Henry VIII was just like me, says Prince Charles

Daily Mail | July 10, 2009

By David Derbyshire

He has a reputation as one of England’s most brutal tyrants, but Henry VIII, according to Prince Charles, was actually an environmental crusader with a keen interest in architecture.

Giving the annual Dimbleby Lecture last night, the Prince of Wales invited comparisons between himself and Henry VIII.

He praised his ancestor for ‘exhibiting an interest in architecture that may possibly be hereditary’ and he highlighted Henry’s awareness of green issues.

‘Towards the end of his reign, he also showed an interest in sustainability,’ the Prince said.

‘Perhaps it is not so well known that Henry instigated the very first piece of green legislation in this country.’

In 1543 Henry passed laws that prevented shipbuilders felling too many immature oak trees. The move was designed to protect forests.

‘What was instinctively understood by many in King Henry’s time was the importance of working with the grain of nature to maintain the balance between keeping the earth’s natural capital intact, and sustaining humanity on its renewable income,’ the Prince said.
He warned that consumerism was threatening mankind’s future. Since the 1950s, rainforests have shrunk by a third – robbing the world of plants that may be essential for mankind’s survival, he said.

He said: ‘Our consumerist society comes at an enormous cost to the Earth and we must face up to the facet that the Earth cannot afford to support it,’ he said.

‘Just as our banking sector is struggling with its debts – and paradoxically also facing calls for a return to so- called oldfashioned traditional thinking, so Nature’s life-support systems are failing to cope with the debts with have built up there too.

‘If we don’t face up to this, then Nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust too. And no amount of quantitative easing will revive it.’

First Chinese swine flu fatality “was electrocuted”

Chinese health workers set up an information booth about swine flu at a community health centre. Photo: AP

A 34-year-old woman who became the first swine flu victim to die in China may have actually been electrocuted in the hospital toilet, it has emerged.
 
Telegraph | Jul 3, 2009

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

The unnamed patient was found dead early on Wednesday morning in the Number One People’s Hospital in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

The woman had been admitted to the hospital on June 23, but had shown signs of recovery as her fever abated.

Doctors told Xinhua, the state newswire, that her temperature had been normal for a week and that her only remaining symptom was occasional coughing.

Yesterday, relatives of the woman attacked the hospital, smashing the entrance lobby and an ambulance with rocks. They said the woman had died from an electric shock while using the bathroom.

Local police said they were continuing to investigate the case, but officials said the death had been “accidental”.

China has yet to suffer a fatality directly linked to swine flu.

However, Liang Wannian, vice director of the Health ministry’s emergency office, said it was “very likely” that there would be a death from the disease in the near future.

Despite strict controls at all airports, China has 866 confirmed H1N1 infections, with 340 under current hospital treatment.

The World Health Organization said it had recorded 77,201 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in more than 100 nations by Wednesday, including 332 deaths.

Experts Claim Dome Over Entire City of Houston May Help Environment

The science of mega engineering says we can save Houston with a Dome. Imagine building a huge Dome that covers the entire city, that is higher than Houston’s skyscrapers.  (Image: Discovery)

One solution to counter the almost overwhelming environmental challenges facing Houston is to cover it with a giant geodesic dome. You can watch the video at the Discovery channel and explore how a giant geodesic dome may save the city from a grim environmental future.

Huliq | Jun 16, 2009

Houston is in peril. The country’s fourth most populous city faces heat, hurricanes and other natural disasters. Houston has always been vulnerable to hurricanes and severe weather.

Houston city center shut down for nearly a week from last year’s hurricane. It caused the city a 10 billion dollar damage. It’s not only the hurricanes, but also heat and humidity that keep oppressing this great city. On nearly 100 days each year the temperature climbs above 90 degrees.

Air conditioning helps, but it comes at a very high cost. Houston is using more electricity than Los Angeles.

