I find the issue interesting how scientists can link the flood and agriculture.
I should say this link may also be there, why do we have a lot of
biodiversity in the tropical areas where they fall into the belt of this
flood as well. Is the Noah's issue also not connected with conservation
of biodiversity when they keep all animals male and female into
the craft??
Read On and do not shoot the messenger, but thought provoking ehh.
Hastings
===========
Nov. 19, 2007World Science staff
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/071119_flood.htm
A giant prehistoric flood—which a controversial theory has linked to the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark—kick-started European agriculture, according to a new study.A decade-old theory holds that about 7,500 years ago, a deluge filled the Black Sea in the Middle East, inspiring the Noah’s Ark flood tale and possibly some of the other flood stories that mysteriously recur in many mythologies.
Although some researchers dispute the theory, the new study’s authors take it further and say the disaster also triggered a boom in agriculture. “A catastrophic rise in global sea level led to the flooding of the Black Sea and drove dramatic social change across Europe,” the scientists said in an announcement of their findings.
The deluge “could have led to the displacement of 145,000 people,” they explained. “Archaeological evidence shows that communities in southeast Europe were already practising early farming techniques and pottery production before the Flood. With the catastrophic rise in water levels it appears they moved west, taking their culture into areas inhabited by hunter-gatherer communities” across Europe.The research, by the Universities of Exeter, U.K. and Wollongong, Australia, appears in the September issue of the research journal Quaternary Science Reviews.The trigger for the hypothesized flood would have been the collapse of the North American Ice Sheet some 8,000 years ago, according to the scientists.
This would have raised sea levels—causing water to violently breach the Bosporus Strait, which previously dammed the Mediterranean and kept the Black Sea as a freshwater lake.The Australian and U.K. researchers created reconstructions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea shoreline before and after the hypothesized sea level rise.
They estimated that nearly 73,000 square km of land, an area about the size of Ireland, was lost to the sea in one 34-year period.Controversy has dogged the flood hypothesis from the start, although it has support from evidence including signs of human habitation found well beneath the sea. One team has proposed that although there was a flood, it happened too gradually to threaten anyone, and thus cannot explain the deluge myths.
Another scientist has claimed that the true source of these tales is the presence of marine fossils in mountains: the fossils get there by geologic process, but ancient people might have seen them as proof of past floods.The authors of the Quaternary Science Reviews paper are sticking close to the original deluge hypothesis, proposed by marine geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman in 1996. “People living in what is now southeast Europe must have felt as though the whole world had flooded.
This could well have been the origin of the Noah’s Ark story,” said the University of Exeter’s Chris Turney, lead author of the new paper. “Entire coastal communities must have been displaced, forcing people to migrate in their thousands. As these agricultural communities moved west, they would have taken farming with them across Europe. It was a revolutionary time.”* * *
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
HOW CAN WE TALK OF LAKE MALAWI BIODIVERSITY WHEN THE WORLD IS BURNING
The world report explicitly said it all, we need to work hard to conserve the biodiversity through our reduction of green house gases. As environmental scientists lets formulate our research questions to help policy makers, come out with informed decisions on whats to need be done to save this burning planet from green house gases.
Lead on the report:
=============================
Scientists paint dire picture of hotter life on Earth
Final U.N. report more alarming than predecessors
By ELISABETH ROSENTHALTHE NEW YORK TIMES
VALENCIA, Spain -- In its final and most powerful report, a U.N. panel of scientists describes the mounting risks of climate change in language that is more specific and forceful than its previous assessments, according to scientists here.
Synthesizing data from its three previous reports, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out what is risked if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.
The report carries heightened significance because it is the last word from the climate panel before world leaders meet in Bali, Indonesia, in December to begin to discuss a global climate change treaty that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. It is also the first report from the panel since it shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in October -- an honor that many scientists here said emboldened the panelists to stand more forcefully behind their positions.
"This document goes further than any of the previous efforts," said Hans Verolme, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate Change Program. "The pressure has been palpable -- people know they are delivering a document that will be cited for years to come and will define policy."
