Sunday, May 24, 2009

THE LINK IS STILL MISSING


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7656993/12-million-year-old-ape-fossil-straight-legs-missing-link-primates-humans.html





That 47,000,000 year-old lizard-creature may have had finger nails, but did it ever bite them?

I don’t think so.

It also didn’t have the stress that you and I have.

This dinosaur-like animal is missing more than just munching on its finger nails.

It doesn’t even faintly resemble me or you by any stretch of the imagination.

And how in the world does any scientist know whether this creature has any connection whatsoever to humans?

Any connection seems to be as likely as finding an extraterrestrial buried in my backyard.

I’ve never been fond of being linked on the evolutionary chain (or whatever you want to call it) to monkeys or apes.

But I like the name Ida.

And David Letterman might be right when he said that he thought that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the missing link between man and monkey.


***


Scientists in New York unveiled on Tuesday the skeleton of what they said could be the common ancestor to humans, apes and other primates.
The tiny creature, officially known as Darwinius masillae, but dubbed Ida, lived 47 million years ago and is unusually well preserved, missing only part of a leg, or five per cent of the skeleton. The skull of 'missing link' Ida The unveiling of Ida, a perfectly preserved fossil thought to be the most complete primate skeleton ever discovered. The finding, described on Tuesday in the PloS ONE scientific journal, was displayed at a press conference at New York's Natural History Museum, and is due to be the subject of a documentary on the History Channel, BBC and other broadcasters. Organisers said that scientists led by Norway's fossil expert, professor Jorn Hurum, worked for two years on Ida, first discovered in 1983 by private collectors who failed to understand her importance - and split the bones into two lots. The monkey-like creature was preserved through the ages in Germany's Messel Pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils. Although bearing a long tail, she had several human characteristics, including an opposable thumb, short arms and legs, and forward facing eyes. She also lacked two key elements of modern lemurs: a grooming claw and a row of lower teeth known as the toothcomb. "This is the first link to all humans - truly a fossil that links world heritage," Prof Hurum said in a statement. David Attenborough, the renowned British naturalist and broadcaster, said the "little creature is going to show us our connection with all the rest of the mammals". "The link they would have said until now is missing... it is no longer missing," he said. Ida gives a glimpse into a time when the world was just taking its present shape. Dinosaurs were extinct, the Himalayas were forming and a huge range of mammals thrived in vast jungles. According to the international team, Ida had suffered a badly broken wrist and this might have been her undoing. The theory is that while drinking from the Messel lake she was overcome by carbon dioxide fumes and fell in. "Ida slipped into unconsciousness, was washed into the lake, and sank to the bottom, where the unique conditions preserved her for 47 million years," a statement said. Her last meal shows she was a herbivore. Gut contents revealed remains of fruits, seeds and leaves. "This fossil is so complete. Everything's there. It's unheard of in the primate record at all. You have to get to human burial to see something that's this complete," Hurum said. The press conference was unusually strongly hyped for a scientific event and the announcement was tied into a media campaign including the release of the documentary.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/science/meet-the-ancestor-47millionyearold-human-link-revealed-20090520-bezq.html

Saturday, May 16, 2009

OUT OF THE DARKNESS WITH A BANG













In this photo provided by NASA, astronaut Michael Good works with the Hubble Space Telescope in the cargo bay of the earth-orbiting space shuttle Atlantis, Friday, May 15, 2009. Astronauts Good and Mike Massimino, not shown, participated in the second session of STS-125 extravehicular activity, as part of a five-day beehive-like agenda of space walking and work on the giant orbital observatory (AP Photo/NASA)


***


Our earthly eyes may soon get to see what the beginning of “our” Universe looked like.
But not its very, very beginning.
Only 600,000,000 years before The Beginning.
But what if the Universe (as we think we know it) is much older than the oft’-quoted age of between 13.5 and 14 billion years?
What if (like other misconceptions we’ve held about the earth and sun) OUR universe is a tangential part of a much larger UNIVERSE?)
I know: I’m being heretical and ridiculous.

I suppose that our terrestrial peering into the heavens will help in some areas of our terrestrial existence.
Can this kind of information help us to pay our bills?
Win wars?
Cure cancer?
Stop Global Warming?
Paint pictures or write poetry?
What is it really worth for us to be able to get to and discover the “starting gate” of Space and Time?
What’s the point of all this cosmic seeing?
Will it help us to know ourselves better or to solve our problems?If the universe didn’t exist would it be necessary to create one?
I find this sort of research interesting, but I don’t always see any abundant intrinsic or extrinsic value.
The mountain is there. It will not come to us. So we must go to the mountain.

Maybe on the way we’ll bump into some of our extraterrestrial cousins.
“Hello. Are you old enough to remember the BIG BANG? "
"Of course."
“Good. Larry King wants you to be on his show tomorrow night.”

In the meantime, I look forward to seeing more beautiful pictures between all of those infinite spaces.
But I have a suggestion for NASA:
Please point Hubble’s eye to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and keep it pointed there until we find out what is going to happen (if anything) in 2012.

Maybe you can tell us if Dick Cheney is going to run for president.



IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES THE BIG BANG AND 2016



Wednesday, May 13, 2009

SOUL SEARCHING NOT FINGER POINTING


Born, baptized, and confirmed in the Catholic Church, and one who appreciates the mysterious and beautiful writing in the New Testament (King James)...
I become suspicious when people point fingers at God.

Leave God alone.

He has enough to worry about.

He has to worry about this cruel and murderous species of HOMO ERECTUS THE SAPIEN (a species that is more often erect and supine than ethical).

So, for the sake of our survival---for the sake of saving our planet---God would be much happier if we didn't bring his name up so much.

Just look at ourselves.

Within ourselves.

INTO YOUR SOUL.

Be Good, True, and Beautiful.

And for these things we don’t need to be a

Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Muslim, Buddhist, Jew, or Atheist.


Friday, May 08, 2009

DICK IS SICK


Dick Cheney was drunk on power.


Vice Dick continues to be intoxicated by boundless fumes of his self-deluding duplicity.

The former Vice President (with emphasis on the vice part) is still torturing us with tortuous and treacherous enhanced techniques of treachery.

Dick’s a big liar.

What else should we expect from Dick?

Dick thought he was shooting a bird when he was shooting a man.

Dick told us over and over that Iraq had WMD.

This chicanery gave Dick’s Halliburton and Pentagon buddies years and years of blood money.

Monsters need to be muzzled and jailed.

So?

What

Should

We do

With

DICK?

Sunday, May 03, 2009

WHILE ADMINISTERING THE TAKS TEST DURING THE SWINE FLU SEASON

the filigree of a young tree
became enticing to me
but the tapestry
of its tender flame
made me want to scream.