New Fossils Strengthen Case for ‘Hobbit’ Species
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The New York Times ^
| 08 June 2016 | Carl Zimmer
Scientists digging in the Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores years ago found a tiny humanlike skull, then a pelvis, jaw and other bones, all between 60,000 and 100,000 years old. The
fossils, the scientists concluded, belonged to individuals who stood just three feet tall — an unknown species, related to modern humans, that they called Homo floresiensis or, more casually, the hobbits. On Wednesday, researchers reported that they had discovered still older remains on the island, including teeth, a piece of a jaw and 149 stone tools dating back 700,000 years. The finding suggests that the...
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Boost in nerve-growth protein helps explain why running supports brain health (40% increase in dopamine & 60% increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor in 30 days of exercise)
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Medical Xpress / NYU Langone Health / JNeurosci ^
| May 16, 2022 | Margaret Rice, Ph.D. et al
Exercise increases levels of a chemical involved in brain cell growth, which bolsters the release of the "feel good" hormone dopamine, a new study shows. Dopamine
is known to play a key role in movement, motivation, and learning. Experts have long understood that regular running raises dopamine activity in the brain and may protect nerve cells from damage. In addition, past research has tied exercise-driven boosts in the dopamine-triggering chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and in dopamine levels to improvements in learning and memory. Researchers showed that mice running on a wheel for 30 days had a 40% increase...
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Inexplicable Species and the Theory of Evolution
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Evolution News ^
| August 8, 2018 | Geoffrey Simmons
Inexplicable Species and the Theory of Evolution Editor’s note: We were delighted recently to introduce a new series, “Modernizing Darwin,” cross-posted at Shabbat.com, by Geoffrey Simmons, MD. The first post is here. Dr.
Simmons is the author of What Darwin Didn’t Know and Billions of Missing Links. He is a Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.Man has been searching for fossils, or stumbling upon them, for millennia. The ancient Greeks and Romans saw the fossilized bones of giant creatures as proof that horrible monsters once walked the land or swam in the seas. Darwin utilized fossils to...
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Biden administration officials say idea that Covid escaped from Wuhan lab is considered at least as credible as theory that it jumped species naturally by the intelligence community
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UK Daily Mail ^
| July 17 2021 | CHRISTOPHER EBERHART
The theory that the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan lab is at least as credible as the possibility it jumped from a bat to a human naturally, senior Biden administration officials told CNN. The lab leak theory - which was once rejected by medical experts as a conspiracy - has gained traction
in recent months, prompting President Joe Biden to dispatch intelligence agencies in May to find answers and report back in 90 days. At the halfway point, no concrete evidence has emerged that supports one hypothesis over the other, but multiple sources overseeing the review told CNN on Friday...
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Kevin McCarthy: Democrat Party Has Not Evolved from Its Days of Slavery, Jim Crow, KKK, While It Supports Critical Race Theory
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Breitbart ^
| 29 June 2021 | ALANA MASTRANGELO
House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarty (R-CA) proclaimed on Tuesday that the Democrat Party has not evolved from its days supporting slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the Ku Klux Klan, because today, the Democrat Party supports Critical Race Theory. “Democrats are desperate to pretend their party has progressed from their days of
supporting slavery, pushing Jim Crow laws, and supporting the KKK,” McCarthy tweeted. “But today, the Dem Party has simply replaced the racism of the Klan with the racism of Critical Race Theory,” the congressman added. Included in McCarthy’s tweet is a video of him addressing Congress, in which...
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DuBois column: Endangered Species, umbrella species, expanded habitat
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NM Stockman ^
| 3/2/2020 | Frank DuBois
Are we about to see an expansion of the authority or impact of the Endangered Species Act? If so, how will this occur? First
let’s take a look at how we got where we are today. In the early history of our country, the states were sovereign over wildlife within their borders. As late as 1896 the Supreme Court held that states have the, “undoubted authority to control the taking and use of that which belonged to no one in particular but was common to all.” (Geer v. Connecticut). Since then we have witnessed the steady passing of this...
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A warming world gives viruses more chances to hitchhike from species to species
That puts humans at greater risk, too
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The Verge ^
| 4-28-22 | Justine Calma
Climate change is pushing mammals into new territory, increasing the number of opportunities for viruses to jump from species to species — including humans. By
2070, if global temperatures continue to rise as predicted, there could be a total of 15,000 new cross-species “viral sharing events,” according to new research published today in the journal Nature. Of the at least 10,000 virus species in mammals capable of infecting humans, most are still only circulating among animals in the wild. The worry is that more of those viruses could eventually make the leap to humans, potentially sparking a health crisis like...
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Are we about to lose 40% of our species? Unless the total number of species becomes a better-known quantity, percentages applied to imminent extinctions remain in the realm of speculation
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American Thinker ^
| 03/16/2023 | William D. Balgord
The preservationist group NatureServe just released a report concluding that some 40% of animal species in the US will go extinct in the near future as a result of climate change. Their
predictions may turn out not to be quite accurate, since there are other factors at work that determine which species survive and which go the way of the dodo bird and ivory-billed woodpecker. The analysis the report depends on has been severely criticized for lack of rigor by Canadian and Finnish biostatisticians. Anticipated losses among a small percentage of already dangerously endangered species is applied to the vast...
