laparanoia

Moon Landing hoax

2009-07-17T05:48:00.000-07:00

NASA said last Thursday that it must have erased the Apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the videotape.

In the year 2009, nowhere on Planet Earth does there exist, nor is there the prospect of there being in the foreseeable future, the technology to transport humans to the Moon and bring them back alive.
Yet, using less computer technology than is in some of today's wrist watches, the USA did it - six times - all those years ago from 1969 to 1972.

The super-ultra-human qualities of the Apollo crews were critical factors. Normal human beings would require several feet of lead in all directions to avoid being fried by the radiation within and beyond the Van Allen Belts and on the Moon's surface : one man in a telephone kiosk would need many hundreds of tons of lead.
These adventurers, clad only in glorified tinfoil, did not suffer so much as a headache from their journeys.

We heard the clear, uninterrupted voices of the astronauts as they sat above 10,000 lb-thrust, 140-decibel rockets.

The chest-mounted cameras, without a viewfinder or artificial lighting, produced sharp, well-framed photographs on standard Kodak film which, miraculously, withstood the X-rays and the extremes of heat and cold : 250 degrees to minus 250 degrees Celsius .
Kodak, showing an unprecedented level of commercial humility, declined, for decades, to mention the Apollo events in their official company history.

Deaths of key Apollo personnel

In a television program about the hoax allegations, Fox Entertainment listed the deaths of ten astronauts and of two civilians related to the manned spaceflight program as having possibly been killed as part of a cover-up.

Theodore Freeman (T-38 crash, 1964)
Elliot See and Charlie Bassett (T-38 accident, 1966)
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967). His son Scott Grissom said the accident was a murder.^[84] Bill Kaysing also makes this claim.^[13]^{, p. 41}
Edward Higgins "Ed" White (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967)
Roger B. Chaffee (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967)
Edward "Ed" Givens (car accident, 1967)
Clifton "C. C." Williams (T-38 accident, October 1967)
X-15 pilot Michael J. "Mike" Adams (the only X-15 pilot killed during the X-15 flight test program in November 1967 - not a NASA astronaut, but had flown X-15 above 50 miles).
Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., scheduled to be an Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory pilot, who died in a jet crash in December 1967, shortly after reporting for duty to that (later canceled) program.
NASA worker Thomas Ronald Baron (automobile collision with train, 1967 shortly after making accusations before Congress about the cause of the Apollo 1 fire, after which he was fired). Ruled as suicide. Baron was a quality control inspector who wrote a report critical of the Apollo program and was an outspoken critic after the Apollo 1 fire. Baron and his family were killed as their car was struck by a train at a train crossing.^[84]^[85]
Brian Welch, a leading official in NASA's Public Affairs Office, died a few months after appearing in the media to debunk the Fox pro-Moon hoax television show cited above.^[86]

All but one of the astronaut deaths were directly related to their job with NASA or the Air Force.

Why Socialism?

2008-02-06T14:30:00.000-08:00

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

by Albert Einstein

This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).
You can read the rest of the article at the Monthly Review's website:
http://www.monthlyreview.org

Also worth reading:
"Albert Einstein, Radical: A Political Profile"
by John J. Simon
http://www.monthlyreview.org

The Hearst Conspiracy

2007-11-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

In 1897, prior to the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, Frederic Remington, an artist hired by William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the New York Journal, went to Cuba with noted writer Richard Harding Davis to provide illustrations to accompany a series of articles on the Revolution.

Arriving in Havana in January of 1897, Remington soon became bored with seemingly peaceful Cuba and wired Hearst:

"Everything is quiet. There is no trouble. There will be no war. I wish to return."

Hearst's reply is alleged to have been:

"Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

On 24 January, President McKinley sent the second class battleship U.S.S. Maine from Key West to Havana, after clearing the visit with a reluctant government in Madrid. The battleship arrived on 25 January. Spanish authorities in Havana were wary of American intentions, but they afforded Captain Charles Sigsbee and the officers of Maine every courtesy.

At 9:40 on the evening of 15 February, a terrible explosion on board Maine shattered the stillness in Havana Harbor. Most of Maine's crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters in the forward part of the ship when the explosion occurred. Two hundred and sixty-six men lost their lives as a result of the disaster.

Spanish officials and the crew of the civilian steamer City of Washington acted quickly in rescuing survivors and caring for the wounded. The attitude and actions of the former allayed initial suspicions that hostile action caused the explosion, and led Sigsbee to include at the bottom of his initial telegram: "Public opinion should be suspended until further report."

But that recommendation obviously didn't apply to Hearst's New York Journal. Stories of Cuban virtue and Spanish brutality soon dominated his front page.

The explosion was attributed by Spanish scientists, to an internal and accidental explosion; but an American Naval inquiry concluded that it was caused by submarine mine.

Throughout the spring of 1898 Spain negotiated to prevent war to no avail. On April 25 President William McKinley declared war with Spain. Having clamored for a fight for two years, Hearst took credit for the conflict when it came. A week after the United States declared war on Spain, he ran "How do you like the Journal's war?" on his front page.

Ernest L. Meyer did later define Hearst's character quite accurately:

"Mr. Hearst in his long and not laudable career has inflamed Americans against Spaniards, Americans against Japanese, Americans against Filipinos, Americans against Russians, and in the pursuit of his incendiary campaign he has printed downright lies, forged documents, faked atrocity stories, inflammatory editorials, sensational cartoons and photographs and other devices by which he abetted his jingoistic ends."

Hearst will also be remembered in History for advocating the assassination of President McKinley in an editorial just months before the President was actually killed.

The Spanish–American War, in any case, represented a “splendid little war” according to Secretary of State John Hay. Only 109 days after the outbreak of war, the Treaty of Paris, which ended the conflict, gave the United States ownership of the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam.

However the US soon made clear that their intentions were not to "liberate" the natives from Spanish brutality, but rather to inflict on them a much worse oppression.
During the the "pacification" of Samar, in the Philippines, US soldiers were ordered to take "no prisoners".
U.S. Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith who was in charge, dispatched precise orders to "kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better you will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States," as he told Major Littleton W. T. Waller. When Waller asked for clarification, Smith specified that "everyone ten years of age or older should be killed", Hearst's newspaper, the New York Evening Journal, had no trouble to even graphically publish the atrocity.

Nonetheless, the war did mark the American entry into world affairs and over the course of the next century, the United States had a large hand in various conflicts around the world.
The Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the United States entered a lengthy and prosperous period of high economic growth, population growth, and technological innovation which lasted through the 1920s.

To be fair it wasn't neither the first time nor would be the last time that the US or many other countries around the World used Government sponsored terrorism upon their own countrymen to get their public opinion to agree with their military plans.

The Reichstag fire was a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi German.
General Franz Halder stated in an affidavit that Hermann Goering had joked about setting the fire:

"On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer's birthday in 1942, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it."

And there's proof that at least some of the Moscow bombings attributed to Chechenians were in fact organized by the FSB, the Russian domestic intelligence service, the successor of KGB.
The FSB were caught by local police and citizens in the city of Ryazan planting a bomb with a detonator in the basement of an apartment building on the night of September 22, 1999.

Let alone 9/11.
You only have to look at the Twin Towers being knocked down. It is a demolition.

There were Means, Motive, and Opportunity.
Vice President Richard Cheney was not only a planner in the attacks, but also on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superseding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room.

Marvin P. Bush, the president's younger brother, was on the board of directors of the company providing electronic security for the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport and United Airlines.
A number of suspicious security operations took place in the days leading up to September 11, including the lifting of a high-security alert despite heavy warnings at the complex. Furthermore, bomb-sniffing dogs were removed on September 6th and a
power-down took place the weekend before 9/11 (September 8 and 9) in the South Tower (WTC 2). Reportedly, the power-down affected a large number of security cameras and door locks throughout the complex while a number of "engineers" went back and forth between the towers.

