New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged

New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged

Friday, 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."

###

University of Leicester: http://www.leicester.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Leicester for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128302/New_discovery_of_ancient_diet_shatters_conventional_ideas_of_how_agriculture_emerged

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Larry Page Reminded Us Why We Love Google Today

Larry Page, Google's CEO and co-founder, closed out the Google I/O keynote today with a sentimental, almost subdued speech. He didn't sound like a CEO. He sounded like a guy in charge of a company he genuinely thought could change the world. And it was a wonderful reminder that Google used to be, can be, and in many ways still is, so much more than a company.

Page began with a story about his father, how the family used to drive across the country to see a robotics conference, and how lucky he was to be exposed to that at a young age. He argued that just the simple exposure to the broader world of technology was enough to open a cosmos of possibilities up to him. And you got the sense that he just wanted to use Google to drive the rest of us to whatever robotics conference is next.

About halfway into the speech, he came to a phrase that's as good a summation of Google over the past 18 months or so as anything. "We should be building great things that don't exist." Not focusing on the platform wars or sniping with other companies or aiming at small scale iterations. You aim for something like Glass, maybe, or something even more ambitious. You make what no one thinks is even possible yet. Consciously or not, Google's mirrored that philosophy recently, keeping its house in order with APIs and geek service, but expanding the scope of its aspirations, with Glass, the driverless cars initiative, or even crazy-affordable Chromebooks and high-speed internet.

Page argued that it's the small scale that we've been operating on that is what's really dissuading more projects like that. "If you're going to make a smartphone for a dollar, like one dollar, that's almost impossible," he responded to one question. "But if you took a longer view, like 50 years, you'd change how you look at your investments, and find a way to make money. You just need a deep understanding of what you're doing."

In his remarks and the Q&A that followed, Page focused on things that didn't have anything, directly at least, to do with Android or Chrome or developing, at times just brushing past questions that seemed too small for his agenda for the day. Asked about a Glass production run, he stumbled through some pseudo-PR speak before saying he was just exited about how he'd use Glass with his kids. There was lip service to how much he appreciated the developers in attendance, but he focused more on the ways the things that Google is doing can help real people in real ways.

Yes, that's a sales pitch, and naive in a myriad of ways if you want to be a cynic, but that's not how it came off. He was optimistic about search or Google Now making people's lives easier, or less time behind the wheel of a car and more time with your family, but sounded more wistful about them as a means to get AWAY from your computers. Like a guy who got that we love our phones, but that shouldn't be the whole picture, and that computers are supposed to be there to help us.

"We're not organized enough to solve that problem," he said. "And our computers aren't helping us do that. We have to make computer software on the internet that helps solve those problems, that solves, as a side effect, that helps people become educated about what they're looking for. We're trying to serve both modes, and trying to get computers to help you do that."

And sometimes, how that happens might seem a little crazy. Larry had a bunch of totally rational ideas, that in that rationality seem totally radical, about progress in legislation and the medical fields surrounding tech. "Like, the law can't be right if it's 50 years old," he said about the regulations in place, limiting what weird stuff Google might want to try. "It's before the internet. I think we need to, or the million watching, need to go into other areas and help those areas and help them understand technology. And we have't really. The other thing is we haven't built mechanisms for experimentations, because they aren't allowed by regulations because we don't want the world to change too fast."

A place, a mechanism, where people can just experiment. Do whatever the hell they want, free of laws and regulations and the glacial bureaucracy governing technologies it doesn't and likely never will understand. Crazy talk, basically, the kind of stuff you start throwing out a half hour before closing time in a bar argument. Except the guy saying it is Larry Page, and you feel almost compelled to believe him. Google's gone after medical advancements and lost?regulatory problems are too much unless someone locks down "technological leverage" to force an issue, as with DNA sequencing, Page says?but it's experienced enough that you wonder if Page's crazy ideas don't come from a place of deep understanding.

It's a magnetic way to think about the world. Page talked about his decision to disclose his vocal cords condition yesterday, and how a lot of people might not have because they were worried about their insurance?and that's dumb. "We should change the rules around insurance," he said, almost impossibly matter-of-factly, as if that's how the world works. "The whole point of insurance is to insure people." It was heartfelt enough that you believed he meant it, and he's Larry Page, so you had to stop and wonder, What if he's right, and then, What if he can do it?

