Life inside a cell

This is simply amazing. It makes you wonder on the scope of life.-DavidG

2,700-year-old marijuana stash found

From Torontosun.com

OTTAWA – Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.

"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.

Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.

The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.

The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.

Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.

The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife.

"This materially is unequivocally cannabis, and no material has previously had this degree of analysis possible," Russo said in an interview from Missoula, Mont.

"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."

The tomb also contained bridles, archery equipment and a harp, confirming the man's high social standing.

Russo is a full-time consultant with GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine approved in Canada for pain linked to multiple sclerosis and cancer.

The company operates a cannabis-testing laboratory at a secret location in southern England to monitor crop quality for producing Sativex, and allowed Russo use of the facility for tests on 11 grams of the tomb cannabis.

Researchers needed about 10 months to cut red tape barring the transfer of the cannabis to England from China, Russo said.

The inter-disciplinary study was published this week by the British-based botany journal, which uses independent reviewers to ensure the accuracy and objectivity of all submitted papers.

The substance has been found in two of the 500 Gushi tombs excavated so far in northwestern China, indicating that cannabis was either restricted for use by a few individuals or was administered as a medicine to others through shamans, Russo said.

"It certainly does indicate that cannabis has been used by man for a variety of purposes for thousands of years."

Russo, who had a neurology practice for 20 years, has previously published studies examining the history of cannabis.

"I hope we can avoid some of the political liabilities of the issue," he said, referring to his latest paper.

The region of China where the tomb is located, Xinjiang, is considered an original source of many cannabis strains worldwide.

China blames France, EU for summit cancellation

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – China said Thursday French President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to meet with the Dalai Lama — hated by Beijing — left it no option but to pull out of an upcoming China-European Union summit.

Sarkozy's decision "deprived the EU-China summit of the required good atmosphere and made it impossible for it to obtain the anticipated result," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.

"We resolutely oppose the Dalai traveling to other countries in any capacity to carry out activities aimed at splitting China. We resolutely oppose foreign leaders having any form of contact with the Dalai," Qin said.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner expressed sadness at China's decision to postpone the summit, saying it was "incomprehensible" that China would do so despite the goodwill shown by Sarkozy when he attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August.

"I hope that China will quickly forget this episode," Kouchner told reporters, insisting that France-China relations remain "friendly and fraternal."

The cancellation, first announced Wednesday by would-be summit host France, was a dramatic example of the lengths to which Beijing will go to try to internationally isolate Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader. The Dalai Lama fled the Himalayan region for India amid a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Pulling out of the summit also suggests that countering criticism on Tibet and boxing in the Dalai Lama are bigger priorities for China's communist leaders than working with the EU and nations like France on solutions to the global financial crisis. The diplomatic snub may also be intended as a warning to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama to tread carefully on the prickly question of Tibet.

Sarkozy was to host the EU-China summit — scheduled for Monday in the city of Lyon — because France holds the rotating presidency of the 27-nation EU. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had been due to attend.

The summit would have come just five days before Sarkozy's long-awaited meeting with the Dalai Lama. Despite China's ire, the meeting will go ahead, French government spokesman Luc Chatel said Wednesday.

At a regularly scheduled news conference Thursday, Qin insisted China wasn't to blame for the impasse and called on France to "not do things that hurt the Chinese people's feelings."

"There is an old saying in China that whoever causes the problem should solve the problem," Qin said.

The Dalai Lama will visit the Czech Republic, Belgium and Poland from Saturday, his spokesman Tenzin Taklha said. China's ire seems mostly directed at Sarkozy's plans to meet the Tibetan leader at a Dec. 6 ceremony in Gdansk, Poland, to honor Lech Walesa, the Polish founder of the Solidarity pro-democracy movement that helped bring down communism.

In recent months, China has hardened its resistance toward the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner's calls for greater autonomy for his homeland, largely in response to a widespread anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet earlier this year.

China says Tibet has been part of its territory for 700 years, although many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of that time.

