New technologies often go through a honeymoon phase where educators hold them up as the futuristic savior of learning. Today teachers can't get enough of those Kindles, iPads and MOOCs which promise to radically change education for generations to come. But this line of thinking has a long history.
In the 1930s some people predicted that TV might allow students of the future to get a university education without ever stepping foot in a classroom. In the 1950s videophones and desktop computer machines were going to ease the crisis of overcrowded schools caused by the baby boom. And from 1934 until 1948 the first practical long-playing records were used almost exclusively by blind people who listened to the world's first audiobooks.
But the techno-utopian educational technology of the 1920s was radio.
The November 1924 issue of Science and Invention magazine included a photo of a young girl wearing headphones ? her book filled with the gadgetry that would allow her to capture her daily lessons from the ether.
The magazine explained:
With the everyday added perfections in the transmission and reception of radio, such a remark as the above will soon be a thing commonplace. Little Mary Jane will enjoy her radio lessons as much as she now enjoys her bedtime stories. Everything will be an "open book" to her. A complete set in the shape of a leatherette covered book will take the place of bulky primers and readers. Home work will now be a great joy to the kiddies and lesson will be learned with much greater facility.
Of course, if countless educational apps and audiobooks have taught us anything, it's that while technology might make homework more bearable, sometimes the only joy comes from being done with it.
SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea sent one of its top military officials as a "special envoy" from its leader Kim Jong-un to Beijing on Wednesday, accompanied by a high-powered delegation in what appeared to be a bid to mend frayed relations with its most important ally.
The delegation led by Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the country's top military body, was the most senior to visit China since Kim's kingmaker uncle Jang Song-thaek made the trip in August 2012.
Ties between Pyongyang and Beijing have been hurt by the North's third nuclear test, carried out in February, and by China agreeing to U.N. sanctions on the North and starting to put a squeeze on North Korean banks.
North Korean state news agency KCNA said China's ambassador to Pyongyang, who is seen as the closest of all foreign envoys to Kim Jong-un, saw the delegation off at the airport.
Choe's first meeting in Beijing was with Wang Jiarui, head of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's International Department, China's Xinhua news agency said, without providing details.
The diplomatic move by North Korea came after Japan reached out to Pyongyang last week by sending a special envoy to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to hold talks over Japanese citizens abducted by the isolated and impoverished state.
Choe is one of the tight coterie of officials around Kim Jong-un, who has been in power for just over a year after succeeding his father.
He is a long-time political administrator and was surprisingly made a vice marshal in the army last year despite having no military background.
Jang's trip in 2012 had been aimed at securing a visit for Kim to Beijing and to win investment for the North's shattered economy, although it appeared to have failed, according to diplomats. Jang is seen as the most powerful official in North Korea after Kim.
"It is an important visit as he (Choe) is both a high-ranked official and coming as a special envoy of Kim Jong-un, and there have been no high level contacts between the two countries for such a long time," said Jin Canrong, associate dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.
BEIJING LIKELY TO SEEK RETURN TO NUCLEAR TALKS
Jin, a specialist on China-North Korea relations, said Beijing would once again urge Pyongyang to return to the so-called "Six Party Talks" process, aimed at denuclearization.
The talks included the North, China, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia and have been stalled since 2009 when North Korea conducted its second nuclear test.
"The Chinese people have been angered by North Korea's provocations. Certainly one of China's demands will be for North Korea to stop doing this," said Jin.
As well as staging the country's third nuclear test, Kim Jong-un presided over the launch of two long range rockets. These are banned by the United Nations due to concerns Pyongyang is testing technology to use in a long-range nuclear missile.
North Korea is almost entirely reliant on China for imports of fuel and food and since it closed an industrial zone on the border with South Korea, has few other outlets for its exports.
The North has traditionally attempted to play China off against the United States and appeared to be open to the possibility of a deal with Japan that irked both Seoul and Washington when Abe's aide visited Pyongyang last week.
Yoshihide Suga, Abe's cabinet secretary, told a news conference on Wednesday that Japan aimed to resume talks with North Korea as part of attempts to resolve the abduction issue.
"Since we are probing all the possibilities, that is naturally included," Suga said.
Japan and North Korea last held government talks in November 2012, before the North's last long-range missile launch in December and nuclear test in February.
Given the spike in tensions between Beijing and Pyongyang in the wake of the February nuclear test, it appeared Choe's visit was unlikely to produce a meaningful accord.
A visit to Beijing for Kim Jong-un would be a major prize for the young leader.
"Jang Song-thaek came back with nothing from China. Since then not only has North Korea not changed, things have become worse," said Lee Ji-sue, a North Korea expert at Myongji University in Seoul.
(Additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka in TOKYO; Editing by David Chance and Dean Yates)
Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman is sworn in prior to testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday.??
Former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman said that he was "not personally responsible" for the agency's practice of placing elevated scrutiny on conservative groups that applied for nonprofit status, but that he regrets it occurred during his tenure.
"I certainly am not personally responsible for creating a list that had inappropriate criteria on it. What I know, with the full facts that are out, is from the inspector general's report, which doesn't say I'm responsible for that," Shulman said during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday. "With that said, this happened on my watch and I very much regret that it happened on my watch."
Shulman, who served as IRS commissioner from 2008 to 2012, appeared before the Senate panel with outgoing Acting Commissioner Steven Miller and Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George on Tuesday. Both Shulman and Miller have said that the agency acted inappropriately in how it reviewed groups applying for tax-exempt status.
SHEIKH ZUWAID, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian army and police forces stepped up roadblocks in north Sinai in a hunt for militant Islamists who kidnapped seven security officers last week, a security source said on Tuesday.
The militants seized the men on a road between the towns of el-Arish and Rafah near the border with Gaza on Thursday in the latest setback for the Cairo government's efforts to reinstate law and order in the Sinai Peninsula.
The desert region along Egypt's border with Israel has slipped into anarchy since autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was toppled by a popular uprising in 2011.
