"A research team has discovered the first conclusive evidence that selection may also occur at the level of the epigenome -- a term that refers to an assortment of chemical 'annotations' to the genome that determine whether, when and to what extent genes are activated -- and has done so for tens of millions of years." Source: Science Daily.
"... a UC San Francisco-led research team has discovered the first conclusive evidence that selection may also occur at the level of the epigenome ... This unprecedented finding subverts the widely accepted notion that over geologic timescales, natural selection acts exclusively on variation in the genome sequence itself."
Note: According to Wikipedia, "an epigenome consists of a record of the chemical changes to the DNA and histone proteins of an organism; these changes can be passed down to an organism's offspring via transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Changes to the epigenome can result in changes to the structure of chromatin and changes to the function of the genome."
Comment: I'm not sure what an epigenome is, but this story shows that scientists still don't understand how evolution actually works. If they did, we wouldn't get discoveries like this that "subvert the widely accepted notions" of evolutionary theory.
"Why do some animals eat or abandon their offspring? According to researchers, these might actually be forms of parental care. Their mathematical model shows that when overcrowding threatens offspring survival -- which often occurs due to spread of infection or competition for resources -- sacrificing a few so the most can live becomes the ultimate form of tough love." Source: Science Daily.
Tough love. That's hilarious. Only an academic could argue with a straight face that eating your own children is a form of "parental care." Don't get me wrong, though. I can think of lots of good reasons for eating your own babies. Maybe you can't afford the quarter-of-a-million dollars it will cost to raise that cute little rug rat to the age of eighteen, or maybe you just want to stop their incessant babbling and howling.
This baby looks particularly tasty.
Another good reason to eat babies is to save the planet from the global warming crisis. As we all know, the world will end in a few months if we don't immediately dismantle our advanced industrial societies and drastically reduce the population.
The best reason to eat babies, though, is hunger. Jonathan Swift, the famous Anglo-Irish gourmet, pointed out that plump human babies around a year old are particularly succulent and nutritious:
"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my Acquaintance in London; that a young healthy Child, well nursed, is, at a Year old, a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome Food; whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or Boiled; and, I make no doubt, that it would equally serve in a Fricasie, or Ragoust." -- Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal (1729)
Swift didn't mention it specifically, but babies are also very tasty when they're barbecued.
Examples of how food has changed over the centuries.
"Hard plant foods may have made up a larger part of early human ancestors' diet than currently presumed, according to a new experimental study of modern tooth enamel. The results have implications for reconstructing diet, and for our interpretation of the fossil record of human evolution, researchers said." Source: Science Daily.
According to this study, the australopiths could eat things like nut shells and seeds without damaging their teeth, and I'm guessing that early humans could probably do the same thing. The wild plants available back then were a lot tougher than the genetically modified, domesticated plant foods we eat today.
The Paleo Diet recommends eating the same foods our prehistoric ancestors ate, but this is basically impossible for a number of different reasons [next video]. For example, even if the wild plants common to the Stone Age were still around we probably couldn't eat them without screwing up our teeth.
"A microbe [Asgard archaea] found in the muddy depths of the Pacific Ocean doesn't look like much other than a blob with tentacles. But this unassuming little organism may hold the secrets to how the first multicellular life-forms evolved, according to new research." Source: Live Science.
"Long before complex organisms existed, the world was home to simple single-celled organisms, archaea and bacteria. Between 2 billion and 1.8 billion years ago, these microorganisms began to evolve, leading to the emergence of more complex life-forms called eukaryotes, a group that includes humans, animals, plants and fungi. But this incredible journey over which life transitioned from swimming blobs to walking (and, in some cases, thinking and feeling) animals is still poorly understood.
Note: If accurate, this study supports the idea that archea are the ancestors of eukaryotes, thought to have evolved around two billion years ago. According to Wikipedia, "[t]he origin of the eukaryotic cell is a milestone in the evolution of life, since eukaryotes include all complex cells and almost all multicellular organisms."
"Tripolitania [was the] name given to an area of western Libya containing the three cities of Sabratha, Oea [modern Tripoli], and Lepcis ('Tripolis') and their hinterlands (1). Founded as Phoenician or at least Punic [Carthaginian]emporia [trading places], they provided sheltered harbors on an otherwise inhospitable shore, but owed their importance largely to trans-Saharan trade and the considerable olive-oil production of their hinterlands." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised).
(1) Sabratha and Oea were founded by the Phoenicians, Sabratha around 500 BC, Oea around 700 BC. Lepcis, later known as Leptis Magna, was founded by the Berbers and Carthaginians in the 7th century BC. All three cities were eventually incorporated into the Roman empire as part of the province of Africa. The cities were part of Tripolis, a district of ancient Tripolitania.
