Analysis of ancient teeth has enabled scientists to build a detailed picture of what was on the menu for early human beings 1.8 million years ago. The tooth of Paranthropus robustus Chemical traces have shown that the early hominid changed its feeding habits from month to month, indicating a nomadic lifestyle. The findings increase the chances that the species, Paranthropus robustus, was wiped out by Man’s direct ancestors in a battle for supremacy on the African plains. Until now, research on the shape of the teeth has suggested that the hominid became extinct because it was unable to adapt to environmental changes as its diet was too specialised. But analysis of four Paranthropus teeth found at Swartkrans in South Africa has shown that, far from living on tough, low-quality vegetation, the species had a varied diet. Among the foods that it consumed were fruit and nuts, sedges, grasses, herbs, seeds, tree leaves, tubers and roots. Meat may have been eaten, although it is impossible to tell whether it was hunted or scavenged. The Anglo-American team said in its report, featured in the journal Science, that the teeth showed evidence of seasonal variety in diet. There were […]
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is working on its largest-ever appeal for more Iraq war funds – $100 billion, at least. That figure reflects cuts from wish lists originally circulating around the Pentagon. The measure will give Democrats, who take control of Congress next year, an early chance to try to change the conduct of the war. With $70 billion already approved for the budget year that began Oct. 1 and with more money needed to replace equipment, 2007 spending will easily be the highest since the Iraq war began in 2003.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Africa’s poor are caught in the thick of a festering global water and sanitation crisis linked to pervasive violation of the basic human right to water by skewed power relations within and between states. In Africa, as elsewhere in the developing world, lack of clean water and toilets is taking a heavy toll on human security, and is a deadlier killer than the continent’s endemic conflicts. Lack of clean water has caused the avoidable deaths of no less than 2 million children, led to the loss of wealth and livelihoods, widened the gender gap, eroded ecological systems, undermined regional cooperation and raised the spectre ‘water wars’, says the Human Development Report 2006 released last week by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) in Cape Town, South Africa. A well-financed Global Action Plan is central to reducing the devastation of the water crisis. But the Global Action Plan must be rooted in air-tight national strategies, argues the UNDP Report entitled Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis. Beyond the scarcity debate The 2006 report takes off from the idyllic starting point that there is enough water for every soul on planet […]
A chemical used in the abortion pill has been found to prevent the growth of breast and ovarian cancers, scientists report today. Mifepristone is licensed as an abortion drug in the UK and is given to women to terminate early pregnancies. But research published in the journal Science reveals that by shutting down the hormone progesterone in breast tissue cells, the drug can also prevent tumours from forming. The discovery raises hopes that the drug could be used as a new weapon against genetic forms of breast and ovarian cancer. At present, women diagnosed with the cancers may opt to have operations to remove their breasts or ovaries to stop the disease spreading. Women with a defective version of a tumour-suppressing gene called BRCA-1 are much more susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer. By the age of 70, more than half of all women with a mutated BRCA-1 gene will develop breast or ovarian cancer. The new research on mice indicates that progesterone fuels the growth of cancer when the BRCA-1 mutation is present. Eva Lee, lead author of the study, from the University of California at Irvine, said: ‘We found that progesterone plays a role […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
