The 6th Mass Extinction

[rowan]

Antarctica aside, Australia was the only continent not connected to the great landmass (Africa-Eurasia-Americas) during the last Ice Age. But it was connected to New Guinea, while Indonesia was basically a sub-continent, and primitive man was able to cross the straits by raft or canoe (taking his dog but apparently no livestock) and finally reach Australia. At the time (approx. 40k BC) it remained a teeming grassland with abundant wildlife and a moderate climate. In other words, a hunter-gatherers' paradise. (Migration and trade remained active in the Torres Strait region right up to the colonial period, incidentally). But over the millenia man's impact coupled with climatic changes devastated flora and fauna and the native Australians adapted accordingly.

[rowan]

[rowan]

[morepork]

That seems a lot of new age stating of the obvious. The cartoons of space age vessels gliding through the oceans seems totally legit.

[Len]

Scientology FTW

[kk67]

Couldn't find anywhere else to put this but it seems apt as we await the inauguration of yet another moron.
It deals with the US industrialists profiteering from the Nazi war machine.

[rowan]

Yeh, the original Zeitgeist movie (which is brilliant) also makes reference to the Bush family's links with the Nazis:

[cashead]

Laffo.

You think those pieces of shit have any sort of credence. Do you buy into that Loose Change crap as well?

[rowan]

No, there is a fair bit in that Zeitgeist video I dodn't buy into, like the 9/11 conspiracy theories. I think the Americans may have allowed that to happen, just as they may have allowed Pearl Harbor to happen, and almost certainly allowed the Lusitania to be sunk, but I would stop short of suggesting it was an inside job and don't see any credible evidence for that. But I still think Zeitgeist is a fascinating video, it explains religion very well, and the piece on the Bush family and the international billionaires club that runs the world is really interesting. Of course a lot of things have been whitewashed, and even buried entirely, since WWII and the holocaust, and of course a lot of business was being done between America, Britain and France et al with the Nazi regime right up until the outbreak of that conflict (and probably well into it in the former's case). Prescott Bush's dealings with the Germans seems fairly-well documented, in fact. This has even been published in mainstream publications such as the Guardian and Washington Times.

[morepork]

So a thread about the effects of human activity on speciation has morphed with a depressing inevitability into a monologue on 'Murrica.

Well done.

[rowan]

So a thread about the effects of human activity on speciation has morphed with a depressing inevitability into a monologue on 'Murrica.

Well done.

This from a fellow who thinks Auckland politics is a relevant topic for the Southern Hemisphere rugby forum

[morepork]

Oh how do I come back from such a stinging rebuke?


Oh yeah.


Fuck off you helmet.

[Vengeful Glutton]

No, there is a fair bit in that Zeitgeist video I dodn't buy into, like the 9/11 conspiracy theories. I think the Americans may have allowed that to happen, just as they may have allowed Pearl Harbor to happen, and almost certainly allowed the Lusitania to be sunk, but I would stop short of suggesting it was an inside job and don't see any credible evidence for that. But I still think Zeitgeist is a fascinating video, it explains religion very well, and the piece on the Bush family and the international billionaires club that runs the world is really interesting. Of course a lot of things have been whitewashed, and even buried entirely, since WWII and the holocaust, and of course a lot of business was being done between America, Britain and France et al with the Nazi regime right up until the outbreak of that conflict (and probably well into it in the former's case). Prescott Bush's dealings with the Germans seems fairly-well documented, in fact. This has even been published in mainstream publications such as the Guardian and Washington Times.

Dupont were supplying the luftwaffe with an aviation fuel additive prior to the war. I think Bushes family had some involvement in selling munitions or munition parts to the Germans. Memories a bit vague on that one.

JP Morgan et al were allegedly bank rolling wehrmacht munitions and armour. I've always been skeptical about the theory that the seppos were planning a war to provide jobs for the boys after the great depression. I think they called a halt on their bankers and industrialists dealings with Hitler. Allegations that US intelligence knew the Japs were going to launch an attack on Pearl Harbour is pretty much beyond doubt at this stage. Apparently it was British codebreakers who had cracked Jap diplomatic codes who leaked it to OSS.

IMO, there's a stronger case for Sam going to war in WW1 to insure Morgan's loans to Tommy and the Frog weren't defaulted on. It's rather curious that they entered the war roughly around the time when trouble was breaking out in Mother Russia (i.e when the Boche only had to fight on one front). Interesting story about the German High command bank rolling Lenin.

If we knew what went on, we'd not sleep at night lads.

[rowan]

No, there is a fair bit in that Zeitgeist video I dodn't buy into, like the 9/11 conspiracy theories. I think the Americans may have allowed that to happen, just as they may have allowed Pearl Harbor to happen, and almost certainly allowed the Lusitania to be sunk, but I would stop short of suggesting it was an inside job and don't see any credible evidence for that. But I still think Zeitgeist is a fascinating video, it explains religion very well, and the piece on the Bush family and the international billionaires club that runs the world is really interesting. Of course a lot of things have been whitewashed, and even buried entirely, since WWII and the holocaust, and of course a lot of business was being done between America, Britain and France et al with the Nazi regime right up until the outbreak of that conflict (and probably well into it in the former's case). Prescott Bush's dealings with the Germans seems fairly-well documented, in fact. This has even been published in mainstream publications such as the Guardian and Washington Times.

Dupont were supplying the luftwaffe with an aviation fuel additive prior to the war. I think Bushes family had some involvement in selling munitions or munition parts to the Germans. Memories a bit vague on that one.

