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The old “humans vs. robots” debate is very familiar to newspaper editorial writers: robots are better than humans, therefore robots should be in space and humans should not. But there is a new humans vs. robots debate that is being overlooked. The outcome of this new debate will have a decisive influence on space policy. The old humans vs. robots debate is about the merits of human spaceflight. Everyone agrees that robots should be in space, so the only contentious issue is whether humans should be up there: pro-human-spaceflight vs. anti-human-spaceflight. This is where the new debate comes in. The...

Time changes modern human's face By Rebecca Morelle BBC News science reporter Our ancestors had more prominent features but lower foreheads Researchers have found that the shape of the human skull has changed significantly over the past 650 years. Modern people possess less prominent features but higher foreheads than our medieval ancestors. Writing in the British Dental Journal, the team took careful measurements of groups of skulls spanning across 30 generations. The scientists said the differences between past and present skull shapes were "striking". Plague victimsThe team used radiographic films of skulls to record extensive measurements taken by a computer....

Source: JAMA and Archives Journals Date: 2006-01-19 Avian Flu Transmission To Humans May Be Higher Than Thought A new study suggests that there is an association between direct contact with dead or sick poultry and flu-like illness in humans and that the transmission is probably more common than expected, according to a new study in the January 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Anna Thorson, M.D., Ph.D., from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues analyzed data from household interviews conducted in FilaBavi, a Vietnamese demographic surveillance site in Bavi district, northwest Vietnam, with...

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals Date: 2006-01-19 New Study Reveals Neanderthals Were As Good At Hunting As Early Modern Humans The disappearance of Neanderthals is frequently attributed to competition from modern humans, whose greater intelligence has been widely supposed to make them more efficient as hunters. However, a new study forthcoming in the February issue of Current Anthropology argues that the hunting practices of Neanderthals and early modern humans were largely indistinguishable, a conclusion leading to a different explanation, also based on archaeological data, to explain the disappearance of the Neanderthals. This study has important implications for debates surrounding...

Turkey bird flu strain may 'prefer humans' Staff and agencies Thursday January 12, 2006 British scientists said tonight there was possible evidence that the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in Turkey was of a kind with a small mutation that preferred to attach itself to humans, rather than birds. The indications of a possible mutation in the disease were found in analysis of viruses taken from two of the fatal human cases of bird flu in Turkey. The same small signs of a preference for attaching to human cells were found in previous cases of bird flu viruses in...

The rest of the risk picture So let’s assume that the issues of orbital assembly and launch delays are manageable. (If you’re uncomfortable with these assumptions, don’t worry: you’ll find a great deal of literature that disagrees too.) We still have to address the issue of multiple launches, frequently touted by detractors as one of the biggest concerns in mission designs based on smaller launch vehicles. Every additional required launch, it is argued, is another launch that could potentially fail, so wouldn’t the entire mission be better off if it could all be launched in one shot?

Humans Do Not Understand Mirror Reflections, Say Researchers General Science : December 21, 2005 Newsletter Psychologists at the University of Liverpool have found that people still find it difficult to understand how mirrors work. Dr Marco Bertamini, from the University’s School of Psychology, conducted a number of experiments by covering a mirror on a wall and inviting participants to walk along a line parallel to the mirror. He asked them to guess the point at which they would be able to see their reflection. Results showed that people believe they can see themselves even before they are level with the...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - God sees embryos as "full and complete" humans, Pope Benedict said on Wednesday in an address that firmly underlined the Roman Catholic Church's stance against abortion and scientific research on embryos. "The loving eyes of God look on the human being, considered full and complete at its beginning," Benedict said in his weekly address to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square. Quoting Psalm 139, Benedict said the Bible teaches that God already recognises the embryo as a complete human. That view is the basis for the Church teaching that aborting or manipulating these embryos amounts...

Contact: Steve Bradt steve_bradt@harvard.edu 617-496-8070 Harvard University Ancient humans brought bottle gourds to the Americas from AsiaPlants widely used as containers arrived, already domesticated, some 10,000 years ago CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 13, 2005 -- Thick-skinned bottle gourds widely used as containers by prehistoric peoples were likely brought to the Americas some 10,000 years ago by individuals who arrived from Asia, according to a new genetic comparison of modern bottle gourds with gourds found at archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere. The finding solves a longstanding archaeological enigma by explaining how a domesticated variant of a species native to Africa ended...

It may seem a little ignominious to begin a discussion on human spaceflight by examining the behavior of apes. But then, all things in nature tend to be hierarchical in that highly organized living creatures tend to include previously tried and true physiological architectures. The brain, for example, is a hierarchical structure: The brainstem and the reptilian complex make up the earliest structures, followed by the limbic system (also called the mammalian brain) and, finally, the “neo” cortex (or modern brain). In other words, even if certain psycho-physiological systems appear to have outlived their usefulness, they remain “online” or, at...

