Quaternary This relatively short geological period is characterized by a series of glaciations and by the appearance and expansion of anatomically modern humans. A proposed but as yet informal third epoch, the Anthropocene, has also gained credence as the time in which humans began to profoundly affect and change the global environment, although its start date is still disputed. Research history[edit] The Quaternary Period follows the Neogene Period and extends to the present. The Quaternary covers the time span of glaciations classified as the Pleistocene, and includes the present interglacial period, the Holocene. This places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 2.6 million years ago. Quaternary stratigraphers usually worked with regional subdivisions. This led to the problem that the proposed base of the Pleistocene was at 1.805 Mya, long after the start of the major glaciations of the northern hemisphere. Geology[edit] Climate[edit] See also[edit]
Top Ten Web Tools of 2012 I did mean to post this back at the beginning of January, but missed my own deadline. However I have found my previous top tens from 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 useful so decided to get this article done. This is the fifth time I have done this, it covers the web tools I use on a regular basis and it’s those that make a difference to the way that I work. These are not necessarily tools that I see as important for learning technologies, no these are the tools I use. This is an e-learning blog and I should really mention Moodle, I use Moodle everyday as part of my day job, however I see this more as an institutional service rather than a web tool. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
Homo Homo is the genus of hominids that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old,[1][2] possibly having evolved from australopithecine ancestors, with the appearance of Homo habilis. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus, and Australopithecus afarensis, have been proposed as the direct ancestor of the Homo lineage.[3][4] These species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus on which gave rise to Homo, assuming it was not an as-yet undiscovered species. The most salient physiological development between the earlier australopith species and Homo is the increase in cranial capacity, from about 450 cm3 (27 cu in) in A. garhi to 600 cm3 (37 cu in) in H. habilis. Homo sapiens (modern humans) is the only surviving species in the genus, all others having become extinct. Naming[edit] Species[edit] See also[edit]
Digital Sundial by Mojoptix The episode in [ENGLISH]: L'épisode en [FRANCAIS]: For those who have trouble slicing the gnomon, I ran the files through netfabb and re-uploaded them as: -- Gnomon_Southern_NETFABBED.stl -- Gnomon_Northen_NETFABBED.stl Let me know in the comments if they don't still behave nicely with your slicer. If you wish to print the gnomon in two halves : -- Gnomon_Northen_half_1_of_2.STL -- Gnomon_Northen_half_1_of_2.STL They should fit on a 100x100 platform. [ ENGLISH ] Tadam ! No batteries, no motor, no electronics... The sundial displays time (with actual digits !!) You'll also need : --- an (empty !) [ FRANCAIS ] Tadam ! Sans piles, sans moteur, sans électronique, etc... Le cadran solaire affiche l'heure (avec des vrais chiffres !!) Vous aurez aussi besoin de : --- un pot de confiture (vide !) Timelapse: Rafts: No Supports: 0.1mm
Paleocene The Paleocene Epoch brackets two major events in Earth's history. It started with the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous, known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary. This was a time marked by the demise of non-avian dinosaurs, giant marine reptiles and much other fauna and flora. The die-off of the dinosaurs left unfilled ecological niches worldwide. The name "Paleocene" comes from Greek and refers to the "old(er)" (παλαιός, palaios) "new" (καινός, kainos) fauna that arose during the epoch.[3] Boundaries and subdivisions[edit] The end of the Paleocene (~55.8 Ma) was also marked by a time of major change. one of the most significant periods of global change during the Cenozoic.[4] The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum upset oceanic and atmospheric circulation and led to the extinction of numerous deep-sea benthic foraminifera and a major turnover in mammals on land. Climate[edit] Paleogeography[edit] Oceans[edit] Flora[edit] Fauna[edit] Mammals[edit] Reptiles[edit]
MOOCs – The Opium of the Masses “MOOCs are the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. They are the opium of the people. The abolition of MOOCs as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.” Replacing "Religion" with MOOC in the quote above should give a pretty clear indication of where this post is heading. (Storming of the Bastille and arrest of the Governor M. de Launay, July 14, 1789. Massive is Not Better Masses, massive, mass-production. Embracing Our Oppression Certainly the call for everyone in this country to be more educated is a noble aspiration. MOOCs are, just as Marx indicated, an insubstantial placebo that is pushed onto the masses as an offering to placate their desire for real and meaningful education. Watering Down Education So what should education be if not the acquisition of information? Education and our higher education system are an investment in the future of all of us.
Hominini Through DNA comparison, scientists believe the Pan / Homo divergence occurred between 5.4 and 6.3 million years ago, after an unusual process of speciation that ranged over 4 million years.[5] Few fossil specimens on the Pan side of the split have been found, the first fossil chimpanzee discovery being published in 2005,[6] dating to between 545 ± 3 kyr (thousand years) and 284 ± 12 kyr via Argon-argon dating, from Kenya's East African Rift Valley. All of the extinct genera listed in the table to the right are ancestral to Homo, or are offshoots of such. However, both Orrorin and Sahelanthropus existed around the time of the split, and so may be ancestral to all three extant species. In the proposal of Mann and Weiss (1996),[7] the tribe Hominini includes Pan as well as Homo, but within separate subtribes. Homo (and, by inference, all bipedal apes) is in the subtribe Hominina, while Pan is in the subtribe Panina. See also[edit] References[edit]
Anonymous Warns The World: "World War 3 Is Coming Soon" Short Bytes: Hacktivist group Anonymous has shared a new video and highlighted the strong possibility of World War 3. The collective says that the WWIII is coming soon, citing different developments in Russia and China. If we talk about the possibility of the WWIII, different people have different opinions. Along the similar lines, the hacktivist collective Anonymous has released a new video warning the people about the World War 3. What’s the basis of such prediction? Also, according to another report, across Russia, 40 million military personnel and civilians have just finished up emergency drills. The video talks about China, whose defense minster recently told his country’s citizen to be prepared for the “people’s war at sea”. “Even the United States has confirmed that China has tested an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which is capable of striking everywhere in the world within half an hour,” the video says. Here’s the complete video: Have something to add?