Firemen, Police and reporters heard the explosions and they have even been recorded on audio and video.

There's only one reputable publication in the whole of the US today that dares to defend the ridiculous theory put forward by the Bush Administration and that is Popular Mechanics.
And guess who owns Popular Mechanics? Hearst Corporation.

OK, so they did it. It was an inside job. One of many in History inflicted by Governments on their own folk in order to get a reaction that will back up their military plans.
So what? Some people died, but surely they took into account that it will benefit more people than it actually harmed, some difficult decision that those privileged minds had to make at some point in order to preserve the American Way of Life, which happens to be the Right Way of Life.
Same kind of dilemma, like the one that the crew of the Enola Gay were put through when asked to drop a bomb that was to kill more than 100.000 people, by pointing out that "it was done to save more lives than if the war with Japan had continued on", or at least that's what they say in the movie, so it must be true.
What's the big deal?

Well, the big deal, or rather the global deal, is that by letting those privileged minds of the Bush Administration get away with that blatant act of terrorism, that was preceded by a blatant election rip-off and a subsequent blatantly illegal and unjust invasion of Iraq, the World veered away from the Kyoto agreements that had been endorsed by the Clinton Administration and instead, resources were wasted in a war whose only objective was to loot the petrol out of one of the biggest world providers, so we can keep on polluting even more and aggravate global warming in an irreversible manner.

What all this means is that those "privileged minds" are not so smart after all, because when the effects of global warming start to get real nasty, we ALL be affected, even them, dumb asses who regarded themselves as more intelligent that everyone in the scientific community and instead of paying attention chose to conveniently ignore their warnings in order to fill their pockets with the excuse that in the end, it'd be a positive action for everybody (except the inevitable and not so important victims involved in these kind of megalomaniac schemes, that is).

Something went terribly wrong when Al Gore (who happened to be the man that has got more votes in the History of the USA, ever) let that election be stolen away from him.

And now it's too late. I am totally convinced that we're far beyond the Point of No Return.

Otherwise, I would had not written this post.

Neanderthals at Nerja

2007-10-01T03:26:00.000-07:00

Three flint tools dated from 40,000 years ago confirms that the Nerja Cave (Málaga province in Spain) was inhabited by the Neanderthal man.

A group of Spanish anthropologists have been looking at items removed from the famous tourist attraction some 20 years ago, and affirmed that there is no doubt about the evidence.

The tools date from the middle Palaeolithic period and are part of 151,588 items which have been newly classified.

Neanderthal fossils and associated materials have been found all over Spain, such as at Bañolas (Girona) and Cova Negra (Valencia).
Fully developed Neanderthals, some represented by well-preserved skulls, come from more than 10 different localities throughout Spain, including Los Casares, Carigüela, Gabasa, and Zafarraya, with a cluster in Gibraltar (Forbe's Quarry, Gorham's Cave, and La Genista).
Mountainous ranges South of Spain provided with natural caves, many of which were at times occupied by Neanderthals during the Late Pleistocene Epoch (approximately 130,000 to 10,000 years ago).

Nerja Cave Website

Neandertal Learning Materials and Scholarly articles

2007-06-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

Neandertal Learning Materials:

Scholarly articles on Neandertal:

Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA Richard E. Green, Johannes Krause, Susan E. Ptak, Adrian W. Briggs, Michael T. Ronan, Jan F. Simons, Lei Du, Michael Egholm, Jonathan M. Rothberg, Maja Paunovic and Svante Paabo
Nature, 2006 November 16; vol. (7117), 444 330-336
Sequencing and Analysis of Neanderthal Genomic DNA James P. Noonan, Graham Coop, Sridhar Kudaravalli, Doug Smith,Johannes Krause, Joe Alessi, Feng Chen, Darren Platt, Svante Pääbo,Jonathan K. Pritchard, and Edward M. Rubin
Science, 2006 November 17 ; vol. 314, 1113-1118
Neandertal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans. Matthias Krings, Anne Stone, Ralf W. Schmitz, Heike Krainitzki, Mark Stoneking, and Svante Paabo. Cell, Vol. 90, 19–30, July 11, 1997
No Evidence of Neandertal mtDNA Contribution to Early Modern Humans. David Serre, Andre Langaney, Mario Chech, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Maja Paunovic, Philippe Mennecier, Michael Hofreiter, Goran Possnert, Svante Paabo PLOS Biology. March 2004, Volume 2, Issue 3, Page 0314.
Genetic Analysis from Ancient DNA. Svante Paabo,Hendrik Poinar, David Serre, Viviane Jaenicke-Despres, Juliane Hebler, Nadin Rohland,Melanie Kuch, Johannes Krause, Linda Vigilant, and Michael Hofreiter. Annu. Rev. Genet. 2004. 38:645–79
Publications by Dr. Svante Paabo

The robust composite skeleton of a Neandertal (left) is unmistakably different from that of a modern human (right). G.J. Sawyer and Blaine Maley

Credit: Ken Mowbray and Blaine Maley, American Museum of Natural History.

Staff completing sequencing projects at the 454 Sequencing Center located in Branford, CT. Source: 454 Life Sciences.

Due to sample contamination, the task of sequencing the Neandertal genome is much more extensive than the task of sequencing the human genome. 454 Life Sciences' Genome Sequencer 20 System makes such an endeavor feasible by allowing approximately a quarter of a million single DNA strands from small amounts of bone to be sequenced in only about five hours by a single machine.

Source: 454 Life Sciences.

Exploring the Genetic Code of the Neanderthal

Talk of the Nation, November 17, 2006 ·
Scientists have sequenced DNA from one of humans' closest relatives, the Neanderthal.
Guests examine what that prehistoric genetic code might tell us about how these early hominids lived, and why they became extinct.
Can the genetic code also answer the question of whether Neanderthals and modern humans interbred?

The Trap

2007-06-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

A BBC documentary:
The Trap, directed by Adam Curtis.

Game Theory studies strategic interactions between agents. In strategic games, agents choose strategies which will maximize their return, given the strategies the other agents choose.
The essential feature is that it provides a formal modeling approach to social situations in which decision makers interact with other agents.

Game theory has played, and continues to play a large role in the social sciences, and is now also used in many diverse academic fields. Beginning in the 1970s, game theory has been applied to animal behavior, including evolutionary theory.

Many games, especially the prisoner's dilemma, are used to illustrate ideas in political science and ethics. Game theory has recently drawn attention from computer scientists because of its use in artificial intelligence and cybernetics.

Although some game theoretic analyses appear similar to decision theory, game theory studies decisions made in an environment in which players interact. In other words, game theory studies choice of optimal behavior when costs and benefits of each option depend upon the choices of other individuals.

But bear in mind that John Forbes, whose works on the theory were later applied to many social and political schemes was a schizophrenic.

"Liberty? Why, it doesn't exist. There is no liberty in this world, just gilded cages."

Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay, 1923

Source:
Rafa Minuesa

Los Últimos Neandertales

2007-02-22T07:31:00.000-08:00

Estamos en el año 25.000 antes de Jesucristo.
Toda Europa está ocupada por los Cro-Mañones ...
¿Toda? !No!
Varias aldeas pobladas por irreductibles Neandertales resiste, invicta siempre al invasor.

La invasión se ha producido de una forma insidiosa,pero altamente efectiva.
Los Homínidos que un día aparecieron a las puertas orientales del territorio Neandertal y que atrajeron la curiosidad de los Neandros, por su elevada estatura y carencia de pelo, comenzaron a despertar desde bien pronto todo tipo de recelos.
Por alguna razón misteriosa, todos aquellos Neandros que mantenían relaciones cercanas con los recién llegados, morían tras una rápida e incurable enfermedad.