If he can, the best chance is probably just brute cash flow. There are a lot of zeroes in Google, after all, and Washington might be lost in a talk about anything more advanced than a graphing calculator, but it has always understood zeroes. Google's been painted as a tech baron recently, pouring cash into lobbying Washington for this or that, but here, for a split second, you had to wonder if it's possible its heart's still in the right place.

Rooting for lobbyists. That's what Larry Page did today. He just talked about how he wishes Google could change the world, and oozed enough sincerity that we couldn't help but believe him, and in turn, in Google.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/larry-page-reminded-us-why-we-love-google-today-506915269

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Climate change will cause widespread global-scale loss of common plants and animals, researchers predict

May 12, 2013 ? More than half of common plants and one third of the animals could see a dramatic decline this century due to climate change, according to research from the University of East Anglia.

Research published today in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at 50,000 globally widespread and common species and found that more than one half of the plants and one third of the animals will lose more than half of their climatic range by 2080 if nothing is done to reduce the amount of global warming and slow it down.

This means that geographic ranges of common plants and animals will shrink globally and biodiversity will decline almost everywhere.

Plants, reptiles and particularly amphibians are expected to be at highest risk. Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Amazonia and Australia would lose the most species of plants and animals. And a major loss of plant species is projected for North Africa, Central Asia and South-eastern Europe.

But acting quickly to mitigate climate change could reduce losses by 60 per cent and buy an additional 40 years for species to adapt. This is because this mitigation would slow and then stop global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial times (1765). Without this mitigation, global temperatures could rise by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100.

The study was led by Dr Rachel Warren from UEA's school of Environmental Sciences and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Collaborators include Dr.Jeremy VanDerWal at James Cook University in Australia and Dr Jeff Price, also at UEA's school of Environmental Sciences and the Tyndall Centre. The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Dr Warren said: "While there has been much research on the effect of climate change on rare and endangered species, little has been known about how an increase in global temperature will affect more common species.

"This broader issue of potential range loss in widespread species is a serious concern as even small declines in these species can significantly disrupt ecosystems.

"Our research predicts that climate change will greatly reduce the diversity of even very common species found in most parts of the world. This loss of global-scale biodiversity would significantly impoverish the biosphere and the ecosystem services it provides.

"We looked at the effect of rising global temperatures, but other symptoms of climate change such as extreme weather events, pests, and diseases mean that our estimates are probably conservative. Animals in particular may decline more as our predictions will be compounded by a loss of food from plants.

"There will also be a knock-on effect for humans because these species are important for things like water and air purification, flood control, nutrient cycling, and eco-tourism.

"The good news is that our research provides crucial new evidence of how swift action to reduce CO₂ and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2 degrees Celsius rather than 4 degrees. This would also buy time -- up to four decades -- for plants and animals to adapt to the remaining 2 degrees of climate change."

The research team quantified the benefits of acting now to mitigate climate change and found that up to 60 per cent of the projected climatic range loss for biodiversity can be avoided.

Dr Warren said: "Prompt and stringent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally would reduce these biodiversity losses by 60 per cent if global emissions peak in 2016, or by 40 per cent if emissions peak in 2030, showing that early action is very beneficial. This will both reduce the amount of climate change and also slow climate change down, making it easier for species and humans to adapt."

Information on the current distributions of the species used in this research came from the datasets shared online by hundreds of volunteers, scientists and natural history collections through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

Co-author Dr Jeff Price, also from UEA's school of Environmental Studies, said: "Without free and open access to massive amounts of data such as those made available online through GBIF, no individual researcher is able to contact every country, every museum, every scientist holding the data and pull it all together. So this research would not be possible without GBIF and its global community of researchers and volunteers who make their data freely available."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/XAcUhs4tZmA/130512140946.htm

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10 Tricks to Make Yourself a Google+ Master

Unless you happen to work for the search giant that created it, Google+ is probably not your social network of choice. Nevertheless, there's a ton of functionality hidden behind its walls, covering everything from photos to local searches as the influence of Google+ stretches across the company's multitude of other products. Here's how to get the most out of it.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/-oIiXYGTd3c/10-tricks-to-make-yourself-a-google-master-500513750

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Shenae Grimes Marries Josh Beech!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/shenae-grimes-marries-josh-beech/

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How 'human' are birds compared to, say, dogs? - Improbable ...