Tertiary Tertiary is an old unofficial but still widely used term for a geologic period from 66 million to 2.588 million years ago, a time span that lies between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary. The Tertiary is no longer recognized as a formal unit by the International Commission on Stratigraphy,[1][2][3][4] its traditional span being divided between the Paleogene and Neogene Periods and the first stage of the Pleistocene of the Cenozoic Era. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start of the Cenozoic Era, and spanned to the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation at the end of the Pliocene Epoch. The Tertiary also included the early Pleistocene. Historical use of the term[edit] In the early development of the study of geology, the periods were thought to correspond to the Biblical narrative, the rocks of the Tertiary being thought to be associated with the Great Flood.[6] Geological events[edit]
Q&A: What the Brain Reveals About the Self — And Self Control With the Obama administration planning a major initiative to map the brain, there’s more attention focused on what all of that new information will mean for how we see ourselves and how we take moral and legal responsibility for our actions. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who directs Baylor College of Medicine’s Initiative on Neuroscience and Law and the bestselling author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, provided some insights into what neuroscience can do for us. Do you think there is a ‘real you’? If somebody makes a racist or anti-Semitic remark, is that what he really thinks, but hides most of the time because it’s not socially acceptable? I think when we talk about a person and we use some sort of name or an identity, what we’re really talking about is something like the running average. Let’s take a different case. What’s the difference? Presumably, though, most of us would prefer not to have racist words or ideas in our heads… That’s a good example. Quite right.
Hominidae The Hominidae (/hɒˈmɪnɨdiː/; also known as great apes[notes 1]) form a taxonomic family of primates, including four extant genera: The term "hominid" is also used in the more restricted sense as hominins or "humans and relatives of humans closer than chimpanzees".[2] In this usage, all hominid species other than Homo sapiens are extinct. A number of known extinct genera are grouped with humans in the Homininae subfamily, others with orangutans in the Ponginae subfamily. The most recent common ancestor of the Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago,[3] when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestors of the other three genera.[4] The ancestors of the Hominidae family had already speciated from those of the Hylobatidae family, perhaps 15 million to 20 million years ago.[4][5] History[edit] Taxonomic history[edit] The classification of the great apes has been revised several times in the last few decades. Especially close human relatives form a subfamily, the Homininae.
The world in 2076: Goodbye electricity, hello superconductivity Kiyoshi Takahase Segundo / Alamy Stock Photo By Michael Brooks Thirty years is a long time to wait for the next big thing. But for half of New Scientist‘s lifetime, a select group of researchers has been sure that a world-changing discovery is just around the corner. If it happened it would bring “revolutionary change for our normal life,” according to Yanming Ma of Jilin University in Changchun, China. The breakthrough in question? Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with no resistance. Until 1986, that is. That second great leap forward hasn’t happened – yet. For now, superconductors remain entirely impractical for the killer applications that would allow them to change the world: transport and electrical power transmission. Superconductors are a strong barrier to magnetic fields, meaning that a
Holocene The Holocene also encompasses within it the growth and impacts of the human species world-wide, including all its written history and overall significant transition toward urban living in the present. Human impacts of the modern era on the Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global significance for future evolution of living species, including approximately synchronous lithospheric evidence, or more recently atmospheric evidence of human impacts. Given these, a new term Anthropocene, is specifically proposed and used informally only for the very latest part of modern history and of significant human impact since the epoch of the Neolithic Revolution (around 12,000 years BP). Overview[edit] Note: "ka" means "thousand years" (non-calibrated C14 dates) Paleontologists have defined no faunal stages for the Holocene. Geology[edit] Holocene cinder cone volcano on State Highway 18 near Veyo, Utah Post-glacial rebound in the Scandinavia region resulted in the formation of the Baltic Sea.
Do i know you? Memory patterns help us recall the social webs we weave With a dizzying number of ties in our social networks -- that your Aunt Alice is a neighbor of Muhammad who is married to Natasha who is your wife's boss -- it's a wonder we remember any of it. How do we keep track of the complexity? We cheat, says a Cornell University sociologist in Scientific Reports (March 21), a publication of Nature. Humans keep track of social information not by rote memorization but with simplifying rules, as you might remember a number sequence that always increases by two, according to author Matthew Brashears, assistant professor of sociology. People recall social ties that both involve at least three people who know each other and kinship labels such as "aunt" twice as well as they remember ties that do not, even though triad kinship networks are far more complex, he said. "Humans are able to manage big, sprawling, complicated social networks essentially because we don't remember big, sprawling, complicated social networks.