botanika

Like India and China but with gum trees.

Thanks man! I have not heard of them but will look them up. Lately I've been getting into a relatively unknown Norweigen instrumental band called 'Causa Sui' and some old 70's live Miles Davis jazz funk albums 'Agharta' and 'Pangaea'. Pure awesomeness.

Try looking at the Shure SE215 IEM's. They should be just over $100aus. They have a good midrange (guitars), variety of tips and great sound isolation.

10,000 years ago - 10,000 years into the future. Life is always good and bad, it just gets more complex. It's not so much about how humanity 'should steer' but 'what will the wheel look like?'. Life doesn't go where it should, it goes where it can.

That guy makes my skin crawl sorry. He's peddling the same garbage Von Daniken did in the 70's. Good work if you can get it I suppose but I wouldn't personally pay to see him.

Have you considered a Van? There's some interesting films on youtube about people dropping everything to live out of a van and save money. As a warning the bush can be lonely...there's little community or career opportunities. Sometimes the best way for self improvement is not to escape but to face society full on. Successful communities succeed because of collaboration, sharing, teaching and helping. North NSW would be a great place because it has lots of little pocket communities and likeminded people but still relatively attached to larger urban centres like G.C. and Brisbane. Your age is a fairly critical time for big decisions. For most people that means family. In your case you are free of that but consider carefully how this sort of thing might affect you when you're in your 50's and through to 'retirement'. By that I'm not meaning it's a bad idea but I personally know a few friends who 'went bush' and to be honest their lives became ultimately more depressed, withdrawn, cynical and they lost a lot of important networks that Im not sure they will ever get back. Keep some strong goals and focus about why you want to do this and where it will lead you. Happy trails!

Obviously I don’t know any of these people well, just fortunate to meet them and say hi. Arnold Schwarzenegger (This is the only one I actually went out of my way to meet. When he was Governator he stayed at a hotel my friend and his wife worked/lived at. They said Arnold would work out at the hotel gym each morning so my friend and I went there one morning and rode beside him on the exercise bikes, had a quick chat. Technically I have worked out with Arnie haha) Hugh Jackman, actor Russell Crowe, actor Isla Fischer, actress Kylie Minogue, musician, actress Fan Bing Bing, actress Archie Kao, actor David Hasslehoff (Yes, I met the Hoff!) David Lee Roth, Van Halen Steve Vai, musician David Coverdale, Deep Purple, Whitesnake Gary Beers, INXS Ed King, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Lynryd Skynryd Monte Pittman, Madonna Pete Thorn, Chris Cornell, Melissa Etheridge Kim Alvord, musician Henry Rollins, Black Flag, Rollins band Kate Fischer, model Annalise Suebert, model Norman Foster, architect Zaha Hadid, architect Li Ning, Olympic gymnast and Li-Ning sports brand owner Tom Carroll, surfer Peter Weir, film director Paul Keating, former PM Met a bunch of other semi-famous local Australians here and there.

Yeah I'm pretty sure I'll get a PS4 when more games come out like Witcher 3, Dragon Age 3, DS2 etc. It's not really a good time to buy a laptop right now other than what mac offer in the 15 retina. The MSI GT60 with 3k screen is exactly what I'm after spec wise but is an ugly bit of kit. Lenovo are also releasing the Y50 with 4K screen and next gen gpu's mid year and I imagine other brands will follow suit with higher res screens. That bumps up costs and can create some scaling problems but the hardest thing Im finding at the moment is the idea of going from the beautiful retina display to the somehwat dated 1080p. The 15 retina with GT750 gpu can still play a lot of games to a reasonable level. I played some Crysis 3 on Xbox360 last night. It is still good! Asus will likely come out with some better models. I might just hang ten for a while.

I unfortunately lost my 15 inch retina macbook pro and was thinking about doing something as a change for its replacement like a gaming laptop. Specifically I'm looking at alienware 14 or 17, although pricey or the Toshiba Qosmio that is bland but decent specs for the coin. Actually I had a nice gaming experience with a few games on my macbook as it had a gorgeous high res screen but its GPU and lack of Hdd space is making me consider other options in the general price range. Im not a hard core gamer and dont travel often with a laptop so im not as concerned with size and weight. I definately want something that has an excellent screen and that will be hard in moving away from Apple but having a laptop with Nvidia gtx 770 or 780 would be fun. Anyone got any recommendations and advice?

