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The Great Human Migration Why (Modern) humans left their African homeland 80,000 years ago to colonize the world By Guy Gugliotta Smithsonian magazine, July 2008 Seventy-seven thousand years ago, a craftsman sat in a cave in a limestone cliff overlooking the rocky coast of what is now the Indian Ocean. It was a beautiful spot, a workshop with a glorious natural picture window, cooled by a sea breeze in summer, warmed by a small fire in winter. The sandy cliff top above was covered with a white-flowering shrub that one distant day would be known as blombos and give this...

LONDON, June 4 -- For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States, at a time when the nation's image abroad has been seriously damaged. From hundreds of supporters crowded around televisions in rural Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland, to jubilant Britons writing "WE DID IT!" on the "Brits for Barack" site on Facebook, people celebrated what they called an important racial and generational milestone for the United States. "This is close to a miracle. I was certain that some things will not happen in my lifetime," said Sunila...

How Sugar Changed the WorldBy Heather Whipps, LiveScience's History Columnist posted: 02 June 2008 09:26 am ET What's not to like about candy, ice cream and all those other sweet treats made with everybody's favorite indulgence, sugar? Plenty, as it turns out, beyond the way it expands waistlines and causes cavities. It's unlikely that many candy-lovers in the United States think about history while quaffing an estimated 100 pounds of sugar per year, but sweet stuff once played a major role in one of the sourest eras in modern times. White Gold, as British colonists called it, was the engine...

Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?Research suggests our ancestors traveled the oceans 70,000 years ago. by Heather Pringle Jon Erlandson shakes out what appears to be a miniature evergreen from a clear ziplock bag and holds it out for me to examine. As one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient seafaring, he has devoted much of his career to hunting down hard evidence of ancient human migrations, searching for something most archaeologists long thought a figment: Ice Age mariners. On this drizzly late-fall afternoon in a lab at the University of Oregon in Eugene, the 53-year-old Erlandson looks...

Prince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster By Andrew Pierce Last Updated: 1:08PM BST 18/05/2008 The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests. A chameleon in a Madagascar rainforest. Prince Charles has warned of 'disaster' if urgent steps are not taken to protect the forests In one of his most out-spoken interventions in the climate change debate, he said a £15 billion annual programme was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the dire...

World food price crisis 'here to stay' By David Blair in New York Last Updated: 1:43AM BST 19/05/2008EPA Sir John Holme said the world needed a "green revolution" High food prices are here to stay and the world needs a "green revolution" to feed its rising population, the senior humanitarian official at the United Nations has told The Telegraph. Sir John Holmes, Britain's former ambassador to Paris who now serves as the UN's under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, said structural changes in the global economy are the cause of the sudden rise in food prices. "It is possible that in the...

Some years ago, I received a terror threat. If I did not apologize publicly and profusely for a column that blasted the Iranian regime, I would be killed by Friday, Sept. 13 -- what an auspicious date! So I sent for the security experts, and this is what they told me: Your front and back doors are worthless; get armored ones. Order bulletproof windows. Build a safe room. Install panic buttons. Get rid of that silly chicken-wire fence and put in a steel and concrete one. Don't use the driveway; try to vary your access routes (which, I think, meant...

Last week I was in London attending a Global Leadership Forum, sponsored by the Royal United Services Institute, the Princeton Project on National Security, Newsweek International, and Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP. The attendees–from both the United States and Europe–included academics, scholars, journalists, diplomatic advisers and others who inhabit the foreign policy world. The event was well-organized, the conversations wide-ranging, and there was a genuine effort to hear from a diversity of voices (hence my invitation). But there is no question that the dominant outlook of most of those in attendance was left-leaning, which itself made the trip illuminating. I came...

Non-Alignment of Standards Not Culprit for Low Scores By Matthew Ladner, Ph.D Recently I appeared on the Horizon public affairs program together with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, to discuss the No Child Left Behind law and our state AIMS test. During the discussion, Superintendent Horne said the main reason Arizona students perform poorly on the national NAEP test, also known as the Nation's Report Card, is due to a non-alignment of standards. If, for example, Arizona does not teach the math concepts in fourth grade that appear on the fourth grade math NAEP, one could expect lower...