The previous three sections, released between February and April, focused on one issue at a time: the first on science, the second on how the world could adapt to warming, the third about how countries could "mitigate," or reduce, the greenhouse gases produced.
This fourth and final assessment -- the so-called synthesis report -- seeks to combine lessons from all three. Its conclusions are culled from data contained in the thousands of pages that were essentially technical supplements to the panel's previous publications. How that data is summarized and presented to the world will be a powerful guide to what the scientists consider of utmost importance at the end of a five-year process, offering concrete guidelines for policymakers.
"You look to a synthesis report to provide clarity, to clarify what was obscure in previous reports," said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University. "Now, how can we take these findings and formulate a policy response that's quick enough and big enough?"
Even though the synthesis report is more alarming than its predecessors, some researchers believe that it still understates the trajectory of global warming and its impact. The IPCC's scientific process, which takes five years of study and writing from start to finish, cannot take into account the very latest data on climate change or economic trends, which show much more development and energy use in China.
"The world is already at or above the worst-case scenarios in terms of emissions," said Gernot Klepper of the Kiel Institute for World Economy in Kiel, Germany. "In terms of emissions, we are moving past the most pessimistic estimates of the IPCC, and by some estimates, we are above that red line."
The panel presents several scenarios for the trajectory of emissions and climate change. In 2006, 8.4 gigatons of carbon were put into the atmosphere from fossil fuels, according to a study in the proceedings of the National Academy of Science, which was co-authored by Klepper. That is almost identical to the panel's worst-case prediction for that year.
Likewise, a recent International Energy Agency report looking at the unexpectedly rapid emissions growth in China and India estimated that if current policies are not changed, the world would warm 6 degrees by 2030, a disastrous increase far higher than the panel's estimates of 1 to 4 degrees by 2100.
While the United States, Saudi Arabia and China tried to change the text in order to downplay the consequences of global warming, developing nations -- which will bear the initial brunt of climate change -- were much more forceful than at previous meetings in opposing these efforts, according to a scientist who was in the negotiating room. "I suspect that will continue," he said.
One novel aspect of the report is a specific list of "Reasons for Concern." It includes items that are thought to be very likely outgrowths of climate change that had been mentioned in previous reports, such as an increase in extreme-weather events.
But for the first time it includes less-likely but more-alarming possibilities, such as the relatively rapid melting of polar ice. Previous reports focused more on changes the scientists felt were "highly likely."
"This time they take a step back and look at the totality," Verolme said. "Saying it is less likely to occur, but if it does, we are fried."
One such area is the future melting of ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica. In earlier reports, the panel's scientists acknowledged that their computer models were poor at such predictions, and did not reflect the rapid melting that scientists have recently observed.
If these areas melt entirely, seas would rise 40 feet, scientists said. While scientists are certain that the sheets will melt over millennia, producing elevated sea levels, there is now evidence to suggest that it could happen much faster than that, perhaps over centuries.
"In my view, that would make it not just difficult, but impossible to adapt successfully; some of my colleagues would say catastrophic," said Oppenheimer.
This final report also puts more emphasis on the ripple effect of small degrees of temperature change, some of which are already being seen, such as species extinctions and loss of biodiversity.
"A relatively modest degree of warming -- 1 to 3 degrees -- spells a lot of trouble, and I think that was not clear in the previous report," Oppenheimer said.
He said part of the reason for the lack of clarity was that governments had "messed around" with the language and structure of the report during the approval process.
This time around, the consequences of different degrees of climate change will be better laid out so that the ministers who meet in Bali in December will understand the options and the consequences of inaction. "This should light a fire under policymakers," Oppenheimer said.
Lead on the report:
=============================
Scientists paint dire picture of hotter life on Earth
Final U.N. report more alarming than predecessors
By ELISABETH ROSENTHALTHE NEW YORK TIMES
VALENCIA, Spain -- In its final and most powerful report, a U.N. panel of scientists describes the mounting risks of climate change in language that is more specific and forceful than its previous assessments, according to scientists here.
