zn wrote:

What I heard.

Basically Neanderthals couldn’t run.

Plus other stuff.

—

ARTICLE: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jun/02/why-did-neanderthals-die-out

Why did the Neanderthals die out?

The puzzle is one of the greatest surrounding our species. On a planet that bristled with different types of human being, including Neanderthals and the Hobbit-like folk of Flores, only one is left today: Homo sapiens.

Our current solo status on Earth is therefore an evolutionary oddity – though it is not clear when our species became Earth’s only masters, nor is it clear why we survived when all other versions of humanity died out. Did we kill off our competitors, or were the others just poorly adapted and unable to react to the extreme climatic fluctuations that then beset the planet?

These key issues are to be tackled this week at a major conference at the British Museum, in London, called When Europe was covered by ice and ash. At the meeting scientists will reveal results from a five-year research programme using modern dating techniques to answer these puzzles.

In particular, researchers have focused on the Neanderthals, a species very close in physique and brain size to modern humans. They once dominated Europe, but disappeared after modern humans emerged from our African homeland around 60,000 years ago. The question is: why?

“A major problem in understanding what happened when modern humans appeared in Europe has concerned the dates for our arrival,” said Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, London. “It was once thought we appeared in Europe around 35,000 years ago and that we coexisted with Neanderthals for thousands of years after that. They may have hung on in pockets – including caves in Gibraltar – until 28,000 years ago, it was believed.”

In other words, there was a long, gradual takeover by modern humans – an idea that is likely to be demolished at this week’s conference, Stringer said. Results from the five-year research programme, Reset (Response of humans to abrupt environmental transitions), will show that modern humans arrived much earlier than previously estimated and that Neanderthals expired earlier than we thought. Careful dating of finds across Europe suggest Homo sapiens could have reached Europe 45,000 years ago. Five thousand years later, Neanderthals had largely disappeared.

“Previous research on Neanderthal sites which suggested that they were more recent than 40,000 years old appears to be wrong,” said Stringer. “That is a key finding that will be discussed at the conference.”

Using radiocarbon technology to date remains that are 40,000 years old has always been tricky. Radioactive carbon decays relatively quickly and after 40,000 years there will only be a tiny amount left in a sample to measure. The tiniest piece of contaminant can then ruin dating efforts.

However, scientists have set out to get round these problems. At Oxford University, scientists led by Tom Higham have developed new methods to remove contamination and have been able to make much more precise radiocarbon dating for this period. In addition, Reset researchers have used evidence of a devastating eruption of the Campi Flegrei volcano west of Naples 39,000 years ago.

Recent studies have shown this eruption was much more destructive than previously recognised. More than 60 cubic miles of ash were blasted into the atmosphere and covered a vast area of eastern Europe, North Africa and western Asia. This layer gives scientists a precise means of dating for this period and, combined with the new radiocarbon dating, shows there seem to be no Neanderthal sites anywhere in Europe 39,000 years ago, a date 10,000 years earlier than previous estimates. It is a significant shift in our thinking about our nearest evolutionary cousins.

Some researchers have even suggested that Campi Flegrei – the biggest volcanic eruption in Europe for more than 200,000 years – would have had a catastrophic impact. Vast plumes of ash would have blotted out the sun for months, or possibly years, and caused temperatures to plummet. Sulphur dioxide, fluoride and chloride emissions would have generated intense falls of acid rain. Neanderthals may simply have shivered and choked to death.

The Campi Flegrei eruption not only gives us a date for the Neanderthals’ disappearance, it may provide us with the cause of their extinction, though Stringer sounds a note of caution.

“Some researchers believe there is a link between the eruption and the Neanderthals’ disappearance. But I doubt it,” he said. “From the new radiocarbon dating and the work carried out by Reset scientists, it looks as if the Neanderthals had probably already vanished. A few may still have been hanging around, of course, and Campi Flegrei may have delivered the coup de grace. But it would be wrong to think the eruption was the main cause of the Neanderthals’ demise.”

So what did kill off the Neanderthals? Given the speed at which they seem to have disappeared from the planet after modern humans spread out of Africa, it is likely that Homo sapiens played a critical role in their demise. That does not mean we chased them down and killed them – an unlikely scenario given their muscular physiques. However, we may have been more successful at competing for resources, as recent research has suggested.