This is why some scientists think the only way to save the city is to move it indoors, in other words to build a huge dome for Houston. Houston dome area will stretch over 21 Million square feet, making it the biggest structure with the largest roof in the world.

Related

Houston: The First Domed City?

Explore The Houston Dome

Houston Dome’s broadest panels will be 15 feet across. It will take 147,000 panels to cover the city of Houston. Glass will not work for Houston Dome. It will be so heavy that it can’t hold. Houston Dome will require a much lighter material. It may come from the German city of Bremen, from a factory of Vector Foil Company.

Vector Foiltec invented the use of Texlon® ETFE, the climatic envelope, over twenty five years ago and has successfully developed and promoted the use of this innovative technology worldwide. This is light polymer and is the future of glass.

This material, called ETFE is the only material that will make a fuller city-size dome possible, even for a city like Houston. At just one percent of glass, ETFE is described as 99 percent nothing. Without ETF the Houston dome can never become reality. It is so light that 99 percent lighter than glass is tremendous change.

Since it’s not possible to stop the life in Houston to build the Dome and army of dirigibles will be used to complete the construction.

Houston Dome will take years of construction and billions of dollars. The Dome is designed to protect a city from a category-5 hurricane. The ETFEpanels and the space-frame steel structure that supports them are the key. ETFE can withstand winds of 180 miles per hour. This is higher velocity than the strongest category 5 hurricane.

Houston Dome idea is very intriguing. But I am just left with one idea. Will Houston ever see rain? If no, is it possible to sustain an ecosystem of such a size without rain?

Kung Fu and Kill Bill star David Carradine ‘accidentally suffocated’ after ’sex games’ in Bangkok hotel wardrobe

David Carradine, pictured in LA last month, was found dead in a hotel room

Daily Mail |  Jun 5, 2009

By David Gardner, Andrew Drummond, Debra Killalea and Mail Foreign Service

David Carradine’s death could have been caused by accidental suffocation, police said today.

The 72-year- old Kung Fu actor was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok on Thursday.

Suicide was initially suspected, but Carradine’s friends have questioned this theory, pointing out that no note was found.

Thai police chief Worapong Chewprecha said that Carradine was found with a rope tied around his genitals and another rope around his neck.

‘The two ropes were tied together,’ he said. ‘It is unclear whether he committed suicide or not, or if he died of suffocation or heart failure.’

The news has led to speculation that Carradine may have died from auto-erotic asphyxiation.

An autopsy was completed yesterday, but the results will not be ready for at least three weeks because the cause of death is unclear.

‘All we can say is, we know David would never have committed suicide,’ said Tiffany Smith of Binder & Associates, Carradine’s management company.

‘He really appreciated everything life has to give … and that’s not something David would ever do to himself. We’re just waiting for them to finish the investigation and find out what really happened.’

Carradine, a martial arts practitioner himself, was best known for the TV series Kung Fu, which aired between 1972 and 1975.

He played Kwai Chang Caine, an orphan who was raised by Shaolin monks.More recently, he had a starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s two-part saga Kill Bill.

His death sparked a raft of tributes across Hollywood as stars and friends insisted the actor was full of life and didn’t appear suicidal.

Quentin Tarantino, Michael Madsen and Rob Schneider all told U.S. talk show host Larry King there was no way the actor would have killed himself.

‘I am still in a state shock. He was a dream to direct he was a fantastic actor, a great character actor and really one of Hollywood’s great mad geniuses,’ said Tarantino, who directed Carradine in Kill Bill.

‘The thing I cannot get my head around is that there could have been a period of David’s long life when he might have been suicidal, but this was not the time.’

Schneider said the star had everything going for him and was really on an ‘upswing’.

‘This was a guy that was alive. He was a living legend and really people were coming around and appreciating him.

‘He could not do all the work that was being offered to him. I am convinced, there was no way that he would have killed himself.’

Madsen hosted Carradine’s wedding in 2004 and said that his widow was ‘very confused’ by her late husband’s death.

