Oldest cranial, dental and postcranial fossils of early modern European humans confirmed
The human fossil evidence from the Mladec Caves in Moravia, Czech Republic, excavated more than 100 years ago, has been proven for the first time, through modern radiocarbon dating, to be the oldest cranial, dental and postcranial assemblage of early modern humans in Europe. A team of researchers from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, from the University of Vienna in Austria and from t...Bird samples from Mongolia confirmed as H5N1 avian flu
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has positively identified the pathogenic form of avian flu--H5N1--in samples taken from birds last week in Mongolia by field veterinarians from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). It is the first instance of this viral strain occurring in wild migratory birds with no apparent contact to domestic poultry or waterfowl. Present in Mong...Genetic link confirmed between Polynesians and indigenous Taiwanese
According to folklore, Polynesians originated from a mythical homeland called Hawaiki. Their origins and the existence of such a place, however, have been the subject of much speculation. In a new study in the premier open access journal PLoS Biology, Jean Trejaut and colleagues now provide the first direct evidence for the common ancestry of Polynesians and indigenous Taiwanese. Genetic t...'Word-vision' brain area confirmed
Humans have an uncanny ability to skim through text, instantly recognizing words by their shape--even though writing developed only about 6000 years ago--long after humans evolved. Thus, neuroscientists have hotly debated whether an area of the cortex called the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) is truly a specific and necessary area for recognizing words. Functional MRI scans have shown that...Confirmed -- deforestation plays critical climate change role
Dr Pep Canadell, from the Global Carbon Project and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, says today in the journal Science that tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon each year into the atmosphere. "Deforestation in the tropics accounts for nearly 20 per cent of carbon emissions due to human activities," Dr Canadell says. "This will release an estimated 87 to 130 b...Old theory of adaptation confirmed by new study
The adaptation theory that came up in 1971 argued that people react to good and bad events in their life, but they eventually return to a stable level of well-being. Researchers from Michigan State University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, France and England confirmed this theory based on a study conducted to evaluate the effects of marital transitions on life satisfaction. 24,000 i...First Human Bird-Flu Death Confirmed In China
China has officially confirmed its first human death from bird flu - a 24-year-old farmer from the eastern province of Anhui. The woman became sick after an outbreak of bird flu among poultry in her village in Zongyang county and died Nov 10, // the health ministry said, according to a report Thursday by the state-run Xinhua news agency. It is likely, however, that the woman'...Another Bird Flu Case Confirmed In China
A fourth human case of bird flu infection has been confirmed by the Ministry of Health of China in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region’s Ziyuan County//. The Ministry revealed that the patient is a 10-year-old girl student surnamed Tang, who has been ill with fever and pneumonia since 23 November 2005. The girl has tested positive for the H5N1 virus by the China Disease Prevention and...Fifth case of bird flu in China confirmed
A 31-year-old Chinese woman farmer has been diagnosed with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, the ministry of health said Thursday night//. This case, from the north-eastern Liaoning province, is China’s fifth confirmed case of bird flu in the last two months. She tested negative for laboratory tests before December 5 but on that day, experts from the Chinese Centre for Diseas...New confirmed case of bird flu in Romania poultry
A London Laboratory has confirmed the presence of H5N1 bird flu strain in the poultry samples sent from Romania which confirms the presence of the deadly bird flu strain // in six villages Modelu, Traian, Reviga, Odaile, Marsilieni and Tataru of Romania. Early this month five new cases of bird flu strains was isolated from birds in Buzau County. Bird flu was first detected in Danube de...