Synthesizing data from its three previous reports, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out what is risked if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.
The report carries heightened significance because it is the last word from the climate panel before world leaders meet in Bali, Indonesia, in December to begin to discuss a global climate change treaty that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. It is also the first report from the panel since it shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in October -- an honor that many scientists here said emboldened the panelists to stand more forcefully behind their positions.
"This document goes further than any of the previous efforts," said Hans Verolme, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate Change Program. "The pressure has been palpable -- people know they are delivering a document that will be cited for years to come and will define policy."
The previous three sections, released between February and April, focused on one issue at a time: the first on science, the second on how the world could adapt to warming, the third about how countries could "mitigate," or reduce, the greenhouse gases produced.
This fourth and final assessment -- the so-called synthesis report -- seeks to combine lessons from all three. Its conclusions are culled from data contained in the thousands of pages that were essentially technical supplements to the panel's previous publications. How that data is summarized and presented to the world will be a powerful guide to what the scientists consider of utmost importance at the end of a five-year process, offering concrete guidelines for policymakers.
"You look to a synthesis report to provide clarity, to clarify what was obscure in previous reports," said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University. "Now, how can we take these findings and formulate a policy response that's quick enough and big enough?"
Even though the synthesis report is more alarming than its predecessors, some researchers believe that it still understates the trajectory of global warming and its impact. The IPCC's scientific process, which takes five years of study and writing from start to finish, cannot take into account the very latest data on climate change or economic trends, which show much more development and energy use in China.
"The world is already at or above the worst-case scenarios in terms of emissions," said Gernot Klepper of the Kiel Institute for World Economy in Kiel, Germany. "In terms of emissions, we are moving past the most pessimistic estimates of the IPCC, and by some estimates, we are above that red line."
The panel presents several scenarios for the trajectory of emissions and climate change. In 2006, 8.4 gigatons of carbon were put into the atmosphere from fossil fuels, according to a study in the proceedings of the National Academy of Science, which was co-authored by Klepper. That is almost identical to the panel's worst-case prediction for that year.
Likewise, a recent International Energy Agency report looking at the unexpectedly rapid emissions growth in China and India estimated that if current policies are not changed, the world would warm 6 degrees by 2030, a disastrous increase far higher than the panel's estimates of 1 to 4 degrees by 2100.
While the United States, Saudi Arabia and China tried to change the text in order to downplay the consequences of global warming, developing nations -- which will bear the initial brunt of climate change -- were much more forceful than at previous meetings in opposing these efforts, according to a scientist who was in the negotiating room. "I suspect that will continue," he said.
One novel aspect of the report is a specific list of "Reasons for Concern." It includes items that are thought to be very likely outgrowths of climate change that had been mentioned in previous reports, such as an increase in extreme-weather events.
But for the first time it includes less-likely but more-alarming possibilities, such as the relatively rapid melting of polar ice. Previous reports focused more on changes the scientists felt were "highly likely."
"This time they take a step back and look at the totality," Verolme said. "Saying it is less likely to occur, but if it does, we are fried."
One such area is the future melting of ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica. In earlier reports, the panel's scientists acknowledged that their computer models were poor at such predictions, and did not reflect the rapid melting that scientists have recently observed.
If these areas melt entirely, seas would rise 40 feet, scientists said. While scientists are certain that the sheets will melt over millennia, producing elevated sea levels, there is now evidence to suggest that it could happen much faster than that, perhaps over centuries.
"In my view, that would make it not just difficult, but impossible to adapt successfully; some of my colleagues would say catastrophic," said Oppenheimer.
This final report also puts more emphasis on the ripple effect of small degrees of temperature change, some of which are already being seen, such as species extinctions and loss of biodiversity.
"A relatively modest degree of warming -- 1 to 3 degrees -- spells a lot of trouble, and I think that was not clear in the previous report," Oppenheimer said.
He said part of the reason for the lack of clarity was that governments had "messed around" with the language and structure of the report during the approval process.