‘I  talked to Annie about that and she said the most important thing she wanted people to know was that David was not suicidal and he was not depressed.

‘He was not about to do something like that, he had a job and he was working.’

Director Martin Scorcese also paid tribute to the actor and said he was deeply saddened by the tragic news.

‘We met when we made “Boxcar Bertha” together, almost 40 years ago,’ he said.

‘I have very fond memories of our time together on that picture and on Mean Streets, where he agreed to do a brief cameo.’

Others agreed the star seemed happy.

‘I can tell you 100 per cent that he would have never committed suicide,’ Tiffany Smith, who along with Chuck Binder managed the Kill Bill star. ‘He was too full of life.’

‘We’re just waiting for them to finish the investigation and find out what really happened.

‘He really appreciated everything life has to give … and that’s not something David would ever do to himself.’

Binder, said: ‘He was full of life, always wanting to work – a great person.’

Michael Madsen, who played an assassin in Kill Bill said: ‘It is shocking to me that he is no longer with us.’

‘I had been thinking about calling him for the last several days … I have so many great memories of David that I wouldn’t even know where to begin . He has a very special place in my heart.’

Carradine, whose career had recently undergone a renaissance after he appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s bloody two-part martial arts film saga Kill Bill, was in Thailand shooting his latest film, Stretch.

He had been staying at the luxury Swissitel Nai Lert Park since Tuesday.

The crew could not find him after he failed to turn up for a meal on Wednesday night and his body was discovered at 10am yesterday.

Aurelio Giraudo, the hotel’s general manager, said Carradine checked into the hotel May 31 and he last saw him June 3.

He said Carradine chatted with staff and even played piano a few nights in the lobby as well as flute which the ‘guests really enjoyed’.

The hotel, next to the British Embassy in Bangkok is famous for its shrine to fertility.

Visitors make offerings, in the form of phalluses, to the female Spirit of Tubtim who is believed to hover around a nearby canal.

Carradine’s death echoes that of former INXS star Michael Hutchence who was found dead in a Sydney hotel in 1997.

The coroner returned a verdict of suicide but because of the lack of suicide note or history of depression he was  believed to have died attempting an act of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Although Carradine was said to he happy at the time of his death, he had spoken of suicide in the past.

He also admitted he had considered shooting himself and did not fear death.

He wrote in his 1995 autobiography Endless Highway that he had tried to kill himself when he was five years old.

The book also documented his alcoholism and extensive use of drugs, from LSD to cocaine.

In a 2004 interview he said: ‘I remember one time sitting in the window of the third or fourth floor floor of the Plaza Hotel for about half an hour, thinking about tipping off.

‘I thought “who cares man? Why not just split”‘.

He also said: ‘There was a period in my life when I had a single action colt.45 loaded, in my desk drawer.

‘And every night I’d take it out and think about blowing my head off – and the decide not to and go on with my life.’

Carradine got his big break in Kung Fu as Kwai Chang Caine, nicknamed Grasshopper, the soft-spoken monk and martial arts expert who travelled through America’s Old West spreading wisdom and battling bad guys.

The show captured the imagination of millions of youngsters. Phrases from Kung Fu such as ‘Snatch the pebble from my hand’ were endlessly repeated in the playground.

Children put ping-pong balls, which had been cut in half, in their eyes in imitation of the show’s blind character, Master Po.

Kung Fu was first screened in 1972 and spawned a film and numerous other offshoots.

Carradine’s portrayal of Caine earned him a nomination for an Emmy, U.S. TV’s highest honour. He left after three seasons.
He was married five times and had two daughters from previous marriages. His fifth wife was Annie Bierman, whom he married in 2004.

His brothers include the actor Keith Carradine.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said Thai officials had confirmed that Carradine died either late on Wednesday or early yesterday morning.