Tripolitania was subject to Carthage until the Carthaginians were defeated by the Romans in the Punic Wars. After that, the area was "in theory subject to the Numidian kings until the Jugurthine War(2)." according to the OCD. The Roman province of Tripolitania, created by the Roman emperor Diocletian, "fell to the Vandals in 455 and was recovered by the Byzantines in 533." The city of Sabratha disappeared during the Arab invasions of the region (643-4 AD).
The Roman ruins at Leptis Magna are really spectacular.
"The exceptionally well-preserved ruins of Lepcis [Leptis Magna], excavated since 1920, include -- apart from the Severan buildings -- the Augustan forum, theater, and market, the amphitheater and adjacent circus, and the Hadrianic baths. The small but virtually intact 'Hunting Baths,' [see below] so named from a venatio fresco in its frigidarium, are of great interest; several rich villae maritimae [seaside villas?] are known in its hinterland." (OCD)
The Hunting Baths at Leptis Magna are particularly interesting because they were apparently built for the private use of a guild of wild-beast hunters whose job was to provide African animals to the amphitheaters in Italy.
Comment: Given a choice between living in modern Libya and the Roman province of Tripolitania, I'd pick Tripolitania without hesitation despite its turbulent history. Modern Libya has been almost completely destroyed, thanks to the idiotic policies of the Obama Administration, particularly the evil witch Hillary Clinton., and cities like Sabratha have been overrun by "refugees" trying to reach Europe. We were told that the overthrow of Kaddafi was necessary to "free the people;" instead, the Obama Administration with its mindboggling incompetence set off a chain of chaotic events that turned Libya into a slave-market hell and threatens to completely destroy western Europe.
The Black Death peaked in Europe in 1348-1350 and by the time it was over, the "Great Mortality" had killed something like 25 million people--one-third of Europe's population at the time. In some places, it wiped out so many people that the authorities had to outlaw the ringing of church bells at funerals because the ringing never stopped. Entire villages disappeared into plague pits and bishops were sometimes forced to consecrate rivers so they could be used to dump the bodies. The exact number of fatalities is still a matter of conjecture, but there's no doubt that the Black Death was one of the worst natural disasters in human history.
No one knows where the Black Death came from exactly, but it's generally agreed that it "originated somewhere in inner Asia and spread westward to the Middle East and Europe and eastward to China along the international trade routes." (The Great Mortality, p.7) In other words, the spread of the pestilence was accelerated by a medieval form of globalism which brought Europe into contact with a lot of different cultures--something to keep in mind these days when air travel and open borders make it possible to spread diseases from one corner of the world to another in a matter of hours.
The Mongols picked up the disease on the steppes of Asia and brought it to Europe through trade and war. In 1346, during their siege of the Crimean city of Caffa, they were said to have catapulted the bodies of their own plague victims into the city--an early example of biological warfare if it actually happened. Once the Black Death caught hold, Genoese merchant ships--the notorious "plague ships"--carried it to ports throughout Europe, their holds full of merchandise, infected sailors and rats crawling with the fleas which carried the plague bacillus: Yersinia pestis, aka Y. pestis. No one understood the connection between fleas, rats and plague at the time, however. They thought the Great Mortality was the result of astrological alignments, foul air, the wrath of God and Jews poisoning their wells.
The pestilence itself apparently consisted of three different types of plague: bubonic plague -- transmitted by flea bites with a two-to-six-day incubation period; pneumonic plague -- a fast-acting and highly contagious form of the disease which attacks the lungs and can be spread like the common cold through the air; and the lethal septicemic plague, which floods the bloodstream with plague bacilli and kills everyone who gets it. According to Kelly, "during one outbreak of septicemic plague in the early 20th century, the average survival time from onset of symptoms to death was 14.5 hours." (The Great Mortality, p.22)
The Black Death spread so quickly--modern plague is fairly slow--that some scientists have speculated that it wasn't plague at all, but a form of anthrax or hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, or some kind of extinct disease unknown to science. The consensus view, however, is that it was a particularly virulent ancestor of the modern bubonic plague. Whatever it was, it raced through Europe in an incredibly short period of time, wiping out millions and creating massive social upheavals.
The effects of this calamity were enormous.
Video from 2013. Mass graves of plague victims have been discovered all over Europe.
Before the Black Death, medieval Europe was in a state of decline and stagnation. The feudal system was locked in place, the church corrupt and despotic, medicine and science crippled by religion and superstition. The population was very low by today's standards, but the number of people had grown to the point where it was putting a strain on available resources. The Black Death broke this stalemate by killing off a third of the population, driving up labor costs and forcing social reforms and technical innovations that played a large role in the Reformation.
"In the fifty years after the Black Death, the medieval world's traditional economic winners and losers exchanged places. The new losers, the landed gentry, began to see their wealth shredded by the scissors of low food prices and high labor costs; the new winners, the people at the bottom, saw their one marketable asset--labor--increase dramatically in value, and with it their standard of living rise." The Great Mortality, p. 285.