His elected successor, Mohammed Mursi, ordered security forces almost a year ago to bring Sinai militants to heel after a deadly assault on a border post by Islamist gunmen.
But the militants have proved resilient and the new hostage crisis has added to a pile of challenges confronting his government, including a financial crisis and street unrest.
The security source said army and police forces had set up new roadblocks and reinforced existing ones in a zone running from the north Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid towards al-Jura further south. The goal was to choke off supplies and reinforcements for the kidnappers, the source said.
Witnesses saw a military aircraft flying over a convoy of armored personnel carriers in the region.
The state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said the security forces were seeking to surround the kidnappers but indicated they would first try to free the hostages without violence.
One militant was killed late on Tuesday, in the first death since the operation began, when a mine that he was trying to plant in an area south of Rafah exploded, security sources said.
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, in remarks published on state media on Tuesday, said the Sinai militants belonged to various jihadist groups including one based on Mount al-Halal that aimed to re-establish a mediaeval Islamic caliphate.
He said that group had recruited members of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement that rules Gaza and had received training in using heavy weapons such as rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles. Those weapons were smuggled through tunnels from the Palestinian territory, Ibrahim said.
The kidnappers had SAM-7 missiles as well as anti-tank weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, he added.
The kidnappers are demanding the release of jailed Islamists. Mursi has ruled out talks with what he called "criminals" and vowed not to submit to blackmail.
Cairo's 1979 peace treaty with Israel limits the number of troops it can deploy in Sinai, but Israel agreed to Egypt's request to send in more troops as security unraveled there in 2011. Israel has not commented on the new deployment.
(Reporting by Yousri Mohamed and Ali Abdelatti; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Jon Hemming)
May 20, 2013 ? Both fine-particle air pollution and noise pollution may increase a person's risk of developing cardiovascular disease, according to German researchers who have conducted a large population study, in which both factors were considered simultaneously.
"Many studies have looked at air pollution, while others have looked at noise pollution," said study leader Barbara Hoffmann, MD, MPH, a professor of environmental epidemiology at the IUF Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine in Germany. "This study looked at both at the same time and found that each form of pollution was independently associated with subclinical atherosclerosis."
The research will be presented at ATS 2013.
"This study is important because it says that both air pollution and noise pollution represent important health problems," said Dr. Philip Harber, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the research. "In the past, some air pollution studies have been dismissed because critics said it was probably the noise pollution that caused the harm, and vice versa. Now we know that people who live near highways, for instance, are being harmed by air pollution and by noise pollution."
Using data from the Heinz Nixdorf Recall study, an ongoing population study from three neighboring cities in the Ruhr region of Germany, Dr. Hoffmann and her colleagues assessed the long-term exposure to fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <2.5 ?m (PM2.5) and long-term exposure to traffic noise in 4238 study participants (mean age 60 years, 49.9% male).
The exposure to air pollutants was calculated using the EURopean Air Pollution Disperson, or EURAD, model. Exposure to traffic noise was calculated using European Union models of outdoor traffic noise levels. These levels were quantified as weighted 24-hour mean exposure (Lden) and nighttime exposure (Lnight).
To determine the association of the two variables with cardiovascular risk, the researchers looked at thoracic aortic calcification (TAC), a measure of subclinical atherosclerosis.
TAC was quantified using non-contrast enhanced electron beam computed tomography. Using multiple linear regression, the researchers controlled for other cardiovascular risk factors, including age, gender, education, unemployment, smoking status and history, exposure to second-hand smoke, physical activity, alcohol use and body mass index.
After controlling for these variables, the researchers found that fine-particle air pollution was associated with an increase in TAC burden by 19.9 % (95%CI 8.2; 32.8%) per 2.4?g/m3. (To put that increase in perspective: in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency recently revised the overall limit downward from 15 to 12?g/m 3).
The researchers also found that nighttime traffic noise pollution increased TAC burden by 8% (95% CI 0.8; 8.9%) per 5 dB. (An average living room would typically have a noise level of about 40 A-weighted decibels, or dB(A), an expression of the relative loudness of sounds as perceived by the human ear, while busy road traffic would generate about 70-80dB(A)). Mean exposure to traffic noise over 24 hours was not associated with increased TAC.
Among subgroups of participants, the researchers found even stronger associations. The interaction of PM2.5 and TAC was clearer among those younger than 65, participants with prevalent coronary artery disease and those taking statins. In contrast, the effect of Lnight was stronger in participants who were not obese, did not have coronary artery disease and did not take statins.
Although the cross-sectional design of this study limits the causal interpretation of the data, Dr. Hoffmann said, "both exposures seem to be important and both must be considered on a population level, rather than focusing on just one hazard."
She added that her research group plans to conduct a longitudinal analysis with repeated measures of TAC over time.
Allana Maiden and her mother, Debbie Barrett, of Virginia.
Allana Maiden wanted her mother to feel beautiful again after she?d undergone ?a radical mastectomy. But Victoria?s Secret, the company she hoped would design sexy lingerie for women who?ve ?had breast cancer surgery, has rejected her appeal for a ?survivor line? of bras.
The Richmond, Va., 28-year-old was 6 years old when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and had her surgery. But she was always aware of her mother?s struggle to feel good about herself ? and to find a bra that not only fit but was reasonably priced.
Maiden was particularly disappointed in Victoria?s Secret?s decision after actress Angelina Jolie announced that she?d had a preventive mastectomy after learning she had the BRCA ?gene, which predisposes a woman to breast cancer.
?She put the news out there that you can still be attractive after having breast cancer and mastectomy,? Maiden said of Jolie. ?But a beautiful bra would have been a great thing to have, and now these bras are very limited.
?My mom and I have always said how much we appreciate Victoria?s Secret research efforts,? ?said Maiden, who works at an animal shelter. ?But cancer research doesn?t help survivors feel beautiful after the battle is over ? mastectomy bras do. ?This is a company that prides itself in innovation that helps women feel beautiful. I don?t think cancer survivors like my mom should be the exception to the rule.?
