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Brave Saturday night fire face

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A Mother's Love

Today my life is forever changed. My Mom is in pain as we await what we expect to be confirmation that she has pancreatic cancer.

It's hard to know how to feel. On the one hand, my guts are torn out and my heart is on the floor. Those you love and love you are there for you no matter what and you think it'll be like that forever, until it can't. While that sounds sad, it's also uplifting in that we had a chance to love and be loved. What else is there? 

#aging #agingparent #agingwoman #lossofparent #death #love

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WTF?

Remember this guy? Turns out, he’s going to be collecting just over thirty-eight thousand dollars in workers’ compensation, as part of a settlement with the University of California, due to anxiety, stress and death threats that have plagued him since the incident that made him (in)famous. For those who may have forgotten, that’s eight thousand more than was given to the students that Pike was suspended for spraying. The settlement has already been approved by an administrative law judge. (Photo via Wayne Tilcock / The Davis Enterprise) source

Edited to reflect the fact that, while Pike was put on paid leave for his actions, his former supervisors can’t legally reveal the circumstances of his departure from UC Davis.

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This week of living

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Skull Suggests Single Human Species Emerged From Africa, Not Several

Well-Preserved Find 1.8 Million Years Old Drastically Simplifies Evolutionary Picture

by Robert Lee Hotz

"A newly discovered 1.8 million-year-old skull offers evidence that humanity’s early ancestors emerged from Africa as a single adventurous species, not several species as believed, drastically simplifying human evolution, an international research team said Thursday.

The skull—the most complete of its kind ever discovered—is “a really extraordinary find,” said paleoanthropologist Marcia Ponce de Leon at the University of Zurich’s Anthropological Institute and Museum, who helped analyze it. “It is in a perfectly preserved state.”

Unearthed at Dmanisi in Georgia—an ancient route in the Caucasus for the first human migrations out of Africa—the skull was found at a spot where partial fossils of four other similar individuals and a scattering of crude stone tools had been found several years ago. They all date from a time when the area was a humid forest where saber-tooth tigers and giant cheetahs prowled. Preserved in siltstone beneath the hilltop ruins of a medieval fortress, the remains are the earliest known human fossils outside Africa, experts said.

David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, who led the team, reported the discovery in Science. The primitive skull was first uncovered on Aug. 5, 2005—his birthday. “It was a very nice present,” he said.

Taken together, the finds at Dmanisi are especially important because experts in evolution could analyze the physical differences between individuals living in the same place at the same time almost 2 million years ago, when humankind first emerged from Africa to people the world, according to Yale University anthropologist Andrew Hill.

"It gives you a chance to look at variation for the first time," said Dr. Hill, who was not involved in the discovery" (read more).

***Hmm. I need to read the study ASAP.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

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MyNudeSelfProject - 04 Sept 2013

"Let Go or Be Dragged" - Zen Proverb 

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Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My god, do you learn.

C. S. Lewis  (via psych-facts)

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So cool!

Mystery Solved – The Skeleton Lake of India In 1942 a British patrol in Roopkund, India made a shocking discovery. Approximately 17,000 feet above sea level, at the bottom of a small valley, was a frozen lake full of human skeletons. That summer, the ice melted to reveal even more skeletal remains, floating in the water and lying haphazardly around the lake’s edges. Had something horrible had happened here?

Scientists now believe they have finally solved the mystery of how and why the skeletons of over 200 people were found in a frozen lake in northern India.

Lake Roopkund is located in northern India along the border of Nepal at 4,800 meters (~16,000 ft) above sea level with edges covered in snow for most of the year. The water is rather shallow, only reaching a maximum depth of 2 meters, and frozen most of the year. The frozen climate at this altitude has aided significantly in the preservation of hair, soft tissue, and leather clothing, prompting the everyone to believe these were recent deaths. These skeletons were initially thought to be the bodies of Japanese soldiers who had died of exposure while travelling through India as part of a World War II invasion. More recent analyses conclude the remains were much older than anyone expected, dating them to approximately 850AD.

[read more]

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Wow!

The technology in Iron Man is getting a step closer to reality thanks to the United States military. The Army has commissioned a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, which would provide the wearer with superhuman abilities like night vision, enhanced strength, and protection from gunfire.

Each suit would have an on-board computer that would be able to instantly respond to certain situations and provide the user with enhanced situational awareness. According to the press release, the suit may use liquid armor, currently under development at MIT, which has the ability to transform from a “liquid to solid in milliseconds when a magnetic field or electrical current is applied.

It’s all fun and games until somebody decides that what the U.S. military really needs is a Hulk or two…

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In 2003, archaeologists began to discover a series of hominid skeletons on the island of Flores in Indonesia. The skeletons suggest these hobbits averaged 1 meter (3.3 ft) in height and weighed in at roughly 35 kilograms (77 lbs). They were found near tools sized appropriately to their bodies and hands, meaning that they may have had complex brains and may be part of our own family tree.

What about second breakfast?

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Harshness = stark beauty

A highly alkaline lake in Africa turns animals into calcified stone statues

Lake Natron in northern Tanzania is one of the harshest environments on Earth. Temperatures in the lake can rise to 140 °F (60 °C) and the alkalinity is between pH 9 and pH 10.5, almost as alkaline as ammonia. Animals who enter the water are almost certainly doomed, save certain kinds of fish that have evolved to survive in such a caustic environment.

Source