Eran unos tipos raros estos Cro-Magnones.
Aunque mucho más avanzados que los Neandros en cuestiones de Agricultura y Vivienda, su organización social consistía de núcleos familiares, con parejas ocupando su propia tierra y casa junto a otras parejas en el mismo estado, algo que a los Neandertales se les antojaba harto estúpido y poco práctico.

Pero a pesar con una estructura unifamiliar, los recién llegados también tenían la repudiable costumbre de practicar sexo con todo tipo de animales, incluidos los propios Neandros.
Para la Sociedad Neandertal, este tipo de relaciones eran totalmente inaceptables y cuando los miembros del clan que habían sucumbido a los encantos Cro-Mañones comenzaron a morir, víctimas de un virus proveniente del Macaco Rhesus, los druidas Neandertales inmediatamente lo achacaron a un Castigo de los Dioses.

La Sociedad Neandertal, que tan abierta y tolerante en temas sexuales había sido hasta entonces, cayó en una época de oscurantismo, una especie de Edad Media Paleolítica, donde se impusieron normas estrictas para evitar sucesivos contagios.
La mejor forma de evitar encuentros con los Cromaños era huir a las montañas, donde aún existían algunas poblaciones de Neandros no contaminados.

Sin embargo, los retoños nacidos de la unión entre ambas especies, al igual que sus padres Cro-Mañones, si eran inmunes a dicho virus.
Además, como siempre ocurre en la Naturaleza con los híbridos fértiles, estaban dotados con lo mejor de ambas especies, lo que les hacía superiores en fuerza e inteligencia a ambas especies, además de resistentes a un mayor número de enfermedades.

Y pronto se dieron cuenta de que era muy fácil combatir, ganar y saquear a los otros homínidos "puros", a quienes en menos de 5.000 años habían totalmente desbancado o asimilado.

Los Neandros huidos a la montaña permanecieron allí durante unos cuantos miles de años, hasta que el último empujón Híbrido les obligó a integrarse definitivamente.
Pero no a todos.
Un pequeño contingente se echo a la mar y consiguió llegar a costas británicas, aún impolutas de Cro-Mañones.
Otros pequeños grupúsculos permanecieron aislados y escondidos en Palestina, Croacia, Serranía de Ronda y montañas Bizcainas.
Fue en este último lugar donde más arraigo la creencia de que los invasores eran en realidad un cruce de mono y simio, y por lo tanto carentes de valores humanos.
Creencia que sirvió para fundar las bases del Partido Político que gobierna en la actualidad el País Vasco y que aún hoy día se enseña solapadamente en las escuelas vascas.

Enhanced Human Brain as a result Interbreeding Between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals

2007-01-28T04:20:00.000-08:00

A new study by researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Chicago shows strong evidence of how interbreeding between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals have introduced a gene variant into the human population that enhanced human brain function,

The research was published online during the week of November 6, 2006, in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and suggests that human evolution was not just a matter of spontaneous advantageous mutations arising within the human lineage.
Human evolution may also have been influenced by interbreeding with other Homo species, which introduced gene variants, known as alleles, that are beneficial to human reproductive fitness.

Bruce T. Lahn, study's senior author, at Howard Hughes Medical Institute said that:

“By no means do these findings constitute definitive proof that a Neanderthal was the source of the original copy of the D allele. However, our evidence shows that it is one of the best candidates.”

The scientists said they have developed the most robust genetic evidence to date that suggests humans and Neanderthals interbred when they existed together thousands of years ago. The interbreeding hypothesis contrasts with at least one prominent theory that posits that no interbreeding occurred when the two species encountered one another.

In their studies performed a detailed statistical analysis of the DNA sequence structure of the gene microcephalin, which is known to play a role in regulating brain size in humans. Mutations in the human gene cause development of a much smaller brain, a condition called microcephaly.

Previous work by Lahn’s team has shown that there are two distinct groups of microcephalin alleles (versions of the gene), called the D alleles and the non-D alleles. The genes in the D alleles group have very similar DNA sequences, and arose from the amplification of a single ancestral gene approximately 37,000 years ago, which then increased in frequency rapidly and are now present in about 70 percent of the world's population. This rapid rise in frequency indicates that the D alleles underwent positive selection in the recent history of humans.
This means that these alleles conferred a fitness advantage on those who possessed one of them such that these people had slightly higher reproductive success than people who didn't possess the alleles, said Lahn.

The estimate that all modern copies of the D alleles descended from a single progenitor copy about 37,000 years ago is based on the measurement of sequence difference between different copies of the D alleles. As a copy of a gene is passed from one generation to the next, mutations are introduced at a steady rate, such that a certain number of generations later, the descendant copies of the gene would on average vary from one another in DNA sequence by a certain amount. The greater the number of the generations, the more DNA sequence difference there would be between two descendant copies.
The amount of sequence difference between different copies of a gene can therefore be used to estimate the amount of evolutionary time that has elapsed since the two copies descended from their common progenitor.

In the new studies reported in PNAS, the researchers performed detailed sequence comparisons between the D alleles and the non-D alleles of microcephalin. The scientists determined that these two classes of alleles have likely evolved in two separate lineages for about 1.1 million years — with the non-D alleles having evolved in the Homo sapiens lineage and the D alleles having evolved in an archaic, and now extinct, Homo lineage. Then, about 37,000 years ago, a copy of the D allele crossed from the archaic Homo lineage into humans, possibly by interbreeding between members of the two populations. This copy subsequently spread in humans from a single copy when it first crossed into humans to an allele that is now present in an estimated 70 percent of the population worldwide today.

The estimate of 1.1 million years that separates the two lineages is based on the amount of sequence difference between the D and the non-D alleles. Although the identity of this archaic Homo lineage is yet to be determined, the researchers argue that a likely candidate is the Neanderthals. The 1.1 million year separation between humans and this archaic Homo species is roughly consistent with previous estimates of the amount of evolutionary time separating the Homo sapiens lineage and the Neanderthal lineage, said Lahn. Furthermore, the time of introgression of the D allele into humans — about 37,000 years ago — is when humans and Neanderthals coexisted in many parts of the world.

Lahn said the group's data suggest that the interbreeding was unlikely to be a thorough genetic mixing, but rather a rare - and perhaps even a single — event that introduced the ancestral D allele previously present in this other Homo species into the human line.

“By no means do these findings constitute definitive proof that a Neanderthal was the source of the original copy of the D allele. However, our evidence shows that it is one of the best candidates. The timeline, including the introgression of the allele into humans 37,000 years ago and its origin in a lineage that separated with the human line 1.1 million years ago, agrees with the contact between, and the evolutionary history of, Neanderthals and humans.

“And a third line of evidence, albeit weaker, is that the D alleles are much more prevalent in Eurasia and lower in sub-Saharan Africa, which is consistent with an origin in the former area. And we know that Neanderthals evolved outside of Africa,”

said Lahn.

Lahn also said that although the disruption of the microcephalin gene in humans leads to smaller brains, the role of the D alleles in brain evolution remains unknown.

“The D alleles may not even change brain size; they may only make the brain a bit more efficient if it indeed affects brain function. For example, someone inheriting the D allele may have only a slightly more efficient brain on average. While that enhancement might confer only a subtle evolutionary advantage on that person, when that effect is propagated over a thousand generations of natural selection, the result will be to drive the D alleles to a very high prevalence.”

Lahn and his colleagues believe that other genes might well show similar telltale signs of an origin in archaic Homo lineages such as Neanderthals. They are currently using their analytical tool to search for evidence of that origin for other genes in the human genome.

Such findings may have broader implications for understanding human evolution than just revealing the possibility of human-Neanderthal interbreeding, he said.