The Dalai Lama remains deeply revered among Tibetans despite Beijing's relentless attempts to vilify him.

___

Associated Press writers John Leicester and Nathalie Gentaz in Paris contributed to this report.

Tiny, long-lost primate rediscovered in Indonesia

By Will Dunham

Reuters – This undated handout photo shows a creature called a pygmy tarsier, believed for the eight decades to …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On a misty mountaintop on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, scientists for the first time in more than eight decades have observed a living pygmy tarsier, one of the planet's smallest and rarest primates.

Over a two-month period, the scientists used nets to trap three furry, mouse-sized pygmy tarsiers -- two males and one female -- on Mt. Rore Katimbo in Lore Lindu National Park in central Sulawesi, the researchers said on Tuesday.

They spotted a fourth one that got away.

The tarsiers, which some scientists believed were extinct, may not have been overly thrilled to be found. One of them chomped Sharon Gursky-Doyen, a Texas A&M University professor of anthropology who took part in the expedition.

"I'm the only person in the world to ever be bitten by a pygmy tarsier," Gursky-Doyen said in a telephone interview.

"My assistant was trying to hold him still while I was attaching a radio collar around its neck. It's very hard to hold them because they can turn their heads around 180 degrees. As I'm trying to close the radio collar, he turned his head and nipped my finger. And I yanked it and I was bleeding."

The collars were being attached so the tarsiers' movements could be tracked.

Tarsiers are unusual primates -- the mammalian group that includes lemurs, monkeys, apes and people. The handful of tarsier species live on various Asian islands.

As their name indicates, pygmy tarsiers are small -- weighing about 2 ounces (50 grammes). They have large eyes and large ears, and they have been described as looking a bit like one of the creatures in the 1984 Hollywood movie "Gremlins."

They are nocturnal insectivores and are unusual among primates in that they have claws rather than finger nails.

They had not been seen alive by scientists since 1921. In 2000, Indonesian scientists who were trapping rats in the Sulawesi highlands accidentally trapped and killed a pygmy tarsier.

"Until that time, everyone really didn't believe that they existed because people had been going out looking for them for decades and nobody had seen them or heard them," Gursky-Doyen said.

Her group observed the first live pygmy tarsier in August at an elevation of about 6,900 feet.

"Everything was covered in moss and the clouds are right at the top of that mountain. It's always very, very foggy, very, very dense. It's cold up there. When you're one degree from the equator, you expect to be hot. You don't expect to be shivering most of the time. That's what we were doing," she said.

Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS

By PATRICK McGROARTY

BERLIN (AP) — An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said Wednesday.

While researchers — and the doctors themselves — caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.

Dr. Gero Huetter said his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.

"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.

It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.

However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.

"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.

This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.

Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.

As Huetter — who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist — prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.

"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."

Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.

Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system — a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.

He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.

"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.

David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.

"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."

Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.

"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."

G-20: Shaping a new world order

U.S. economic mettle tested as emboldened leaders of the world's 20 largest countries gather in Washington.

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By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer

AMERICA'S MONEY CRISIS

• Stocks set to drop at open
• G-20: Shaping a new world order
• Global stocks rise on Wall Street's rally
• Dodd: Auto bailout lacks GOP support
• Fed lends less to banks

Germany enters recession

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Group of 20 countries

• Argentina

• Australia

• Brazil

• Britain

• Canada

• China

• European Union

• France

• Germany

• Indonesia

• Italy

• Japan

• Mexico

• Russia

• Spain

• South Africa

• Saudi Arabia

• South Korea

• Turkey

• United States

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The role of the United States as the world's economic leader will be tested this weekend when emboldened leaders of the 20 most powerful countries meet in Washington to address the global financial crisis.

Some European leaders are hailing the summit as the next Bretton Woods - a reference to the historic talks in the latter days of WWII that in effect made the dollar the world's dominant currency and laid the foundation for the economic order of the past 60 years.

The United States basically ran those meetings. Close to prevailing in the Great War, it was the world's undisputed military and economic leader.