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Endangered Species Act: Turning Species Extirpation on its Head
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Townhall.com ^
| February 26, 2022 | William D. Balgord
The Endangered Species Act, first enacted by Congress in 1973, has since become a poster child for bureaucratic ineptitude. By
2021 it had fully redeemed from the impending extinction only 3% of the hundreds of endangered species initially added to the list. Our national symbol, the again flourishing bald eagle, is an outstanding exception. The birds are commonly seen soaring above our rivers and lakes wherever the fishing is good. But whooping cranes are holding onto existence by the skin of their beaks, despite heroic efforts to restore the one-time migrating flocks at a secreted refuge near Baraboo, WI. Primary...
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Appetite for frogs’ legs in France and Belgium ‘driving species to extinction’-Conservationists say exploitation of amphibians leading to depletion of native species abroad
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Guardian ^
| 6-27-22
Europe imports up to 200 million mostly wild frogs every year. The
giant African bullfrog (pictured) may already be extinct in Swaziland. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy A voracious appetite for frogs’ legs among the French and Belgians is driving species in Indonesia, Turkey and Albania to the brink of extinction, according to a report. Europe imports as many as 200 million mostly wild frogs every year, contributing to a serious depletion of native species abroad. Scientists estimate that the Anatolian water frog could be extinct in Turkey by 2032, because of over-exploitation while other species such as the Albanian water...
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OPEC: Hobbit Or Orc?
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Forbes ^
| 10/28/2014 | Michael Lynch
The recent drop of $20 or so in oil prices from near all-time highs has pundits racing for their typewriters. Okay,
laptops or something. Many have declared OPEC dead or ineffective, and one academic has noted that OPEC almost always produces over quota, proving it’s not a competent cartel. Needless to say, aged methane emissions like me tend to sign in our beards when we read this. OPEC has been declared dead more times than Mark Twain or the Boston Red Sox (next year for sure!) and yet it continues to hold meetings and set production quotas, as if thousands...
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Dolphins’ Flores says he supports player protest movement [NFL Coach Supports Disrespect]
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Seattle Times ^
| 8/23/19 | Steven Wine
Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores says he supports the NFL player protest movement and receiver Kenny Stills’ involvement, but wants him to play better. “Everything
these guys protest, I’ve lived it, I’ve experienced it,” said an impassioned Flores, who is the son of immigrants from Honduras. “They’re bringing attention to my story. I’m a son of immigrants. I’m black. I grew up poor. I’ve been stopped because I fit the description.”
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VIDEO: Is Chuck Todd a Hobbit?
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YouTube ^
| March 18, 2019 | DUmmie FUnnies
VIDEO The question has to be asked, especially after watching Chuck Todd interview Beto O'Rourke in Iowa for "Meet The Press." Normally Todd interviews guests while sitting behind a desk. However,
during his O'Rourke interview, Todd conducted the interview on his feet raising questions as to whether he is only as tall as a Hobbit.
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vanity - Post your review of "The Hobbit"
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Since the final Hobbit opens up tomorrow, please post your review. Tell
us why, not just "it was good" or "it was bad". I will post my review early Saturday morning. Please, if you are not interested in discussing this movie, do not ruin it for any one with "I hate the CGI" or "Peter Jackson is a Marxist" or "Frodo and Samwise were a Hollywood homosexual conspiracy" - and no spoilers. From analyzing the themes the Shore use in the soundtrack, it appears that it will probably closer to the book, with a bit of sorrow at the end.
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Is the the best soundtrack by Coldplay, Radiohead... or a hobbit?
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Daily Mail UK ^
With film awards season here, a string of new soundtrack albums are out now. Some
are packed with old hits, others with dramatic scores for the big screen...
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AT&T's TV Saleswoman 'Lily' Wants You Know She Supports BLM, Has Had an Abortion, and Supports All 'Birthing Persons' Who Want One
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Red State ^
| 03/06/2023 | Jim Thompson
AT&T spokeswoman launches into leftist social justice rant (Credit: TikTok/Twitter) In 2019, Gillette decided that it needed to pile-drive its customer base with a “men are terrible” message. They
ran an ad campaign with the ostensible message that “toxic masculinity” was bad, and they did it by nuking every man alive or dead. Toxic anything is bad. I don’t need a razor company lecturing during the Super Bowl, while it places me in the same company of jerks just because some men are jerks. Gillette wasn’t advertising a product, rather, it was lecturing its customer base. The “message” didn’t...
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The Soundtrack - Episode 3: The Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit
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Youtube ^
| 10.14.14 | Matt Lawson
Matt Lawson discusses Howard Shore's score in the five (soon to be six) Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films.
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Changes in rat size reveal habitat of 'Hobbit' hominin
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EurekAlert! ^
| March 13, 2019 | Emory Health Sciences
Murids, as the rat family is known, are more taxonomically diverse than any other mammal group and are found in nearly every part of the world... The study was based on remains recovered from the limestone cave known as Liang Bua, where partial skeletons of H. floresiensis have been found, along with
stone tools and the remains of animals -- most of them rats. In fact, out of the 275,000 animal bones identified in the cave so far, 80 percent of them are from rodents... The study encompassed about 10,000 of the Liang Bua rat bones. The remains spanned five...
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A Democrat Legacy: A Hobbit House For Humanity
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MOTUS A.D. ^
| 5-4-21 | MOTUS
Well looky here, MSM finally noticed that prices might be inching up a tad: Don’t worry though: it’s just transitory.Quick: name the last time this country experienced hyper-inflation. *hint* I’m guessing the ‘Bidens-in-a Hobbit-house’ effect is the result of either an amateur or an auteur photographer. Either
way it’s a pretty clever illustration: the incredible shrinking Carters symbolizing the incredible shrinking dollar that comes with hyper-inflation. Doesn’t appear to be that transitory from my perspective though.Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Main Trailer
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youtube ^
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Main Trailer
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