Eiluned Pearce and Robin Dunbar of Oxford University recently worked with Stringer and compared the skulls of 32 Homo sapiens and 13 Neanderthals, finding the latter had eye sockets that were significantly larger. These larger eyes were an adaptation to the long, dark nights and winters of Europe, they concluded, and would have required much larger visual processing areas in Neanderthal skulls.

By contrast, modern humans, from sunny Africa, had no need for this adaptation and instead they evolved frontal lobes, which are associated with high-level processing. “More of the Neanderthal brain appears to have been dedicated to vision and body control, leaving less brain to deal with other functions like social networking,” Pearce told BBC News.

This point is stressed by Stringer. He said: “Neanderthal brains were as big as modern humans’ but the former had bigger bodies. More of their brain cells would have been needed to control these larger bodies, on top of the added bits of cortex needed for their enhanced vision. That means they had less brain power available to them compared with modern humans.”

Thus our ancestors possessed a fair bit of enhanced cerebral prowess, even though their brains were no bigger than Neanderthals’. How they used that extra brain power is a little trickier to assess, though most scientists believe it maintained complex, extended social networks. Developing an ability to speak complex language would have been a direct outcome, for example.

Having extended networks of clans would have been a considerable advantage in Europe, which was then descending into another ice age. When times got hard for one group, help could be sought from another. Neanderthals would have less backup. This point is supported by studies of the flints used for Neanderthal tools. These are rarely found more than 30 miles from their source. By contrast, modern humans were setting up operations that saw implements transported 200 miles.

Cultural life became increasingly important for humans. Research by Tanya Smith of Harvard University recently revealed that modern human childhoods became longer than those of Neanderthals. By studying the teeth of Neanderthal children, she found they grew much more quickly than modern human children. The growth of teeth is linked to overall development and shows Neanderthals must have had a much reduced opportunity to learn from their parents and clan members.

“We moved from a primitive ‘live fast and die young’ strategy to a ‘live slow and grow old’ strategy and that has helped make humans one of the most successful organisms on the planet,” said Smith. Thus Neanderthals – who already lived in sparse, small populations across Europe – were fundamentally ill-equipped to deal with the newcomers who had arrived from Africa.

“There may not have been a single cause of Neanderthal extinction,” said Stringer. “They may have disappeared in different regions for different reasons, but the background cause is clear. They didn’t have the numbers.”

Gary Klein

http://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/la-sp-rams-goff-20160825-snap-story.html

Quick hits

Gurley, who played one series against the Chiefs, is not expected to play much against the Broncos. “He’s getting a lot of great practice reps,” Fisher said. “When we kick off against the 49ers, his reps in the preseason are meaningless.”… Defensive end Robert Quinn will play for the first time since off-season back surgery. “A few snaps, hopefully, and break that ice,” he said. Quinn played in eight games in 2015. He was held out of the first exhibition and missed the second to watch his sister compete in the Olympics …. Rookie receivers Michael Thomas and Pharoh Cooper made several impressive catches… Thursday’s workout was the final open practice at UC Irvine.

Why Trump And The White Supremacist Alt-Right Are Threats To Democratic Values — And Our National Security

link – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/why-trump-and-white-supre_b_11694846.html

I recently returned from an international seminar where one of the scholars argued a point that is very important for every American to hear before November 8th.

He said that democracies come in many different forms with various structures and systems. But authoritarian regimes all have four characteristics in common:

Grievance-Driven Nationalism.
The narrative that the majority of people have been victimized by enemies – foreign and domestic.
The legitimation of conspiratorial thinking.
The argument that only the one strong man can come to the people’s rescue.

These things are true whether they describe the authoritarian regimes of history like Mussolini and Stalin, or those of the current period, like Kim Jong-un in North Korea, or Putin in Russia – both of which Donald Trump apparently admires.
And those four characteristics practically define the Trump political message. Trump argues that he will make America “Great Again” — that he will address the legitimate grievances of those whose incomes have stagnated by throwing out the immigrants, the Muslims, the “others” that have made it so — none of which has anything whatsoever to do with the economic pain he alleges to address.

Many Americans have seen what happens when a strong man blames the “other” for a nation’s sense of victimization. It always ends in tragedy, whether for the Jews of Europe or the Tutsis of Rwanda.

Trump has no compunction creating and legitimating conspiracy theories such as his “birther” fantasy that President Obama was born in Kenya and is not the “legitimate” President.