A representative from Victoria?s Secret called Maiden two weeks ago to tell her that the company would not be creating a new line of ?survivor? bras.
?Through our research, we have learned that fitting and selling mastectomy bras ? in the right way ? a way that is beneficial to women is complicated and truly a science,? said Victoria?s Secret Tammy Roberts Myers in a prepared statement today. ??As a result, we believe that the best way for us to make an impact for our customers is to continue funding cancer research.
?I was disappointed, obviously,? Maiden told ABCNews.com. ?I understand her decision, that there is a science that goes [with these] bras, and it?s more complicated than a regular bra would be. But I felt that if anyone could do it, they could. They have everything in place.?
According to the?Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, and it estimates that more than 1.6 million new cases occurred among women worldwide in 2010.
Maiden?s mother, 57-year-old Debbie Barrett, works in the admissions office at Virginia Highlands Community College. She was 36 when she found a lump during a self-examination and soon learned it was malignant.
Barrett wears a prosthetic because at the time of her mastectomy, insurance did not cover the cost of breast reconstruction. Because she lives in a rural part of Virginia, she has to drive 1? hours to find a store that sells bras that hold prosthetic breasts.
?It?s a huge ordeal,? her daughter told ABCNews.com earlier this year after she filed a petition on change.org, asking Victoria?s Secret to consider her proposal for a ?survivor? line of bras. To date, the petition has garnered 120,000 signatures.
The bras that ?Barrett wears have little pockets to hold the prosthetic breasts. ?They can be bought online, but it?s hard to get a good fit without being measured in person, say both mother and daughter.
Maiden and Barrett met with Victoria?s Secret representatives twice ? once when they delivered petition signatures to the company?s New York office and again when they were flown by the parent company to Columbus, Ohio, to meet with additional team members and cancer researchers.
Victoria?s Secret parent company, Limited Brands, has donated more than $1.6 million to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society to fund breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment. Additionally, in the past two years, it has raised nearly $10 million for cancer research at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, according to the company.
Limited Brands just?participated in the local Komen Race for the Cure?with the largest team in the world.
(Reuters) - Peregrine Pharmaceuticals said it reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the design of a late-stage trial for its experimental lung cancer drug.
The late-stage trial will compare a combination of chemotherapy and the drug, bavituximab, with chemotherapy alone.
The main goal of the trial would be to show an improvement in overall survival of patients.
Peregrine shares were up 19 percent at $1.83 in early trade on Monday on the Nasdaq.
Bavituximab is being developed to treat second-line non-small-cell lung cancer and multiple other cancers.
"We look forward to finalizing the clinical protocol and initiating the global Phase III trial by year-end," Joseph Shan, vice president of clinical and regulatory affairs, said in a statement.
Peregrine went through tough times last year after it found discrepancies in the results of a mid-stage trial testing bavituximab in non-small-cell lung cancer.
Following the discovery of errors in clinical data, the company was forced to pay off a loan, leaving the company with enough capital to fund operations only till April.
The company, however, managed to raise capital in October to fund clinical and development goals for the next 12 months. It also reported revised data from the lung cancer trial in February.
(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)
How is every one's weekend? Whew..mine has been busy! My mom has been visiting since Thursday, all the kids had events at their school yesterday (4 kids, 2 different schools) then, we had a BBQ on Saturday with my sisters and their families. A ton of fun, but, ah!?
I very much looking forward to getting a bit of rest today.
Oh..speaking of today...
I am so excited! It's my very first #SundaySupper!
What is #SundaySupper???It's a?fabulous?group of bloggers that join together each week to share recipes and ?stories It's a great way to connect with some bloggers you have always read or meet some new ones. ?Awesome, right? ?OK, so, for my first week the theme is the slow cooker! ?Can you believe it? I was so darn excited. ?You guys know how much I love my crock pot :)
This dish is so easy. ?Like, make with your eyes closed easy. Yes. Three simple ingredients. Three?ingredients?that you may just have sitting around your kitchen right now. ?The other greatness is you can make it hot or not. ?Depending on your salsa taste, this can be a seriously hot pork or a nice, mild one.?
I paired ours with my homemade salsa..it was delicious! Enjoyed by the entire?family. {you could pair this combo with chicken too}
Crock Pot Sweet Pork
Recipe by?Butter, with a Side of Bread Prep time:?10 minutes Cook time:?7-8 hours Ingredients:
2 lbs?boneless pork
2 cups?salsa
1 cup?brown sugar
Cooking Directions:
Spray crock pot or line with crock pot liners/parchment paper. Add pork into crock pot.?
In a separate bowl, mix salsa and brown sugar well. Pour over pork.?
Cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 4 hours.
Shred/cut pork before serving.
Low & Slow Breads & Starters: Low & Slow Mains: Low & Slow Sides: Low & Slow Desserts: Wine Pairing Recommendations for Low & Slow Food from ENOFYLZ Wine Blog
Users of iPhones may be uniquely vulnerable to a new kind of cyberstalking that can reveal their real-life whereabouts, if they leave GPS and Wi-Fi activated.
By Ben Weitzenkorn,?Tech News Daily / May 13, 2013
A man leaves an Apple store with an iPhone and an iPad in his hands in central Beijing, April 1.
Alexander F. Yuan / AP
Enlarge
An Australian computer-security expert has created an application that lets anyone see the locations of the last three Wi-Fi access points used by an Apple iPhone or iPad ? information that could be used to deduce where the iOS device user lives.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Melbourne-based researcher Hubert Seiwert's iSniff GPS, now freely available for anyone to download and use, combines three different Apple iOS features.
None of the features pose any threat to privacy on their own, but when combined could tell strangers a lot about you.
"This could be used to locate ... where people live," Seiwert told SC Magazine.
Three's a crowdsource
The first feature Seiwert used is well-known. Apple iOS devices that have both Wi-Fi and GPS turned on send the names and locations of all Wi-Fi access points they encounter back to the Apple mothership. The devices don't need to be connected to a specific access point for this to happen.
