Proven, humans are not inately murderous of nature as some people have said.

And, in fact, a prehistoric site (don't remember where now) that was uncovered identified trade as the first device for triggering established settled community, and not defence against the warring hordes.

Extending from that (in this brain space anyway) this news report - Scientists find Neanderthals' Last Refuge - said:

"Prior findings suggested the Neanderthals went extinct in Europe 35,000 years ago, while modern humans arrived in Western Europe 32,000 years ago. The fact the span between the arrival of modern humans and the extinction of the Neanderthals looked so relatively brief hinted that Neanderthals got out-competed."

... by humans. But not necessarily so. The same news report reveals that new findings:

"... suggest Neanderthals survived after modern humans moved in, and as the environment changed due to climate shifts, Neanderthals faded away."

I reckon ... with more proofs that humans are NOT, instinctively, murderous scum, we better our chances of expressing a distain for violence and cruelty, which blights the lives of so many people.

Onya humans!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14817677/

Man: The Fallen Ape by Branko Bokun

In Man: The Fallen Ape”, Branco Bokun offers the opinion that the human race stemmed from apes that were fringe dwellers of an ape troop which they had originally been born into but the hypothesis points to our ape ancestors as the failed apes that were made unwelcome by those living in the "mainstream" of the troop.

The fallen apes - both male and female, lived separate from the larger group that abided by the instinctively embedded codes of conduct which ruled (and rule) ape society; which standards our ancestors failed to meet.

They caused trouble, notably they behaved promiscuously, and they were ultimately chased by the larger group even from dwelling on the fringe of the ape society in the relative safety of the forests, into the "badlands" of the savannah. Whereupon this isolated and highly vulnerable group of apes survived at least long enough to hand on their genes to a very long line of creatures that led to humans - if the hypothesis be true - originally, due to the ministrations of the females among them, which creatures, due to their bearing offspring, had learned some abilities to nurture themselves and others, even in an alien landscape.

The hypothesis speculates that the greatest offence was the "fallen apes" didn’t live in harmony with natural laws to mate seasonally which, I would think, would have caused the troop to dysfunction.

The ejection of the Fallen Apes doubtless offered a short-term remedy for the troop to have things return to “normal”, but how many times did it happen that disordered apes were outcast; and how narrow a squeak was it that our ape ancestors survived to maturity where, I speculate of course, others similarly cast out, didn’t.

And, yes, it is only an hypothesis. But it might explain something about the human impetus to copulate at any time without a “shared” rhyme or reason.

There is no natural universal signalling among our species to premeditate coupling. We instead each have our own personal whims and foibles what is a turn on.

If we accept Bokun's theory for the moment, to look at this splintering of the small group from the large group, the author seems to highlight a time when the "becoming humans" were at a turning point in their evolution from which there was no turning back; while ahead there could easily have lain extinction not too far away for these little apes. But with their enterprise succeeding, and Bokun believes it did - by an (unwitting) investment in a change of sexual habit they bequeathed to their descendents - so, that would us! - an incredible mind- broadening and body changing journey through distant eons.

Anyway for your interest, an extract from the book. I've had it for years, and it is probably out of print by now:


“Most anthropologists assert that human stock, the brightest of existing animals, came one day out of its natural, ideal environment, with food in abundance and no danger, and chose to start a new life in the hell of the savannah, with limited food, no safe shelter, and a savannah filled with dangerous predators … This theory is not acceptable by any natural logic. No animal will voluntarily leave a good environment for a bad one. …

These explanations follow modern human logic, which is based on conceit. … I think that the most compelling evidence that humans were evicted from the woodlands into the savannah is the fact that the human mind, when it started to function, created the idea of paradise. … If any other animal ever became capable of creating abstract ideas, it would never imagine paradise. ... Paradise arises from an experience of humiliation which animals never face. No animal has ever been thrown out of its environment and survived. … Our human ancestors, our Adams and Eves, were evicted from Paradise.

The only difference is that historically they were not evicted by Almighty God but by fitter apes.”


You may not view it, as I do, a fascinating theory but, for me, it swings things around and almost compels the individual to understand that the words “strength” or "fitness" are relative to something, they don't exist independently even though our inclination towards biases might persuade us to think of them as having a static meaning.

In the primitive ape world, perhaps the slowly "becoming" humans made bad apes and were unfit in ape society because they lacked a sexual instinct disciplined and controlled by oestrus but, contrarily, they might have made half reasonable humans, to the effect that increased coupling meant increased numbers, and our numbers are what has helped to give us a monopoly of the planet.

In the close to the book, the author asks these questions:

"Can it be that man's last chance is, once again, woman?"

"Can the human female, who once saved the fallen ape in the savannah now save god-man, fallen with the onipotence of his mind?"