But today, with the current credit crisis partly rooted in America, and with the rising economic might of China and a unified Europe, that dominance is being challenged.

"The Europeans see themselves as taking a position equal to the U.S.," said Irene Finel-Honigman, an international affairs professor at Columbia University specializing in international banking. "We're looking at a different composition of players and a different powerplay. It's going to be fascinating to watch."

Europe's heavy hand

To bolster their position, the Europeans come to the meeting emboldened by their belief that the credit crisis didn't originate on their soil.

They say that means the more tightly regulated European banking model has triumphed over the more lax laws favored in America.

"The initial response was accusing the U.S. of cowboy capitalism," said Finel-Honigman. "But as the weeks passed, it's become clear we're all in this together."

Together or not, deep divisions still exist between the United States and the Europeans, who initially called for this meeting and will be pushing an agenda heavy on new rules.

Their proposals include: Greater oversight of hedge funds and investment banks. Increasing how much money banks need to keep in reserve. More transparent and universal accounting standards. And limits on executive pay.

All that would be accompanied by a new global network of regulators - regulators that would presumably have power over U.S. banks, a potential non-starter with the Bush administration.

"Self-regulation to solve all problems, it's finished," French President Nicholas Sarkozy was quoted saying in the Guardian newspaper last month. "Laissez-faire, it's finished. The all-powerful market that is always right, it's finished."

Moreover, the Europeans are expected to come to the talks presenting a more united front than ever. And they are likely to use one voice to gain international support to counter U.S. policies which many blame for this crisis.

The United States

For the United States, the main goal of the summit will be to derail many of these new regulations, said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics, a Manhattan consultancy.

It's a goal Brusca seems to fully support.

"The last thing we need is another powerless, toothless, cumbersome global agency," he said. "You need to let [banks] run their business, the government isn't going to run it any better."

The Bush Administration is of the same mindset.

While Bush has agreed some more regulation is needed, particularly when it comes to unifying accounting standards and increasing transparency, he is wary of too much government involvement.

"We must recognize that government intervention is not a cure-all," Bush said in statement just before the summit Thursday, which seemed almost designed to temper European expectations. "History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market - but too much."

Brusca said the United States should instead focus on what he views as more fundamental causes of this economic crisis - mainly China's unwillingness to let its currency, the yuan, rise in value.

The low yuan, Brusca argues, make Chinese goods unfairly competitive, and prods U.S. consumers buy too much. This gives China its huge trade surplus, which it has used to buy U.S. Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities and other products that allowed all these banks to lend so freely in the first place.

"They have abused the rules of the game, and politically, this is very dangerous," he said.

The Bush Administration may raise this issue at the talks. Getting China to raise the yuan was, after all, one of the administration's highest priorities just a few years ago.

China, Russia, and everyone else.

When a consensus is achieved by the G-20 it carries a lot of weight. With its 19 nations plus the European Union, it represents 90% of the world's economy and 75% of its population. But reaching a consensus is the toughest part for such a big and powerful group.

And at this summit, China, Russia, and most developing countries will be pushing for more power, not just within the G-20, but in other, more exclusive clubs like the G-7, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund.

With all these nations pushing for such disparate things, it's unlikely much will get done, at least this time around.

The Europeans are unlikely to push China to reform its currency because of what China will likely ask in return, said Sebastian Mallaby, a senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"China isn't going to give up its export-led growth strategy for the sake of the international system unless it gets a bigger stake in that system - meaning a much bigger voice within the International Monetary Fund and a corresponding reduction in Europe's exaggerated influence," Mallaby wrote in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. "Naturally, the Europeans aren't proposing it."

And despite America coming to the table with a black eye from selling these rotten mortgage backed securities around the globe, nearly everyone says the country, with its massive economy and long history of solid stewardship, is still in the driver's seat when it comes to setting worldwide economic policy.

"There is no other country that could offer the leadership that would cause the G-20 to come up with anything even worth thinking about," said George Magnus, a senior economic advisor at the Swiss bank UBS.