Anyone have any experience with the new MSI GT60 with 3k screen? Maybe I need to hold off and wait until more laptops are released in 2014 with higher res screens.

yeah I realise I could build a better desktop but I still need some element of portability and it wouldn't be just for games. I'm also looking at a few smaller units the alienware 14 and MSI 15 inch although the 14 is almost same price as the 17!Steam units could be great but i dont think any are released yet. Im sure Ill end up getting a PS4 at some stage but like the immersive experience of laptop and headphones for some games. cheers

Thanks man. Good site...except Im in asia and surrounded by cybermarts.

The razor blade screens are pretty awful and cheap. I checked out the MSI dragon edition (kinda ugly and only single fan), alienware 17 and Toshiba Qosmio. All had nice screens but I'd have to go for a lower spec 765GPU if i want an alienware at a lower price... so I have to start thinking about spending more coin on the 780M spec 17.

These sites are quite good: http://johnhawks.net/ including an article on possible neanderthal medicinal plant use. A range of anthropology related material. http://dienekes.blogspot.com/?m=1

I think it's more about the mixing of Eurasia and North Africa rather than Asia itself. The story of sapiens evolution is usually categorized as the last 200,000 years. The last 200,000 years from a geological and climatic perspective is the story of significantly cold ice age cycles. The issue is that the origins of H.s.s. are a little vague. The two major representatives are Omo 1 and Omo 2 from Ethiopia (circa 190,000 years). Their reconstructions are based on incomplete fossil fragment material. Other specimens such as Ngaloba (northern Tanzania - 120,000 years), Herto (Ethiopia 150,000 years) and Bodo (200,000 years) either show marked characteristics of neanderthal or elements that could be labelled as 'african'. They are placed in the classification of archaic H.s.s. yet there is no so called 'modern' individual in Africa before his appearence in Eurasia. Seemingly out of nowhere Cro-magnon appears, firstly as some sort of representative of a 'modern' sapien species but later simply as a 'time frame'. European Cro-magnon is often shown in books using a select few specimens like it is a stable group yet there are many Cro-magnon finds that show significant variation in morphology ranging from more or less african negroid traits to more or less neanderthal traits. This is often in the same area and time frame. We can easily see similar variation today in mixed races but for some reason anthropology does not like to entertain the idea of labeling a find as a hybrid. They like one species or another. Or one species replacing another but we know today that rarely happens. There is always mixing. Cro-magnon in Europe had a large cranial capacity (larger than contemporary europeans) and were robust in structure (like neanderthal). Hybridization would be a reasonable and logical explanation for what is observed. Traditionally human evolution has been linked to cranial capacity/cognitive function, as that is what distinguishes us from other animals, yet with neanderthal and Cro-magnon they had larger cranial capacity than modern contemporary humans. This is rarely discussed in any importance as if neanderthals or Cro-magnon did not use their brains as effectively. Hominids had been in northern latitudes a long time yet their evolutionary story is underplayed. The same is true with skin and hair color. It is usually suggested that archaic sapiens moved into northern cold climates and rapidly adapted, mutated or changed via natural selection but a much quicker and effective way to change is from hybridization with a population that already has those genes. Melanesians and aboriginals often display blonde hair as children (something only very rarely observed elsewhere in hot habitats). This is obviously not because of Australia's climate but more likely due to remnant archaic eurasian (neanderthal) gene packets. The descendants of the early australian migrants are noticeably lighter skinned than later tropical arrivals pointing to a strong possibility the early people (mungo man for example) displayed more eurasian/neanderthal characteristics, whereas later arrivals displayed more african or tropical archaic admixture characteristics (darker skin). How is it that all these supposed H.s.s. changed rapidly (almost instantly) upon leaving Africa to all corners of the globe but then have not changed very much since despite signifcant environmental pressure and enough time for mutations? Nor have they, apart from europeans and asians to a degree in recent times, migrated in such an epic way since. Neanderthal facial and skull reconstructions