“In addition to being perhaps the most robust genetic evidence for introgression of genes from archaic Homo species into humans, I think this finding demonstrates that the evolution of our species has been profoundly impacted by gene flow from our relative species. Finding evidence of mixing is not all that surprising. But our study demonstrates the possibility that interbreeding contributed advantageous variants into the human gene pool that subsequently spread. This implies that the evolution of human biology has been affected by the contribution of advantageous genetic variants from archaic relatives that we have replaced or even killed off,”

Until now, said Lahn, the scientific debate over genetic exchange between humans and other Homo species has led to two prominent competing theories. One holds that anatomically modern humans replaced archaic species, with no interbreeding. And the other states that extensive interbreeding did take place and that modern humans evolved from that interbreeding in many regions of the world.

The multiregional hypothesis for the human species holds that the evolution of humanity throughout the Pleistocene has been within a single widespread human species, Homo sapiens, in response to the normal forces of evolution: selection, mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow. Genetic and fossil evidence for this theory has been inconclusive, so that the theory has been largely discredited.
However, the newer evidence of gene exchange — as well as other genetic evidence that might follow — could give rise to a more moderate version holding that some genetic exchange did take place, and however interbreeding between the two lineages species may have been rare, might have been enough to transfer a copy of the microcephalin gene to Homo sapiens, which then became widespread throughout the human population and continued to evolve.

Dramatic increase in brain size and complexity during human evolution

The foreground shows brain images of human, macaque monkey, rat, and mouse (from top to bottom), as well as the phylogenetic relationship among these four taxa. The background shows DNA sequences. Brain complexity has increased dramatically in primates relative to rodents, and the increase is particularly pronounced in the lineage leading to humans. At the molecular level, genes involved in nervous system function also show accelerated rates of evolution in primates, especially in the lineage leading to humans. Thus, the dramatic phenotypic evolution of the brain in the origin of Homo sapiens is correlated with salient molecular evolution.

Source:
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

External Links:
Evidence that the adaptive allele of the brain size gene microcephalin introgressed into Homo sapiens from an archaic Homo lineage
Neanderthals & humans may have interbred
Neanderthal Introgression
Neanderthal Brains: mp3 lecture by Bruce Lahn
Microcephalin

The Last of the Neanderthal

2006-10-22T03:47:00.000-07:00

Geology indicates that there has been a direct tectonic connection between Europe and Africa across the zones of Gibraltar and Rif on the one hand, and Calabria and Sicily on the other, at least since the end of the Paleozoic, contradicting plate-tectonic claims of significant displacement between Europe and Africa during this period.

By 6 million years ago, Spain and Africa collided, raising a mountain barrier and sealing off the western end of the Mediterranean. River inflow is not enough to maintain the level of the Mediterranean, which dries out.

It is widely believed that H. erectus originally migrated from Africa during the Early Pleistocene, around 2.0 million years ago, and dispersed throughout most of the Old World, reaching as far as Southeast Asia.
But there were already another race of H. erectus habitating Europe. In fact they were lost ancestors, that got separated when both continents ripped apart.
The Gibraltar Strait was now open and they couldn't migrate South to Africa like they undoubtedly used to do when both continents wre connected.
They were Neanderthals, and they had evolved adapting to the rough environment. And so, they started to grow hair to fend off the cold, and adapted to bush or jungle conditions, hence his shorter average height.
Cro-Magnon evolved on open plains, hence his tallness, his long-sightness, and right-handness.
No need for hair either, when living in warm climates.

A vey large portion of the Neanderthal population perished in Poseidonis, an island about the size of Ireland, situated in the Atlantic Ocean opposite the strait of Gibraltar, that sank in a major cataclysm in 9565 BC.
Geologist Christian O'Brien believes that Poseidonis was a large mid-Atlantic ridge island centred on the Azores, that had originally measured 720 km across from east to west, and 480 km from north to south, with high mountain ranges rising over 3660 metres above sea level. Before or during its submergence, it tilted by about 0.4° with the result that the south coast sank about 3355 metres but the north coast only some 1830 metres. Only the mountain peaks remained above the waters, and now form the ten islands of the Azores. O'Brien thinks the island could have sunk within a period of a few years or even months, and points out that six areas of hot spring fields (associated with volcanic disturbances) are known in the mid-Atlantic ridge area, and four of them lie in the Kane-Atlantis area close to the Azores.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/sunken.htm

The rest of the European Neanderthals were wiped out in a relatively short period of time. They vanished at exactly the same time that Cro-Magnon started to colonize Europe, bringing along lethal sexual transmitted diseases.

But the last ones that could interbred with the new-comers did pass on their genes and produced hybrids that are today's Iberians.
And British...
People of Celtic ancestry were thought to have descended from tribes of central Europe. Professor Sykes, who is soon to publish the first DNA map of the British Isles, said: "About 6,000 years ago Iberians developed ocean-going boats that enabled them to push up the Channel.
Before they arrived, there were some human inhabitants of Britain but only a few thousand in number. These people were later subsumed into a larger Celtic tribe... The majority of people in the British Isles are actually descended from the Spanish."

If you look at History, you'll see that both countries, Spain and Britain, have conquered about every corner of the world. Many would argue that this is a symbol of lack of humanity, but the truth is that 500 years ago any country would have tried to expand their borders and only the ones with available military force could do it. It happens even in today's civilized world.
Although the main objective clearly was looting, both countries also made an effort to export their beliefs to the conquered territories, Spain in the form of religion, and Britain as cultural assets.

If two small nations like Spain and Britain had agreed to join their forces, they will now control Planet Earth.
Instead they chose to fight each other.
Typically Neandertalish.

Neanderthal vs. Cro-Magnon

2006-08-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a human race on Planet Earth, ruled by women and driven by sex.

A human society with a fully structured social behavior that worshiped Goddess Moon and Goddess Nature.
Everything was shared within communal groups led by the most outstanding female individuals.
A clan that actually cared and provided for their youngest, elderly or ill.

And they must've been quite a valorous bunch, because they were willing to sacrifice themselves for the well-being of the group, as shown by the numerous bone fractures found on fossil remains, the result of intense fighting with awesome predators that trespassed their territory.

That society was the kind of social utopia that under today's conventional set of values, would likely be labeled as the wildest and most radical dream of a deranged feminist or communist.

However, it all actually happened more than 100,000 years ago, and it went on that way uninterruptedly for a period lasting over 50,000 years.

Although Neanderthal fossil evidence can be traced back as far back as hundreds of thousands years ago, it wasn't “only” until about 130,000 years ago, when they did fully evolve into what can be defined as human. At that time they began to spread across the European continent and by 80,000 years ago were occupying the whole area comprising Turkey and places of Western Asia all the way West to the Iberian Peninsula.

Then, about 45,000 years ago, another race of hominids came into the European scene. Out of Africa, the anthropoids currently believed to be our true human ancestors, had started to take positions at the Western Asian part of the Neanderthal range.

They were taller, less hairy and stayed away from promiscuousness, living usually within a family nucleus and occupying a portion of land that was not open for sharing with anyone else. During the next 10,000 to 15,000 years, they kept expanding on northward and westward throughout all of Europe.
By the time the Cro-Magnons had accomplished the outspread in Europe, the Neanderthal people had completely vanished, leaving no fossil trace as to why or how.
They just seem to have disappeared in a very short period of time, never to be seen again in History.
But did they really vanished just like that?

From what we know out of anthropological data, both races coexisted in many areas during long periods of time. Strangely enough, no fossil evidence has been found of any kind of racial wars between the two distinct races.

Scientists nowadays, argue on whether interbreeding ever took place between the two races.
I am no scientist, but to put things into perspective, we need to take into account that all throughout History there's been copious evidence involving descendants of the most superior and civilized Cro-Magnon race, inflicting forced sex upon chickens, goats, horses, snakes and just about anything that moves, from several animal species, including fish or insects, plus more than a few episodes involving members of the Vegetable Kingdom.
It won't be too far off to think then, that there could have been some kind of interbreeding during the more than 10,000 years both races shared habitats. In fact, I am absolutely convinced that members from both races engaged in monumental orgies.