This feature helps Apple's mapping services. Google does the same thing with Android devices. Users of both kinds of devices can turn the data-sharing off.
The second feature is unique to iOS devices. Last year, security researcher Mark Wuergler of Miami-based Immunity Inc. found that iOS devices, when trying to connect to a Wi-Fi access point, will broadcast the unique network-interface IDs of the previous three Wi-Fi access points to which the devices actually did connect.
These unique network-interface IDs, called MAC addresses, can be physically located when run against online location services that keep databases of such things.
(MAC addresses differ from Wi-Fi access-point names such as "John's Wireless Router." MAC addresses are fixed, unique and used by machines to communicate with each other; Wi-Fi location names, also called SSIDs, can change at any time and exist for human convenience.)
Wuergler told the tech blog Ars Technica in March 2012 that he'd combined the Apple MAC-address feature with Google Location Services for Android to create a proof-of-concept application called "Stalker."
"I'll know where you work, I'll know where you live and know where you frequent," Wuergler said at the time. "If the last access point you connected to was your home, for example, I'll know right where to go to get to you later or get to your data."
Heat-related deaths in Manhattan projected to risePublic release date: 19-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kevin Krajick kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Killing season may push into spring and fall, says study
Residents of Manhattan will not just sweat harder from rising temperatures in the future, says a new study; many may die. Researchers say deaths linked to warming climate may rise some 20 percent by the 2020s, and, in some worst-case scenarios, 90 percent or more by the 2080s. Higher winter temperatures may partially offset heat-related deaths by cutting cold-related mortalitybut even so, annual net temperature-related deaths might go up a third. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, was done by a team at Columbia University's Earth Institute and the Mailman School of Public Health.
Studies of other cities have already projected adverse health effects from rising temperatures, but this is one of the most comprehensive so far. Unlike many others, it combines data from all seasons, and applies multiple scenarios to a local areain this case, the most densely populated county in the United States. "This serves as a reminder that heat events are one of the greatest hazards faced by urban populations around the globe," said coauthor Radley Horton, a climate scientist at the Earth Institute's Center for Climate Systems Research. Horton says that people need look no further for the potential dangers than the record 2010 heat wave that hit Russia, killing some 55,000 people, and the 2003 one that killed 70,000 in central and western Europe.
Daily records from Manhattan's Central Park show that average monthly temperatures already increased by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2000substantially more than the global and U.S. trends. Cities tend to concentrate heat; buildings and pavement soak it up during the day and give it off at night. Many records have been set in Manhattan recently; 2012 was its warmest year on record, and in each of the past three years, it has seen temperatures at or above 100 degrees F. Projections for the future vary, but all foresee steep future average increases : 3.3 to 4.2 degrees F more by the 2050s, and 4.3 to 7.1 degrees by the 2080s.
To make mortality estimates, the researchers took temperature projections from 16 global climate models, downscaled these to Manhattan, and put them against two different backdrops: one assuming rapid global population growth and few efforts to limit emissions; the other, assuming slower growth, and technological changes that would decrease emissions by 2040. As a baseline for estimating temperature-related deaths, they used the 1980s, when an estimated 370 Manhattanites died from overheating, and 340 died from cold.
No matter what scenario they used, the projections suggested increased mortality. In the 2020s for instance, numbers produced from the various scenarios worked out to a mean increase of about 20 percent in deaths due to heat, set against a mean decrease of about 12 percent in deaths due to cold. The net result: a 5 or 6 percent increase in overall temperature-related deaths. Due mainly to uncertainties in future greenhouse emissions, projections for the 2050s and 2080s diverge morebut in all scenarios mortality would rise steeply. The best-case scenario projects a net 15 percent increase in temperature-related deaths; the worst, a rise of 30-some percent. Assuming Manhattan's current population of 1.6 million remains the same, the worst-case scenario translates to more than 1,000 annual deaths.
The study also found that the largest percentage increase in deaths would come not during the traditionally sweltering months of June through August, but rather in May and Septemberperiods that are now generally pleasant, but which will probably increasingly become incorporated into the brutal dog days of summer.
Senior author Patrick Kinney, an environmental scientist at the Mailman School and Earth Institute faculty member, pointed out several uncertainties in the study. For instance, he said, things could be made better or worse by demographic trends, and how well New York adapts its infrastructure and policies to a warmer world. On one hand, future Manhattanites may be on average older and thus more vulnerable; on the other, New York is already a leader in efforts to mitigate warming, planting trees, making surfaces such as roofs more reflective, and opening air-conditioned centers where people can come to cool off. Kinney said there is already some evidence that even as city heat rose during the latter 20th century, heat-related deaths went down--probably due to the introduction of home air conditioning. "I think this points to the need for cities to look for ways to make themselves and their people more resilient to heat," he said.
The lead author of the study is Tiantian Li, an epidemiologist now at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, who did the work while serving as a postdoctoral researcher at the Columbia Climate and Health Program at Mailman, which Kinney directs.
###
The paper, "Projections of Seasonal Patterns in Temperature-Related Deaths for Manhattan, New York," is available from the authors or from Nature: Contact Neda Afsarmanesh n.afsarmanesh@us.nature.com 212-726-9231
Scientist contacts:
Patrick Kinney: plk3@columbia.edu 212-305-3663
Radley Horton: rh142@columbia.edu 646-320-9938
More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior Science Writer, The Earth Institute
kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729
The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Heat-related deaths in Manhattan projected to risePublic release date: 19-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kevin Krajick kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Killing season may push into spring and fall, says study
Residents of Manhattan will not just sweat harder from rising temperatures in the future, says a new study; many may die. Researchers say deaths linked to warming climate may rise some 20 percent by the 2020s, and, in some worst-case scenarios, 90 percent or more by the 2080s. Higher winter temperatures may partially offset heat-related deaths by cutting cold-related mortalitybut even so, annual net temperature-related deaths might go up a third. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, was done by a team at Columbia University's Earth Institute and the Mailman School of Public Health.
