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How humans will survive in a million years

How humans will survive in a million years
By Rob Walker, Yahoo News | Yahoo! News – Tue, Jul 16, 2013


An interview with the author of a new book about mass human extinction, space elevators and more

A Geminid meteor streaks across the sky over Steamboat Springs, Colo., on Dec. 12, …

If you’ve ever worried, or even wondered, about the ultimate fate of humanity itself, then here is the book for you: In Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Analee Newitz takes on the enormous topic of “how humans will survive a mass extinction.”


As that phrase (the book’s subtitle) indicates, Newitz proves to be an optimist about the science and potential technologies of long-term survival — but she didn’t start out that way. And while she makes her case in conversational tones, her argument reflects sweeping research: Methodically but entertainingly walking the reader through evolutionary history starting with mass-extinction events from billions of years ago, she works her way into the laboratories of contemporary researchers devising hard-to-believe innovations to save humanity from every future calamity you can imagine. Along the way the reader meets techno-thinkers and scientists grappling with pandemics and other threats, devising wild-sounding bio-energy alternatives, "converting urban spaces into biological organisms," preparing for the possibility of a planet-threatening asteroid, storing the sum of human knowledge in a discreet set of computer files and figuring out various methods of traveling to other planets — including a “space elevator.”


By the end of the journey, you can see why Newitz is optimistic that tech innovations could help our species persist for another million years. But should you believe it? We had some questions. Happily, Newitz had answers.


You write that you "set out to write a book about how we are all doomed," but you ended up writing about ensuring humanity's next million years of not being doomed. Was that a gradual shift in your thinking, or were there particular turning-point moments in your reporting and research?


The first turning point came when I was learning about the survivors of the Great Dying, a mass extinction 250 million years ago which took out 95% of all species on the planet. It was the worst mass extinction in Earth's history, caused by disastrous climate changes in the wake of a super volcano. And yet a humble little creature called Lystrosaurus (whom I've written about here), who looked something like a cross between a pig and a lizard, managed to survive this horrific period. Pretty much every other animal on land went extinct. And Lystrosaurus survived just by sleeping in protected underground burrows, and walking into new environments where it adapted to the new world that was emerging in death's wake. I figured that if this little pig-lizard could do it, so could we. I think at that point I realized that humans are no worse and no better than other animals — we are so good at adapting to new circumstances that it's likely we'll follow in Lystrosaurus' path.


I think my second turning point was when I began questioning why so many books focus on extinction and apocalypse and never tackle the arguably more important topic of survival. If we don't explore ways to survive, then we'll never do it. So looking at survival is useful. But I think survival stories are also far more rich and interesting than extinction stories. Survival is complicated and heroic and surprising. Death is always the same.


As someone who often laments my fellow humans' apparent focus on the short term — a complaint that's often linked to the way we use technology — I was amazed at the long-term-focused science and technology infrastructure you explore in the book. Was there any area of long-term tech research that surprised you the most?


What surprised me over and over again was how a lot of these seemingly far-fetched technologies are already in our grasp. For example, if an asteroid were headed for Earth right now, we'd almost certainly see it coming several years out. We have space-based telescopes that are monitoring over 90 percent of the nearby rocks that could hit us, and astronomers are constantly looking for more. All it would take are a few space probes of the kind we already have to go out into space, meet one of those asteroids, and just push it out of an intercept course with Earth. No need for nukes or fancy-pants antigrav technology. We also have the technology to build carbon-neutral cities and even carbon-neutral factories. It was surprising to me to realize how much of our planet's future really is in the hands of humanity. We don't need to wait for a miracle, or for a new scientific discovery. We just need to implement the knowledge and tools we already have. We can do it!


You write that "science fiction … may be among the most important survival tools we have," essentially because science fiction writers can help us envision what researchers might not be able to imagine. Ray Bradbury's conviction that humans would be on the moon in his lifetime supposedly resulted in him being treated like a crank. Today writers like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are viewed almost like seers in some quarters. Have we become more accepting of the view that science fiction can be highly relevant to everyday life?