are sometimes incorrectly portrayed as being more primitive with pronounced prognathism and a low facial angle yet in actuality they often have less prognathism and almost vertical facial angles similar to what we classify modern humans as. Neanderthal child skulls show a massive vaulted cerebal forehead similar to Cro-magnon (and modern man) and its easy to speculate how neanderthal hybrid skull shape might be affected passing through a sapien birth canal. In contrast both archaic and even modern african skulls have much lower facial angles and pronounced prognathism. Ironically neanderthals are often the stars of anthropology books and documentaries with illustrations showing relatively advanced 'stone age' technology, wearing animal skins, hanging about a cave, burying their dead but yet still looking decidedly primitive and ugly as if they must be religated to the 'extinct' past behind H.s.s. Yet their culture at the time of overlap with H.s.s. was the most advanced of any hominid. In Germany they have their own elaborate wax museum and all of them look essentially eurasian. However archaic 'homo sapiens' are rarely portrayed at all. If they are, it is either ambiguously 'raceless', suspiciously and mysteriously 'superior' in culture to neanderthal with a big dose of modern bias, with smoke and mirrors face paint or as black tropical negroes irrationally entering ice age Tundra. It appears more reasonable to suggest that the african genes turning up in europe, asia and melanesia are not the result primarily of migration but from hydridization when neanderthals had been forced south and into smaller populations from ice ages/solar radiation and the resulting subsequent gene flow. This hybridization is often expressed in the media as a 'trivial' or 'one time' event but it may have been going on over a much longer period following glacial cycles. More recently it could explain differences and distances between african and eurasian haplo groups. Ice ages could explain movements of archaic H.s.s. within Africa tying together the signifcant finds in South Africa with North Africa. Whilst South Africa did not experience glaciation like northern latitudes, it was still cold and may have been a cause of South African populations moving to North Africa as well as perhaps higher cognitive function. In a study of DNA haplo groups by Klyosov and Rozhanskii it was found that 'African haplogroup A (originated 132,000 ± 12,000 years before present) is very remote time-wise from all other haplogroups, which have a separate common ancestor, named β-haplogroup, and originated 64,000 ± 6000 ybp. It includes a family of Europeoid (Caucasoid) haplogroups from F through T that originated 58,000 ± 5000 ybp. A downstream common ancestor for haplogroup A and β-haplogroup, coined the α-haplogroup emerged 160,000 ± 12,000 ybp. A territorial origin of haplogroups α- and β-remains unknown; however, the most likely origin for each of them is a vast triangle stretched from Central Europe in the west through the Russian Plain (often an ice free corridor even during ice ages) to the east and to Levant to the south (my emphasis). Haplogroup B is descended from β-haplogroup (and not from haplogroup A, from which it is very distant, and separated by as much as 123,000 years of “lat- eral” mutational evolution) likely migrated to Africa after 46,000 ybp. The finding that the Europeoid haplogroups did not descend from “African” haplogroups A or B is supported by the fact that bearers of the Europeoid haplogroups, as well as all non-African haplogroups do not carry either SNPs M91, P97, M31, P82, M23, M114, P262, M32, M59, P289, P291, P102, M13, M171, M118 (haplogroup A and its subclades SNPs) or M60, M181, P90 (haplogroup).' Many genetic lineages are lost or dilluted over time and the neanderthal genome is not as complete as advertised nor is the statistical methodology of neanderthal/denisova admixture adequately explained in detail. In the figures below we can see the genetic distance between melanesians and africans and how often eurasia is central in the 'tree' with short branches. How can this be if melanesians are supposedly part of the initial wave 'out of Africa'? The europeans, chinese and melanesians had contact with at least neanderthal and denisova. Any erectus input may have been distant between africa and melanesia due to african and asian erectus being separated so long. One thing to consider also is the H.s.s. culture. We find the oldest and major ancient cultural artifacts of H.s.s. in eurasia but not in africa or asia. The pattern of cultural dispersal appears from eurasia. The cultural explosion of 40,000 years ago (cave paintings etc) is a far too convenient timeframe in context with neanderthal hybridization and alleged 'extinction'.