The depopulation brought about by the Black Death led to technological innovations like the invention of the printing press. The shortage of men for the armies led to new developments in firearms like the musket and cannon. The church's inability to respond to the crisis seriously damaged its prestige, leading to the emergence of new "heretical" movements like the anti-clerical Lollards and a general longing for a more personal religious experience. Medicine started using more scientific methods. Public health systems were created. New colleges were founded. Women began to move into the work force, taking over businesses previously run by their husbands who had died in the outbreak. The disaster played a huge role in the rejuvenation of Europe.
And that's the secret of the Black Death. Demographic collapses like this can be beneficial. "Mortality has its advantages," according to The Plague, a great documentary from the History Channel. For example, if you want to improve wages for the lower class, one of the most direct ways to accomplish this is to kill off a third of them. This will drive up wages for the survivors by creating a major labor shortage and turn the social system on its head. Natural catastrophes are one of the main engines of historical transformation. In the final analysis, the Black Death was a good thing because it helped to destroy a corrupt, dead-end culture dominated by the Catholic Church, facilitating the rebirth of Western Civilization.
"Buried with his weapon and golden ornaments, the warrior discovered by archaeologists from Jagiellonian University in Krakow was found in an untouched grave in an area known for both its rich burial sites and notorious grave-robbing."
The Valley of the Kings is located in the Russian republic of Tuva, an area with a deep barbarian history:
"The territory currently known as Tuva has been occupied by various groups throughout its history. Sources are rare and unclear for most of Tuva's early history. Archeological evidence indicates a Scythian presence possibly as early as the 9th century BC. Tuva was conquered relatively easily by the succession of empires which swept across the region. It was most likely held by various Turkic khanates until 1207. It was then ruled by Mongols until the 18th century, when it submitted to Manchu rule under the Qing dynasty. Slow Russian colonization during the 19th century led to progressive annexation of the region to Russia in the 20th century." (Wikipedia)
"...Archeological finds indicate a long occupation of what is now Tuva. Tombs have been found dating back as far as the late Paleolithic Era. Probably the most spectacular Scythian finds known to archaeologists have been discovered in northern Tuva near Arzhaan. Dating to between the 7th and 9th centuries BC they are also among the earliest known, as well as the easternmost."
Next video (2011) gives a good overview of the general region.
"The remains of last year ’s burning of Paris ’s Notre-Dame cathedral will be studied by scientists." Source: Ancient Origins.
"On April 15 of last year the world froze as an electrical [1]fire destroyed the cathedral’s roof and spire and caused part of its vaulted ceiling to collapse. The incident was declared a national tragedy and now scientists from the French national research organization CNRS have embarked on a multimillion-euro study of the innards of the 850 year-old holy building to learn more about how the medieval masons constructed it."
[1] As far as I know, there has never been any confirmation that the fire was caused by a short-circuit or some other kind of electrical problem. When this was reported back in April, 2019, the Paris prosecutor said that the investigation would be "long and complex" and that's the last I heard about it.
I hope this is wrong but there's a chance, according to one source, that the cathedral can't be saved at all:
"The rector of Notre Dame Cathedral says the Paris landmark is still so fragile that there’s a '50% chance' the structure might not be saved, because scaffolding installed before this year’s fire is threatening the vaults of the Gothic monument." Source: AP (Dec. 25, 2019).
"In 2008, archaeologists were stunned to discover a human brain dating to the Iron Age. The finding seemed to defy basic biology; human brains, like any other soft tissue, typically decay soon after death." Source: Live Science.
"But now, scientists have figured out how this brain remained intact for 2,600 years.
"Multiple factors, they said in their new study, played a role, including the person's tightly folded brain proteins and the way in which the person was buried in what is now York, England."
Video from 2012.
Note: "The Heslington Brain is a 2,600-year-old human brain found inside a skull buried in a pit in Heslington, Yorkshire, in England, by York Archaeological Trust in 2008. It is the oldest preserved brain ever found in Eurasia, and is believed to be the best-preserved ancient brain in the world. The skull was discovered during an archaeological dig commissioned by the University of York on the site of its new campus on the outskirts of the city of York. The area was found to have been the site of well-developed permanent habitation between 2,000–3,000 years before the present day." (Wikipedia)
"One day, when archaeologists in Sweden were surveying a forest in advance of a construction project, they made a perplexing find — the battered skulls of people who had lived about 8,000 years ago, including two that still had pointed stakes in them, a new study reports." Source: Live Science (2017).
"The Stone Age burial site held the remains of at least 11 adults and one infant. Curiously, the burial wasn't underground, but rather underwater: During the Stone Age, the skulls would have lain at the bottom of a small lake."