Neanderthals, being as they were, took the concept of community to the limit and surely must have lured at least some of the more reserved Cro-Magnons into their “open-minded” life-style.
Neanderthal society was communal, matriarchal and completely promiscuous, led by women and driven by sex (just as it happens in modern Spanish society and others from parts of Southern Europe, no matter what you've been told to believe).
On the other hand, Cro-Magnon communities followed the opposite set of rules. They were based upon the not very realistic idea of one partner for life, on a defined small piece of territory adjacent to other similar pairs. But since they had such a strong craving for conquering and looting, surely those activities must've lead to some raping as well, which opened another way for gene-crossing.
Or maybe, they got along just fine, made good friends and invited each other over on weekends to BBQ some mammoth hamburgers, how the heck should i know.
In any case, 10,000 years being close neighbors is a lot of time to seriously claim they didn't have sex with each other.

It was precisely that “open-minded” way of life together with their nomadness (again my own personal guess) what ultimately produced the demise of the Neanderthal population.
Some kind of sexually transmitted disease must have spread rapidly throughout the different communities, no-one having the type of medical training necessary to identify that unknown disease and its means of transmission.

And where that disease could have originated from?
Again, in my own uneducated opinion, the fact that the disease might have arrived at the same time that the Cro-Magnon people did, does not speak very well of the latest sex habits
As I said, examples of Cro-Magnons having sex with other species are plentiful, one of the most notorious was when Spanish conquistadores in lack of emotional affect decided that they could do with “llamas” and develop a new disease that was to spread globally killing millions. Or so the story goes.

This exposition of facts may be considered as blasphemy by most anthropologists, but how else could you explain the complete vanishing without trace of a human race that had survived and successfully adapted throughout all kinds of climatic upheavals and fought off all kinds of terrifying predators for nothing less than 250,000 years.? Prove me wrong, please.

But why didn't the disease affect the Cro-Magnon people to the same extent, then?
Well, it surely must have affected them, but no to the same extent.
Being the original carriers they surely must've been able to identify and isolate the illness away from their communities. And thanks to their “one partner for life” way of life, most couples could have stayed away from unhealthy relationships.
After many generations had passed, people would have unconsciously started to gather empiric statistical data on people getting sick and their sexual habits, arriving to the conclusion that the “right” thing to do was to stay home with his/her partner and don't fool around. Does it sound familiar?

But the most intriguing thing is that precisely at the same time when all this pandemic and physiologic fluids exchange was undoubtedly taking place between the two races, there comes along a major technological and spiritual revolution, the first that mankind was to witness, one that was to be known as "The Human Revolution".
Previous to that encounter, neither Neanderthals nor Cro-Magnons could have met the standards required to qualify as “modern” humans.
Excuse again my lack of anthropologist training, but all this just cannot be coincidental.

But why were the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon so different from each other?
That's an easy one to figure out:
Neanderthal evolved originally in bush or jungle conditions, hence his shorter average height (5' 4''), whereas Cro-Magnon evolved on open plains, hence his tallness. (average 5' 10'') and that he was appropriately long-sighted, and right-handed.

Other distinctive physical features of the Neanderthal people included prominent eyebrows and brow ridges, a larger cerebellum, nearsightedness and a higher incidence of left-handedness.
And though they presented similar or even bigger cranial capacity as today's humans, on the average they seemed to posses a lower average IQ, as measured by Cro-Magnonian standards, that is.
Recent findings at Neanderthal excavation sites have brought out what is indisputably a flute, carved out of a bone. Music is undoubtedly one of the most elevated characteristics of human intelligence equal or higher than language, which must have obviously existed, then.
And if there was music, then there was dance. Throw in a few “magic” herbs and there you have all the ingredients needed to hold big social gatherings, i.e., big parties, that surely ended up in uninhibited orgies where women were in full control of the protocol.

Another of the distinct features that differentiated both races was the length of their big and second toe.
All Neanderthal fossil feet and footprints have been found to have the big toe shorter than the second toe. And all Cro-Magnon fossil feet and footprints found have been found to have the big toe longer than the second toe.
All, without exceptions.
Now, go to a public swimming pool and risk being taken for some kind of pervert. But after carefully watching, you'll see my point. It's a paleoanthropologist's nightmare. A collection of toes of all kinds of lengths and types that don't really correspond to the anthropological bodily appearance of the holders. Even within members of the same family, you can observe different toes' lengths and disposition.

This is not a banal issue. Paleoanthropologists argue that modern genes "derive exclusively" from the African ancestors of modern humans, and not from Neanderthals, based on genetic studies practiced on a few Neanderthal fossils.
But other anthropologists, contend that modern humans actually carry at least some genes of Neanderthals mixed in with their own.

It would be simplistic and easier to the mind to think that our Cro-Magnons ancestors were just better fitted for survival, and therefore we were the “chosen one” race, that overtook the ape-like Neanderthals.
Anyone who has visited Europe (specially the Mediterranean) has inevitably come across human specimens high on Neanderthal genes. North and South America have their share also, and the African and Asian continents hold sparse communities of almost pure Neanderthals and hybrids.
Carleton Coon dived into that unfortunate comparison in what he called the "Alpha and Omega" of living humans in his book The Origin of Races. Coon, also memorably remarked that a cleaned-up and soberly dressed Neanderthal would hardly merit a second glance on the New York subway.

When animal and plant breeders cross different species of plants and animals the resulting hybrid offspring has qualities and characteristics possessed by neither parent. This outcome is known as ‘hybrid vigor’.
But such vigor does not come along without some nasty side-effects, because it is also a well-known biological fact that when divergent species of animals are crossed, the offspring frequently show unstable behavior derived from the conflicting sets of instincts inherited from both parents.
And in the case of humans, that interbreeding between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon must have produced two completely different sets of behavioral patterns, each one having found its own place in different sides of the brain. That would explain many aspects of the so-called “split-brain” theory.
And in that aspect, humans are also unique. No other animal can specialize each of their brain sides to perform different tasks, not at least to the degree we do, no matter how much training is provided.

So we all have a Neanderthal living in us, usually controlling the right side of our brains, but nonetheless, tradition and fashion dictates the Cro-Magnon type as the model to be followed, whether it'd be in fashion, movies or politics. Everyone thrives to have a tall, athletic figure. And almost everyone needs to follow a set of rules to live their lives coherently within modern societies. Or so we've been made to believe.

As it has been said, being tall and big is a very convenient body shape if you happen to live on open plains, but anywhere else it turns you into an oversized clumsy animal. In today's world, the larger you are the more bound you are to meet all kinds of missadaptation problems. Just ask any basketball player about it. And that's not going to get any better in the foreseeable future.

But this is 2006 B.C., and being so new, humans as a whole are still so fascinated by the Cro-Magnonian life-style.
And the way we humans lead ourselves by nowadays is that whenever there's an interest, a market is rapidly developed to provide for it.
And once there is a market, it doesn't matter anymore whether the ideology behind it is outdated or wrong, because the beast is alive on its own and is constantly growing and asking to be fed.
That's the way Cro-Magnonian Capitalist Market works.
And that's why there's a conspiracy to promote even further the Cro-Magnon cause.
And I know they're after me for writing this post. They even hijacked my computer to certify the reports they were getting from their mentalists about a quasi-Neanderthal man discovering The First Truth. But I managed to sneak it in. And if they try to endanger my life now, they'll appear as prime suspects. So, I'm safe for the time being.

I consider myself to be quite Neanderthalish. I've got many of the physical traits, politically speaking I'd choose Left over Right any day of the week plus I have a secret fetish for women in dominant roles, so I must be one of them.
Besides, I understand no other intelligent way of human association than helping each other.
And I am a nomad, whether I like it or not.
And guess what. Neanderthals are more prone to paranoia and other ailments of the soul than Cro-Magnons are.