Time magazine recently doctored the iconic photo of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima in order to “celebrate” Earth Day. Instead of Marines valiantly struggling to lift the stars and stripes, they are depicted planting a tree. No doubt Time’s editors think they will be celebrated in poetry and song for generations to come for their high-minded cleverness. Still, if the symbolism wasn’t clear enough, Time writer Bryan Walsh spells it out: “Green is the new red, white and blue.” There are any number of problems here, starting with the fact that this is simply a lie. Green is not the...

Is the world reverting to a struggle between great powers? Or is the democratising spirit of 1989 still alive? NO, democracy is not: Robert Kagan YES, democracy is winning: Robert Cooper Excerpt:The assumption that the cold war was won as an inevitable consequence of the superiority of liberalism failed to recognize the contingency of events—battles won or lost, social movements successful or crushed, economic practices implemented or discarded. The spread of democracy was not merely the unfolding of certain ineluctable processes of economic and political development. The global shift towards liberal democracy coincided with the historical shift in the balance...

IF FURTHER PROOF BE needed of the terminal decline of the United Nations as a world body that purports to advance human rights, look no further than the recent appointments of Richard Falk and Jean Ziegler by the UN's Human Rights Council (HRC). Both appointments should be of major concern to U.S. leaders disturbed by the UN's increasing failure in the arena of human rights and the blatant and widespread anti-American and anti-Israeli bias among key UN human rights officials. Richard Falk, the Emeritus Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton, is an outspoken, zealous critic of Israel...

Pakistan's newly elected Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani faces a host of pressing problems. Since taking office late last month, Gilani, 55, said that his priority would be trying to establish law and order in the wake of a spate of deadly suicide bombings, one of which killed the leader of his Pakistan People's Party, Benazir Bhutto, late last December. While Gilani ruled out holding talks with any armed militants along the Afghan border, foreign or Pakistani, he said that military force would be a last resort. First he wanted to concentrate on bringing economic development to the poverty-stricken...

On the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, my paper, Israel's Ha'aretz, was one of 10 foreign newspapers that participated in a survey organized by Britain's Guardian. The question: Who did the world want to be the next president of the United States? The response, based on identical public opinion polls conducted in the 10 countries, was not very surprising. The world "back[ed] the Democratic challenger by a margin of two to one." In Canada, 60 percent favored John Kerry, 20 percent George W. Bush. In France, it was 72 percent to 16 percent. In Japan, 51 percent to...

'French take most holidays in the world' By Henry Samuel in Paris Last Updated: 3:25am BST 18/04/2008 The scale of President Nicolas Sarkozy's challenge to "get France back to work" was underlined yesterday by a poll crowning the French world champions for the amount of annual holiday they take. The average working Frenchman spends 37 days en vacances, with Italy in second place on 33 days, according to Harris Interactive, the American polling institute. Britain trails with 26 days holiday per year - a rise of two days in two years. America comes last (or first depending on one's view)...

Flu Viruses Take One-way Ticket Out Of Asia, Then Travel The WorldSeasonal influenza A (H3N2) strains constantly evolve in overlapping epidemics in East and Southeast Asia, which periodically spread to the rest of the world along the pathways shown here. (Credit: Image courtesy of NASA/University of Cambridge) ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2008) — Seasonal influenza strains constantly evolve in overlapping epidemics in Asia and sweep the rest of the world each year, an international research team has found. These findings suggest that by focusing surveillance efforts on East and Southeast Asia, researchers may be able to extend their forecast of the...

Heres's a big lesson of the first international financial crisis of the 21st century: some old-fashioned economies are weathering the storm better than those that borrowed big to spur growth or those that bet heavily on debt-strapped American consumers. The US, the economy at the centre of the turmoil, is dragging down world growth. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke gave his most pessimistic assessment to date of the US economy's outlook, strongly suggesting that a recession was likely. In testimony before Congress, he also said the Fed projected slower global growth over the coming quarters. How the other...

Food riots could spread, UN chief warns By Gary Cleland Last Updated: 1:49am BST 09/04/2008 Rising food prices could threaten political stability around the world, the UN's leading humanitarian official said yesterday. Sir John Holmes, the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, was speaking after two days of rioting in Egypt over the soaring cost of basic foodstuffs. He told a conference in Dubai that rising prices would spark unrest across vulnerable nations. Average prices have risen 40 per cent across the world in less than a year. Sir John said: "The security implications should...

The United Nations World Meteorological Organization is reporting that global temperatures have not risen since 1998. That would be the same temperatures that models from the U.N.'s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change said would be scorching the earth into an unlivable wasteland — except for those coastal areas flooded by seas gorged with water from melting ice sheets. Of course the IPCC spins the news. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period," said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, "and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming." His explanation for the cool spell is...

