Happy Birthday to Dad...
Happy Birthday to Dad who's 60 today. Not that he's thrilled by that fact. He kept trying to persuade us that he just wanted to skip to next year. For some reason, he's fine with being 61. It's just being 60 he doesn't like *lol*
We went out for a meal last Sunday which was a combination celebration for his birthday and for my parents wedding anniversary, which is on the 13th. It wasn't bad. Okay, that sounds less than enthused I admit. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy my dinner. It was more that it was okay rather than great, if you know what I mean. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing stand out brilliant either.
In the interesting snippets of news arena, there's a report out today about the possible inter-breeding of neanderthals and modern humans. There have been suggestions of this before from other sites, I think it may have been the Gibraltar material that led to similar conclusions, either that or the Atapuerca cave material in Spain.
The skull was discovered in a cave in southwestern Romania and is at least 29,000 years old. A jawbone found nearby with similar morphological traits is dated to 40,500 years ago. The researchers conclude both specimens are about 40,000 years old. Comparisons to other skulls suggest the Romanian skull clearly belongs to a modern human, said paper co-author Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. "But some characteristics are extremely unusual and rather archaic," he said. For example, the forehead is "extremely long and flat" when compared to modern humans from western Europe and Africa, Trinkaus said. And the molars are the largest ever documented for modern humans.
However, as the article goes on to point out, Trinkhaus has long supported the inter-breeding hypothesis anyway. Others suggest that it simply demonstrates archaic features because of holdover in that particular population, or that there is continuing evolution even after modern humans arrive in Europe.
We went out for a meal last Sunday which was a combination celebration for his birthday and for my parents wedding anniversary, which is on the 13th. It wasn't bad. Okay, that sounds less than enthused I admit. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy my dinner. It was more that it was okay rather than great, if you know what I mean. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing stand out brilliant either.
In the interesting snippets of news arena, there's a report out today about the possible inter-breeding of neanderthals and modern humans. There have been suggestions of this before from other sites, I think it may have been the Gibraltar material that led to similar conclusions, either that or the Atapuerca cave material in Spain.
The skull was discovered in a cave in southwestern Romania and is at least 29,000 years old. A jawbone found nearby with similar morphological traits is dated to 40,500 years ago. The researchers conclude both specimens are about 40,000 years old. Comparisons to other skulls suggest the Romanian skull clearly belongs to a modern human, said paper co-author Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. "But some characteristics are extremely unusual and rather archaic," he said. For example, the forehead is "extremely long and flat" when compared to modern humans from western Europe and Africa, Trinkaus said. And the molars are the largest ever documented for modern humans.
However, as the article goes on to point out, Trinkhaus has long supported the inter-breeding hypothesis anyway. Others suggest that it simply demonstrates archaic features because of holdover in that particular population, or that there is continuing evolution even after modern humans arrive in Europe.