‘Redneck’ town in Montana volunteers to be the new Guantanamo in bid to boost economy

Hardin: The entrance to the Two Rivers Detention Center in Hardin, Montana  Photo: AP

A Wild West cattle town is desperate to boost its ailing economy by offering its jail as a new home for the inmates of Guantanamo Bay.

Telegraph | Jun 1, 2009

By Toby Harndenin Hardin, Montana

Senators and congressman from across America have insisted that their states will not accept terrorist suspects in the homeland, but the folk of Hardin, Montana (population: 3,384) are made of sterner stuff. Greg Smith, Hardin’s economic development director, volunteered its state-of-the-art prison to the federal government.

“This is a dying town,” he said. “Businesses here are struggling like there’s no tomorrow. But here is a solution that would help us, help the United States and help the world. It’s a long shot but we have to try.”

The town stands on the edge of the Crow Indian Reservation a few dusty miles from the Little Bighorn Battlefield, where Lt Col George Custer made his last stand in 1876.

It has lost most of its shops. Even its dollar store is about to close.

The prison has stood empty since it was built two years ago and is in danger of becoming a white elephant because of a bitter dispute with the Montana government, which claims it is not needed. It was designed to bring up to 150 jobs to Hardin, cost $27 million (£16.7 million) and can hold 464 inmates.

The town council voted unanimously to offer to house the inmates that Donald Rumsfeld, then Pentagon chief, famously called the “worst of the worst”, and sent a letter to the White House setting out its case.

Mr Smith said it was important not to fear terrorists. “We can’t cower to the terrorists. If the whole world’s afraid of them, haven’t they won? To me, it would be a bigger concern if it were axe murderers or rapists. The guys at Guantanamo are mainly planners. They’re not going to strap bombs to themselves – they get other people to do that jihad stuff.”

The proposal has provoked a lively debate among locals. Leo Harman, 74, has his doubts: “If a bad dude gets out, the first thing he’s going to do is look for somebody and find himself a gun.” But his brother Gerald, 68, believes locals could deal with that. “We should put up a sign: ‘If you escape, Montana rednecks are going to hang you from a tree’.”

The response from Montana’s politicians has been a resounding “No”. “We’re not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country,” thundered Senator Max Baucus. “No way. Not on my watch.”

Communist Party of Nepal in favour of having a “baby king”

UML in favour of reinstating monarchy, say Maoists

The Hindu | May 29, 2009

by Prerana Marasini

KATHMANDU: The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) has said the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) is in favour of having a“baby king”.

The remark came after the first Cabinet meeting of the CPN (UML)-led government decided to erect a republican monument in one of the parks of Kathmandu. Maoist’s spokesperson Dina Nath Sharma said the decision was nothing but a conspiracy to bring back monarchy through former king Gyanendra’s grandson. “The decision which was taken by a Cabinet meeting, when the Cabinet has not taken a full shape, indicates that UML is in favour of reinstating monarchy,” he told The Hindu, adding the CPN(UML) had disregarded the agreement between political parties to build the monument on the premises of the former Royal Palace.

But General Secretary of CPN-UML Ishwar Pokharel rubbished the claims. He said: “They’re making a non-issue, an issue.” “What is going to be builtinside the palace premises is different from what is going to be built in Ratnapark.”

The Maoist’s spokesperson also said the new Prime Minister’s appreciation of President Ram Baran Yadav’s move to reinstate the Nepal Army Chief,favouring military supremacy, was also suggestive of conspiracy to revive monarchy. When the Nepali Congress president went to New Delhi, when theformer king Gyanendra was still there in India, the Maoist leaders here claimed that there was a plot to reinstate monarchy.

Constituent Assembly Chairman Subash Nembang on Thursday met with Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’and Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala and urged them to end their bitterness so that the process of Constitution-writing was notaffected.

Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress and CPN(UML) have agreed to expand the Cabinet by Sunday. The portfolios will be decided as per the representationof the parties in the Constituent Assembly. But the Maoists have maintained that they would obstruct the House until their resolution against thePresident’s decision on the Army chief was discussed.

