"Scientists in the past decade have discovered that remnants of ancient germ line infections called human endogenous retroviruses make up a substantial part of the human genome. Once thought to be merely "junk" DNA and inactive, many of these elements, in fact, perform functions in human cells.

Now, a new study...suggests for the first time that a burst of transpositional activity occurred at the same time humans and chimps are believed to have diverged from a common ancestor — 6 million years ago. "

The key word is "burst". Junk DNA activating and evolving humans. What was the trigger?

"Results of a new University of Michigan study suggest that junk DNA - dismissed by many scientists as mere strings of meaningless genetic code - could have a darker side.

... in cultured human cancer cells, segments of junk DNA called LINE-1 elements can delete DNA when they jump to a new location - possibly knocking out genes or creating devastating mutations in the process."

More "junk" DNA causing mutations.

Here's part of what the news release says:

"It seems unlikely that the same engine could produce both types of bursts, the team said. Although not directly addressed in the paper, these results support the notion that if the long bursts originate from massive stellar explosions, then short bursts originate from something entirely different. In the latter scenario, this event could be either mergers or such a drastic Jekyll-and-Hyde-like switch in the stellar explosion mode that the engine appears physically quite different. Such drastic and well-defined differences in the correlation between two of the major variables will need to be addressed quantitatively in future models of the burst physics. "

Which I think means that they still don't really know where they come from, but now they believe there are two ways for Gamma Ray Bursts to occur, whereas previously the puzzle only had one solution to seek.

"The Black Widow pulsar is emitting intense high-energy radiation that appears to be destroying a companion star through evaporation. It is one of a class of extremely rapid rotating neutron stars called millisecond pulsars."

How scary is that? I feel uncomfortable being even as far away as 5,000 light years.

One more nail in the coffin of the ridiculous idea that a few nomads from Asia could have eaten so much meat:

"Of the 76 localities with asserted associations between people and now-extinct Pleistocene mammals, we found only 14 (12 for mammoth, two for mastodon) with secure evidence linking the two in a way suggestive of predation," write Donald Grayson of the UW and David Meltzer of SMU in the current issue of the Journal of World Prehistory. "This result provides little support for the assertion that big-game hunting was a significant element in Clovis-age subsistence strategies. This is not to say that such hunting never occurred: we have clear evidence that proboscideans (mammoths and mastodons) were taken by Clovis groups. It just did not occur very often."

"A suddenly cold climate about 5,500 years ago coincided with the advent of ancient Chinese civilization, implying some relationship between the two events."

5,500 years ago is very close to the end of the previous Mayan age, and the beginning of this one (3114 BC).

Most archaeological news that catches my eye these days is associated with either 3000-3500 BC, or 10,000-12,000 BC. These were each eras of massive change.

"About 5,500 years ago, a global climate change occurred and the average temperature dropped by two to three degrees centigrade due to solar activity and the orbit of the earth... Weapons became popular funeral objects, which means that wars were common at that time. And then castles appeared. All of these are deemed as signs of emerging civilization, said archaeologists."

"New archaeological evidence points to an independent origin of agriculture in coastal Ecuador 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Suddenly, the remains of larger squash plants appear in the record. The Las Vegas site... may predate plant domestication sites in the Mesoamerican highlands.

The fertile and amazingly diverse lowland tropics seem like a likely place for agriculture to develop."

Yes, well, a lowland coastal area seems to be a likely place for cataclysm survivors to land!

It is usually thought that we started making art because of “some kind of cultural or demographic change”. Now a scientist is thinking that mutations in the human genome 50,000 years ago could be the cause:

"Professor Klein said that a suite of language and creativity genes, perhaps as few as ten or as many as 10,000, developed as a result of random mutations, giving rise to a new pattern of human culture. "

Hmmm... many random mutations, providing useful changes to humans, occuring all of a sudden, all at once. Perhaps this also happened 12,000 years ago and 5,000 years ago...

They had non-Clovis arrowheads.

In the cave found by archaeologist Anna Roosevelt, carbon-14 dating for the organic matter and thermoluminescence dating for the stone artifacts and sediment, date the original occupation of the cave between 10,900 and 11,200 years ago.

Survivors of the cataclysm!

According to the latest news, they can be re-made:

Discovered in Russia last summer, the well-preserved legs of a mammoth have yielded living cells that could allow for a cloning project to bring the creature back.

"We consider these cells conditionally alive," says Vladimir Repin, who led the research team. "The inner structure of these cells is undamaged."

I'll be interested if they put them in Siberia, which is apparantly their natural habitat!

Archeologists studying the remains of a wealthy archer found in a 4,000-year-old grave exhumed last year near the renowned landmark said Monday he was originally from the Alps region, probably modern-day Switzerland, Austria or Germany.

Tests on the enamel of his teeth revealed he was born and grew up in the Alps region.

"Different ratios of oxygen isotopes form on teeth in different parts of the world and the ratio found on these teeth prove they were from somebody from the Alps region," said Tony Trueman from Wessex Archeology.

What does this mean?

It adds to the growing evidence of communication between ancient people's worldwide.