And Trump makes it clear every day that only he can fix the country’s problems — apparently through the force of his own will.

The so-called Alt-Right Movement championed by Brietbart.com, whose CEO is now directing the Trump campaign, is the face of right-wing authoritarian nationalism in the United States.

But it is critical to understand that Trump and his Alt-Right, white supremacist colleagues are not an isolated phenomenon. Right-wing nationalist parties are once again growing stronger and stronger in Europe as well. They too have fed upon the discontent spawned by wage stagnation and growing income inequality that — while not as severe as it is in the United States — has created fertile ground for the revival of grievance-based nationalist fervor. In Western Europe, their villains are the flood of immigrants from the Middle East that have fled the violence of the Syrian civil war, and workers emigrating to the West from Eastern Europe.

In fact, the leader of the British right-wing nationalist party, Nigel Farage, spoke at Trump’s rally last night in Jackson, Mississippi.

Of course, the right-wing nationalists of Europe ignore entirely the fact that the major cause of income stagnation is the fact that billionaires like Trump have taken an increasing share of their country’s economic output, just as they have in the United States.

Incomes are not flat for most Americans because the economy as a whole has failed to grow. In fact, per-person gross domestic product in the United States has increased 48 percent over the last 30 years. America is wealthier per person today than at any other time in its history.

Incomes are not flat because immigrants and poor people have taken money from the pockets of ordinary workers. Incomes are flat because billionaires like Donald Trump have siphoned off virtually every dime of that per-person economic growth and kept it for themselves.

They have used their political influence to manipulate the tax system, and cut their own taxes so they often pay lower tax rates than their secretaries or janitors. One of the few Trump tax returns that is publicly available showed that in the early seventies he paid virtually no taxes.

Now, he has steadfastly refused to disclose his more recent tax returns — either because they too would show how little he has paid, or because they would show he is not as wealthy as he claims, or because they would lay bare his deals with oligarchs and other unsavory business schemes — or all of the above.

And Trump has made a tax proposal that would give himself even more tax breaks.

A tiny fraction of wealthy Americans have siphoned off most of the increased income generated by our economy over the last three decades, and at the same time they have managed to avoid paying taxes on much of that increase. That has left most ordinary Americans with three bad options:

Slash the quality of their schools, roads and other public services;
Pay more in taxes out of stagnant incomes;
Borrow money from the very wealthy people who have refused to pay their fair share to cover a deficit – and pay them interest for the privilege.
This is not rocket science. If the increased economic growth had been equally distributed, we would all be 48 percent better off economically today than we were 30 years ago. But wages for most workers have remained stagnant. That growth went somewhere — and we know from the data where; it is no mystery. It did not go to immigrants. It did not go to the poor. It did not go to pay “lazy workers.” Virtually all of it went to the Donald Trumps of the world.

Right-wing authoritarian narratives may not be supported by the facts — but they have a deep emotional appeal to ordinary people looking for someone to blame for their own economic frustration. And that makes those narratives very dangerous.

Right-wing authoritarian nationalism ripped apart the world 75 years ago in the form of World War II. It once again poses a threat to democratic societies. If it is allowed to succeed, it will endanger the democratic institutions and values in the United States and Europe.

Worse, if it is allowed to grow unchecked, authoritarian nationalism has one logical conclusion: violence and war.

Just ask the people of Europe and East Asia — and the American Veterans of the “Greatest Generation” — how well the rise of authoritarian nationalism worked out in the 1930s and ‘40s. Ask the relatives of the literally millions who died.

The Marshall Plan, the European Union and NATO were all created following World War II to prevent the nightmare recurrence of authoritarian nationalism in Europe. The EU and NATO have both begun to show the strains of pressure from resurgent right-wing nationalists’ forces. And most Europeans are terrified at the prospect that Trump might become President of the United States — destroy these critical institutions — and fan the flames of xenophobia.

We can already see what fanning the flames of xenophobia can do. Several months ago David Petraeus, former U.S. Commander in Iraq and head of the CIA, wrote a piece in the Washington Post with the headline: “Anti-Muslim Bigotry Aids Islamic Terrorists.”

The piece was explicitly aimed at Donald Trump.

Experts on the Middle East and radical jihadist terrorism are virtually unanimous in their view that Donald Trump’s victory would be a bonanza for ISIS. In fact, ISIS is already using Trump’s pronouncements in its recruiting videos.