Government Experiments on U.S. Soldiers: Shocking Claims Come to Light in New Court Case

They say government scientists messed with their minds. Now, veterans who were the subject of top-secret experiments want answers.

Mother Jones | May 23, 2009

By Bruce Falconer

Their stories are a staple of conspiracy culture: broken men, suffering hallucinations and near-total amnesia, who say they are victims of secret government mind-control experiments. Think Liev Schreiber in The Manchurian Candidate or Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory. Journalists are a favorite target for the paranoid delusions of this population. So is Gordon Erspamer—and the San Francisco lawyer’s latest case isn’t helping him to fend off the tinfoil-hat crowd. He has filed suit against the CIA and the US Army on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans of America and six former American soldiers who claim they are the real thing: survivors of classified government tests conducted at the Army’s Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland between 1950 and 1975. “I get a lot of calls,” he says. “There are a lot of crazy people out there who think that somebody from Mars is controlling their behavior via radio waves.” But when it comes to Edgewood, “I’m finding that more and more of those stories are true!”

That government scientists conducted human experiments at Edgewood is not in question. “The program involved testing of nerve agents, nerve agent antidotes, psychochemicals, and irritants,” according to a 1994 General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) report (PDF). At least 7,800 US servicemen served “as laboratory rats or guinea pigs” at Edgewood, alleges Erspamer’s complaint, filed in January in a federal district court in California. The Department of Veterans Affairs has reported that military scientists tested hundreds of chemical and biological substances on them, including VX, tabun, soman, sarin, cyanide, LSD, PCP, and World War I-era blister agents like phosgene and mustard. The full scope of the tests, however, may never be known. As a CIA official explained to the GAO, referring to the agency’s infamous MKULTRA mind-control experiments, “The names of those involved in the tests are not available because names were not recorded or the records were subsequently destroyed.” Besides, said the official, some of the tests involving LSD and other psychochemical drugs “were administered to an undetermined number of people without their knowledge.”

Erspamer’s plaintiffs claim that, although they volunteered for the Edgewood program, they were never adequately informed of the potential risks and continue to suffer debilitating health effects as a result of the experiments. They hope to force the CIA and the Army to admit wrongdoing, inform them of the specific substances they were exposed to, and provide access to subsidized health care to treat their Edgewood-related ailments. Despite what they describe as decades of suffering resulting from their Edgewood experiences, the former soldiers are not seeking monetary damages; a 1950 Supreme Court decision, the Feres case, precludes military personnel from suing the federal government for personal injuries sustained in the line of duty. The CIA’s decision to use military personnel as test subjects followed the court’s decision and is an issue Erspamer plans to raise at trial. “Suddenly, they stopped using civilian subjects and said, ‘Oh, we can get these military guys for free,’” he says. “The government could do whatever it wanted to them without liability. We want to bring that to the attention of the public, because I don’t think most people understand that.” (Asked about Erspamer’s suit, CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf would say only that the agency’s human testing program has “been thoroughly investigated, and the CIA fully cooperated with each of the investigations.”)

Erspamer’s involvement in the case is deeply personal. His father was a government scientist during Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear tests conducted at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the summer of 1946; he was present aboard a research vessel for the “Baker” test, during which a 21-kiloton thermonuclear bomb was detonated 90 feet below water. The blast resulted in massive radioactive contamination. Erspamer’s father and the rest of the ship’s crew, he says, all died in middle age from radiogenic diseases. Erspamer makes his living in the field of energy litigation, but has twice before argued class action suits for veterans—one for soldiers who, like his father, were exposed to radiation during nuclear tests (a case he ultimately lost in a 1992 appellate decision) and more recently one on behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans denied treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The case is on appeal in California’s 9th Circuit. “Nobody out there is doing these types of cases,” he says. “It’s really sad because the veterans are left holding the bag, and it’s not a very pretty bag.”