Science has become part of everyday life, and therefore it's no surprise that science fiction is one of our most popular forms of storytelling. We crave stories about science because it helps us make sense of our civilizations. Science fiction can take something incredibly complex — like, say, genetics — and show us how it fits into our personal lives, or how it shapes society. Notice that I'm not talking about science fiction as a genre that predicts the future. There are many kinds of stories that try to tell us about the future, or alternate realities, and science fiction is merely one of them.

I don't think that SF's popularity today comes from people seeking answers about the future — they're searching for meaning in the present. That said, I think SF helps us think about what possible consequences might follow from a scientific or technological discovery. Equally as important, SF stories can help us think about society itself as a vast experiment, where each political regime or cultural power bloc is another attempt to solve our problems as a species.


A principle goal of Scatter, Adapt, Remember, you write at one point, is "to get us off this crowded planet and into space." This leads to some of the most insane-sounding stuff in the book — the "space elevator," for instance. You're talking about a million-year time frame, so it's perfectly understandable that you'd venture into territory that is essentially beyond our imaginations. But still: Did you encounter any schemes that were just too crazy to include?


The most implausible ideas I encountered were all about what humans would do in the long term instead of going into outer space. Humanity has a long history of exploring, starting a million years ago when our ancestors first left Africa.

By the time Homo sapiens evolved, our ancestors had already invented tools and fire. So we literally never knew a world without technological modifications (however crude). We are a species of tool-makers and explorers, and we're damn good at it. So I find it extremely unlikely that we would give up on exploring space. I think it's even more unlikely that we would choose to upload our brains to computers and live in virtual worlds instead of what we know as the physical world. I'm sure some people will do that, maybe temporarily while traveling through space. But just staying here on Earth when there are so many other awesome places to go? Like Saturn and Alpha Centauri and maybe even other dimensions? Whenever I encountered that idea, I found myself unable to accept it. But that probably reveals my own pro-space prejudices!


Now let's see if I can get you back into a pessimistic mood: Let's say you are right that we humans can persist for another million years. Why do we deserve to persist? What's so great about humans, anyway?


Whether or not we deserve to persist isn't really relevant to whether we will do it. "Deserving" is an ethical concern, not a survival issue. Even if humans are bastards, we are going to survive. We have all the traits of a survival species, just like Lystrosaurus. Saying that we deserve to go extinct doesn't solve our problems — it leads to both moral and practical paralysis. Humans are life forms, and life forms always fight to survive, no matter what. It's in our most fundamental, biological natures. So we'd better accept that, and work on making the future as comfortable as possible.

As human animals, we have evolved the ability to plan a better future for ourselves. We can even stop a mass extinction. It's not too late. We don't have to be angels to preserve our ecosystems. We just have to be practical, and not waste our time wondering whether we are good enough to deserve it. Let's not debate the magnitude of our sins. Let's get to work saving the world!


Annalee Newitz is on Twitter at @annaleen; her book is Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction.

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Ice Age Art: Sculptures and carvings dating back thousands of years on display

 
Extraordinary pieces of art created between 10,000 to 40,000 years ago are to be displayed at the British Museum. The collection gathers pieces on loan from museums all over Europe. The work will be show alongside modern pieces by Mondrian, Matisse and Henry Moore, who in particular felt the influence of the ancient art. The exhibition is open from February 7 and continues until May 26.

