Primate fossil called only a distant relative

Remember Ida, the fossil discovery announced last May with its own book and TV documentary? A publicity blitz called it "the link" that would reveal the earliest evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans. Experts protested that Ida wasn't even a close relative. And now a new analysis supports their reaction.

In fact, Ida is as far removed from the monkey-ape-human ancestry as a primate could be, says Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University in New York.

He and his colleagues compared 360 specific anatomical features of 117 living and extinct primate species to draw up a family tree. They report the results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Ida is a skeleton of a 47 million-year-old cat-sized creature found in Germany. It starred in a book, "The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor."

Ida represents a previously unknown primate species called Darwinius. The scientists who formally announced the finding said they weren't claiming Darwinius was a direct ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans. But they did argue that it belongs in the same major evolutionary grouping, and that it showed what an actual ancestor of that era might have looked like.
The new analysis says Darwinius does not belong in the same primate category as monkeys, apes and humans. Instead, the analysis concluded, it falls into the other major grouping, which includes lemurs.
Experts agreed.
"This is a rigorous analysis based on many features," said Eric Sargis, an anthropology professor at Yale. He said he'd found the argument of the Darwinius researchers unconvincing, so the new result came as no surprise.

In fact, it confirms what most scientists think, said David Begun, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto.

Jorn Hurum of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, an author of the Ida paper, said he welcomed the new analysis.

Darwinius is an example of a group of primates called adapoids, and "we are happy to start the scientific discussion" about what Ida means for where adapoids fit on the primate family tree, he wrote in an e-mail.

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Iran Missiles Can Reach the World

The success of Iran launched a satellite with own technology shows that the country's missiles "capable of reaching any point in the world", said a senior official of Russia's space sector.

"I take off my hat to the Iranian scientists," said Vitali Lapota, manager of the space construction company RKK Energuia, as quoted by the AFP news agency Interfax. "They have shown their missiles can reach any point in the world".

The launch of the satellite Omid (Hope) with the domestic-made rocket Safir-2 is a warning bell in the Western countries because of the implications of the reach of ballistic missiles.

Some U.S. experts worry about Iran's finally able to complete ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads that could hit Europe or the U.S..

Launch roketberlangsung at a time when Iran has repeatedly ignored the demands of the UN Security Council to freeze the country's uranium enrichment activities.

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4000 Island In Indonesia Threatened drowning

around 4,000 islands in the Indonesian region predicted risk drowning within a decade, as a result of the extreme speed of global climate resulted in the polar ice continues to melt that influence the addition of sea water.

Predictions about the threat to thousands of islands in Indonesia as a result of simulation conducted a team from the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) last year 2008.

Mentioned, the high tide on the north shore (Pantura) Java in some time ago the sea level rose three feet and the hot temperature. In addition, the outer islands in Indonesia are also expected to be lost and result in reduction of Indonesian territory politically and could make the security and defense became vulnerable.

We hope that Indonesia should not be like the Maldives which started sinking and 10 thousand residents were forced to flee to New Zealand. Let us together keep this country and this world from destruction, it's actually happening because of human error itself. Start with the things small and start from now to save our planet.

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2050, Half the World Population Trouble Clean Water Access

KUALA LUMPUR - Half of the world population is predicted to have difficulty in accessing clean water availability in 2050. The influence of climate change a major factor decreasing stock water on earth.

Thus disclosed Professor National University, Singapore, Wong Poh Poh of the Asia Pacific Regional Water Conference as reported by FOXNews, Wednesday (19/11/2008). According to Wong, in 2050 approximately 2 billion people in the world will be difficult to get clean water. That number increased to 3.2 billion people in 2080.

Of global warming is happening on earth has been disturbing pattern of water flow and cause some disasters, such as the mengganas drought, or floods in some parts of the world suddenly. The whole disaster is causing access to clean water becomes an expensive item in the future.

"In Asia disaster will be very terrible. Distribution of water to be uneven and some areas will be very difficult to access clean water, especially India and China. The high number of residents are also encouraged both countries clean water problems," Wong said.

The signs of difficulty of access to clean water has been seen in the early 2000 decade. WHO noted approximately 1.1 billion people are difficult to obtain clean water, mainly for drinking and sanitation needs.

Matching it, the researchers reveal global climate change has caused some form of disaster in some areas.

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Antarctic ozone enlarged 5x Fold Up

NEW YORK - All the people in the world should be seriously aware of the effects of global warming, which may be increasingly felt in the near future. It is reminded by NASA reported that the Antarctic ozone hole will be five times bigger this year.

United States Space Agency are recorded, the hole in the sky Antarctic ozone has dropped to 10.5 million miles. Greater at last year's 9.5 million miles or registration of land in North America. NASA admitted that they had made this observation since the last 30 years.

"Although still in the stage of worrying, it certainly would endanger humans later," said NASA scientist Paul Newman, told CNN on Friday (7/11/2008).

This ozone layer is the Stratosphere that could counteract harmful ultraviolet rays from space. Ozone hole that formed from the gas continues to be made by humans. Usually visible ozone hole in August and growing in September or October, before finally disappearing.

As previously known, ozone depletion is suspected due to changes in extreme climate, which occurs because the influence of global industry that produces high levels of pollution. Not to mention the domestic industries that use materials chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs in equipment.

Currently in addition to threatening human lives, this depletion would also damage the polar bear population in the Antarctic, a thin layer of ice and excessive heat made life can be threatened polar bears.

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