And within days it appeared Operation Blackbird had been successful - night vision cameras spotted something in a field below, and, sure enough, a new crop circle could be seen as dawn broke.

For a few hours, the world reported the crop circle mystery as solved - but operation leader Colin Andrews soon realised he had been hoaxed and the figures on night-vision cameras were not aliens but local mischief-makers.According to Mr Andrews, however, across Wiltshire a more mysterious and sinister event was happening, which has remained top secret ever since.He said: "The public knew but half of what was going on at the time. While the media present at Operation Blackbird were looking at the right hand, they did not see what happened with the left.

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