One of those vets is Frank Rochelle. Unlike those of other test veterans, portions of his heavily redacted medical records have survived, providing a rare, if incomplete, account of his experiences. In 1968, while posted at Virginia’s Fort Lee as a 20-year-old Army draftee, he saw a notice calling for volunteers for the Edgewood program. Among the promised incentives were relief from guard duty, the freedom to wear civilian clothes, three-day weekends, and, upon completion, a medal of commendation—all for participation in experiments that, according to the notice, would help the military test a new generation of equipment, clothing, and gas masks. Upon his arrival at the testing facility in Maryland, he says he was asked to sign a series of documents, including a release form and a secrecy agreement. The tests would be risk free, he says he was told, and any drugs given would not exceed normal dosage. Over the next two months, however, he was subjected to three rounds of experiments that, Rochelle says, left him permanently damaged. His medical records indicate that he was exposed to nonlethal incapacitating agents like DHMP and glycolate, both of which act as sedatives that produce hallucinations. In the latter case, Rochelle says he was taken into a gas chamber and strapped to a chair by two men in white lab coats, who affixed a mask to his face and told him to breathe normally. He quickly lost consciousness. According to Erspamer’s complaint, “Over the next two to three days, Frank was hallucinating and high: he thought he was three feet tall, saw animals on the walls, thought he was being pursued by a 6-foot-tall white rabbit, heard people calling his name, thought that all his freckles were bugs under his skin, and used a razor to try to cut these bugs out. No one from the clinical staff intervened on his behalf…”

Medical records indicate that Rochelle went through a third round of testing, but he has no memory of it. For years he’s been having nightmares about the Edgewood tests and now suffers from anxiety, memory loss, sleep apnea, tinnitus, and loss of vision, all of which he claims are direct results of the experiments. Still, he didn’t inform his doctor of the tests until 2006, believing that he was still bound by the oath of secrecy he swore in 1968. (The government finally released human test subjects to speak to their physicians about the tests in June 2006, under the condition that they not “discuss anything that relates to operational information that might reveal chemical or biological warfare vulnerabilities or capabilities.”)

Rochelle’s story is similar to those of Erspamer’s other plaintiffs, all of whom claim to be suffering debilitating health effects stemming from the experiments. Of course, substantiating these claims is a challenge, given that most of the medical records were destroyed upon completion of the program. Rochelle’s records remain intact, but for “others we have less information,” says Erspamer. “We spent a great deal of time on that topic, and we are confident that the plaintiffs are who they say they are, were where they said they were, and got what they said they got,” in terms of exposure to experimental chemicals. “Who bears the burden on that issue when the defendants destroyed the evidence?” Erspamer asks. “They’ve put all that stuff through the shredder.”

Compensation for injuries sustained during human testing of chemical and biological agents is not unprecedented. Last year, more than 350 servicemen who served as test subjects at Porton Down, a secret military research facility where the British government conducted its own series of mind-control experiments, were granted nearly $6 million in compensation in an out-of-court settlement with the UK’s Ministry of Defence. Likewise, in 2004, the Canadian government began offering $18,000 payments to eligible veterans of experiments at its testing facilities. Nevertheless, says Erspamer, “No American soldiers have ever been compensated.” The CIA and the Army “just hope they’re all gonna die off, and they will unless somebody does something.”

Indonesian ‘hobbit’ confirmed to be a new species

Half-size humans whose remains were found on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 have been confirmed to be a new species, and not modern pygmies whose brains had shrivelled with disease.

Telegraph | May 6, 2009

Since the discovery of Homo floresiensis – dubbed “the hobbit” due to its size – anthropologists have argued over the identity and origins of the cave-dwellers.

Measuring just three feet high and weighing 65 pounds, the tiny, tool-making hunters may have roamed the island as recently as 8,000 years ago.

Many scientists have said H. floresiensis were prehistoric humans descended from homo erectus, stunted by natural selection over millennia through a process called insular dwarfing.