This time around, the consequences of different degrees of climate change will be better laid out so that the ministers who meet in Bali in December will understand the options and the consequences of inaction. "This should light a fire under policymakers," Oppenheimer said.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
NATURAL HUMAN HISTORY REVISITED
Hi Guys
As scientists keep on looking for more evidence of evolution in human
history, one breaking moment brings them back to africa, yes the
great east africa rift valley of which Malawi is well positioned as
the epicenter of human evolution.
However, the dates are much more older than the Lake Malawi formation
dating of 1 million years ago. So may be this ape named Nakalipithecus nakayamai,
did not drink water or feed nuts irrigated from the fesh waters of Lake Malawi.
Nakalipithecus nakayamai is said to be 10 million years old.
The questions is which ape coevoluted with the maginificent lake malawi,
will be left to those who fancy the Lake Malawi cichlids and their
biodivesity, so go figure.
Hastings
================
Experts find jawbone of pre-human great ape in Kenya
By Katie Nguyen Reuters - Tuesday, November 13 03:43 pm
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Researchers unveiled a 10-million-year-old jaw bone on Tuesday they believe belonged to a new species of great ape that could be the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans.
The Kenyan and Japanese team found the fragment, dating back to between 9.8 and 9.88 million years, in 2005 along with 11 teeth. The fossils were unearthed in volcanic mud flow deposits in the northern Nakali region of Kenya.
The species -- somewhere between the size of a female gorilla and a female orangutan -- may prove to be the "missing link", the key step that split the evolutionary chains of humans and other primates, Kenyan scientists said.
"Based on this particular discovery, we can comfortably say we are approaching the point at which we can pin down the so-called missing link," Frederick Manthi, senior research scientist at the National Museums of Kenya, told reporters.
"We have to find more fossils from a cross-section of sites to sustain that particular theory," he added, speaking at a desk where the approximately four-inch sliver of bone was displayed alongside human and gorilla skulls.
It was the latest important finding in east Africa's Rift Valley -- a region long regarded as the "cradle of humankind".
"The teeth were covered in thick enamel and the caps were low and voluminous, suggesting that the diet of this ape consisted of a considerable amount of hard objects, like nuts or seeds, and fruit," Yutaka Kunimatsu at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute said in a telephone interview.
"It could be positioned before the split between gorillas, chimps and humans," he added.
However, it was hard to determine what the new species, named Nakalipithecus nakayamai, looked like.
"We only have some jaw fragments and some teeth ... but we hope to find other body parts in our future research. We plan to go back next year. We will try to find bones below the neck to tell us how the animal moved," Kunimatsu said.
Published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the finding is significant as it gives credence to the theory that the evolution from ape to man may have taken place entirely in Africa.
Prior to this finding, there had been so little fossil evidence in Africa dating between 7 to 13 million years ago that some experts began to surmise that the last common ancestor left Africa for Europe and Asia, and then returned later.
"Now, we have a good candidate in Africa. We do not need to think the common ancestor came back from Eurasia to Africa. I think it is more likely the common ancestor evolved from the apes in the Miocene in Africa," Kunimatsu said.
The Miocene is a period extending from 23.03 million to 5.33 million years ago.
"Some apes (then) left Africa and migrated to Eurasia. They then became orangutans in Southeast Asia. Today's orangutan evolved from the apes that left Africa," he said.
As scientists keep on looking for more evidence of evolution in human
history, one breaking moment brings them back to africa, yes the
great east africa rift valley of which Malawi is well positioned as
the epicenter of human evolution.
However, the dates are much more older than the Lake Malawi formation
dating of 1 million years ago. So may be this ape named Nakalipithecus nakayamai,
did not drink water or feed nuts irrigated from the fesh waters of Lake Malawi.
Nakalipithecus nakayamai is said to be 10 million years old.
The questions is which ape coevoluted with the maginificent lake malawi,
will be left to those who fancy the Lake Malawi cichlids and their
biodivesity, so go figure.
Hastings
================
Experts find jawbone of pre-human great ape in Kenya
By Katie Nguyen Reuters - Tuesday, November 13 03:43 pm
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Researchers unveiled a 10-million-year-old jaw bone on Tuesday they believe belonged to a new species of great ape that could be the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans.