That means the Europeans are unlikely to get the type of oversight they're proposing.

Combine the wide range of interests, the complexity of the problem, and the fact that the U.S. is being represented by a lame duck president - Barack Obama is not expected to attend - and it's unlikely anything will get accomplished besides, maybe, a commitment to meet again.

"I have quite low expectations of what's likely to be achieved," said Magnus. "This is just the beginning of a long and crucial dialogue."

Bin Laden 'cut off from al-Qaeda'

From the BBC.com

The CIA says Osama Bin Laden is isolated from the day-to-day operations of al-Qaeda, but that the organisation is still the greatest threat to the US.

CIA director Michael Hayden said the Saudi militant was probably hiding in the tribal area of north-west Pakistan.

Mr Hayden said Bin Laden was "putting a lot of energy into his own survival" and that his capture remained the US government's top priority.

But he warned that al-Qaeda was still spreading in Africa and the Mid-East.

In a speech to the Atlantic Council on Thursday, Mr Hayden said: "[Bin Laden] is putting a lot of energy into his own survival, a lot of energy into his own security."

Mr Hayden pointed out both progress and setbacks in dealing with al-Qaeda

"In fact, he appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organisation he nominally heads."

However, Gen Hayden added: "If there is a major strike on this country, it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaeda."

The CIA believes progress has been made in curbing al-Qaeda's activities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

However, Mr Hayden said other areas were showing an increase in activity, including:

• East Africa: "Al-Qaeda is engaging Somali extremists to revitalise operations... al-Qaeda could claim to be re-establishing its operations base in East Africa"
• The Maghreb: Attacks have worsened since the merger in 2006 of al-Qaeda and the Algerian militant group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). The GSPC has renamed itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
• Yemen: Saw an "unprecedented number of attacks" in 2008, and could become a launch-pad for attacks in Saudi Arabia
• Pakistan: Safe haven has allowed al-Qaeda to train a "bench of skilled operatives"

Nevertheless, the CIA chief said the hunt for Bin Laden remained the top priority of the US security forces.

"His death or capture clearly would have a significant impact on the confidence of his followers - both core al-Qaeda and unaffiliated extremists throughout the world," he said.

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans

From Firedoglake.com

What is this man hiding?

What is this man hiding?

Apparently Bernanke, that wonderful bipartisan soul who is so competent and wonderful that everyone in the village thinks Obama should leave him in charge is refusing to identify who got almost 2 trillion dollars of Fed cash. Bloomberg News is suing to find out. Personally I really, really, really want to know. What exactly is Bernanke hiding? Who got the money he doesn't want us to know got the money?

This is money that was loaned in exchange for "collateral", by which we mean "trash no one else but the Fed would buy for anything but cents on the dollar". Barney Frank, embarrassing himself yet again, claims the Fed should keep its clap shut because if people know how bad it is, well, there might be a run. I think Barney's missing the point, as long as people don't know how bad it is, they won't trust anyone who might be borrowing large amounts of money from the Fed with crap collateral, because they don't know how bad it is and they suspect it's really really really bad. As in 10 cents on the dollar bad.

More to the point, that 2 trillion is taxpayer money, and taxpayers have a right to know what sweetheart deals Bernanke's been giving out, and who's been getting what. This whole "this information is too scary for citizens to know" schtick is so Bush regime. I thought we were moving into a new era of openness? Perhaps Barney should get with the program?

As for Bernanke, this is yet another reason why Bernanke, a central banker so incompetent he lost complete control of LIBOR, his most basic job, should lose his position. Sure, his mandate runs for another year, but if Obama asks him to step down, I can't imagine he wouldn't. The idea that a central bank that has screwed up as badly as the Fed has under both Greenspan and Bernanke is so much better off independent than with the public having some control is ridiculous and fundamentally anti-democratic. Central bank independence has just led to a huge financial bubble and economic collapse, while Bernanke and Greenspan both acted as if they were virtual dictators.

Bernanke needs to go, and either before or after he goes, the Fed needs to come clean about who it has given 2 trillion in loans to, and what the collateral is.