I also do posses more than my share of Cro-Magnon traits, such as an insane passion for technology or innate programming skills.
And there's nothing I dislike more than some human parasite trying to live off my work in order to improve his/her living standards. I also believe in private property to an extent, and my wife is not up for grabs, sorry.

Furthermore my IQ of 145 is superior to that of most Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons alike. I got these measurements made in Australia, the country largely inhabited by the descendants of a misplaced community of European Cro-Magnon outcasts.
I arrived there in 1985, and my knowledge of the official English language was in need of vastly improvement, to put it kindly.
In spite of that, it didn't prevent me from coming up first by several legs at a test held to recruit possible candidates for a series of government subsidized computer programs. To me the test appeared to be more about common sense than anything else, really, and I went all through it non-stop, ticking away the obvious answers.
The results showed an IQ so high that prompted General Manager to come all the way from Melbourne headquarters to Sydney just to interview me. At least that's what I was told.
When I was first introduced to him, he looked sort of disappointed. He was clearly the Cro-Magnon type and was probably expecting to meet someone akin.
The conversation that followed has to be a classic of my experiences when dealing with all sorts of Cro-Magnon trained managers:
He looked me up and down and quickly went to the point informing me that it was to my best interest to spend approximately the next 3 to 5 years of my life subsidized studying FORTRAN and COBOL.
I thanked him, but pointed out that the real reason for applying was because I wanted to take one of the other courses available, and become a technician (that's where the meat is).
He implied he knew better than my own self about what were my best options.
I replied that if he was talking to me in the first place was because he thought I was smart. And if I was smart enough, then I should be able to decide about my own future.
That was the end of it, he didn't even let me apply for the technicians' course.
From information gathered later from former students of those primitive programming languages, I had made the right choice. One of them assured me it was far more complex than learning Chinese, but far less useful and gratifying. And he was fluent in both languages.

My more developed Neanderthal cerebellum also provides for some kind of unconventional intelligence, that gifts me with the ability, for example, to clearly identify patterns that would pass completely unnoticed by people high on Cro-Magnon genes.
How come, for example, that a whole nation so Cro-Magnonish as Germany, could have let themselves be tricked into an absurd ideology about a superior Arial race and further on into a world war, by someone like Hitler, himself a Neanderthal man posing as Cro-Magnon, who happened to be exactly the opposite image of an Aryan race specimen?.
Let me tell you, that little phony man would have not deceived shit off me, not even for half a second.

And I know that you're thinking of Franco now, the latest Spanish dictator, but that was a completely different thing. That was Cro-Magnonian Might (into which Nazi Germany actively contributed) crushing down by means of a destructive superior force, a popular Neanderthal-inspired freedom social movement.

It's the Neanderthal in me who is writing this post. Because, you see, my Neanderthal side can only express itself meaningfully in English. When it tries to do so in Spanish it makes little or no sense at all.
However, the Cro-Magnon in me loves using Spanish, probably because of its better order and structure (although he's fluent and meaningful in both languages).
I've got empiric proof that shows that the Neanderthal in me has taken refuge at the right side of my brain, which is the wrong side for an english-speaking Neanderthal (or english-speaking Cromagnon for that matter) to dwell in. But that was the only place it could fit, since there was no room left at the left side of my brain, entirely taken by my spanish education and its overwhelming cultural legacy.

I grew up in a country where as recent as half a century ago, left-handed pupils had their “good” hand tied up at their backs in order to force them to write using their “right” hand.
If there's a country where Left and Right collide in every sense, that's Spain. Just take a quick look at its dwindling History.

Spain could be defined as Neanderthal territory governed by strict and outdated Cro-Magnonian traditional ways.

For whatever the reasons, the Neanderthals' last redoubt thus seems to have been in Iberia, South and West of the Ebro. It is relevant here that while in certain other regions, Neanderthals of the 36-33 kyr period appear to have acquired some of the Cro-Magnons' behavioral attributes by acculturation, there is no evidence for this happening beyond the "Ebro line", where abrupt cultural replacement appears to have been the rule.
The last of the Neanderthal that survived and interbred with the Cro-Magnon did pass on their genes and produced hybrids that are today's Iberians. And British ...
Up to recent times, people of Celtic ancestry were thought to have descended from tribes of central Europe. Nothing further from the truth.Professor Sykes, who is soon to publish the first DNA map of the British Isles, said: "About 6,000 years ago Iberians developed ocean-going boats that enabled them to push up the Channel.
Before they arrived, there were some human inhabitants of Britain but only a few thousand in number. These people were later subsumed into a larger Celtic tribe...
The majority of people in the British Isles are actually descended from the Spanish."
http://www.independent.co.uk

If you look at History, you'll see how hybrids from both countries, Spain and Britain, have defeated all other "pure" races and conquered about every corner of the world. And still had time to fiercely fight each other. Hybrid vigor.

There are still traditions in Spain that remind us of those ancient communal ways. The most representative is the custom to offer one's food to the rest of the people around you, sharing it with everybody if accepted. That's quite Neanderthal-like, I would say, and not a custom to be practiced almost anywhere else.

I left my country behind when I was 21, and headed for English-speaking Cro-Magnonian lands. I was utterly fascinated by their pragmatism, the directness and practicality of their language, together with their “non-bullshit” approach to things that really matter in a selfish life. So, for quite a few years, and in order to develop an acceptable set of language abilities, I immersed into every aspect of truly Cro-Magnonian societies, by living, working and breathing their culture for over 7 years, not ever going back to my homeland, neither writing back to friends and family that much, mostly because it did put me off my track and off my head.
I was so determined that I even shun away any contact with most of the spanish speaking travelers I'd occasionally met, and the truth is that I didn't miss it all that much.
At one point I even considered to overwrite the whole of my left side with the newly acquired English mentality. Today I'm so glad that I didn't.

All these traits are clearly Cro-Magnonish, but as I said, I had more than enough of that kind of mentality, with probably more than 75% of my brain occupied by egocentric ideas.
So I had to make the triple effort of learning a new language, accommodate it in a side that clearly was not its natural habitat to be in, and on top of that, make use of it to express my Neandertalish views.
I mostly use Spanish to express my Cro-Magnonian views, and that's plenty, thank you.
Luckily, more pragmatic English language allows for that kind of acrobatics that Spanish does not.
That's why I never succeed in properly translating what I write. None of what I'm writing would make much sense in Spanish. Vice versa sometimes, but not always.

If I am considered to be an odd character in the States, it's even worse in Spain, where I've been asked a worrying number of times whether I come from outer space (and I'm not kidding now).
To help you get the picture, Spain is the kind of place where Stephen Hawking would probably have gotten beaten up for being such a smart-aleck.
To be honest, the country has changed a lot during the past 30 years or so, but the remains of hundred years of Spanish Inquisition plus 40 recent years of imposed ignorance and fear are still deeply rooted in its culture and it certainly shows. I calculate that it will take at least 2-3 generations to get rid of those bad Cro-Magnon habits, if that ever happens.
The current system education of choice (a.k.a. The Box), is not helping either. Spaniards are very fond of indulging in watching TV programs primarily designed to sell worthless products and promote ignorance. A run-down version of professional Cro-Magnonian media.

My Cro-Magnonian side is now telling me not to veer off and conclude at once.
No one can refute the fact that the Cro-Magnon mind-set has been the prime accountable for most of the technical gadgetry some of us enjoy today. And no one will deny (or almost no one) taking proper advantage of that technology to improve the quality of their lives.
And the truth is that it's been real “fun” for a several-thousand-of-years while, with all those bloody wars, which in turn spurred phenomenal advances in weaponry, communications or medicine.
But now the time for change is overdue. This egocentric Cro-Magnon mentality has pushed the natural resources of our planet beyond their limits and is driving us fast-forward towards our own self destruction.
Even if we're just meaning to be selfish, we still are in great need of a major mentality shift.
We need to get back to our Neanderthal roots and start caring for each other again, at least until we have properly digested all the technical advances falling and looming upon us.
And we must do this as fast as possible, because maybe it's already too late.