The Secret Of The Black Death
The Black Death peaked in Europe in 1348-1350 and by the time it was over, the "Great Mortality" had killed something like 25 million people--one-third of Europe's population at the time. In some places, it wiped out so many people that the authorities had to outlaw the ringing of church bells at funerals because the ringing never stopped. Entire villages disappeared into plague pits and bishops were sometimes forced to consecrate rivers so they could be used to dump the bodies. The exact number of fatalities is still a matter of conjecture, but there's no doubt that the Black Death was one of the worst natural disasters in human history.
"According to the Foster scale, a kind of Richter scale of human disaster, the medieval plague is the second greatest catastrophe in the human record. Only World War II produced more death, physical destruction, and emotional suffering, says Canadian geographer Harold D. Foster, the scale's inventor." --"The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time," by John Kelly. P.11.
No one knows where the Black Death came from exactly, but it's generally agreed that it "originated somewhere in inner Asia and spread westward to the Middle East and Europe and eastward to China along the international trade routes." (The Great Mortality, p.7) In other words, the spread of the pestilence was accelerated by a medieval form of globalism which brought Europe into contact with a lot of different cultures--something to keep in mind these days when air travel and open borders make it possible to spread diseases from one corner of the world to another in a matter of hours.
The Mongols picked up the disease on the steppes of Asia and brought it to Europe through trade and war. In 1346, during their siege of the Crimean city of Caffa, they were said to have catapulted the bodies of their own plague victims into the city--an early example of biological warfare if it actually happened. Once the Black Death caught hold, Genoese merchant ships--the notorious "plague ships"--carried it to ports throughout Europe, their holds full of merchandise, infected sailors and rats crawling with the fleas which carried the plague bacillus: Yersinia pestis, aka Y. pestis. No one understood the connection between fleas, rats and plague at the time, however. They thought the Great Mortality was the result of astrological alignments, foul air, the wrath of God and Jews poisoning their wells.
The pestilence itself apparently consisted of three different types of plague: bubonic plague -- transmitted by flea bites with a two-to-six-day incubation period; pneumonic plague -- a fast-acting and highly contagious form of the disease which attacks the lungs and can be spread like the common cold through the air; and the lethal septicemic plague, which floods the bloodstream with plague bacilli and kills everyone who gets it. According to Kelly, "during one outbreak of septicemic plague in the early 20th century, the average survival time from onset of symptoms to death was 14.5 hours." (The Great Mortality, p.22)
The Black Death spread so quickly--modern plague is fairly slow--that some scientists have speculated that it wasn't plague at all, but a form of anthrax or hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, or some kind of extinct disease unknown to science. The consensus view, however, is that it was a particularly virulent ancestor of the modern bubonic plague. Whatever it was, it raced through Europe in an incredibly short period of time, wiping out millions and creating massive social upheavals.
The effects of this calamity were enormous.
Video from 2013. Mass graves of plague victims have been discovered all over Europe.
Before the Black Death, medieval Europe was in a state of decline and stagnation. The feudal system was locked in place, the church corrupt and despotic, medicine and science crippled by religion and superstition. The population was very low by today's standards, but the number of people had grown to the point where it was putting a strain on available resources. The Black Death broke this stalemate by killing off a third of the population, driving up labor costs and forcing social reforms and technical innovations that played a large role in the Reformation.
"In the fifty years after the Black Death, the medieval world's traditional economic winners and losers exchanged places. The new losers, the landed gentry, began to see their wealth shredded by the scissors of low food prices and high labor costs; the new winners, the people at the bottom, saw their one marketable asset--labor--increase dramatically in value, and with it their standard of living rise." The Great Mortality, p. 285.
The depopulation brought about by the Black Death led to technological innovations like the invention of the printing press. The shortage of men for the armies led to new developments in firearms like the musket and cannon. The church's inability to respond to the crisis seriously damaged its prestige, leading to the emergence of new "heretical" movements like the anti-clerical Lollards and a general longing for a more personal religious experience. Medicine started using more scientific methods. Public health systems were created. New colleges were founded. Women began to move into the work force, taking over businesses previously run by their husbands who had died in the outbreak. The disaster played a huge role in the rejuvenation of Europe.
And that's the secret of the Black Death. Demographic collapses like this can be beneficial. "Mortality has its advantages," according to The Plague, a great documentary from the History Channel. For example, if you want to improve wages for the lower class, one of the most direct ways to accomplish this is to kill off a third of them. This will drive up wages for the survivors by creating a major labor shortage and turn the social system on its head. Natural catastrophes are one of the main engines of historical transformation. In the final analysis, the Black Death was a good thing because it helped to destroy a corrupt, dead-end culture dominated by the Catholic Church, facilitating the rebirth of Western Civilization.
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