Black History

First Dog takes a bite at White House reporter

From CNN's Kathleen Koch and Erika Dimmler

A happier Barney, with President Bush.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President-elect Barack Obama's daughters have been promised a puppy for the White House — President Bush's dog, Barney, demonstrated his technique for dealing with the media Thursday…sinking his teeth into Reuters TV White House correspondent Jon Decker.

Call it a case of biting the hand that covers you.

First Dog Barney and his handler were out on the front lawn for a walk when Reuters' Decker and another reporter approached.

"He looked very nice and friendly," says Decker. "I bent down to pet him and he just snapped at me."

Decker holds up his right index finger, now sporting two band aids. The First Dog's teeth punctured the skin and Decker started bleeding, so he was sent to see presidential physician, Dr. Richard Tubb. Tubb gave Decker a two- to three-day supply of antibiotics, and told him to come back Friday for a tetanus booster.

"I don't know what he did, but apparently Barney didn't like it," says April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Network, who captured the entire incident on her Flip video camera.

Decker insists he didn't provoke Barney, and that in fact he's good with Scottish terriers. Decker's mother's dog, Fergus, came from the same New Jersey breeder.

"I don't know what set him off," says Decker. "Maybe it was the Republican debacle Tuesday night, the fact that soon he'll be replaced as America's first dog or that I happened to have bacon for breakfast."

Did The Planet's Tectonics Trigger Human Evolution?

Posted by Casey Kazan.

“Tectonics was ultimately responsible for the evolution of humankind.”

Royhan and Nahid Gani of the University of Utah, Energy and Geoscience Institute.

The scientists argue that the "Wall of Africa" - an accelerated uplift of mountains and highlands stretching from Ethiopia to South Africa- blocked much ocean moisture, converting lush tropical forests into an arid patchwork of woodlands and savannah grasslands that gradually favored human ancestors who came down from the trees and started walking on two feet – an energy-efficient way to search larger areas for food in an arid environment.

The East African Rift runs about 3,700 miles from the Ethiopian Plateau south-southwest to South Africa’s Karoo Plateau. It is up to 370 miles wide and includes mountains reaching a maximum elevation of about 19,340 feet at Mount Kilimanjaro.

The rift “is characterized by volcanic peaks, plateaus, valleys and large basins and freshwater lakes,” including sites where many fossils of early humans and their ancestors have been found, says Nahid Gani (pronounced nah-heed go-knee), a research scientist. There was some uplift in East Africa as early as 40 million years ago, but “most of these topographic features developed between 7 million and 2 million years ago.”

“Because of the crustal movement or tectonism in East Africa, the landscape drastically changed over the last 7 million years,” says Royhan Gani (pronounced rye-hawn Go-knee). “That landscape controlled climate on a local to regional scale. That climate change spurred human ancestors to evolve from apes.”

Hominins – the new scientific word for humans (Homo) and their ancestors (including Ardipithecus, Paranthropus and Australopithecus) – split from apes on the evolutionary tree roughly 7 million to 4 million years ago. Royhan Gani says the earliest undisputed hominin was Ardipithecus ramidus 4.4 million years ago. The earliest Homo arose 2.5 million years ago, and our species, Homo sapiens, almost 200,000 years ago.

Plate Tectonics – movements of Earth’s crust, including its ever-shifting tectonic plates and the creation of mountains, valleys and ocean basins – has been discussed since at least 1983 as an influence on human evolution.

But much of the previous debate of how climate affected human evolution involves global climate changes, such as those caused by cyclic changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun, and not local and regional climate changes caused by East Africa’s rising landscape.

“Although the Wall of Africa started to form around 30 million years ago, recent studies show most of the uplift occurred between 7 million and 2 million years ago, just about when hominins split off from African apes, developed bipedalism and evolved bigger brains,” the Ganis write.

“Nature built this wall, and then humans could evolve, walk tall and think big,” says Royhan Gani. “Is there any characteristic feature of the wall that drove human evolution?”