The Kenyan and Japanese team found the fragment, dating back to between 9.8 and 9.88 million years, in 2005 along with 11 teeth. The fossils were unearthed in volcanic mud flow deposits in the northern Nakali region of Kenya.
The species -- somewhere between the size of a female gorilla and a female orangutan -- may prove to be the "missing link", the key step that split the evolutionary chains of humans and other primates, Kenyan scientists said.
"Based on this particular discovery, we can comfortably say we are approaching the point at which we can pin down the so-called missing link," Frederick Manthi, senior research scientist at the National Museums of Kenya, told reporters.
"We have to find more fossils from a cross-section of sites to sustain that particular theory," he added, speaking at a desk where the approximately four-inch sliver of bone was displayed alongside human and gorilla skulls.
It was the latest important finding in east Africa's Rift Valley -- a region long regarded as the "cradle of humankind".
"The teeth were covered in thick enamel and the caps were low and voluminous, suggesting that the diet of this ape consisted of a considerable amount of hard objects, like nuts or seeds, and fruit," Yutaka Kunimatsu at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute said in a telephone interview.
"It could be positioned before the split between gorillas, chimps and humans," he added.
However, it was hard to determine what the new species, named Nakalipithecus nakayamai, looked like.
"We only have some jaw fragments and some teeth ... but we hope to find other body parts in our future research. We plan to go back next year. We will try to find bones below the neck to tell us how the animal moved," Kunimatsu said.
Published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the finding is significant as it gives credence to the theory that the evolution from ape to man may have taken place entirely in Africa.
Prior to this finding, there had been so little fossil evidence in Africa dating between 7 to 13 million years ago that some experts began to surmise that the last common ancestor left Africa for Europe and Asia, and then returned later.
"Now, we have a good candidate in Africa. We do not need to think the common ancestor came back from Eurasia to Africa. I think it is more likely the common ancestor evolved from the apes in the Miocene in Africa," Kunimatsu said.
The Miocene is a period extending from 23.03 million to 5.33 million years ago.
"Some apes (then) left Africa and migrated to Eurasia. They then became orangutans in Southeast Asia. Today's orangutan evolved from the apes that left Africa," he said.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Technique lets scientists see brain in full color
Hi Friends,
Last week it was a fast genetic mice and today its a brain colouration.
With all this fast evolving molecular technologies, why should other
people go about hungry day in day out simply becasue they missed,
the green revolution which saw the increase in food production in
the latin america and east asia.
While, I partly understand the mismatch overlooked in the food patterns
of the crops targeted in green revolution and the satple foods of sub-sahara.
These new technologies will or may equally provide the fast growing and
high yeilding crops of sub-sahara. Yes, we use our maize and cassava not
wheat and rice as promoted by the green revolution.
As a molecular biologists and concerned citizen of the underprivilaged, I
propose that scientists in this region should take the molecular techniques
seriously and think of ways how to improve the comonly used food crops,
to revolutionise the growth and productivity of these food crops.
Hastings
==========
Take note that the picture and story are credited to Nature and World science staff.
Nov. 6, 2007 Courtesy Nature and World Science staff
With a combination of genetic tricks and fancy proteins, researchers have colored hundreds of individual cells in a mouse brain with distinctive hues. This provides a key step towards understanding how the nervous system works, both normally and in diseased brains, scientists said.
The research, published in the Oct. 31 issue of the research journal Nature, takes brain mapping to a new level, and results in the labelling of nerve cells with approximately 90 different colour combinations.
Over a hundred years ago, the Spanish physician Ramon Y Cajal opened the gates to modern neuroscience with a technique that colors nerve cells so their structure is clearly visible, called Golgi staining.
But it uses only one color, and until now it has remained difficult to map out individual cells in each brain circuit. In the new research, Jeff Lichtman of Harvard University in Massachusetts and colleagues developed a technicolor version of Golgi staining, called “Brainbow,” that they said allows more detailed reconstructions of brain circuits
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