 

Spear thrower made from reindeer antler, sculpted as a mammoth. Found in the rock shelter of Montastruc, France, the sculpture is estimated to be between 13,000 and 14,000 years old (The Trustees of the British Museum)

 

Sculpted from steatite, found at Grimaldi, Italy, about 20,000 years old. Musée d'archéologie nationale, France (RMN/Jean-Gilles Berizz)

 

The Venus of Lespugue, a 25,000 year old ivory figurine discovered near the Pyrenees in 1922. Collection d'anthropologie du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle / Musée de l'Homme. (MNHN - MH / Daniel Ponsard)

 

A carving on the tip of a mammoth tusk depicts two reindeer one behind the other; 13,000 years old approximately, Montastruc, France (The Trustees of the British Museum)

 

A fragment of decorated reindeer bone has two reindeer engraved on the surface with two reindeer, one of which is now incomplete; Palaeolithic age which ended 10,000 years ago (The Trustees of the British Museum)

 

The oldest puppet or doll made of mammoth ivory, on loan from Moravian Museum, Anthropos Institute

 

The Venus of Dolní Věstonice, the oldest ceramic figure in the world dated between 29,000 - 25,000 BC, found at the Dolní Věstonice archaeological site in the South Moravian Region in the Czech Republic. On loan from Moravian Museum, Anthropos Institute

 

The oldest known portrait of a woman sculpted from mammoth ivory found at Dolní Věstonice, Moravia, Czech Republic. c.26,000 years old (Moravian Museum, Anthropos Institute)

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Married 76 years, Mich. couple die 12 hours apart

By Ann Zaniewski, Detroit Free Press 7:41a.m. EST January 9, 2013


Son said dad never went to bed without kissing mom goodnight.


Story Highlights


• Couple was married for 76 years and had six children


• William Kreger died in a hospital after a fall; Edna Kreger died at home under hospice care


• Couple will be remembered in a shared Mass


WYANDOTTE, Mich. -- In death, as in life, William and Edna Kreger were nearly inseparable.


William Kreger, 96, a former mayor of Wyandotte, died Friday. Edna Kreger, 97, died the next morning, just about 12 hours later.


"It's like my dad came to get her," said the couple's son, Conrad Kreger.


Kreger said his parents met as teenagers at Roosevelt High School in Wyandotte. They were married for 76 years and had six children.


"My dad never went to bed without kissing her goodnight and telling her he loved her," Kreger said.


William Kreger served as the mayor of Wyandotte from 1950-1956, according to the city's website. He spent several years on the Wayne County Commission and the board of commissioners for Huron-Clinton Metroparks.


Kreger said his father also owned Coca-Cola bottling facilities and was a former publisher of the News-Herald family of newspapers.


"He used to go to work at 5 o'clock in the morning and come home at 10 o'clock at night," Kreger said.


Kreger credited his mother with instilling faith and a sense of honor in him and his siblings.


William and Edna Kreger enjoyed traveling. Their trips included Russia, China, New Zealand and Australia.


On Thursday, William Kreger fell and hit his head at home, according to his son.


Kreger said he and his sister, Gretchen Wenk, were at their father's bedside at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and told him: "Dad, it's OK to go. Make a place for mother."


William Kreger died at about 6 p.m. Friday.


Meanwhile, Kreger said another sister, Suzanne Smith, was with their mother at her home. Edna Kreger had dementia and was under hospice care.


Kreger said Smith woke up early Saturday morning and strongly felt the presence of their father.


Later that morning, she took a shower. When she got out, Edna Kreger had died.
"We're not approaching this as an event to be mourned," Kreger said.. "It's an event to be celebrated. As Christians, we believe life has not ended. It's just changed."


A shared funeral Mass is scheduled to take place Wednesday at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Wyandotte.


Along with their children, William and Edna Kreger are survived by 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

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The Doc who has charged $5/visit for over 55 years

by Bob Dotson, Original Story, May 11, 2012

 

Charging the price of a fancy cup of coffee, Dr. Russell Dohner has cared for Rushville, an Illinois town of 4,300 people, for more than half a century, delivering 3,500 babies, and never taking a vacation — or even an entire day off.

 

Rushville, Ill., is the kind of place where backyards have gardens instead of grass, and sunflowers wave in the wind. A tiny town, just 4,300 people, named for a doctor and settled by the men who marched back from the War of 1812. Rushville was built on government land, halfway between St. Louis and Chicago, as a gift to veterans. Those who did not come back got a statue on the courthouse square and were called heroes. “In a mercenary world,” a waiting patient told me, “this place is an oasis.”