“Clearly, the Wall of Africa grew to be a prominent elevated feature over the last 7 million years, thereby playing a prominent role in East African aridification by wringing moisture out of monsoonal air moving across the region,” the Ganis write. That period coincides with evolution of human ancestors in the area.

Royhan Gani says the earliest undisputed evidence of true bipedalism (as opposed to knuckle-dragging by apes) is 4.1 million years ago in Australopithecus anamensis, but some believe the trait existed as early as 6 million to 7 million years ago.

The Ganis speculate that the shaping of varied landscapes by tectonic forces – lake basins, valleys, mountains, grasslands, woodlands – “could also be responsible, at a later stage, for hominins developing a bigger brain as a way to cope with these extremely variable and changing landscapes” in which they had to find food and survive predators.

For now, Royhan Gani acknowledges the lack of more precise timeframes makes it difficult to link specific tectonic events to the development of upright walking, bigger brains and other key steps in human evolution.

“But it all happened within the right time period,” he says. “Now we need to nail it down.”

Has new physics been found at the ageing Tevatron?

From NewScientistSpace.com

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The Collider Detector at Fermilab has found hints of new physics (Image: Fermilab)

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When Ghosts Attack

By John Blake
CNN
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(CNN) -- Strange things seem to happen when Grant Wilson enters a room.
Grant Wilson, left, and partner Jason Hawes were driven by personal experiences to track ghosts.

Grant Wilson, left, and partner Jason Hawes were driven by personal experiences to track ghosts.
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Human forms materialize in darkened hallways. The dead whisper greetings from beyond the grave. Unseen entities attack and hurl terrified people to the ground.

Every day is Halloween for Wilson, co-star of the Sci Fi Channel's hit show, "Ghost Hunters." Close encounters of the paranormal kind would drive most people to look for another hobby, but Wilson says he ain't afraid of no ghosts.

"That's part of the job," says Wilson, who investigates suspected hauntings with his co-host, Jason Hawes.. "We tell everyone that we train that you'll be punched, slapped and grabbed. Be prepared for it."

Anyone who has watched their 401(k) account evaporate during the recent stock market dive knows something about horror. But Wilson is part of a growing community that prefers getting their chills the old-fashioned way. They are ghost hunters, or, as they prefer to be called, paranormal investigators.

"Ghost-Hunters," which airs a special live show at 7 p.m. Halloween night, is helping lift the stigma once attached to paranormal investigators. The show has become so popular that the group featured in each episode -- The Atlantic Paranormal Society - has spawned imitators across the United States and affiliates in 12 countries.
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TAPS, as the "Ghost Hunters" group is informally known, even has its own "Beyond Reality Radio" show, magazine, lecture tours, T-shirts --and groupies.

"Ghost Hunters" has made creepy cool, says David Schrader, a paranormal investigator and co-host of "Darkness Radio," a radio show that investigates paranormal activity.

"Five or six years ago, you'd be embarrassed to sit around the water cooler talking about ghosts, but now everybody talks about it -- it's gone mainstream," Schrader says.

It's also gone Hollywood. Paranormal shows like "Paranormal State" on A&E Television; "Haunting Evidence" on truTV (which, like CNN.com, is owned by Time Warner); "Dead Famous" on the Biography Channel; and "A Haunting" on the Discovery Channel are trying to mimic the success of "Ghost Hunters."

Paranormal investigators aren't just chasing ghosts anymore; they're chasing television gigs, Schrader says.

"Everybody I know has a pilot in development -- including me," Schrader says. "They throw it around like Frisbees. It's become a joke."

The paranormal shows have also created a paranormal circuit. Families and friends attend ghost-hunting conventions, retreats (one was dubbed "GhoStock,") swap tips on ghost-hunting gear and make pilgrimages to famous haunted places like The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, the setting for the Stephen King movie, "The Shining." I hear dead people. »

Why they chase ghosts

Many of these amateur paranormal investigators are inspired -- and freaked out - by what they see on "Ghost Hunters."