"Is her instinct for the preservation of the species strong enough to prevent this catastrophe?"

And these are some of the statements Bokun makes:

"When the adolescent male rebelled by taking the dominating role and inventing abstract ideas and beliefs, woman adapted herself to the absurd world man had created. "

"By imitating man, woman has also succeeded in imitating ... man's most harmful vices. "

"One can only hope that women will return to reality and induce man to listen to her natural wisdom. She can do this by ceasing to strive for equality with man. Equality with man means descending to man's pathetic and ridiculous level. Women should liberate herself from imitating man and from adapting to man's abstract world."

"Woman's common sense is part of a woman's nature and that nature only comes to light when she is not imitating man or adapting herself to his world."

Zimmer

"The lineage that gave rise to dolphins, whales, and porpoises went through a transformation just as staggering as the one that brought vertebrates on land in the first place; about 50 million years ago a race of wolflife mammals began to adapt themselves to water. They lost their hind limbs altogether and turned their back on the place that had been their ancestors’ for over 250 million years."
Carl Zimmer "At the Water’s Edge

* * * * *

I once knew a fellow who told me that he had, when younger, spent a lot of time in the sea, surfing and swimming, and he began to notice something odd around the throat area. The man said he went to see a specialist who told him he was growing gills and it was suggested that the man stay away from sea water if he wanted to get rid of them.

Now you’re probably going to say – "Honey, this fellow was having a lend of you". Maybe, maybe not, but whether or not the story is true, the internet has been abuzz since 2004 with this news -

"The human parathyroid glands, which regulate the level of calcium in the blood, probably evolved from the gills of fish …"

"… A team from King's College London believe that they were internalised, rather than lost, when four-limbed, land-living animals evolved."

"… "… new research suggests that in fact, our gills are still sitting in our throats - disguised as our parathyroid glands."
http://news.bbc.co.uk

So though this information doesn’t exactly verify the story above, maybe it doesn’t sound quite so silly as on first mention.

From the same source as above,

‘Researcher Professor Anthony Graham said: "As the tetrapod parathyroid gland and the gills of fish both contribute to the regulation of extracellular calcium levels, it is reasonable to suggest that the parathyroid gland evolved from a transformation of the gills when animals made the transition from the aquatic to the terrestrial environment.’

As dolphins, whales and porpoises have done, is it possible that humans (I'm not saying all humans, but some humans) - over many many (many many many) generations - might morph back into under-water creatures?
----------------------------

Mermaid Picture: http://lair2000.net/mermaid39/mermaid39.html
and turn up the sound!

I’m still writing about whales (and dolphins).

On reading articles on the internet around and about the subject of macroevolution, it dawned on me that the idea of mammals removing back to the sea (from whence their remote ancestors came) produces a rather interesting effect – that a strict separation between land life and sea life no longer holds true.

There has been traced a possible connection between cetaceans and the hippopotamus.

The Dolphin-Hippo Connection by Susan Lumpkin
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/publications/zoogoer/2003/5/dolphin_hippoconnection.cfm

Go look



http://www.greatestjournal.com http://www.photosofcalifornia.com/free_picture_dolphin.aspx
http://school.discovery.com

Mammals evolved on terra firma ...

While I was reading articles on the internet, this statement took me by surprise.
"Mammals evolved on the land".
I knew that. Didn’t I? To be honest I’d never given it any thought. Which is likely why the statement took me by surprise.
But of course they did.
However my eyes are newly open and I’m looking at life kind from a different place after I became aware – the other day - that there is scientific evidence to prove that predecessors of whales (and dolphins actually) once lived outside of the oceans.
Although all along there was a clue to this - in the dictionary.
Possibly any dictionary will offer a similar definition, and in the Oxford it says, besides humans, mammals "include dogs, rabbits and whales".
Keeping in mind the assertion that mammals evolved on the land, there is an implied message in that short list that the biology that gives (humans, dogs, rabbits), whales - and dolphins - their shared "mammalian-ship", today, was evolved on land. By which we can infer that those creatures that predeceased whales (and dolphins) were once land mammals.

