Researchers: Human evolution speeding up

Yes, you've all seen it, but it fits

Well, I'm all for diversity so this comes as good news. And it does explain bloggers.

Science fiction writers have suggested a future Earth populated by a blend of all races into a common human form. In real life, the reverse seems to be happening. People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another, researchers say.

"I was raised with the belief that modern humans showed up 40,000 to 50,000 years ago and haven't changed," explained Henry C. Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. "The opposite seems to be true."

"Our species is not static," Harpending added in a telephone interview.

Something bothered me. We don't seem to be evolving, at least mentally. People seem to be getting less intelligent each year. Ah ha. Then I came to this.

That doesn't mean we should expect major changes in a few generations, though, evolution occurs over thousands of years.

So Bush will be long dead before evolution catches up with him. Explains a lot.

SPIIDERWEB™ Rulz!

Via Yahoo! News.

CO2 'rising three times faster than expected'

This can't be good. It seems more and more stories are coming out which indicate climate change is accelerating. Ice is melting into the sea much faster than expected for instance. And scientist say climate change is accelerating evolution. Add to that the fact the world's sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate.

It all points to the possibility we've reached or are about to reach the "tipping point", or point of no return, on climate change.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing three times faster than scientists previously thought, with the bulk of the rise coming from developing countries, an authoritative study has found.

The increase in emissions of the gases responsible for global warming suggests that the effects of climate change to come in this century could be even worse than United Nations scientists have predicted.

The report, by leading universities and institutes on both sides of the Atlantic, will create renewed pressure on G8 leaders who are meeting this week in Heiligendamm, on Germany's Baltic coast.

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Evangelicals try to keep ancient skeleton in closet

Turkana Boy
Well, yeah, if you just ignore science it may go away.

Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya’s national museum, locked away in a plain looking cabinet, is one of mankind’s oldest secrets.

Turkana Boy, as he is known, is the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found, hailed by scientists as one of the world’s most famous fossil finds.

But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm - one pitting scientists against Kenya’s powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement.

The debate over evolution – once largely confined to the United States – has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.

“I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it,” says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of the country’s 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims has around 10 million followers.

“These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.”

He’s calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room – carrying some kind of warning that evolution is not a fact.

Can you say geocentric? Yeah, I thought you could.

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