Chennai: Various study groups in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are evaluating the technological requirements for putting an Indian into space by 2015. The groups are studying how to build a "man-rated vehicle" that will put an Indian into space, and providing him the habitation and environment to stay there. "The idea has been nucleated. The ISRO study centres have been asked to take up some of these ideas and see whether we can embark on human presence in space by 2012/2015," according to G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO. "These are basically study-projects. The thinking process is on. If...

Early Humans Settled India Before Europe, Study Suggests Brian Vastag for National Geographic News November 14, 2005 Modern humans migrated out of Africa and into India much earlier than once believed, driving older hominids in present-day India to extinction and creating some of the earliest art and architecture, a new study suggests. The research places modern humans in India tens of thousands of years before their arrival in Europe. University of Cambridge researchers Michael Petraglia and Hannah James developed the new theory after analyzing decades' worth of existing fieldwork in India. They outline their research in the journal Current Anthropology....

Hamilton, ON - A gigantic ape, measuring about 10 feet tall and weighing up to 1,200 pounds, co-existed alongside humans, a geochronologist at McMaster University has discovered. Using a high-precision absolute-dating method (techniques involving electron spin resonance and uranium series), Jack Rink, associate professor of geography and earth sciences at McMaster, has determined that Gigantopithecus blackii, the largest primate that ever lived, roamed southeast Asia for nearly a million years before the species died out 100,000 years ago. This was known as the Pleistocene period, by which time humans had already existed for a million years. “A missing piece of...

Japan developing remote control for humans By Yuri Kageyama Associated Press Tuesday, October 25, 2005; Posted: 3:58 p.m. EDT (19:58 GMT) ATSUGI, Japan (AP) -- We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots. But manipulating humans? Prepare to be remotely controlled. Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car. Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. A special headset was...

In his recent presentation of the Space Flag, Michael Huang refers to the never-ending humans versus robots debate: Man vs. Machine. (See “The Space Flag”, The Space Review, August 29, 2005.) Indeed, this is one of the absolute biggest and most persistent obstacles for humankind’s future expansion in space. Not only because of the “pro-robot” view, but the whole debate as such, even when human spaceflight is advocated! Why? Because this discussion always circles around the theme of doing science: which solution optimizes our scientific rewards, sending men or robots? Which solution is most cost efficient? Time after time, we...

On October 18, the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) of the United Kingdom (UK) changed its position and now supports human space exploration. While astronauts from Russia, the United States, and China have collectively orbited Earth, walked upon the Moon, lived on the Mir Space Station and the International Space Station (ISS) during the past 44 years, the UK previously questioned the prudence of sending humans into space and to explore other planets. Although a member of the European Space Agency (ESA), the UK had funded only robotic space missions. Some of the reasons for the RAS' opposition were that humans...

ATSUGI, Japan - We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots. But manipulating humans? Prepare to be remotely controlled. I was. Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car. Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind. I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal" weapons. A special headset...

Aching feet? Early humans figured out solution Scientist says some sort of arch support goes back 26,000 years The first supportive footwear was probably modest, but it definitely predates the Nike Empire. Erik Trinkaus at Washington University in St. Louis says the first shoes designed to do more than insulate and cushion were worn between 26,000 and 30,000 years ago in Eurasia. He has no old shoes to prove the claim. They wouldn't have survived that long. Instead, Trinkaus studied anatomical evidence in early modern humans and found a reduction in the strength of the smaller toes in folks of...

By Clive Cookson, Science Editor Published: August 31 2005 18:46 | Last updated: August 31 2005 18:46 The first detailed genetic comparison between humans and chimpanzees shows that 96 per cent of the DNA sequence is identical in the two species. But there are significant differences, particularly in genes relating to sexual reproduction, brain development, immunity and the sense of smell. An international scientific consortium publishes the genome of the chimpanzee, the animal most closely related to homo sapiens on Thursday in the journal Nature. It is the fourth mammal to have its full genome sequenced, after the mouse, rat...

LONDON - A new theory proposes that mad cow disease may have come from feeding British cattle meal contaminated with human remains infected with a variation of the disease. The hypothesis, outlined this week in The Lancet medical journal, suggests the infected cattle feed came from the Indian subcontinent, where bodies sometimes are ceremonially thrown into the Ganges River. Indian experts not connected with the research pointed out weaknesses in the theory but agreed it should be investigated. The cause of the original case or cases of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is unknown, but it belongs to...