A Whale of a Tale

This afternoon is the last day of my holiday and tomorrow I head back into the salt mines so I’m really working hard at relaxing now.
I was reading the following in the Reader’s Digest Book of Facts and suddenly I found myself on a book buying expedition.
The idea of an Evolutionary U-Turn grabbed me by the throat, read this ~
"The ancestors of whales were once land animals. Scientific examination of whale skeletons indicates that they have a vestigial pelvis or hipbone, proving that whales once possessed legs. The ancestors of whales, like the ancestors of all animals, came originally from the sea. But whales began returning to the sea about 70 million years ago, steadily losing the physical characteristics of land mammals.
Their front legs changed into flippers, their rear legs disappeared, their bodies acquired a thick insulating layer of blubber and their nostrils moved from the snout to the top of the head to become a blowhole.
It is not known why whales returned to the sea, but it may have been because food was more plentiful there or because enemies were fewer.
--------------
So what, you might say?
I didn’t say that, I put my imagination to work. But I felt suddenly blind as if I were stumbling around in the dark. The pictures wouldn’t come.
I didn’t have a problem with the idea of creatures evolving, that is old stuff for me and I do believe that the trend of lifekind is to change, to evolve.
It was just hard for me to think about a creature sustaining a painstaking biological change to adapt to living on the land only to revert back at some point to becoming, once again, a sea dweller.
And it’s not why where the problem lay, and it may not even be how - because I’m really quite used to not knowing anything about a lot of "stuff".
I think it boils down to an assumption I made based on a prejudice I have. That having lungs is a sign of greater sophistication and complexity; so a surer sign of intelligence and superiority than having gills.
Hell bells, I thought. I’m something that there’s not a word for, yet.
I’m a sea creature-ist!
For years I’ve clearly seen in my mind’s eye, a one way lineal march of creatures moving from the sea and progressing to live on the land, I perceived that, from there, a "natural" extension would be for any terrestial life-form worth its salt to find the means to move from the land and travel into space - and the final frontier – not necessarily humans – I’m not an animal-ist.
I just didn’t expect that any creature would turn tail, and retreat back into the sea!
And yet the crazy thing about that vision is, a land creature is no better adapted to living in space than a sea creature would be. I think we can probably learn every bit as much from whales as they can learn from us.
Anyway to soothe my troubled mind, I went on the net, the biggest playground cum market-place ever.
I found, "At the Water's Edge, Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea".
Yes, I thought, I would like to know about the "…engines of macroevolution .." and "… the transformation of body shapes across millions of years."
So I have now bought the book and I’ll blog you about it .. later.

Holidays come, holidays go

In April this year we had a reprise almost of April last year, same month different cyclones, and both weather systems did us the courtesy of not coming too close when laden with destructive forces, but Monica, as Ingrid had done, still left its mark on people's minds. Well, okay, on my mind at least. There were those who said they didn't know what the fuss was about.

Move on another few weeks and we were still getting intermittent rain in May which is not that usual but, come the end of May, the humidity eased and the temperatures sunk suddenly below the 30 degree mark through some days and the 20 degree mark through some nights. There was no doubt left, we were into the Dry season and it was a welcome respite.

This was when I started my holiday. 2+ weeks later, and tomorrow is my last day and I'm kind of sad about that

But it's been bloody marvelous, I can't tell you how relaxed I feel .... sighhhhhh

Blog Jogger

For me, blogging has become the new walk in the park, as I ambulate through my thoughts to sort out a heading to write about.

In fact I've been blogging for 4 days now (naturally stopping to eat, shower and sleep), but 4 days is the sum total of my blogging career, and already my family, comprising hubby and cat, have become quite accustomed to me hunkered over my keyboard, venting this or that stream of thought through my flying fingers. Happily they leave me to it. Mostly.

I have often wanted to keep a diary.

I have two distinct problems with actual diary-keeping.

Diaries, by their very nature, are books with real sheets of paper in them that require real penmanship to make a mark on them. After many years of typing on keyboards, I can't manually write a sentence onto a sheet of paper without making a complete dogs breakfast of the page. My manual writing skills are woeful, ergo, though I have bought a couple of diaries over time with the express intention of exploring the highways and by-ways that make up my mind on a frequent basis (stored in the one place, ie. the diary), I haven't got much beyond Week 1, or even Day 1, because, well, I think - it's not just the words - but good presentation is a big part of finding pleasure in the writing experience, and I have trouble making my handwriting readable even if I use a pencil.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised that the more popular blog web sites will be those that pay close attention to the outward appearance of blogs, in their finished forms. We bloggers want to look good (well, don't we?).

Diaries are also traditionally full of deep, dark and furtive secrets. And it's not a lack of secrets why my life has been diary-free. I'm not sure that I would commit my secrets to paper anyway. Nor to screen, come to that. But were I to do so, and after sweating, armed with a pen, over a page for some hours, while attempting to make my scrawly handwriting legible, and failing miserably ~ as if that's not bad enough, given that the diary is loaded down with secrets, who but me will get to read it?

Please tell me the point of writing something down ~ not in the dramatic spirit of exorcising demons from the mind and then ritualistically ripping the paper to shreds afterwards ~ but from the viewpoint of keeping those writings locked away sometimes for years (and diaries often have those dinky little ornate keys to warn of secrets being kept therein, do they not?) which no-one else will read, at least until the mortal coil has been shuffled off.

So read away. There may not be secrets in my blog but, you will find me there.