Studies of other cities have already projected adverse health effects from rising temperatures, but this is one of the most comprehensive so far. Unlike many others, it combines data from all seasons, and applies multiple scenarios to a local areain this case, the most densely populated county in the United States. "This serves as a reminder that heat events are one of the greatest hazards faced by urban populations around the globe," said coauthor Radley Horton, a climate scientist at the Earth Institute's Center for Climate Systems Research. Horton says that people need look no further for the potential dangers than the record 2010 heat wave that hit Russia, killing some 55,000 people, and the 2003 one that killed 70,000 in central and western Europe.
Daily records from Manhattan's Central Park show that average monthly temperatures already increased by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2000substantially more than the global and U.S. trends. Cities tend to concentrate heat; buildings and pavement soak it up during the day and give it off at night. Many records have been set in Manhattan recently; 2012 was its warmest year on record, and in each of the past three years, it has seen temperatures at or above 100 degrees F. Projections for the future vary, but all foresee steep future average increases : 3.3 to 4.2 degrees F more by the 2050s, and 4.3 to 7.1 degrees by the 2080s.
To make mortality estimates, the researchers took temperature projections from 16 global climate models, downscaled these to Manhattan, and put them against two different backdrops: one assuming rapid global population growth and few efforts to limit emissions; the other, assuming slower growth, and technological changes that would decrease emissions by 2040. As a baseline for estimating temperature-related deaths, they used the 1980s, when an estimated 370 Manhattanites died from overheating, and 340 died from cold.
No matter what scenario they used, the projections suggested increased mortality. In the 2020s for instance, numbers produced from the various scenarios worked out to a mean increase of about 20 percent in deaths due to heat, set against a mean decrease of about 12 percent in deaths due to cold. The net result: a 5 or 6 percent increase in overall temperature-related deaths. Due mainly to uncertainties in future greenhouse emissions, projections for the 2050s and 2080s diverge morebut in all scenarios mortality would rise steeply. The best-case scenario projects a net 15 percent increase in temperature-related deaths; the worst, a rise of 30-some percent. Assuming Manhattan's current population of 1.6 million remains the same, the worst-case scenario translates to more than 1,000 annual deaths.
The study also found that the largest percentage increase in deaths would come not during the traditionally sweltering months of June through August, but rather in May and Septemberperiods that are now generally pleasant, but which will probably increasingly become incorporated into the brutal dog days of summer.
Senior author Patrick Kinney, an environmental scientist at the Mailman School and Earth Institute faculty member, pointed out several uncertainties in the study. For instance, he said, things could be made better or worse by demographic trends, and how well New York adapts its infrastructure and policies to a warmer world. On one hand, future Manhattanites may be on average older and thus more vulnerable; on the other, New York is already a leader in efforts to mitigate warming, planting trees, making surfaces such as roofs more reflective, and opening air-conditioned centers where people can come to cool off. Kinney said there is already some evidence that even as city heat rose during the latter 20th century, heat-related deaths went down--probably due to the introduction of home air conditioning. "I think this points to the need for cities to look for ways to make themselves and their people more resilient to heat," he said.
The lead author of the study is Tiantian Li, an epidemiologist now at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, who did the work while serving as a postdoctoral researcher at the Columbia Climate and Health Program at Mailman, which Kinney directs.
###
The paper, "Projections of Seasonal Patterns in Temperature-Related Deaths for Manhattan, New York," is available from the authors or from Nature: Contact Neda Afsarmanesh n.afsarmanesh@us.nature.com 212-726-9231
Scientist contacts:
Patrick Kinney: plk3@columbia.edu 212-305-3663
Radley Horton: rh142@columbia.edu 646-320-9938
More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior Science Writer, The Earth Institute
kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729
The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
BAMAKO (Reuters) - Fighting has broken out in northern Mali between Tuareg separatists and local Arab-led gunmen, only days after the African country won a $4.2 billion aid pledge to help it recover from a conflict with Islamists affiliated to al Qaeda.
Rebel and military sources both confirmed the clashes, although they differed over precisely which groups were involved.
The violence highlights how pockets of fighters who escaped a four-month French-led offensive against the al Qaeda-linked militants in the north are undermining efforts to restore state authority ahead of a presidential election set for July 28. France said this week the 'terrorists' had been defeated.
The MNLA, a Tuareg rebel group, said its forces were attacked in the town of Anefis by a column of Islamist fighters on Friday. Its Paris-based spokesman, Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, said fighting continued on Saturday morning, with two of the group's fighters and at least seven Islamists killed so far.
The MNLA said it was fighting MUJWA, an Islamist group that occupied the town of Gao for months until earlier this year and has launched a series of guerrilla-style counter-attacks on the town since it was retaken in the French offensive.
A Malian army officer, who asked not to be named, confirmed there had been heavy fighting, likely stemming from long-standing rivalries between Tuareg and Arab communities that make up northern Mali's array of armed groups.
However he said the clashes were between the MNLA and the MAA, a group made up of Malian Arabs based north of Timbuktu. It was not possible to independently confirm the information.
STABILITY WORRIES
In a sign of the outside world's concern about stability in Mali, international donors promised 3.25 billion euros on Wednesday to help the country recover and prevent a resurgence by the Islamist rebels.
French President Francois Hollande dismissed comparisons between Mali and Afghanistan, which provided safe haven to al Qaeda when it was preparing the September 11 attacks and is still fighting a Taliban insurgency 12 years later.
"In Mali, the terrorists have been beaten. I don't say there are none left, I don't say there is no risk, but there is no longer any fighting," Hollande said.
The Tuareg MNLA launched a rebellion in January last year, citing years of marginalisation by the government as justification for carving out an independent desert state from Mali's north.
It initially fought alongside a mix of al Qaeda-linked Islamist forces seeking to impose Islamic law on Mali's north, and the uneasy coalition swept aside government troops in March 2012.