Others countered that even this evolutionary shrinking, well known in island-bound animals, could not account for the hobbit’s chimp-sized brain of barely more than 400 cubic centimetres, a third the size of a modern human brain.

And how could such a being have been smart enough to craft its own stone tools?

The only plausible explanation, they insisted, was that the handful of specimens found suffered from a genetic disorder resulting in an abnormally small skull or – a more recent finding – that they suffered from “dwarf cretinism” caused by deficient thyroids.

But two new studies in the British journal Nature go a long way toward ending this debate.

A team led by William Jungers of the Stony Brook University in New York tackled the problem by analysing the hobbit’s foot.

In some ways it is very human. The big toe is aligned with the others and the joints make it possible to extend the toes as the body’s full weight falls on the foot, attributes not found in great apes.

But, in other respects, it is startlingly primitive: far longer than its modern human equivalent, and equipped with a very small big toe, long, curved lateral toes, and a weight-bearing structure closer to a chimpanzee’s.

Recent archeological evidence from Kenya shows that the modern foot evolved more than 1.5 million years ago, most likely in Homo erectus.

So unless the Flores hobbits became more primitive over time – an unlikely scenario – they must have branched off the human line at an even earlier date.

For Prof Jungers and his colleagues, this suggests “that the ancestor of H. floresiensis was not Homo erectus but instead some other, more primitive, hominin whose dispersal into southeast Asia is still undocumented,” the researchers conclude.

Companion studies, published online in the Journal of Human Evolution, bolster this theory by looking at other parts of the anatomy, and conjecture that these more ancient forebear may be the still poorly understood Homo habilis.

Either way, their status as a separate species would be confirmed.

Even this compelling new evidence, however, does not explain the hobbit’s inordinately small brain.

To investigate this, Eleanor Weston and Adrian Lister of the Natural History Museum in London compared fossils of several species of ancient hippos found on the island of Madagascar with the mainland ancestors from which they had evolved.

They were surprised to find that insular dwarfing – driven by the need to adapt to an island environment – shank their brains far more than had previously been thought possible.

“Whatever the explanation for the tiny brain of H. floresiensis relative to its body size, our evidence suggests that insular dwarfing could have played a role in its evolution,” they conclude.

While the new studies answer some questions, they also raise new ones sure to spark fresh debate, notes Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman in a comment, also published in Nature.

Only more fossil evidence will tell us whether the hobbits of Flores evolved from Homo erectus, whose traces have been found throughout Eurasia, or from an even more ancient lineage whose footsteps have not yet been traced outside Africa, he said.

Texas lawmakers say nyet to a Russian look-alike flag

The Russian flag flies over the Kremlin

Star Telegram | May 3, 2009

By DAVE MONTGOMERY

The flag that was rejected

AUSTIN — A proposed flag bearing a strong resemblance to the one that flutters over the Kremlin just didn’t fly in the Texas House of Representatives on Saturday.

The flag — with red, white and blue horizontal stripes and a star in the middle — was being proposed as the official flag for the Texas governor. Take away the star and it looks virtually identical to the flag of post-Soviet Russia.

Instead, after a bit of mocking repartee in Russian and a few one-liners about secession, House members tentatively settled on a substitute flag offered by Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford: a dark-blue background, with a white star in each corner, a Lone Star seal in the center, surrounded by olive and oak branches.

Members also tacked on: “In God We Trust.”

The lighthearted debate seemed to fit with the informal atmosphere of the House’s first Saturday session of the 2009 Legislature. Though male lawmakers wore the required coat and tie, at least one showed up in jeans and cowboy boots.

King, at the front mike, and Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, at the back of the chamber, opened the discussion with what was obviously an orchestrated exchange in Russian. Paxton, who studied Russian in college, quickly instructed King on what to say.

“Members, vote America, not Russia,” King, reverting to English, said in support of his amendment.

Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, who proposed the red-white-and-blue flag, defended it, saying the design was that of the 1839 Texas pilot flag that graced ships when Texas was a republic. “If anything, the Russians copied us,” he said.

Wisecracks about Gov. Rick Perry’s recent remarks on secession also found their way into the debate. “Does having your own flag entitle you to secede and have your own country?” asked Rep. Valinda Bolton, D-Austin.

King said he scrambled into action Saturday morning after a Capitol staff member pointed out the resemblance between the historic Texas flag and the one that has flown over Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

King’s substitute flag was modeled from flags that Texas governors displayed in the 1960s and 1970s before the practice was dropped.

“You’ve got to cut up a little bit down here,” King said. “It gets too serious.”

American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse

The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic monument in the US: huge slabs of granite, inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. Only one man knows who created them—and he’s not talking. Photo: Dan Winters

Wired | Apr 20, 2009

By Randall Sullivan

The strangest monument in America looms over a barren knoll in northeastern Georgia. Five massive slabs of polished granite rise out of the earth in a star pattern. The rocks are each 16 feet tall, with four of them weighing more than 20 tons apiece. Together they support a 25,000-pound capstone. Approaching the edifice, it’s hard not to think immediately of England’s Stonehenge or possibly the ominous monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Built in 1980, these pale gray rocks are quietly awaiting the end of the world as we know it.

Called the Georgia Guidestones, the monument is a mystery—nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun and stars—and the “guides” themselves, directives carved into the rocks. These instructions appear in eight languages ranging from English to Swahili and reflect a peculiar New Age ideology. Some are vaguely eugenic (guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity); others prescribe standard-issue hippie mysticism (prize truth—beauty—love—seeking harmony with the infinite).

What’s most widely agreed upon—based on the evidence available—is that the Guidestones are meant to instruct the dazed survivors of some impending apocalypse as they attempt to reconstitute civilization. Not everyone is comfortable with this notion. A few days before I visited, the stones had been splattered with polyurethane and spray-painted with graffiti, including slogans like “Death to the new world order.” This defacement was the first serious act of vandalism in the Guidestones’ history, but it was hardly the first objection to their existence. In fact, for more than three decades this uncanny structure in the heart of the Bible Belt has been generating responses that range from enchantment to horror. Supporters (notable among them Yoko Ono) have praised the messages as a stirring call to rational thinking, akin to Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason. Opponents have attacked them as the Ten Commandments of the Antichrist.

Whoever the anonymous architects of the Guidestones were, they knew what they were doing: The monument is a highly engineered structure that flawlessly tracks the sun. It also manages to engender endless fascination, thanks to a carefully orchestrated aura of mystery. And the stones have attracted plenty of devotees to defend against folks who would like them destroyed. Clearly, whoever had the monument placed here understood one thing very well: People prize what they don’t understand at least as much as what they do.

The story of the Georgia Guidestones began on a Friday afternoon in June 1979, when an elegant gray-haired gentleman showed up in Elbert County, made his way to the offices of Elberton Granite Finishing, and introduced himself as Robert C. Christian. He claimed to represent “a small group of loyal Americans” who had been planning the installation of an unusually large and complex stone monument. Christian had come to Elberton—the county seat and the granite capital of the world—because he believed its quarries produced the finest stone on the planet.

Joe Fendley, Elberton Granite’s president, nodded absently, distracted by the rush to complete his weekly payroll. But when Christian began to describe the monument he had in mind, Fendley stopped what he was doing. Not only was the man asking for stones larger than any that had been quarried in the county, he also wanted them cut, finished, and assembled into some kind of enormous astronomical instrument.

What in the world would it be for? Fendley asked. Christian explained that the structure he had in mind would serve as a compass, calendar, and clock. It would also need to be engraved with a set of guides written in eight of the world’s major languages. And it had to be capable of withstanding the most catastrophic events, so that the shattered remnants of humanity would be able to use those guides to reestablish a better civilization than the one that was about to destroy itself.

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