The entire ISIS narrative — and its appeal to young Muslims — rests upon their argument that Islam is engaged in a massive historic struggle with the United States and the West. They argue that the U.S. is leading a great final “crusade” to take Muslim lands, Muslim oil, Muslim’s heritage — to destroy the Muslim religion.

Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric does more to legitimate that narrative than all of their clever social media work — all of their horrific violent videos — put together.

Just as bad, Trump makes it infinitely more difficult for the United States to engage moderate Sunni Muslim countries to join with us in the battle against ISIS.

And his rhetoric even plays into the hands of Iran’s hard-line Shias that are engaged in a struggle for power with the growing moderate Muslim and secular elements of Iranian society.

The Shia religious and Republican Guard leadership in Iran completely despises ISIS and radical Sunni jihadists like Al Qaeda. To bolster their position they spin out conspiracy theories of their own — that ISIS is actually the creation of the United States that was organized to check Shia power and legitimate the presence of the United States in the Middle East.

Then comes Trump, who actually says President Obama founded ISIS.

In his recent “national security” speech, Trump claimed that the United States should have occupied Iraq’s oil fields — completely legitimating the Jihadist narrative that the United States wants to take Muslim resources.

The logic of Trump’s rhetoric about ISIS — and for that matter his approach to Iran and his proposed abrogation of the agreement to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — will, if he is elected, inevitably lead to another major ground war in the Middle East.

That is exactly what ISIS is praying for. They desperately want to draw the U.S. into that kind of conflict on the ground throughout the Middle East — a conflict that they believe will allow them to recruit thousands of young people and ultimately end in an apocalyptic defeat of the West.

As Petraeus put it in his Washington Post article: “….those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.”

Trump has become the leader of a right-wing, authoritarian nationalist movement that could be a grave danger to our own democratic institutions and to any hope we have for a more peaceful world.

But we can stop him. Sound the alarm. Make sure your friends and neighbors understand that Trump is not just another conservative candidate. Donald Trump is dangerous. And the one thing that could allow him to succeed is complacency and low voter turnout in the most important election of our lifetimes.

‘Tempers flare’ at Rams camp; Todd Gurley involved

Alden Gonzalez

http://www.espn.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/30308/tempers-flare-at-rams-camp-todd-gurley-involved

IRVINE, Calif. — Todd Gurley, the man who is not even supposed to be tackled, ended up near the bottom of a pile during Los Angeles Rams practice Wednesday afternoon, the result of a scuffle that also involved fellow running back Benny Cunningham, middle linebacker Alec Ogletree and several other Rams players.

The incident exasperated Rams coach Jeff Fisher, who halted practice and forced his players to assemble in a stretching circle before resuming.

“Shows you what kind of competitor he is,” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said of star running back Todd Gurley’s involvement in Wednesday’s practice scuffle.
Fisher said he’s “not concerned about those things carrying over into the games” and called it “a good learning experience for us.”

“They got a little testy,” Fisher said, “so I gave them a timeout.”

During Tuesday’s airing of “Hard Knocks,” the HBO series that follows the Rams through training camp, Fisher was seen telling coaches that the defensive players need to treat Gurley “like a freaking quarterback.”

“Gurley doesn’t need to f—ing be hit in the 9-on-7 [drill], OK?” Fisher said during the show. “I don’t want ’30’ tackled. We need ’30.'”

But a few plays after Cunningham and Ogletree got into it Wednesday, Gurley and his No. 30 jersey were right in the middle of a mini-scuffle, at one point falling to the ground with several players hovering over him, then slamming his helmet as he walked away, according to onlookers.

“That was his choice, OK?” Fisher said of Gurley being near the bottom of the pile. “We all need to be smarter than that, but that was his choice. Shows you what kind of competitor he is.”

Ogletree is transitioning to middle linebacker this season, and the “Hard Knocks” cameras showed him expressing frustration Saturday because the defense gave up an opening-drive touchdown for a second consecutive game.

Ogletree didn’t want to get into what sparked Wednesday’s physical exchange.

“It was just competing, man,” Ogletree said. “Tempers flare, you know. Things like that are going to happen. [Fisher] cooled us down, everybody got back together. We settled our issues and went on with practice, finished out the day. … We’re all still brothers and teammates, and we definitely look out for one another. We’re going to put that behind us and keep working.”