 

But there is another sort of hero in Rushville today — one the town treasures, and can also touch. Dr. Russell Dohner has been looking after his neighbors for 55 years, charging them about what we pay for a fancy cup of coffee: five bucks a visit.

 

 

Making a difference

Doc Dohner doesn’t believe in tossing things away, and that keeps costs down. The only thing modern in his office is medicine.

Most of his nurses have been with him nearly as long as his furniture. They’re paid well because Doc works around the clock. He will go anywhere, at any time, to help those in need, often arriving before emergency crews. He once saved a small boy from smothering to death in a corncrib, once climbed down into a coal mine to help rescue four men.

Dohner broke his own back a few years ago and has had a heart attack — the only times he’s ever closed his clinic. He took time off until patients started coming to his house seeking medical care.
He does have help. Doc brought half the Rushville hospital staff into the world, including the woman who runs the place, Lynn Stambaugh. She used to wash dishes at the hospital. Dohner inspired her to go to nursing school.

I asked her why Doc never burned out.

"Well, I think because every day he makes a difference to at least one person, and if you can do that, you can go on.”

The morning we first met, back in 1983, Dohner had been to surgery twice, prepped a broken arm, handled two emergency cases, checked on 50 patients and delivered three babies. It was not yet 10:30.

 

 

No days off

He has only one hobby: trees. He’s donated 10,000 of them to this prairie town. Now and then he does slip away to go fishing on a Thursday afternoon, but he’s usually in his tie, and always near a phone.

He has not, in 55 years, had a vacation, not even a full day off. What would he do, if he did take a day off?

“I would like to go to Missouri,” Doc says.

Missouri is only 58 miles west of Rushville.

“Yes, but I have to take care of my patients first.”

The last time Doc left Illinois was during World War II. He was a military policeman in the Army, guarding President Harry Truman. “I was close enough to touch him,” Doc smiles, “but he wouldn’t have liked that.”

Dr. Dohner was born 85 years ago on a nearby farm, one of seven children. He worked to pay his own way through Northwestern University medical school.

He had his heart set on being a big-city cardiologist, but decided, “Rushville needed a doctor, so I stayed. It’s the way it’s got to be, if I take care of what comes.”

Russell Dohner has won dozens of awards for the quality of his practice and was runner-up for Country Doctor of the Year. Every morning before the sun peeks over the water tower, dozens of people are crammed into his waiting room.

He takes no appointments. Those who are seriously ill use the back door to get immediate attention; others sit for an hour or more to visit a doctor who knows more about them than some of their families do.

The first baby he delivered now drives her granddaughter 30 miles for an office visit. “When your little girl gets carried to surgery by the doctor instead of one of the nurses, she will learn to trust him, too,” she said.

Doc has no children of his own — unless you count the 3,500 babies he’s delivered. That’s more than the population of Rushville.

If you would like to contact the subjects of this American Story with Bob Dotson, contact:

Dr. Russell Rowland Dohner
103 West Washington Street
Rushville, Illinois 62681
(217) 322-4363

Doctor Dohner does not have e-mail. The best way to contact him is through:
Luan Phillips
Director of Community Relations
Culbertson Memorial Hospital
238 South Congress Street
Rushville, IL 62681
217-322-4321, ext. 269
lphillips@sdcmh.org
cmhospital.com

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Man played music '40,000 years ago'

Man played music '40,000 years ago'

Music was flourishing in Europe many thousands of years before the birth of Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven, scientists have learned.

 

The great composers' earliest ancestors were playing musical instruments and showing artistic creativity more than 40,000 years ago, a study has shown.

 

Evidence of the musicians was unearthed in Germany in the form of primitive flutes made from bird bones and mammoth ivory.

 

A new system of fossil dating confirmed the age of animal bones excavated in the same rock layers as the instruments and examples of early art. The bones, probably the remains of meals, bore cuts and marks from hunting and eating.