JP Morgan et al were allegedly bank rolling wehrmacht munitions and armour. I've always been skeptical about the theory that the seppos were planning a war to provide jobs for the boys after the great depression. I think they called a halt on their bankers and industrialists dealings with Hitler. Allegations that US intelligence knew the Japs were going to launch an attack on Pearl Harbour is pretty much beyond doubt at this stage. Apparently it was British codebreakers who had cracked Jap diplomatic codes who leaked it to OSS.

IMO, there's a stronger case for Sam going to war in WW1 to insure Morgan's loans to Tommy and the Frog weren't defaulted on. It's rather curious that they entered the war roughly around the time when trouble was breaking out in Mother Russia (i.e when the Boche only had to fight on one front). Interesting story about the German High command bank rolling Lenin.

If we knew what went on, we'd not sleep at night lads.

Indeed

[morepork]

I like football and porno, and books about war......

[rowan]

Interesting. Archaeological findings suggest human in habitation of the Americas goes back about 24 thousand years - a tad before Columbus, I believe...

Up until now, it had been thought humans entered North America across the Bering Strait around 14,000 years ago. Now, new evidence has shown beyond a doubt that it was in fact 10,000 years earlier than that.

Researchers from Canada and the UK have re-examined and radiocarbon-dated bones excavated from the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon region of northwest Canada, near the Alaska border, and found undeniable traces of human activity that date back 24,000 years. Their research is published in PLOS One.

The site was first excavated by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars between 1977 and 1987. Cinq-Mars discovered a wealth of animal bones, and based on the radiocarbon dating, proposed that humans first settled in North America towards the end of the last ice age, around 30,000 years ago.

However, with the absence of any other archeological sites of a similar age, as well as a lack of evidence that the animal bones found – which included horse, mammoth, bison, and caribou – were there due to human activity such as hunting, Cinq-Mars’ hypothesis proved controversial.

To settle the matter once and for all, doctoral student Lauriane Bourgeon and her supervisor Professor Ariane Burke of the University of Montreal spent two years examining the 36,000 bone fragments from the Bluefish Caves that had been preserved at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau.

They found undeniable traces of human activity in 15 bones, with a further 20 fragments also showing probable traces of the same type of activity.

There was evidence that a "series of straight, V-shaped lines on the surface of the bones were made by stone tools used to skin animals," said Burke in a statement. "These are indisputable cut-marks created by humans."

They also sent the bones off to the Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at Oxford University in the UK to be radiocarbon-dated again. They dated the oldest bone, a horse mandible with stone marks from a tool used to remove its tongue, back to between 23,000 and 24,000 years ago.



http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-an ... e-thought/

[Vengeful Glutton]

I like football and porno, and books about war......

[rowan]

Positive news for a change

Researchers have discovered a new species of river dolphin from the Amazon.

Writing in the journal Plos One, scientists led by Tomas Hrbek of Brazil’s Federal University of Amazonas formally describe Inia araguaiaensis, a freshwater dolphin that inhabits the Araguaia River Basin. It is the first true river dolphin discovered since 1918.

The discovery came after Hrbek and colleagues noticed that a group of river dolphins in the Araguaia was isolated from other Amazon dolphins by a series of rapids. Conducting genetic analysis, the researchers found the Araguaian boto (Inia araguaiaensis) to be distinct enough from other Amazon dolphins to be classified as a different species. The scientists estimate that the dolphin species diverged some two million years ago, corresponding to the separation of the Araguaia-Tocantins basin from the Amazon basin.

The differences between the Araguaian boto and their closest relatives, Inia geoffrensis and Inia boliviensis, extend beyond genetics. The Araguaian boto is smaller, has a different number of teeth, and has a wider skull.

https://news.mongabay.com/2014/01/new-d ... scientists

[rowan]

Playing God?

"Woolly mammoths" could be brought back from extinction within two years, the scientists behind a groundbreaking resurrection project have said.

World-renowned geneticist Prof George Church and his team at Harvard University have been working for the past two years on recreating the DNA blueprint of the mammoth.

They have used DNA from mammoths that were preserved in Arctic permafrost to look for the genes that separated them from elephants, such as those with code for a shaggy coat, big ears and antifreeze blood.

By splicing the mammoth genes into the genome of an elephant embryo, the team believe they can recreate a mammoth-elephant hybrid, which would have all the recognisable features of a mammoth.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017 ... xtinction/

[zer0]

Mammoths? F*ck those guys. They be dead for a reason. No. Put that genetics voodoo to good use and give us what we all really want. Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

[rowan]

Mammoths? F*ck those guys. They be dead for a reason. No. Put that genetics voodoo to good use and give us what we all really want. Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

Well, on one hand it's pretty certain we wiped them out. On the other, they existed toward the end of the last Ice Age. Woudn't be too kind to bring them back at the height of global warming . . .

[cashead]

Keep in mind that the last known population of woolly mammoths died out around the time that the Great Pyramid of Giza was being constructed. They're actually a lot more recent than most people probably realise.

[rowan]

Keep in mind that the last known population of woolly mammoths died out around the time that the Great Pyramid of Giza was being constructed. They're actually a lot more recent than most people probably realise.

Sure, which gives even more credence to the theory humans were responsible for their demise. So what are we going to do? Stick them in zoos in Siberia and Canada and gawk at them? Given we have several hundred species of life-forms going extinct every year at the present, scientists might be better served trying to save more of them than worry about reviving the ones we already got rid off, IMHO.

[morepork]

Bloody scientists. They all spend their time cloning abominations in laboratories that no body is allowed to see.

[WaspInWales]

Bring them back, increase their numbers to millions by cloning the fuckers. Then slaughter them all for good quality winter clothing and warm duvets at premium prices.

#Capitalism.