More Info:

Hybrid-origin
Human evolution
The Way We Are
Cities of Dreams – Stan Gooch
The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals
Cro-Magnon Man and the Bible
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

"Se ofrece escritor satírico-difamatorio" o "No hay cosa que más me joda que los cheques sin fondos"

2006-08-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Se ofrece escritor satírico-difamatorio con amplia experiencia en insultar y socavar la credibilidad de personajes públicos. En mi currículum figuran destacadas colaboraciones con el LoSanto Jiménez, la SinRazon, además de guionista en varios programas de TV de color rosa tirando a rojo tomate. Los trabajos serán pagados a tocateja, con el 50 % por adelantado. NO acepto letras ni cheques.

Quisiera aprovechar mientras tanto este lapsus laboral en el que me encuentro sin ataduras "profesionales", para exponer mi verdadera ideología política. Como cabe presuponer por mi apodo, soy un caso clínico avanzado crónico e irrecuperable de paranoia maníaco-depresiva. Uno de los efectos secundarios de este estado (que no considero que sea peor que cualquiera de las patologías que padece el resto de la población), es que desconfío de todo el mundo, incluyéndome a mi mismo, y como consecuencia natural soy totalmente apolítico. O más bien debería decir que a mi no me la dan con queso.

Mi teoría personal es que todas las ideologías políticas pasaron a mejor vida hace más de medio siglo y que lo que hoy tenemos no son más que luchas entre corporaciones nacionales y multinacionales, que se sirven de marionetas para que den la cara por ellos y les hagan el trabajo sucio. Pero siempre hay excepciones, y una de ellas es el Gobierno de ZP, que llegó al poder en circunstancias extraordinarias y contra todo pronóstico. Por ello, puedo suponer que ninguna multinacional se habría tomado la molestia de intentar comprarle, y que por lo tanto no esta tan ligado y sujeto a exigencias corporativas.

A mi señores, personalmente me gusta ZP, y les voy a explicar por que. Estando en los EEUU, una vez me metí en un cine a ver una peli. Antes de que empezará, y por alguna razón que aún desconozco y que me importa 3 carajos, comenzó a sonar el himno americano y todo el mundo se puso en pie mano en pecho. Yo no lo hice, por la misma razón por la que no pertenezco a ningún partido político o de fútbol, osease porque abomino el borreguismo. La sarta de insultos e incluso algún que otro escupitajo que me cayó encima cuando se apagaron las luces, me obligó a abandonar la sala a los pocos minutos. Aparte de ultrajado por una manada de cobardes en la sombra, me sentí estafado, porque nunca nadie me advirtió que uno de los requisitos para ver la peli (aparte del importe de la entrada) era levantarse a entonar un himno. Por eso, cuando Rodríguez Zapatero se negó a rendir pleitesía al ejercito invasor de Iraq durante el desfile de las Fuerzas Armadas españolas, me sentí plenamente identificado con él. No hubiera apostado ni un duro por su victoria en las urnas, pero ese hombre ingenuo y valiente, con valores morales harto difíciles de encontrar en estos días y menos en esas esferas, se ganó automáticamente mi simpatía. Sus acciones a posteriori solo han incrementado esa simpatía. Pienso que a ZP se le puede tachar de ingenuo, pero pese a quien le pese, es un hombre con principios, a quien deseo larga vida y legislatura.

Las elecciones en España no se ganan, se pierden. Le paso a la UCD, le paso al PSOE y le paso al PP. Vivimos en un país aborregao, donde a menos que ocurran incidentes excepcionales, la gente sigue votando al de siempre y se conforma con lo que tiene. Las elecciones del 2004 las perdió el PP, no debido a los atentados, sino a las grotescas mentiras servidas por Aznar & Co. a la ciudadanía. Y si dicen que esas mentiras eran para "contrarrestar" el efecto de los atentados, entonces también habría que pensar que los atentados eran para "contrarrestar" nuestra entrada en Irak. Así que no hay vuelta de hoja e insistir en lo contrario solo consigue dejarnos como cobardes ante el resto del mundo.

He estado "investigando" sus perfiles y he de decir que me parecen Uds. personas con una cultura y educación excepcionales que solo pueden ser el producto de muchas años de trabajo y de estudio, con mención honorífica a Bubi, Gurriato, decaballeria, RLunfa, etc. (aunque mucho me temo que algunos en realidad son la misma persona). También he llegado a la conclusión de que o bien son simpatizantes del PP o bien ostentan algún cargo público en sus filas. También parecen tener un conocimiento exhaustivo de las diferentes tipos de armas de fuego utilizadas para defensa personal, lo que da a pensar que quizás estén incluso relacionados de alguna manera con los cuerpos de seguridad del Estado. Seguramente el resultado de las elecciones del 2004 les haya pillado a contrapelo y habrá echado por tierra más de una ilusión o proyecto.

Creánme que les comprendo perfectamente cuando denuncian el caciquerío existente en tierras andaluzas y extremeñas, donde sus dirigentes están ya muy cerca de superar la marca de Franco en cuestiones dictatoriales. Pero hacen mal descargando su rabia sobre detalles fútiles de la gestión de este gobierno bisoño. Se hacen un flaco favor a Uds. mismos, a su partido y a la política española en general, ya que a fuerza de insultar y difamar sin ton ni son, están consiguiendo que su valoración en las encuestas vaya en caída libre y mientras tanto que al gobierno se le vaya subiendo el éxito a la cabeza y al final acabemos con la corruptela típica del socialismo engreído de la mayoría absoluta. Tienen Uds. más clase y educación que todos los Aznar, Rajoy, Trillo, Acebes, Zaplana, y etcs. juntos y su apoyo por esa manada de inciviles solo resta credibilidad a sus invaluables juicios de valor.

Mi consejo: Creen un partido político nuevo, compuesto por personajes de la talla de Rato, Galardón, Pimentel, quizás Piqué y demás mentes medio lúcidas de su grupo, donde no tenga cabida la basura anteriormente mencionada, y que represente una alternativa política real por la que nadie se sienta avergonzado de expresar su apoyo. Por su bien y por el de la política española en general. No estoy bromeando. Delirando tal vez, pero se lo aconsejo totalmente de corazón.

Y si llegaran a necesitar de los servicios de un asesor de imagen mercenario que les escriba los discursos, ya saben que tienen aquí a un siempre dispuesto colaborador, que les ayudará a expresar su indignación hacia esa marabunta sociata que azota nuestra Noble Patria. Eso si, siempre mediante previo acuerdo y con la pasta por delante.

Google Groups

!Zapatero se come a los niños crudos!

2006-07-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

El presidente de España. sociata asqueroso, rojo de mierda, maricón empedernido y encarnación del AntiCristo sobre esta Santa Tierra, entre otras cosas, tiene la costumbre de zamparse a varios niños crudos por semana.

Las orgías demoníacas se producen durante las sesiones del Consejo de Ministros a puerta cerrada, donde también participan el resto de los miembros del Gobierno, excepto los que son vegetarianos, para los cuales no es óbice sin embargo, picar de la guarnición con la que se acompaña a tales monstruosidades.

Los "ingredientes" se los proporcionan los miembros de la banda terrorista ETA que ahora han quedado ociosos tras el alto el fuego, en virtud a uno de los acuerdos llegados durante las negociaciones que ZP ha venido manteniendo con la banda.

Todo esto lo se de fuentes totalmente fidedignas, que no puedo descubrir ahora, pero que lo hare en su debido momento.

Hala, y bueno ahora os tengo que dejar porque me tengo que ir a las oficinas del PP, a ver si me dan el cheque que me habian prometido.