 

The finds, described in the Journal of Human Evolution, are from Geissenkloesterle Cave in the Swabian Jura region of southern Germany. They show that the Aurignacian culture, a way of living linked with early modern humans, existed at the site between 42,000 and 43,000 years ago. It suggests that some of the first "modern" humans to arrive in central Europe had a musical bent.

 

Professor Nick Conard, from Tubingen University in Germany, who took part in the excavation, said: "These results are consistent with a hypothesis we made several years ago that the Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans and technological innovations into central Europe between 40,000 to 45,000 years ago.

 

"Geissenkloesterle is one of several caves in the region that has produced important examples of personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery and musical instruments. The new dates prove the great antiquity of the Aurignacian in Swabia."

 

The results indicate that modern humans entered the Upper Danube region before an extremely cold climatic phase around 39,000-40,000 years ago. Previously, experts had argued that modern humans only migrated up the Danube immediately after this event.

 

Prof Tom Higham, of Oxford University, who led the team which dated the bones, said: "Modern humans during the Aurignacian period were in central Europe at least 2,000-3,000 years before this climatic deterioration, when huge icebergs calved from ice sheets in the northern Atlantic and temperatures plummeted.

 

"The question is what effect this downturn might have had on the people in Europe at the time."

 

Read more…

11 shocking things you now realize to be true (but you never would have believed just three years ago)

 

(NaturalNews) We are living through a time of great awakening. The people of our world are beginning to open their eyes and realize the stunning depth of the scams and collusion taking place all around them. These scams that steal their wealth, poison them with chemicals, enslave them with financial trickery and control their minds with propaganda. These scams are the very fabric of modern government, the mainstream media, universities and so-called "science" institutions.

 

Here are 11 of those scams that you probably never would have believed just 2-3 years ago; but now you probably realize these are true!

Welcome to the real world, my friends. Now that we recognize the depth of the scams, let's change things for the better. (Occupy America!)

 

 

#1 - Most of the honey you buy in the grocery store contains no actual honey whatsoever
It's true, the so-called "honey" isn't even technically honey. Most of it is made of cheap "mystery" sweeteners, illegally imported from China, right under the nose of the FDA.

http://www.naturalnews.com/034123_h...
http://www.naturalnews.com/034102_h...

 

 

#2 - The fluoride that's dripped into municipal water supplies is actually a highly toxic industrial chemical byproduct

This scam is exploding in the faces of all the ignorant dentists and doctors who have been pushing this poison for years. Once again, they were wrong; the "conspiracy theorists" were right.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033753_w...
http://www.naturalnews.com/031547_f...
http://www.naturalnews.com/031602_f...

 

 

#3 - Flu vaccines often contain live flu viruses and actually cause the flu as a way to worsen the flu season and scare more people into buying vaccines
It's also true with MMR vaccines, which cause the measles. Flu vaccines are the greatest medical hoax that has ever been perpetrated on the world:

http://www.naturalnews.com/033998_i...
http://www.naturalnews.com/033816_s...
http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_v...
http://www.naturalnews.com/031043_f...

 

 

#4 - Ron Paul is deliberately stripped out of mainstream news reports, online polls and debate coverage in order to "game the system" against him

The power elite don't really want "fair and open" elections in America, you see. It's all about rigging the system to make sure a globalist puppet gets elected instead of a Man of the People.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033528_R...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/realcle...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/cnbc-ca...

 


#5 -
The United States government openly trafficks illegal guns into Mexico as a way to cause gun violence in the USA

It all seemed so very clever until they got caught, and now it just seems flatly criminal. So why can the federal government run illegal guns and nothing happens to them, but if you or I do it, we go to prison for a long, long time?

http://www.naturalnews.com/032934_A...
http://www.naturalnews.com/033802_F...
http://counterthink.com/Fast_and_Fu...