The Rams play their third and most important preseason game Saturday, when they travel to Denver to face the reigning Super Bowl champion Broncos at 6 p.m. PT. Starters will see their most snaps that night, then basically rest up during the fourth preseason game, which takes place Sept. 1. Wednesday represented the last time the Rams would compete against one another in pads before the start of the regular season, which Fisher believes might have heightened the emotion.

Ogletree was asked if fights like these are good or bad.

“It’s kind of both,” he said. “It’s a good thing because it definitely brings the energy up; guys are competing a little harder. A bad thing in the sense that you don’t want guys out there fighting because you’re risking injury, somebody getting hurt. Coach did a good job of cooling us off and getting everybody back to our senses.”

Practice Report 8/24: Setting the Tone

Myles Simmons

http://www.therams.com/news-and-events/article-1/Practice-Report-824-Setting-the-Tone/b1e077f3-3f42-4a19-8845-f9c3e78bffbc

If you’ve been keeping up with HBO’s Hard Knocks this season, you likely know how much can be gleaned about the team from the hour-long episodes. Whether it’s seeing players in the meeting room, coaches going over logistics, or sideline footage on gameday — there’s clearly a lot that goes on over the course of a week in training camp.

One standout scene from Tuesday’s episode came from the second preseason game against Kansas City. After the first defensive series, middle linebacker Alec Ogletree was demostrably upset the first unit had surrendered a touchdown to begin the game. So much so, that defensive end Robert Quinn — who was not playing — was shown calming down the Georgia product on the sideline.

The scene came up with Ogletree on Wednesday afternoon after the linebacker had been asked about what he would like to improve defensively against Denver.

“If we go on defense first, we need to go three-and-out and come off the field. No touchdowns allowed,” Ogletree said, essentially repeating exactly what he’d said on the sideline with Quinn. “Really, no first downs. But we can definitely eliminate touchdowns and giving up points on the first drive — that would definitely be great to see.”

Ogletree said he hadn’t seen the aforementioned scene from Hard Knocks, but it’s clear why that goal remains front of mind. Getting a quick defensive stand to start the game is all about setting the tone.

“It kind of sends a message to the other team that they’re going to have a long day,” Ogletree said. “And that’s definitely what we take pride in doing — just making it tough for anybody that shows up to play against us.”

Head coach Jeff Fisher has been critical of the lopsided time of possession the Rams had against the Chiefs last Saturday. Kansas City had the ball for 36:30 to Los Angeles’ 23:30. Plus, L.A. was down 20-14 at halftime. All of that informs Fisher’s goals for the defense against the Broncos.

“I’d like to see the defense get off the field,” Fisher said. “And I’d prefer not to give up a whole lot of points in the first half with the starting defense.”

According to defensive end Will Hayes, the Rams can get there by playing more technically sound and disciplined.

“Continue to do what we’re doing and just get better,” Hayes said. “Just don’t let there be a drop off from last week. Just want to get better as a team and as a defense as a whole than we were last week.”

EXTRA POINTS

— With training camp winding down, Wednesday was essentially the last day the Rams would have to compete ones-versus-ones with pads on. As Fisher put it, both sides had something to prove. But unfortunately, good physicality turned into testiness in a seven-on-seven period and Fisher actually halted practice to give everyone a chance to cool off before getting back to work.

“We had some things we want to accomplish, and got the first period. The first drill was really good. And then we got into the second period, they got a little testy so we gave them a timeout — go sit in the corner, go to your room, take a little time out,” Fisher said. “So we cooled off and we got a lot done.”

“You don’t like to see this happen,” Fisher continued. “I’m not concerned about this carrying over to the games. It was a good learning experience for us, they’re competing, 1s against 1s, we had some good work. At this point, we move on.”

“Coach did a good job of cooling us off and getting everybody back to practicing,” Ogletree said. “It’s training camp — stuff like that is going to happen. But we’re all still brothers and teammates and we definitely look out for one another. So we’re going to put that behind us and keep working.”

— While right tackle Rob Havenstein is still on the PUP list, he appears to be closer to returning.

“He’s making progress,” Fisher said. “We’re going to take him with us [to Denver], going to give him a good workout — good pregame workout, things like that. We’ll see how he is. We’ll see how he does next week. That’s all I can say right now.”