When our children learn the history of post-colonial Africa, they will be confronted with a case history: Zimbabwe. They will learn how the bread basket of Africa descended into chaos, with the highest inflation rate in the world. They will learn that about four million Zimbabweans fled hunger and political persecution. They will learn about a kleptocracy that lined its pockets while the poor died. This will not be a history lesson. It will be a dissection of a massacre. By the elections of March 29 2008, our children will read, the average life expectancy of a Zimbabwean woman was...

World's oldest voice recording goes online It's no-one's idea of great music -- to some, it may sound like a dolphin with tonsilitis -- but the ghostly warbling of a French folk song nearly 148 years ago comprises the oldest recording of the human voice, France's Academy of Sciences says. The 10-second recording was made by a Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on April 9 1860, when Emperor Napoleon III, the last monarch of France, was on the throne. It was made a whole 17 years before Thomas Edison made his historic message, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on...

How the Greek Agora Changed the WorldBy Heather Whipps, LiveScience's History Columnist posted: 17 March 2008 08:15 am ET It was the heart of the city – where ordinary citizens bought and sold goods, politics were discussed and ideas were passed among great minds like Aristotle and Plato. Who knows where we'd be without the "agoras" of ancient Greece. Lacking the concept of democracy, perhaps, or the formula for the length of the sides of a triangle (young math students, rejoice!). Modern doctors might not have anything to mutter as an oath. What went on at the agora went beyond...

OSLO (AFP) - The world could solve many of the major environmental problems it faces at an "affordable" price, the OECD said Wednesday, warning that the cost of doing nothing would be far higher. In a report presented in Oslo, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development suggested a range of measures to address what it said were the greatest global environmental challenges through 2030: climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity and the impact on human health of pollution and toxic chemicals. "It's not cheap. It is affordable, but also it is considerably less onerous for mankind and for the...

UNSEEN WORLD By RACHAEL TOLLIVER Wednesday, February 20, 2008 8:58 PM CST JILL PICKETT/The News-Enterprise George Crothers, director of the William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology and Office of State Archaeology, finishes collecting ash from torch remains for radiocarbon dating during a February trip into the cave in Hardin County. Local cave enthusiasts chart discovery of pristine formations, prehistoric Indians HARDIN COUNTY, KENTUCKY — Mankind has always dreamed of discovering the unknown — being the first to do something or arrive somewhere — and from those quests leave a legacy that those who follow will envy. Such finds are rare....

How Ancient Trade Changed the WorldBy Heather Whipps, Special to LiveScience posted: 18 February 2008 09:24 am ET You've got the gold I need for my necklace and I've got the silk you need for your robe. What to do? Nowadays, if you need something, you go to the closest mall, shell out a few bucks and head home. Thousands of years ago, the process wasn't nearly as simple. If you or someone in your town didn't grow it, herd it or make it, you needed to abandon that desire or else travel for it, sometimes over great distances. For...

Organic molecules found on alien world for first time 18:21 11 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Stephen Battersby The giant planet HD 189733b is too hot for its methane and water vapour to signal life (Illustration: Christophe Carreau/ESA)Tools Organic molecules – in the form of methane – have been detected on a planet outside our solar system for the first time. The giant planet lies too close to its parent star for the methane to signal life, but the detection offers hope that astronomers will one day be able to analyse the atmospheres of Earth-like worlds. Astronomers Mark Swain and...

What In The World Is A Gungywamp? By MARLENE CLARK February 6, 2008 Gungywamp is a 100-acre area in Groton that archaeologists consider a treasure. Its exact origins remain a mystery, but its unusual stonework and artifacts span centuries, if not eons. Among Gungywamp's features are stone chambers that researchers believe were Colonial-era root cellars or animal birthing shelters erected by English-Scottish immigrants. Of these, two are intact. One contains a solar calendar: during the spring and autumn equinox, the sun shines through an opening in the west wall and lights the opposite wall, which reflects some light into a...

MIDDLEVILLE, Mich. -- It was around midnight one evening in November when Aaron Wissner shot up in bed, jolted awake by a fear: He wasn't fully ready for the day when the world starts running low on oil. Yes, he had tripled the size of the garden in front of the tidy white-clapboard house he shares with his wife and infant son. He had stacked bags of rice in his new pantry, stashed gold valued at $8,000 in his safe-deposit box and doubled the size of the propane tank in his yard. "But I felt panicky, like I needed more...