In addition to neanderthal and denisova it seems likely that H.s.s. ancestors also interbred with erectus. The first original inhabitants into Australia have more modern morphology than later arrivals. This could be explained by the fact that the first humans that passed through S. E. Asia on their way to Australia were less hybridized with resident erectus populations because they spent less time living among them. Populations that settled Australia later (leaving the Kow Swamp-type skulls) had been living in S. E. Asia for as much as 20,000 years and were far more hybridized in consequence. A similar trend can be seen elsewhere in Asia where even modern populations indicate certain unique erectus traits. There is a lot of missconception about whether species are distinguished by their potential to mate and produce viable offspring yet a quick look at the interbreeding between all canis species indicates that all homo species could potentially interbreed going back several million years. Primitive morphological traits are manifest in the Asian fossil record and in living people. Remarkably, ancient Australian mtDNA and haplo groups don't have as much correlation with African groups as has been suggested in the MSM. The Out of Africa theory is always pushed in the media - that everyone descended from Africans, and from a single mother 'Eve' that 'probably' came from Africa. However ancient Australian genetic diversity and DNA reveals they are more closely tied to ancient eurasian mtDNA. The mtDNA 'Eve' is based on many assumptions, yet other evidence suggests eurasian mtDNA, LM3, as the oldest H.s.s. source in addition to there being plural lineages of mtDNA. DNA as well as ancient cultural innovation points to a radiation of low diversity H.s.s. from eurasia interbreeding with more primitive hominids in areas where their populations were higher and genetically more diverse (Asia and Africa) and the genetic evidence of ancient australians supports this. In fact there is no conclusive evidence that the genetic 'Eve' was even H.s.s. Further, African populations and the people of Australia/Papua New Guinea are the most un-related populations on earth. So how could Africans migrate out of Africa and head straight for Australia yet be so distant? Similarly how could central Africans suddenly migrate into europe and NE asia and yet be so genetically and physiological distant in such a short period of time? A more logical explanation is that H.s.s. radiated out of eurasia into North Africa, SE Asia (eventually into Australia/PNG) and later into Europe and East Asia. Remember archaic homo remains have been found in cold northern eurasian latitudes up to 1.8 million years ago. Colder northern latitudes place tremendous selective pressures on populations. Toba eruption circa 75,000 years ago and ice ages could create the genetic bottlenecks resulting in eurasian H.s.s. stemming from a lower diversity smaller population. An explanation of the differences between African populations and Australian populations could be that the archaic erectus populations in Africa and Asia had been seperated for more than 1 million years and that deep division is only partially unified by both interbreeding with Eurasians. That is also why there are some affinities between Europeans and Africans, in spite of their vast phenotypic differences, and deep genetic separation. Most of the current diversity could be the result of interbreeding with pre-human populations. In this regard we would expect to see the most hybridized elements of the modern indigenes in those areas where pre-human population density was highest, such as Africa and S. E. Asia. Also, we would expect those populations to have the greatest diversity today, because they would preserve more of the pre-human genome, which would have had much more genetic variety than was represented in the tiny, original population of H.s.s. This is exactly what we find with African and SE Asian/Australian populations. By contrast Europeans and East Asians have relatively low diversity and naturally are more closely related. As mentioned before I really hope someone can extract some viable erectus DNA - I think it will open up a lot more questions.

I have an interest in anthropology and it's always changing as the science and my understanding of it does. I'm also more interested in archaic hominids but at some point I also like to follow down how genetics and environments affect people today. It's easy for it to become controversial but I personally don't hide away from who we all are in our broad diversity. It's not because Im prejudice but because I actually like all people and cultures from around the world (except one teacher I once had at school). In cultural and environmental context we are all unique and interesting. Recognising differences in various groups of people does not equal racism IMO. If we are to appreciate diversity then we need to understand what diversity actually is and protect or enhance it.

The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (since it doesn't really deserve to be called a theory, as it has not been backed up by any evidence) has been comprehensibly refuted. This is a good place to start Never heard of humans being pig chimp hybrids, although it could explain a few things haha