Some of the incidents recorded by "Ghost Hunters" are mystifying: Ghostly forms appear on camera, chairs lurch across rooms by themselves and voices of people long dead are played back to their wide-eyed relatives.

In one of the most famous "Ghost Hunters" episodes, a cameraman is grabbed and hurled to the ground --though no one appears to touch him. The cameraman is so shaken that he sobs and quits the show.

Wilson says people who think they have a ghost at home should not try a do-it-yourself home ghost repair. A person who uses Ouija boards or anything else to contact ghosts can unleash malevolent spirits.

"You might not be ready for what happens," Wilson says.Video Watch Grant's encounter with a ghost »

Some ghost-hunters say they entered the field because, like Wilson, they had personal experiences with the supernatural. Others want to know if there is something beyond death.

Others like Marley Gibson, an author and paranormal investigator says they're more scared by current events.

"We're living in a world where we're fighting two wars, we've got poverty, homelessness, people not having health care and a job -- people want escapism," says Gibson, author of "Ghost Huntress: The Awakening" a forthcoming book that follows the exploits of a 16-year-old girl who forms a paranormal research team.

Ask ghost hunters if they get scared and many give the same reply -- I don't do scared, just startled. Gibson says many ghost-hunters go into investigations armed with strong spiritual beliefs.

"I've never met such spiritually-grounded, religious, God-fearing people as I have in the paranormal community," she says.

'I felt a ... very large finger or a paw poke me in the back'

Sometimes paranormal investigators, though, admit they experience what Schrader, the Darkness Radio co-host calls, "Oh [bleep]' moments."

Schrader had one last December, when he apparently took his job home with him one evening. He visited his ex-wife and children after coming back from a ghost-hunting retreat and decided to spend the night in the basement.

Around three in the morning, he says, he heard his then one-year-old daughter screaming. He ran upstairs to hear her say that a shadow was watching her in her room. He comforted his daughter and returned to sleep downstairs.

His wife then called him an hour later on his cell phone from her bedroom and whispered: "Get up in my room. There's something here and I can see it."

Nothing was there but Schrader says some spirits had apparently thought it was OK to pay a visit to his family. He says people who are open to the existence of ghosts sometimes become "beacons" that attract spirits.

Schrader decided to solve the problem by calling for a supernatural version of pest-control. He blessed the house with holy water and called in two "demonologist" to cleanse the house. No more ghosts.

Patrick Burns, a paranormal investigator and co-host of "Haunting Evidence," had one of his teeth-chattering moments when there was no one around to call.

He says he was working on a documentary on ghosts from his home computer one night when he felt something touch him.

"I felt a very pronounced poke with a very large finger, or possibly a paw, just above my beltline on the back," he says.

Now the average person might have taken that as a cue to run from the room. But Burns is a professional, and besides, he has his own paranormal television show. He shrugged and kept working.

Then, he says, he felt the room temperature drop. Cold spots are often associated with hauntings, but Burns kept working because, as he said later: "No way is my house is haunted."

Finally, he heard a thud that sounded like a body slammed against the wall. The impact is so hard that it shook the house, he says.

"I throw off my headphones and say, 'Okay you have my attention now,' "Burns says. "After that, nothing else happened. It just wanted me to acknowledge that it was there."

Sometimes encounters with the living can be just as strange as their encounters with the paranormal, ghost hunters say.

Wilson, the "Ghost Hunters" co-host, says he's more leery of people than ghosts. Paranormal investigators like him and Burns are now so famous that they have adoring fans.

Wilson is a Roto-Rooter plumber by day, but he had to stop answering residential calls because too many people were breaking their toilets just to meet him Hawes, his ghost hunting/plumbing partner.

Though Wilson says he's never been scared by a ghost, he still sounds shaken by one encounter.

He says he once met an entity that displayed a personal interest in him. She appeared in front of him, displayed a tattoo of his face stenciled on her leg, and asked him what he thought.
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The "entity" was a fan Wilson met during a public appearance.

"That," Wilson admits, "was a little scary."