Scientists have cast doubt on the age of footprints discovered in Mexico, which suggested humans had arrived in the Americas 30,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The fossilised footprints discovered two years ago in volcanic ash near Puebla, Mexico were thought to be 40,000 years old, but researchers in the United States and Mexico who visited the site and collected samples came to a different conclusion.
Comment: From Encyclopedia Brittanica: method of determining the time of origin of rocks by measuring the ratio of radioactive argon to radioactive potassium in the rock. This dating method is based upon the decay of radioactive potassium-40 to radioactive argon-40 in minerals and rocks; potassium-40 also decays to calcium-40. Thus, the ratio of argon-40 and potassium-40 and radiogenic calcium-40 to potassium-40 in a mineral or rock is a measure of the age of the sample. The calcium-potassium age method is seldom used, however, because of the great abundance of nonradiogenic calcium in minerals or rocks, which masks the presence of radiogenic calcium. On the other hand, the abundance of argon in the Earth is relatively small because of its escape to the atmosphere during processes associated with volcanism.
The potassium-argon dating method has been used to measure a wide variety of ages. The potassium-argon age of some meteorites is as old as 4,500,000,000 years, and volcanic rocks as young as 20,000 years old have been measured by this method.
Joanna Glasner
WiredFri, 02 Dec 2005 12:00 UTC
When seeking the source of a mysterious malaise, few people would think to blame ions trapped in their mattress coils or cyclotronic resonance from the electrical system.
But if they did, they'd find products already on the market to allay their symptoms.
Comment: Wonder why it's a "tipoff when you see lots of testimonials?" Marketing that relies on "subjective claims?" Just because scientists don't know how things work doesn't mean they don't work. We aren't saying they DO work, but no reason to not try them if you have a problem and science or medicine don't have a solution for you.
A scientist poring over 330-million-year-old tracks in a layer of sandstone in Scotland believes they were made by an extraordinary water scorpion that was as big as a man.
The huge six-legged creature was about 1.6 metres (64 inches) long and a metre (40 inches) wide, according to the study, published on Thursday in Nature, the weekly British science journal.
Ashkenazi Jews are genetically intellectually superior to everyone else. This is the conclusion of a recent "scientific" study entitled "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence" that triggered several articles in popular publications such as
New York Magazine,
The New York Times and the
Economist. In this study, Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy and Henry Harpending of the University Of Utah's anthropology department suggest a genetic explanation to account for this remarkable intellectual achievement.
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| ©The Hebrew University
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| Jewish physicist Albert Einstein, winner of multiple Nobel prizes.
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It's known as the Hadean eon, from the Greek word for hell. But the early Earth probably looked much as it does today.
A study of zircons, the oldest minerals on Earth, suggests that massive amounts of continental crust were formed soon after Earth's creation 4.56 billion years ago.
Mark Harrison at the Australian National University in Canberra and his team looked at the ratio of hafnium isotopes, which change as a result of the radioactive decay of lutetium, to lutetium itself in 100 zircons dating back between 4 billion and 4.37 billion years. The minerals came from the Jack Hills in Western Australia.
Philosophers have long been split into two camps: one arguing that moral judgments arise from rational thought, the other that the roots of morality are emotional. Now, as the subject of morality moves from the philosopher's armchair into the lab, the error of this dichotomy is becoming clear. Researchers looking at the psychological basis of morality are finding that reason and emotion both play a part.
My grandfather, a rampant atheist, liked nothing better than savaging the priests that my devout Irish Catholic grandmother invited home in the hope of saving his soul. After laying into them about the dubious credibility of immaculate conceptions and self-replicating loaves and fishes, he'd declaim, with a flourish: "And what the bloody hell is Genesis chapter six all about, eh?"
For those not up to speed on the Old Testament, this part of the creation story deals with a category of creatures called the Nephilim, a non-human race that apparently inhabited the Earth around the time Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. My grandfather would holler: "What are these things? Little green men from outer space?" At which point, the deflated priest would be led from the house as my grandmother crossed herself in the face of her husband's wickedness. Even in the 1950s, priests knew that aliens and the Church didn't compute. If there were extraterrestrials out there, their existence could effectively herald the death of God cutting the ground from beneath key biblical truths, not least of which is the claim that humankind was made in God's image.
Arkadiusz Jadczyk, Ph.D.
sott.netSat, 26 Nov 2005 12:00 UTC
Why do we use Ouija board? To screen out the external disturbance. In particular to make it more difficult for satellites, or other programming signals coming from human and hybrid technology, when and if they come, to affect the message. At least two persons are needed. No rituals. Critical thinking, sometimes, joking, often coffee, fresh minds, loud discussion, and the board.
Thinking in terms of possible quantum physics involved in mind-matter interactions it is clear to me that the methods we use are more likely to be robust and shielded against deliberate bombarding from outside by mind controlling signals.
On the other hand, talking directly to "Mind-God" as Swerdlow does is more susceptible to interference. For example, a weak outside EM signal can be talking directly to a tiny implant in our teeth, and we will take it for an Oversoul....
A nearly two-mile-long core of ice -- the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica -- shows that levels of two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, have not been as high as they are today for 650,000 years.
The new research, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, describes the content of the greenhouse gases within the core and shows that carbon dioxide levels today are 27% higher than they have been in the past 650,000 years and levels of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, are 130% higher, said Thomas Stocker, a climate researcher at the University of Bern and senior member of the European ice coring team that wrote two new papers based on the core.
Comment: Read the first paragraph of the above article and ask yourself what would be the most obvious title for this piece from the LA Times. Our guess was:
"Antartic greenhouse gases found to be highest for 650,000 years".
Now read the actual title again.
See how it works? Nice and subtle.
According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men.
As if spotty teenagers releasing computer viruses on to the internet from darkened rooms were not enough of a headache. According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men.
Comment: While we do not advocate the idea that everyone should accept the reality of ET intelligence, it is patently absurd for organisations like SETI and otherwise intelligent astronomers and scientists to persist in repeating the idea that any potential alien intelligence would HAVE to be as ignorant of us and we are of them. Why is it that the idea that an alien intelligence could be vastly superior to us, and could know all about planet earth and its inhabitants, completely and studiously ignored? You would almost think that they were trying to mold public opinion in this direction for some reason or other...
Comment: From Encyclopedia Brittanica: method of determining the time of origin of rocks by measuring the ratio of radioactive argon to radioactive potassium in the rock. This dating method is based upon the decay of radioactive potassium-40 to radioactive argon-40 in minerals and rocks; potassium-40 also decays to calcium-40. Thus, the ratio of argon-40 and potassium-40 and radiogenic calcium-40 to potassium-40 in a mineral or rock is a measure of the age of the sample. The calcium-potassium age method is seldom used, however, because of the great abundance of nonradiogenic calcium in minerals or rocks, which masks the presence of radiogenic calcium. On the other hand, the abundance of argon in the Earth is relatively small because of its escape to the atmosphere during processes associated with volcanism.
The potassium-argon dating method has been used to measure a wide variety of ages. The potassium-argon age of some meteorites is as old as 4,500,000,000 years, and volcanic rocks as young as 20,000 years old have been measured by this method.