To a Christian, conditioned as he is to observing life from above and judging all things in the light of eternal values, the modern feverish devotion to the newest invention and the latest happening seems more than a little ridiculous! One thing seems to be quite forgotten: the world moves and times change but people remain the same always. Just as a pendulum remains fixed at the top while it swings back and forth from one extreme to another, so the human race remains basically unchanged while it moves through its limited arc. No responsible person will deny that some...

Part I Every tate is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good. Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king, householder, and master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in...

disease most Americans have never heard of could soon become more prevalent if dengue, a flu-like illness that can turn deadly, continues to expand into temperate climates and increase in severity, according to a new commentary by Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and David M. Morens, M.D., Fauci’s senior scientific advisor. Their commentary appears in the January 9 and 16 double issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Interesting internet poll on who the world might elect as the US president, if they could vote.

Thompson: Shock the

WEST DES MOINES, IOWA -- As the rumors swirl about Fred Thompson possibly dropping out of the race, his first event on the day of the Iowa caucuses was packed with over 200 enthusiastic supporters. Many of those at the Marriott in West Des Moines were out of state volunteers who have traveled here to help make the final push in Iowa. They heard Thompson give his standard stump speech, while his advisers on the ground strongly denied Thompson will get out if he finishes poorly tonight. Although at least one admitted the continued speculation “isn’t helpful,” Thompson ended his...

PARIS - A million revelers cheered fireworks in Sydney. Beijing started the year with singing and dancing displays hosted by Summer Olympics organizers. And rare celebrations resounded in war-torn Baghdad. Across the globe, people gathered for parties, shot off fireworks and held out hopes for a peaceful and prosperous 2008. But reminders of violence were apparent as well as security was tightened in many nations. Fireworks were canceled in downtown Brussels, Belgium, where police last week detained 14 people suspected of plotting to help an accused al-Qaida militant break out of jail. In Paris, where festivities centered on the famous...

The eight measures that China's government pledged to help promote the development of Africa have been implemented smoothly, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister ZhaiJun said here Tuesday. China had provided assistance to 47 African countries and signed agreements with 15 countries to provide preferential loans, Zhai said in an online interview with Xinhuanet.com.

BEIJING - Food prices are set to rise around the globe after years of decline, with climate change making it harder for the world's poorest to get adequate food, according to a report released Tuesday. Rising global temperatures as well as growing food consumption in rapidly developing countries such as China and India are pressuring the world food system, meaning that food prices will rise for the foreseeable future, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Joachim von Braun, the director of the Washington-based research group, said food prices have been in a declining trend since scientists began developing...

In its new Human Development Report calling for another $86 billion in aid to the rest of the world, supposedly to fight the effects of climate change, the United Nations acts distressed that people in "rich" countries like the U.S. don't take the theory of man-made global warming more seriously. Its answer ― and this is actually spelled out in the report ― is that too much "editorial balance" in the media has prevented "informed debate" about the need for "urgent action" in the form of higher taxes on energy. The U.N. report complains that, according to one poll, roughly...

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Unless the international community agrees to cut carbon emissions by half over the next generation, climate change is likely to cause large-scale human and economic setbacks and irreversible ecological catastrophes, a U.N. report said on Tuesday. The U.N. Human Development Report issued one of the strongest warnings yet of the lasting impact of climate change on living standards and a strong call for urgent collective action. "We could be on the verge of seeing human development reverse for the first time in 30 years," Kevin Watkins, lead author of the report, told Reuters. The report, presented in...

“It was by watching America grow that men and women understood that freedom was possible. What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind.” No, these are not the words of Ronald Reagan. Nor are they the words of George W. Bush, Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. They are the words of the current president of France. Bill Clinton last week was the latest to jump on the bandwagon of top Democrats suggesting that electing Hillary Clinton, or another liberal president, would be the only way for America to repair its image...

ZE07111109 - 2007-11-11Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-20979?l=englishSolidarity a Global Challenge, Says Pope Urges Sharing of Resources, Including Technology VATICAN CITY, NOV. 11, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says he is convinced that solidarity is the great challenge of the globalized world. "[O]nly through a common commitment to sharing [is it] possible to respond to the great challenge of our time: that of building up a world of peace and justice in which every man can live with dignity," the Pope said today before leading the praying of the midday Angelus in St. Peter's Square.He added, "This can happen if a global model of authentic...