One possible way of answering such a question might be to examine what kind of names people tend to give to them. Substantial groundwork was laid out in ?La pens?e sauvage? written in 1962 by the eminent French anthropologist and ethnologist (the late) Claude L?vi-Strauss. The book outlined his discoveries regarding subtle differences in the names given to birds, dogs, cows and racehorses etc. Dogs, he found, might have names like Fido or Sultan, whereas birds can be called Claude or Margot. Some have interpreted his findings to mean that that birds are more likely to be given ?human-like? names than are dogs or other pets, and so by extrapolation they might even be considered to be ?more human?. But, 45 years later, this concept has been challenged by by professor Ernest L. Abel Ph.D. (of the Obstetrics/Gynecology dept. at the School of Medicine, Wayne state
University, Detroit, US) who explains, in a 2007 paper for the journal Names: A Journal of Onomastics, (Volume 55,?Number 4, pp. 349-353) ?Birds are not More Human than Dogs: Evidence From Naming?.

?This study tested Levi-Strauss?s hypothesis that birds are more likely to be given human names than are dogs or other pets. The hypothesis was not supported. Instead, dogs (and cats) are much more likely to be given human names. The results were interpreted in terms of the relationships people feel with different kinds of pets. Pets housed outside the home are least likely to be given human names. Inside the house, pets kept in cages are less likely to be given human names than are pets allowed to roam freely within the home.?

The next year, professor Abel went on to further-refine understanding of bird-naming protocols with a paper for the journal Psychological Reports (Volume 102, Issue , pp. 271-272.) in which he explains how ? PARROTS ARE ?MORE HUMAN? THAN CHICKENS.

?Analysis of an Internet database of pets? names showed owners were more likely to give anthropomorphic names to pets living within homes than those living outside.?

For more examples of professor Abel?s work, see these previous Improbable articles :

??Human left-sided cradling preferences for dogs?

??Athletes, Doctors, and Lawyers with First Names Beginning with ?D? Die Sooner?? and

??A Marihuana Dictionary?

NOTE: For reasons of space we can?t list all the professor?s papers? ? such as :

? Sopranos but not tenors live longer.

? Mortality salience of birthdays on day of death in the Major Leagues.

? Football increases the risk for Lou Gehrig?s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

? Heaping in anniversary reaction studies: a cautionary note

? Use of electric blankets and association with prevalence of endometrial cancer

? Birth month and suicide among major league baseball players.

? An improved method for predicting which heavy drinkers become intoxicated.

etc etc etc

The image above is from ?M?tamorphoses du jour? by Grandville, as cited by L?vi-Strauss

Posted by Martin Gardiner on Friday, May 10th, 2013 at 8:00 am under Arts and science.

Source: http://www.improbable.com/2013/05/10/how-human-are-birds-compared-to-say-dogs/

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Most military sexual assault cases go unreported

The Senate Armed Services Committee hears from top officials of the Air Force, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, right, and Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, left, during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2013. Besides funding for next year's Pentagon budget, the Air Force is dealing with controversy over sexual assaults and how the military justice system handles it. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Senate Armed Services Committee hears from top officials of the Air Force, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, right, and Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, left, during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2013. Besides funding for next year's Pentagon budget, the Air Force is dealing with controversy over sexual assaults and how the military justice system handles it. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., questions top officials of the Air Force, Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, about how they are dealing with the controversy over sexual assaults and how the military justice system handles it, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2013. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Senate Armed Services Committee hears from top officials of the Air Force, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, right, and Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, left, during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2013. Besides funding for next year's Pentagon budget, the Air Force is dealing with controversy over sexual assaults and how the military justice system handles it. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Senate Armed Services Committee hears from top officials of the Air Force, Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, left, and and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2013. Besides funding for next year's Pentagon budget, the Air Force is dealing with controversy over sexual assaults and how the military justice system handles it. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? They are young, often low-ranking service members out on the weekend in the late night and early morning hours. Sometimes they've been drinking. Often those who sexually assault them are in the armed forces, too.

But in the vast majority of military sexual assault cases ? as many as 22,000 in 2012 ? the victim chooses not to report the attack or unwanted sexual contact.

Sexual assaults across the military are a growing epidemic. In releasing a massive report Tuesday, Pentagon leaders continued to struggle with how to combat the problem and give victims enough confidence in the system to come forward.

Despite a slew of new oversight and assistance programs, troubling new numbers estimate that up to 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, according to results of a survey. Of those, fewer than 3,400 reported the incident, and nearly 800 of them simply sought help but declined to file complaints against their alleged attackers.

The statistics emerged against a backdrop of scandals, including an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on trainees at a Texas base. And the report comes just days after the Air Force's head of sexual assault prevention was arrested on charges of groping a woman in a Northern Virginia parking lot.