The MNLA was later sidelined by the better armed Islamists, but has now taken advantage of the French offensive to re-occupy several northern towns it had lost to them. Having watered down independence claims, it is demanding talks with the government over a degree of autonomy.
French forces are reducing their numbers and are due to hand over security responsibilities to a United Nations peacekeeping mission that will be rolled out in July.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) ? An Uzbekistan national living in Idaho has been arrested on federal charges that he gave support, cash and other resources to help a recognized terrorist group in his home country plan a terrorist attack.
Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, is expected to make his first appearance in U.S. District Court Friday morning, one day after federal agents arrested him during a raid of his small Boise apartment.
Kurbanov was arrested after an extensive investigation into his activities in Idaho and Utah late last year and this year. A federal grand jury indictment charges Kurbanov with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and possession of an unregistered explosive device.
A separate federal grand jury in Utah also returned an indictment charging Kurbanov with distributing information about explosives, bombs and weapons of mass destruction.
Wendy Olson, the U.S. attorney in Idaho, said Kurbanov is the only person charged, and any potential threat was contained by his arrest.
"He was closely monitored during the course of the investigation," she said. "The investigation has been underway for some time."
Olson declined to share any specifics of Kurbanov's alleged activities, including whether any potential terrorist threat or targets were domestic or abroad.
A statement from the U.S. attorney's office said Kurbanov is in the United States legally, but Olson declined to give specific details about his immigration status.
It was unclear when he moved to Idaho or the extent of his activities in Utah. An Idaho telephone number registered to Kurbanov has been disconnected.
The Idaho indictment alleges that between August 2012 and May 2013, Kurbanov knowingly conspired with others to provide support and resources, including computer software and money, to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which the U.S. has identified as a terrorist organization. The group's purpose is to overthrow the government of Uzbekistan, said David B. Barlow, U.S. attorney in Utah.
The alleged co-conspirators were not named.
In count two, the indictment alleges Kurbanov provided material support to terrorists, knowing that the help was to be used in preparation for a plot involving the use of a weapon of mass destruction.
The indictment also alleges that on Nov. 15, 2012, Kurbanov possessed an explosive device, consisting of a series of parts intended to be converted into a bomb. Those parts included a hollow hand grenade, a hobby fuse, aluminum powder, potassium nitrate and sulfur.
Meanwhile, in Utah, federal investigators said that for a 10-day period in January 2013, Kurbanov taught and demonstrated how to make an "explosive, destructive device, and weapon of mass destruction."
The grand jury alleges that Kurbanov provided written recipes for how to make improvised explosive devices and went on instructional shopping trips in Utah showing what items are necessary to buy to make the devices, Barlow said. Kurbanov also showed Internet videos on the topic, Barlow said.
The prosecutor declined to say whom Kurbanov took on the shopping trips in Utah but said that information will come out as the case moves through the courts.
The indictment from Utah also alleges that Kurbanov intended that the videos, recipes, instructions and shopping trips be used to make an explosive device for the "bombings of a place of public use, public transportation system, and infrastructure facility."
The arrest, Barlow said, shows that "there is no priority that is more important than the protection of the public and the prevention and disruption of alleged terrorist activities ? wherever they might occur."
Although the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan started in the 1990s with the stated aim of overthrowing the Uzbek regime and establishing an Islamic government, its goals have expanded to creating a broader Central Asian caliphate.
The movement's fighters have a presence in Afghanistan's northern provinces and in Pakistan's Waziristan province. U.S. and Afghan officials say al-Qaeda has been building ties with the IMU.
Last year, an Uzbek named Ulugbek Kodirov was sentenced to a minimum 15 years in prison in Alabama for plotting to shoot President Barack Obama while on the campaign trial. Kodirov pleaded guilty, saying he was acting at the behest of the IMU.
According to Idaho's court system, Kurbanov has no criminal convictions but was ticketed for speeding violations twice in 2012 ? once in October, when he paid a $90 fine, and another instance in May when he paid $85.
___
Associated Press writers John Miller in Boise, Idaho, Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) ? The San Antonio Spurs held off a furious final rally to beat the Golden State Warriors 94-82 in Game 6 on Thursday night and advance to the Western Conference finals.
Tim Duncan had 19 points and six rebounds, Kawhi Leonard scored 16 points and the Spurs won the series in six games.
Tony Parker shook off a poor start to score 10 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter. Tiago Splitter added a career-playoff high 14 points for San Antonio, which led by 13 late in the third quarter.
Stephen Curry shot 10 of 25 from the floor to score 22 points on a nagging left ankle. Jarrett Jack had 15 points as the injury-saddled Warriors wore down. The Spurs outshot Golden State 45 percent to 39 percent.
Second-seeded San Antonio will open the conference finals at home against Memphis on Sunday. The fifth-seeded Grizzlies eliminated Oklahoma City in five games.
The Spurs became the first team to win consecutive games in the series and hand the Warriors consecutive losses in the playoffs ? and they did it at just the right time.
The Spurs quieted a standing-room-only crowd late in the third quarter and seemingly seized control for good. Instead, the Warriors roared back.
Klay Thompson, who had 10 points on 4-for-12 shooting, made a 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter that sliced San Antonio's lead to three. And Curry's pull-up jumper brought the Warriors within 77-75 with 4:52 to play.
Parker was 1 for 13 before hitting a corner 3-pointer to give San Antonio an 80-75 lead. Leonard followed with two free throws to put the Spurs up seven.
Jack made a jumper and two free throws to bring the Warriors back again. Then Leonard hit another corner 3-pointer for the Spurs to go ahead 85-79.
Curry and Thompson had consecutive 3s rim out on the same possession. Parker hit another 3-pointer to put San Antonio up 88-79 with 1:15 remaining and send some of the yellow-shirted crowd of 19,596 heading to the exits.