Absolutely, the MSM media loves to depict ancient men with no or little hair yet even modern humans from various parts of the world tended to have long beards until relatively recently (especially europe and the middle east). In asia there is still the debate about incisor teeth that certain asians (and some american indians possess) that are a specific trait of asian homo erectus. If they can get some DNA from erectus specimens it might blur the line between species even more. They would not have even known they were a seperate 'species'. Like you say they more likely would have thought of them as another 'tribe' of people. It would be cool to go back 50 odd thousand years with a camera and document the variety that was present then! Although maybe we wouldn't notice much difference either - people from various parts of the world in archaic times and modern times are different based on genetics and environmental factors. We would probably go back in time only to see neanderthals looking very much like europeans, archaic asian cousins looking like east asians and flores 'hobbits' looking like south east asian pygmy negritos. Also in addition to latitude and pigmentation mutations is the effect of natural selection and genetic re-surfacing of genes. I don't know a lot about dormant genes revealing themselves again later but it could be possible that certain genetic features of europeans are in fact dormant neanderthal genes (such as hair color, eye color, hairiness) rather than 'brand new' mutations. Of course all it takes is one successful mutation to spread quickly as is the case with blue eyes, that allegedly stem from one individual around the black sea 10,000 years ago. Asia simply never had that mutation. But what if it was a dormant gene (gene switched off) from neanderthals that had blue eyes? Neanderthals and cousins were in europe for hundreds of thousands of years yet in just a relatively short time sapien europeans quickly adapted to cold climates with striking features such as fair hair color. Im not yet convinced it was simply coincidence that archaic europeans (cro-magnons) sprang to life painting caves and carving stone just as neanderthals 'dissapeared'. There are a number of ways species are defined. The problem with humans is it's very controversial. We have a number of gorilla, chimpanzee and orangutan species but only one human species. From a scientific classification perspective we could easily group humans into a number of different sub-species but that's not very politically correct. Some groups have indeed classified neanderthal along with us as a sub-species and denisova doesnt even yet have a true classification because not enough fossil evidence has been found. Its just called denisova. We could speculate on scenarios of how difficult it actually is to produce viable offspring with neanderthal. The genome studies dont indicate mtDNA being passed onto humans, suggesting mating was viable only between neanderthal males and human females but neanderthal mtDNA may simply have been dilluted out of or not present in the specimens studied. The genome sequences were made up from a selection of incomplete individuals, mostly from the Vindija caves and may not represent an accurate picture of what was actually happening across neanderthal populations and in addition some researchers are dubious to whether those specimens are true classic neanderthal or hybrids. Further it has been noted that neanderthals themselves were moving closer to humans anyway - into more gracile forms. There is still a conservative attitude regarding neanderthals capabilities for intellect, speech, art, technology but at the end of the day they had huge brains, survived in ice age europe for hundreds of thousands of years, buried their dead and were physically robust. Given their small population size, they were never really wiped out IMO but dilluted into the modern human groups over successive waves and their influence was ultimately fairly beneficial. It may not be such a suprise most of the great civilizations arose out of the mediteranean levant, right where neanderthals and sapiens are supposed to have interbred. The cold climate northern hemisphere has allowed significant adaptions in modern day eurasian people and those same environmental pressures would have also surely influenced our archaic cousins. I think they would have been quite sophisticated and formidable.

More likely brown. Early AMH's didn't just instantly walk out of equatorial Africa, looking like black negroes, into ice age europe. Many interesting elements of human evolution happened in north east africa and the middle east, where pigmentation is not as strong as the equator. The ice ages pushed existing european hominin (neanderthal) southwards into the middle east and many waves of subsequent hybrids or purer AMH moved north again when climates were suitable. There's the importance of genetic flow as well as actual geographical migration and the fact that north african and the middle east habitats were more like europe during ice age peaks. Cro-magnons or old europeans (pre LGM) appear to have much higher neanderthal admixture and this is perhaps even supported by Otzi the icemans high neanderthal % as well as some Sardinian and Tuscan people showing higher neanderthal DNA admixture (they were more isolated from later waves of immigrants). Most europeans are not descended purely from cro-magnon either but more recent waves from the middle east. Older populations dillute into newer populations. When we became 'us' is really a scientific or political line in the sand. If this article is discussing a 400,000 year old specimen as 'human' then we became 'human' 2 million years ago as erectus and as erectus spread out across eurasia. AMH is basically classified based on anatomical features, as seen in the Omo skulls of north east africa, however many neanderthal specimens move towards more gracile structures confusing the issue and what defines 'modern human' is a murky definition that seems to gather up the last 40,000 years including many traits again observed in neanderthal such as burying dead, technology etc. There has been considerable confusion on many Levant fossils whether they are actually AMH or neanderthal or hybrids. Need more DNA. Eitherway Im not so sure the influence of neanderthal or denisova on modern homo sapiens is as benign as some people make it out to be.

Pot's a recreational drug. Tell your friend to get off his lazy ass and make a positive contribution to society, then smoke weed in his free time. Pot is obviously not the problem at the core of your friends wellbeing.

Nice! Excellent work

Sub-optimal is the best place to be. Its lonely at the top, dirty at the bottom. Balance.

Australia the anal cuntry

Devout athiest