Congressional outrage over these incidents and a decision by an Air Force officer to overturn a jury's guilty verdict in a sexual assault case is producing sweeping legislation that two House members plan to introduce on Wednesday.

Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., are proposing stripping an officer's authority to change or dismiss a court-martial conviction in major cases, such as sexual assault. Their bill would also require that an individual found guilty of rape, sexual assault, forcible sodomy and an attempt to commit any of those offenses be either dismissed or dishonorably discharged.

"Our effort is to try to get some standardized guidelines as to punishment for sexual assault convictions, taking it out of the chain of command and instilling some standards that can have a preventive effect on perpetrators," Turner said Wednesday. "We want the stories to stop of people who are guilty of sexual assault and then stay around to the anguish of the victims."

Turner said they worked with the Pentagon and the Senate on the bill that likely will be included in the massive defense policy measure that the House will consider this summer.

In a sharp rebuke Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he has no tolerance for the problem and said he had talked to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about it. He said any military member found guilty of sexual assault should be held accountable, prosecuted and fired.

"I don't want just more speeches or awareness programs or training, or ultimately folks look the other way," the president said. "We're going to have to not just step up our game, we have to exponentially step up our game to go after this hard."

Hagel later gave a grim assessment, saying the military "may be nearing a stage where the frequency of this crime and the perception that there is tolerance of it could very well undermine our ability to effectively carry out the mission and to recruit and retain the good people we need."

The documents show that the number of sexual assaults reported by members of the military rose 6 percent to 3,374 in 2012. But a survey of personnel who were not required to reveal their identities showed the number of service members actually assaulted could be as many as 26,000, but they never reported the incidents, officials said Tuesday.

That number is an increase over the 19,000 estimated assaults in 2011.

The statistics highlight the dismal results that military leaders have achieved in their drive to change the culture within the ranks, even as the services redoubled efforts to launch new programs to assist the victims, encourage reporting and increase commanders' vigilance.

Hagel ordered a series of steps and reviews to increase officers' accountability for what happens under their commands and to inspect workstations for objectionable materials, according to memos and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Hagel also told military leaders to develop a method to assess commanders and hold them accountable on their ability to create a climate "of dignity and respect." He has given commanders until July 1 to visually inspect workspaces to make sure they are free of degrading materials, and military leaders have until Nov. 1 to recommend ways to assess officers and hold them accountable for their command climates.

"Sexual assault is a crime that is incompatible with military service and has no place in this department," Hagel said in a new response plan. "It is an affront to the American values we defend, and it is a stain on our honor. DoD needs to be a national leader in combating sexual assault and we will establish an environment of dignity and respect, where sexual assault is not tolerated, condoned or ignored."

Across Capitol Hill, lawmakers demanded the Pentagon take more aggressive steps to address the growing problem and they announced renewed efforts to pass legislation to battle the problem.

This week's sexual battery arrest of Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, who headed the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response unit, provided a rallying point for lawmakers, who held it up Tuesday as an example of the Pentagon's failure to make progress despite the increased effort.

Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., introduced legislation Tuesday to provide any victim with a special military lawyer who would assist them throughout the process, prohibit sexual contact between instructors and trainees during and within 30 days of completion of basic training or its equivalent, and ensure that sexual assault response coordinators are available to help members of the National Guard and Reserve.

"Not only are we subjecting our men and women to this disgusting epidemic, but we're also failing to provide the victims with any meaningful support system once they have fallen victim to these attacks," Murray said.

The report says that of the 1.4 million active duty personnel, 6.1 percent of active duty women ? or 12,100 ? say they experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, a sharp increase over the 8,600 who said that in 2010. For men, the number increased from 10,700 to 13,900. A majority of the offenders were military members or Defense Department civilians or contractors, the report said.

Within the specific services, the Army showed a 16 percent decrease in the number of reported sexual assault cases, from 1,695 in 2011 to 1,423 in 2012.

The Navy said it saw a 32 percent increase, jumping from 550 in 2011 to 726 in 2012. The report said the Marines had more than a 30 percent increase in reported sexual assaults, from 333 in 2011 to 435 in 2012. And the Air Force had a 33 percent increase in reports, from 594 in 2011 to 790 in 2012.

___

Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lolita C. Baldor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lbaldor

Follow Donna Cassata on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DonnaCassataAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-08-Sexual%20Assault-Military/id-6d713e0589544498ac1a9c7104353152

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