Google Groups

Rafa Minuesa's Blog

2006-06-29T04:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to Rafael Minuesa's Blog:

http://rafaminu.blogspot.com/

Brutally Honest and quite hilarious at times.

A different view of Spain from a non-standard Spaniard.

Be warned that it is only suitable for mature, well-informe audiences that posess a sense of humor.

Amiga Survivor

2005-11-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

I've just posted to magiKomputer on the survival of the computer-love of my life.

I miss you Amiga, I miss you so much.

Vitamin C Treatment for Avian Flu

2005-11-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

The symptoms of avian flu include hemorrhages under the skin, and bleeding from the nose and gums. These are also classical symptoms of clinical scurvy, which means a critical vitamin C deficiency is present.

Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) is a very important essential nutrient. It is found only in Fruits and Vegetables and is highest in fresh, uncooked foods. Cooking can destroy much of this vitamin from foods.

Massive doses of vitamin C work against infectious diseases because we are throwing away the vitamin C for the extra electrons carried. These extra electrons neutralize the free radicals (molecules missing electrons) that mediate all inflammations and cause the symptoms and deaths from these infectious diseases. Doses of ascorbate which are massive enough to force a reducing redox potential into tissues affected by the disease will always neutralize the free radicals.

Homo sapiens, guinea pigs, monkeys, bats, some fish and many birds, do not produce their own vitamin C. The rest of the animal kingdom synthesizes their own vitamin C. For them, ascorbic acid is a hormone, not a dietary-acquired vitamin. Animals employ different organs to produce vitamin C. Some birds and reptiles use their kidneys and perching birds and mammals make vitamin C in their liver.

Recommended intakes of C for men is 90 milligrams per day and for women is 75 milligrams per day.
A diet that includes five servings of fruits and vegetables a day should supply about 200 milligrams per day of vitamin C.

Linus Pauling suggested in the early 1970s that the optimum daily intake may be about 2,000 milligrams of vitamin C and that everyone should get at least 200-250 mg/day.

He noted that "the first 250 mg is more important than any later 250 mg. The first 250 mg leads you up to the level where the blood is saturated.

You can achieve a higher concentration in the blood by a larger intake, but you get much better improvement for the first 250 mg than for additional grams."

The Linus Pauling Institute of Medicine, founded in 1973, is dedicated to "orthomolecular medicine."
The institute's largest corporate donor has been Hoffmann-La Roche, the pharmaceutical giant that produces most of the world's vitamin C.
On the other hand, Hoffmann-La Roche has also been accused of "monopolizing" the production and distribution of the antiviral drug known as Oseltavimir, which is considered to be the primary medicament used to combat avian flu, sinc it was the only drug company authorized to manufacture it.
On October 20, 2005, after years of pressure from organizations and world leaders, Hoffmann-La Roche decided to release the license to allow other companies to manufacture Oseltavimir worldwide.

http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/

http://www.vitamincproject.com/

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/pauling-and-vitamin-c.html

The Antioxidant Miracle: Put Lipoic Acid, Pycogenol, and Vitamins E and C to Work for You

Technorati : Linus Pauling, Vitamin C, avian flu

Mental Diet

2005-11-09T00:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/11/07/nutrients_cure_mental_illness_orthomolecular_psychiatry.htm

Orthomolecular Medicine: Preventing and treating disease by providing the body with optimal amounts of substances which are natural to the body.

The cost of trying the program below is less than the cost of a typical doctor's office visit.
It is safe and convenient.
All of the above supplements are safe in the recommended amounts, as well as inexpensive and convenient and can be purchased at large discount stores.

After the morning meal:
A multivitamin tablet 1,000 mg of vitamin B-3 (as niacinamide or inositol hexanicotinate)
One B-complex tablet 100 mg of vitamin B-6 1,200 mcg of vitamin B-9 (folate or folic acid)
1,000-2,000 IU of vitamin D (the lower number if you get sunshine, the higher number if you don't)
1,000 mg of vitamin C
200 mg of magnesium
50 mg of zinc
200 micrograms (mcg) of selenium
30 grams of soy protein powder
One tablespoon of lecithin granules mixed into a small glass of juice or milk
A supplement of omega-3 fatty acids [eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexanoic acid (DHA) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA)

After the midday meal:
1,000 mg of vitamin B-3
1,200 mg of vitamin folate
100 mg of vitamin B-6
One B-complex tablet
1,000 mg of vitamin C
200 mg of magnesium

After the evening meal:
A multivitamin tablet
1,000 mg of vitamin B-3
1,000 mg of vitamin C
One B-complex tablet
100 mg of vitamin B-6

Technorati : Diet, vitamin

Bill Gates talks about Google

2005-11-06T05:33:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates comments on Google in Computing:

'We need to surprise people and do a search that is way better than Google, and we are very on top of that. The idea of development tools, a natural interface, productivity software - Google is not in any of those categories. People are acting as if they will magically be in these other categories with something more than a "me too" offering. It is kind of fun that people underestimate what we are going to do here.'
'Google is great, they are smart people, the press should continue to feed their arrogance as much as possible,'
'They say they are going to organise the world's information. Well, we don't think that is our job. We think you need to get tools to editors and subject experts to let them organise the world's information. There is a bit of a philosophy difference here. The only sure winner is the consumer.'

Fine Words.
We all consumers sincerely hope that you live up to them.

However, in another interview a week before, with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, Gates was quoted as saying:

"Maybe when you succeed there is always someone who will oppose you."
(Talking about Microsoft, not Google)
"We are not afraid of Google, but there is intense competition between us. Google is our main competitor, brilliant people work there, but Internet search engines are still in a terrible state compared to where they could be"

Israel is one of the world's leaders in high-tech products, which currently accounts for two-thirds of Israeli exports.
Large corporations like Microsoft, Motorola and Intel, have sizeable research operations in Israel.
Google has recently placed advertisements in Israeli newspapers looking for engineers for its Ireland-based operations.

More here:
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/analysis/2145356/exclusive-microsoft-chairman

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture

Technorati : gates, google, search

BlogJet

2005-11-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

I’ve got 28 days left to try out BlogJet.

I better rush and start posting like crazy, so I make lots of money and can pay for the program.

Alternatively, I could use w.bloggar or Zoundry.

Japanese Bitch Wife

2005-11-05T16:31:00.000-08:00

A Blog from a japanese 32-year-old salaryman known by the nickname "Kazuma", who posts the daily indignities and humilliations he suffers from his wife, has gotten him in only four months 1.34 million yen in awards from his blog hosting service.

Cyber Agent, the Japanese Internet advertising firm that launched Ameba Blog, came up with a monetary prize system that "lets bloggers compete among themselves."

Besides, Ameba Books, has decided to print Kazuma's popular online diary. The book has sold more than 50,000 copies so far.

Kazuma explained that he joined Ameba Blog for the money because his wife sweeps away all of his salary.

Kazuma's Blog has gotten 3.2 million hits so far.

The audience ranges from men in similar situations to a disturbingly rising number of women aspiring to be as bitchy as her wife, to the point that now there are weekly articles in women's magazines and TV shows instructing women on how to inflict both mental and physical harm upon their husbands. Being a bitchy wife has become something fashionable in today's Japan.

Technorati : bitch, blog, japanese
Del.icio.us : bitch, blog, japanese
Ice Rocket : bitch, blog, japanese
Flickr : bitch, blog, japanese
Buzznet : bitch, blog, japanese
43 Things : bitch, blog, japanese

60 years olds as mentally sharp as 22 year olds

2005-11-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

Researchers at the The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaignsaid found some 60-years-olds to be as mentally sharp as 22-year-olds.

Performance and brain-activation are predicted by changes in brain structure, specifically by the volume of white matter connecting the right and left hemispheres of the frontal lobes.

The study can be found at the quarterly journal Psychology and Aging.

laparanoia is Back

2005-11-05T02:06:00.000-08:00