The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist. 100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed. The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics, who says that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000. The report claims that after they reach their peak around the year 3000 humans will begin to regress These humans will be between 6ft and 7ft tall and they will live up to 120 years. ‘Physical features will be driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility that men and women have evolved to look for in potential mates,’ says the report, which suggests that advances in cosmetic surgery and other body modifying techniques will effectively homogenise our appearance. Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises, according to Curry in a report commissioned for men’s satellite TV channel Bravo. Women will all have glossy […]
WASHINGTON — No one had any hard questions for the deputy administrator of FEMA, an agency deeply tarnished by its delayed action after Hurricane Katrina, when he held a news conference Tuesday to talk about the California wildfires. ‘Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?’ someone asked. Indeed, the deputy administrator was. ‘I am very happy with FEMA’s response so far,’ responded Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr. The news conference looked like a success in the Bush administration’s effort this week to demonstrate it could respond competently to a disaster. On Friday, however, the agency admitted that the softball questions were posed by FEMA employees, not reporters. The White House was not happy with FEMA’s response. ‘It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House,’ said Press Secretary Dana Perino, mentioning three times that it was an ‘error in judgment.’ ‘It’s not something I would have condoned, and they, I’m sure, will not do it again.’ The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, was less happy. ‘This is inexcusable and offensive, and stunts like this will […]
Like bringing to life a naked mannequin, scientists are using genetic and physical evidence found in fossils to clothe the skeletal remains of our closest hominid relatives, the Neanderthals. More and more, they seem familiar. Bones from two Neanderthals yielded valuable genetic information that adds red hair, light skin and perhaps some freckling to our extinct relatives. The results, detailed online today by the journal Science, suggest that at least 1 percent of Neanderthals were redheads. ‘We can’t say anything for the actual fossils we looked at, but we can be sure that part of the Neanderthal population was red-haired,’ said study team member Michael Hofreiter of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Earlier this month, other scientists reported genetic evidence that Neanderthals may have spoken similar to how we do today. Pigment gene Neanderthals inhabited the plains of Europe and parts of Asia as far back as 230,000 years ago. They disappeared from the fossil record more than 20,000 years ago, a few thousand years after modern humans appeared on the scene. Holger Rompler of the University of Leipzig, Carles Lalueza-Fox […]
New York — Members of the American Psychological Association visited New York from Washington the other day to talk about stress. They came to the right place. Traffic in Midtown was such a disaster that day that the only anxiety-free soul would have been someone riding in the back of a hearse. The purpose of the psychologists’ visit was to announce the findings of an online survey that they had commissioned. The results were not encouraging, even if you may question (as some people we know do) the reliability of online polling. One-third of Americans in this survey described themselves as extremely stressed. About half said the situation had worsened over the last five years. In response, many do things that are plainly not good for them. They smoke, they drink, they eat junk food, all to excess. They feel fatigued, and get headaches. Why, some become so disoriented that they talk to pollsters. Not that any of this comes as a shock. You would have to be living pretty far off the grid not to notice that the modern world can rattle you down to your toes. In this survey, work and money were listed […]
BALTIMORE — The father of a Marine killed in Iraq took the stand in his invasion of privacy suit against a fundamentalist church that pickets soldiers’ funerals, saying protesters carrying signs at his son’s burial made him sick to his stomach. Albert Snyder said Wednesday he had hoped for a private funeral for his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder. ‘They turned this funeral into a media circus and they wanted to hurt my family,’ Snyder testified. ‘They wanted their message heard and they didn’t care who they stepped over. My son should have been buried with dignity, not with a bunch of clowns outside.’ Snyder is suing the Westboro Baptist church, whose members have picketed the funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming the deaths are punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuality. The York resident is seeking unspecified monetary damages in the case for invasion of privacy and intent to inflect emotional distress as a result of the Topeka, Kan., church’s protest at his son’s funeral in Westminster in March 2006. The church’s protests have inspired several state laws and a federal law about funeral protests, but the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