Fans serenaded the home team with chants of "Warr-i-ors!" in the final seconds. Curry also grabbed the microphone after the game and thanked fans at half court, breaking the huddle with the crowd, "Just us!"
The Spurs showed incredible ball movement all game and had the Warriors playing from behind most of the way. San Antonio's first 10 field goals came on an assist, going ahead by 10 points twice in the second quarter and maintaining that cushion until late.
Golden State stayed close despite more injury setbacks in a season full of them. Andrew Bogut walked gingerly to the locker room with 8:31 remaining in the second quarter to get his troublesome left ankle re-tapped. Upstart rookie Harrison Barnes fell awkwardly while leaping to contest a layup in the second quarter from Boris Diaw.
Barnes hit the court hard and his teammates immediately called for the training staff to attend to him as the arena fell silent. He received six stitches above his right eye at halftime and ran on the court late to start the third quarter, bringing fans to their feet roaring once more.
At least for a moment.
Barnes left the game in the fourth quarter because of a headache, the team said. He finished with nine points and four rebounds in 31 minutes.
The steady Spurs kept making the Warriors work for every shot and grinding out points on the other end. San Antonio took a 61-48 lead late in the third quarter before Golden State started its final surge.
The Spurs made sure it wasn't enough.
NOTES: NBA Commissioner David Stern, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and prospective Kings owner Vivek Ranadive attended the game. ... The Spurs are 10-1 in closeout games since the start of the 2007 playoffs. ... Parker's worst shooting performance in the playoffs with more than five shot attempts came when he was 1 of 12 against New Jersey in the 2003 NBA Finals won by the Spurs. ... The Warriors fell to 4-1 after a loss in the playoffs.
Legendary game designer Jordan Mechner went back to his roots in 2012 with a reimagined Karateka, a brand new game based on his original 1984 Apple II hit (it would eventually make its way to just about every other common home computer platform of the day). Now the original has returned in all its eight-bit glory.
They've recreated the original gameplay experience right down to the sound of a floppy disk drive grinding away reading sectors off a 5.25-inch disk as the game first loads. What's more, settings let you adjust between color, green, or amber displays, since color displays were relatively rare back in the day.
Karateka Classic is, quite literally, the same game that appeared for the Apple II in 1984. It's the original game code running within an Apple IIGS emulator developed to work on iOS and other platforms called ActiveGS. The game runs natively on iPhone and iPad.
Karateka was Mechner's first game, before he created the Prince of Persia series that he's best known for. He programmed it when he was still a university undergrad, and it is, for its age, a real gem. It's a side-scrolling martial arts combat action game set in feudal Japan. You assume the role of the titular karateka (literally, a practitioner of karate) as you attempt to save Princess Mariko from the clutches of the evil Akuma.
To do so, you must make your way inside Akuma's heavily guarded fortress, squaring off against opponent after opponent in karate duels. The game's original keyboard commands have been replaced with on-screen buttons that control your movement, your fighting stance, three punching positions, and three kicking positions. You can turn off the button overlay if you find it distracting.
Each time your opponent hits you, you'll lose a health point, and once you're down to zero, that's it - game over. You need to restart from the beginning. And just like the original Apple II game, there's no saved game or continue feature. Your health does slowly regenerate in between rounds, so sometimes it's a good idea to not rush into the next melee before you've had a chance to catch your breath.
In addition to other run-of-the-mill enemies you need to defeat, you'll occasionally be attacked by Akuma's hawk (which can be deflected with a well-timed punch), and avoid various pitfalls around the castle. Then, finally, you'll face off against Akuma himself in a boss battle.
The good
Bit-perfect recreation of the original Apple II game that first put Jordan Mechner on the map.
Inexpensive
Fun to play
The bad
No save game feature
Limited replay value once you've beaten the game
Bottom line
For a 29 year old game, Kareteka is surprisingly challenging, and it still looks good. Working within the significant technical limitations imposed by the hardware of the day, Mechner employed techniques like rotoscoping to get realistic animations for his characters. The simple graphics and color palette won't challenge gamers cut on today's sophisticated titles, but the gameplay more than makes up for it.
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:
1. ONE TAX MAN IN, ANOTHER OUT
Obama picks a senior White House budget official to run the IRS; a leader of the division under scrutiny announces his retirement.
2. HOW A LOOPHOLE LET SOME TERRORISTS FLY
A government watchdog says some in the witness protection program weren't on no-fly lists.
3. WHAT LEFT JODI ARIAS JURORS VISIBLY SHAKEN
Travis Alexander's family gave emotional testimony about how their lives were ripped apart by his killing.
4. HUDDLED IN BATHROOM WHILE TWISTER TAKES ROOF
Six are dead and emergency responders search for more missing after 10 tornadoes touch down in several small Texas communities
5. ARMY OF SHAME
President Barack Obama says military leaders have told him they are "ashamed" of their failure to end sexual abuse in the armed services.
6. AFGHAN SURVIVOR RECOUNTS TERROR IN THE NIGHT
As the military prepares to court-martial Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales in the killing of 16 civilians, a widow tells AP reporter Kathy Gannon how her husband was killed.
7. GOT WHEELS? COOL YOUR HEELS
American Airlines says people with just a bag ? rolling suitcases not included ? will be allowed to board flights before most other passengers.
8. NEW MEXICO MOM, WONDER WOMAN
Albuquerque mother chases down man witnesses say abducted her daughter; he flees on foot after she rams his car, but is later arrested.
9. END IT LIKE BECKHAM
David Beckham has the right to purchase an expansion team in Major League Soccer, an option he has said he intends to exercise.
10. WHO IS THE LATEST 'AMERICAN IDOL'
Vocal powerhouse Candice Glover bested country singer Kree Harrison to win the 12th edition of the contest and a record deal..
Weiner could declare=Former Rep. Anthony Weiner is apparently close to making his run for New York City mayor official.
According to WNBC-TV, the former congressman was spotted filming what appeared to be a campaign ad on the front steps of his childhood home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on Thursday. Weiner was joined by his wife, Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
According to NBC, the entourage quickly packed up and left when reporters approached, and Weiner did not respond to a request for comment.