 

 

#6 - Prestigious U.S. hospitals are widely engaged in black market organ trafficking and organ transplants

And why not? It's profitable, and they can claim they're "saving lives!" Make no mistake: the organ transplant industry is steeped in dark, psychopathic criminal activity.

http://www.naturalnews.com/028994_o...
http://www.naturalnews.com/034060_o...

 

 

#7 - The child sex slave industry is huge, highly profitable, and found everywhere across America (and the world)

You wouldn't have believed this, probably, until the whole Penn State scandal recently made headline news around the world. As everybody now knows, Penn State sports officials routinely raped young children, even pimping them out to other criminal rapists who paid big money to rape young boys.

This went on for 15 years right inside a prestigious university, right here in America.

Are you shocked? You shouldn't be. Alex Jones has been sounding the alarm about this for a decade. Nobody listened to him. They couldn't believe it was real. People would rather bury their heads in the sand than face reality.

And yet, this Penn State scandal just scratches the surface. The far deeper horrifying truth of all this is that Child Protective Services routinely kidnaps young American children and sells them into sex slavery -- so-called "white slavery." That story has not yet been covered by the mainstream media.

http://www.naturalnews.com/032501_M...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/penn-state...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archive...
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/10/justi...
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/in...

 

 

#8 - Commercial chickens are routinely fed arsenic, and commercial cows are routinely fed chicken poop

Oh, you didn't know that? When you eat conventional beef, you're eating meat from cows who created that meat by consuming chicken poop. Yumm! Can I have some more poop on that burger, please?

http://www.naturalnews.com/032659_a...
http://www.naturalnews.com/000987.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/028675_b...

 

 

#9 - "Natural" foods and cereals are routinely made with genetically modified ingredients

Oh, you thought "natural" meant better than organic? Non-GMO? Stop getting suckered by the cereal companies and dishonest food conglomerates. Know what you're really eating:

http://www.naturalnews.com/033838_b...
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=15C9C...

 

 

#10 - The global banking industry is a criminal racket that steals wealth from working class People and redistributes it to the global wealthy elite

You wouldn't have believed this five years ago, but now, looking at your own bank account, the job you lost, the house you can't sell and the health care you can't afford, it's all sinking in: The global financial system is an engineered con that suckers working-class people into giving up all their wealth, piece by piece, until they die bankrupt. Indentured servitude...

http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000...
http://www.naturalnews.com/025672_m...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/goldman...

 

 

#11 - The U.S. government routinely conspires with pharmaceutical giants to conduct criminal, inhumane medical experiments on innocent people

Recent revelations about the U.S. government's secret medical experiments in Guatemala are just the tip of the iceberg here. Dr. Jona Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, also ran unethical medical experiments on people. In fact, the entire history of modern medicine (pharmaceuticals, vaccines, chemotherapy and more) is something of a "house of horrors" of inhumane medical experiments on innocent victims.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033483_G...
http://www.naturalnews.com/031564_J...
http://www.naturalnews.com/033988_a...
http://www.naturalnews.com/019189.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/019187.html

 

 

What else is true?

Ever wonder what else might be true about our world that you never would have believed just a few years ago? Maybe it's time you started reading books by Jim Marrs or even David Icke.

 

Now is a good time to start listening to the Robert Scott Bell Show on www.NaturalNewsRadio.com where you'll also hear news from Patrick Timpone.

 

Perhaps it's time we all started questioning history, medicine, corporate science, banking institutions and all governments. Discard your blinders.

 

Maybe it's time we opened our eyes to reality and stopped lying to ourselves about the depth of corruption and evil in our world. And why would we do that? Because that's the first step to positive revolution where we work together to create a better world... a world where such criminality and suffering is ancient history.

 

Accept reality, in other words... and then CHANGE it for the better.

Open your eyes at the following websites:

 

www.NaturalNews.com
www.AlternativeNews.com
www.InfoWars.com
www.LewRockwell.com
www.CCHRint.org
www.ActivistPost.com

 

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034126_awakening_beliefs.html#ixzz1davJejkt

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034126_awakening_beliefs.html#ixzz1dav2lC00

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