Climate change is like 'World War Three' By Charles Clover, Environment Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm GMT 05/11/2007 The battle to deal with climate change needs to be fought like "World War Three", the head of the Environment Agency has warned. The agency's chief executive Lady Young said current measures to adapt to a changing climate were "too little, too slowly", and an huge effort was needed to address the crisis. Lady Young: Current measures were 'too little' Hilary Benn, Environment Secretary, warned the agency's annual conference in London that global warming was a challenge to security, migration, politics and economics...

Ancient world treasure unearthed By David Willey BBC News, Rome The head of a satyr was discovered during the dig After seven hot summers of digging, an Italian archaeological team believe they have discovered one of the most important sites of the ancient world. Fanum Voltumnae, a shrine, marketplace and Etruscan political centre, was situated in the upper part of the Tiber river valley. It lies at the foot of a huge outcrop of rock, upon which is perched the mediaeval city of Orvieto. A walled sanctuary area, 5m-wide (16ft) Etruscan roads, an altar, and the foundations of many Roman...

(LONDON) - Eating less meat could help slow global warming by reducing the number of livestock and thereby decreasing the amount of methane flatulence from the animals, scientists said on Thursday. In a special energy and health series of the medical journal The Lancet, experts said people should eat fewer steaks and hamburgers. Reducing global red meat consumption by 10 percent, they said, would cut the gases emitted by cows, sheep and goats that contribute to global warming. "We are at a significant tipping point," said Geri Brewster, a nutritionist at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York, who was not...

First World War tunnels to yield their secrets By Jasper Copping, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:42am BST 26/08/2007 As battle raged across the fields of Flanders, British soldiers found brief respite from the horrors of the First World War in "underground towns" far below the mud and gore. Now, more than 90 years after the armies left and the extraordinary networks of tunnels were flooded, the task of finally revealing their secrets has begun. The Tunnels The prize, archaeologists and historians believe, is an unprecedented insight into the lives of British troops on the Western Front. They believe that, because...

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's sacked oil minister has issued a parting warning to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, predicting a looming "catastrophe" in the Iranian energy sector because of high consumption, media reported Sunday. "If we do not find a solution to the energy problem in the next 15 years, the country will face a catastrophe," Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh was quoted as saying at his farewell ceremony late on Saturday by the ISNA student news agency. "I am ready to prove that if the fuel situation continues along current trends we will face an energy crisis in the future," he said. "The...

Staff of the “Reader’s Digest” magazine has organized a series of unusual experiments around the world. The journalists “lost” 960 mobile phones in 32 countries and got 654 back, which means that the average world’s honesty level is 68%.

The world has become normal again. The years immediately following the end of the Cold War offered a tantalizing glimpse at a new kind of international order, with nations growing together or disappearing altogether, ideological conflicts melting away, cultures intermingling through increasingly free commerce and communications. But that was a mirage, the hopeful anticipation of a liberal, democratic world that wanted to believe the end of the Cold War did not end just one strategic and ideological conflict but all strategic and ideological conflict. People and their leaders longed for "a world transformed." 1 Today the nations of the West...

Mrs Sarkozy strides on to the world stage By Henry Samuel in Paris Last Updated: 2:05am BST 14/07/2007 Cécilia Sarkozy: unscheduled trip to meet Gaddafi Barely seen in public since her husband became president of France in May, Cécilia Sarkozy shot to the forefront of European diplomacy yesterday after making an unscheduled trip to meet Col Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. The surprise visit appeared to be Mrs Sarkozy's "coming out" after weeks of doubt and speculation over what role she might play as France's Première Dame. The 49-year-old former model once said the idea of being First Lady "bored" her....

Chinese Air Pollution Deadliest in World, Report Says Kevin Holden Platt in Beijing, China for National Geographic News July 9, 2007 China, the world's fastest growing economy, has earned another startling superlative: the highest annual incidence of premature deaths triggered by air pollution in the world, according to a new study. A World Health Organization (WHO) report estimates that diseases triggered by indoor and outdoor air pollution kill 656,000 Chinese citizens each year, and polluted drinking water kills another 95,600. (Related: "China's Pollution Leaving Mountains High and Dry, Study Finds" [March 8, 2007].) "Air pollution is estimated to cause approximately...