The apparent ad comes amid speculation that Weiner could announce his bid for mayor as soon as next week. The ex-lawmaker was forced out of Congress nearly two years ago when he was busted sexting with women who were not his wife.
Last month, Weiner kicked off a very public amends tour, giving an interview to The New York Times magazine in which he asked the public for a ?second chance? and called the upcoming mayoral race a case of ?now or maybe never for me.?
In recent weeks, one former staffer told Yahoo News, Weiner has reached out to several former aides asking them to consider working for his mayoral campaign. But most have declined, the ex-aide said, partly because they aren?t convinced Weiner is up to speed policy-wise in order to compete in what is expected to be an intense race to replace outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Earlier this week, Politico reported that Weiner had hired Danny Kedem, a little-known Democratic operative, to helm his mayoral bid. The New York Times reported his former strategists had declined to work for him.
May 17, 2013 ? Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region. They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture -- before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.
Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that traditional archaeobotany techniques are not possible.
Now, thanks to a new method of analysis on ancient grinding stones, the archaeologists have uncovered evidence that agriculture could predate the advent of rice in the region.
The research was the result of a two-year collaboration between Dr Huw Barton, from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, and Dr Xiaoyan Yang, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.
Funded by a Royal Society UK-China NSFC International Joint Project, and other grants held by Yang in China, the research is published in PLOS ONE.
Dr Barton, Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of Leicester, described the find as 'hitting the jackpot': "Our discovery is totally unexpected and very exciting.
"We have used a relatively new method known as ancient starch analysis to analyse ancient human diet. This technique can tell us things about human diet in the past that no other method can.
"From a sample of grinding stones we extracted very small quantities of adhering sediment trapped in pits and cracks on the tool surface. From this material, preserved starch granules were extracted with our Chinese colleagues in the starch laboratory in Beijing. These samples were analysed in China and also here at Leicester in the Starch and Residue Laboratory, School of Archaeology and Ancient History.
"Our research shows us that there was something much more interesting going on in the subtropical south of China 5,000 years ago than we had first thought. The survival of organic material is really dependent on the particular chemical properties of the soil, so you never know what you will get until you sample. At Xincun we really hit the jackpot. Starch was well-preserved and there was plenty of it. While some of the starch granules we found were species we might expect to find on grinding and pounding stones, ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts, lotus root and the fern root, the addition of starch from palms was totally unexpected and very exciting."
Several types of tropical palms store prodigious quantities of starch. This starch can be literally bashed and washed out of the trunk pith, dried as flour, and of course eaten. It is non-toxic, not particularly tasty, but it is reliable and can be processed all year round. Many communities in the tropics today, particularly in Borneo and Indonesia, but also in eastern India, still rely on flour derived from palms.
Dr Barton said: "The presence of at least two, possibly three species of starch producing palms, bananas, and various roots, raises the intriguing possibility that these plants may have been planted nearby the settlement.
"Today groups that rely on palms growing in the wild are highly mobile, moving from one palm stand to another as they exhaust the clump. Sedentary groups that utilise palms for their starch today, plant suckers nearby the village, thus maintaining continuous supply. If they were planted at Xincun, this implies that 'agriculture' did not arrive here with the arrival of domesticated rice, as archaeologists currently think, but that an indigenous system of plant cultivation may have been in place by the mid Holocene.
"The adoption of domesticated rice was slow and gradual in this region; it was not a rapid transformation as in other places. Our findings may indicate why this was the case. People may have been busy with other types of cultivation, ignoring rice, which may have been in the landscape, but as a minor plant for a long time before it too became a food staple.
"Future work will focus on grinding stones from nearby sites to see if this pattern is repeated along the coast."
By Alasdair Fotheringham VAJONT, Italy, May 15 (Reuters) - A chest infection was the latest setback to hit Britain's pre-race favourite Bradley Wiggins on the Giro d'Italia on Wednesday. Tour de France champion Wiggins, finished the 11th stage in the main pack behind winner Ramunas Navardauskas to stay fourth overall, two minutes five seconds behind leader Vincenzo Nibali. "I'm not feeling very good at the moment, I've had a pretty rough 24 hours," Wiggins told reporters. "I've got a chest infection and a bog-standard head cold. ...
New research has revealed that the evolution of the complex, weight-bearing hips of walking animals from the basic hips of fish was a much simpler process than previously thought.
Tetrapods, or four-legged animals, first stepped onto land about 395 million years ago. This significant change was made possible by strong hipbones and a connection through the spine via an ilium - features that were not present in the fish ancestors of tetrapods.
In a study published in the journalEvolution and Development, Dr Catherine Boisvert of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University, MacQuarie University's Professor Jean Joss and Professor Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University examined the hip structures of some of human's closest fish cousins.
They found the differences between us and them are not as great as they appear - most of the key elements necessary for the transformation to human hips were actually already present in our fish ancestors.
Dr Boisvert and her collaborators compared the hip development - bones and musculature - of the Australian lung fish and the Axolotl, commonly known as the Mexican Walking Fish.
The results showed that, surprisingly, the transition from simple fish hip to complex weight-bearing hip could be done in a few evolutionary steps.
"Many of the muscles thought to be "new" in tetrapods evolved from muscles already present in lungfish. We also found evidence of a new, more simple path by which skeletal structures would have evolved," Dr Boisvert said.
The researchers found that the sitting bones would have evolved by the extension of the already existing pubis. The connection to the vertebral column could have evolved from an illiac process already present in fish.
"The transition from ocean-dwelling to land-dwelling animals was a major event in the evolution of terrestrial animals, including humans, and an altered hip was an essential enabling step," Dr Boisvert said.
"Our research shows that what initially appeared to be a large change in morphology could be done with relatively few developmental steps."
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Monash University: http://www.monash.edu.au
Thanks to Monash University for this article.
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Public release date: 19-May-2013
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