It suggests that rather than a local cult thing, the purpose of Stonehenge is far more important.

Perhaps the location of Stonehenge is deliberate, and not "just because that's where they lived..."

"For 40 years, anthropologists have leaned toward the notion that rich, nourishing meat - brought home by hunters and shared out - played a crucial role in human origins. This would explain why evolution selected for larger, smarter hunters with lighter jaws and teeth: precisely the changes seen as Homo erectus arose in eastern Africa. "

Well, now they think that we didn't hunt, and that our source of meat was scavenging - something still practised today by the Hadza people.

Here is a concise summary from Diagnosis 2012. Each of the authors have books available at Amazon.

YEAR B.C.

Hapgood 14,500-12,500

Braden 11,200

Sitchin 11,000

Alford 10,983

LaViolette 10,700

Hancock 10,500

Geryl & Ratinckx 9,792

Allan & Delair 9,500

Gaspar 9,500

Collins 8,600-8,500

Knight & Lomas 7,640

Jonathan McGregor Bethel & Michael Scott McDaniel Omega Point 2012

On December 21, 2012 our earth and the helical rising of our solstice sun will align and conjunct with the dark rift of galactic center, completing the 26,000-year precession of the great cycle, as discovered by John Major Jenkins. Many cultures point to this astronomical event as a moment of great transformation and spiritual renewal; the Mayans call it creation day. Dr. W. Wynn Westcott describes this precession as, “the period of time determined by the revolution of the equinoxes, or the space of time wherein the stars and constellations return to their former places…”

This conjunction was known in the ancient world by the Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic cultures. Each had an innate understanding of the precessional cycle and they agreed that the solar-galactic conjunction represented something very profound. How many people, who were born in the latter half of the 20th century, can say that they have not felt the impending doom of some type of global catastrophe awaiting mankind through nuclear war, natural disaster, or complete social breakdown?

Full Story ->> Omega Point 2012

Michael Scott McDaniel & Jonathan McGregor Bethel Omega Point 2012

As we move forward into the techno society of the future, it is important to realize that the rights of the individual are paramount. We should not be swept away into the mind dulling sheepish attitude that crowd psychology promotes, and allow ourselves to be entranced by the thought contagion of little minds and dogmatic institutions.

This thought contagion can be shown in the silence that spreads across a crowded room instantaneously and is the result of the morphic resonance of the group mind. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake delineates the theory of morphogenetic resonance as, “a nonmaterial organizing collective memory field that affects all biological systems. This field can be envisioned as a hyper spatial information reservoir that brims and spills over into a much larger region of influence when critical mass is reached - a point referred to as morphic resonance.”

Full Story ->> Omega Point 2012

Why do we hiccup?

"...there is one group of animals in which the peculiar combination of the contraction of these muscles and the closure of the glottis does serve a clear purpose: primitive air breathers that still possess gills, such as lungfish, gar and many amphibians. These animals push water across their gills by squeezing their mouth cavity while closing the glottis to stop water getting into the lungs."

Scientists believe it is a remnant from 370 million years ago, when as a species we crawled out of the ocean. We kept it, because it is similar to the action which prevents milk entering our lungs while suckling as babies.

It is a plausible idea, says Allan Pack, an expert in respiratory neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania. "But it's going to be very tough to prove."

Why doesn't anyone suggest that the reason why we have this similarity with amphibians, is because it was recently that we last emerged from the water - and not millions of years.

Jonathan Mcgregor Bethel

With the convenience of modern telecommunications and cyber technology, it is now possible to interact and communicate with anyone in the world instantly. The distance gap between people has been closed and now brain can speak to brain directly. Vast webs of knowledge are now being created through the collaborative sharing of ideas. The many nodes and interconnections of this global network are rapidly increasing and proliferating throughout society. Many speculate that this super network is the central nervous system of the burgeoning global brain. According to futurists, this sheath of technology covering the planet, this technosphere, is the material basis of the now awakening Noosphere, earth’s mental envelope or field.

Full Story - -> Omega Point 2012

Lightning gives off X-Rays and Gamma Rays - so it would be advisable to avoid being struck!

Satellite GOES-12, which will enable us to receive better warnings of solar storms, is ready to begin its mission. It was launched into orbit 2 years ago.

"The Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) aboard the satellite will enable forecasters and scientists to detect solar storms that could impact billions of dollars worth of assets."

Truly a worldwide phenomenon!

A Scandinavian study, recently mentioned in New Scientist, has determined that event the tiniest doses of radiation can cause harm.

"Most cases of the commonest type of childhood thyroid cancer could be caused by low levels of natural radiation from rocks and cosmic rays, say two European scientists. Their finding strengthens the idea that even the tiniest doses of radiation, including those that come naturally from the environment, can be dangerous."

News today that will upset traditional evolutionists out there...

The past just keeps getting weirder - a dinosaur with 2 sets of wings:

"The 128-million-year-old animal -- called Microraptor gui... was about 2? feet long and had two sets of feathered wings, with one set on its forelimbs and the other on its hind legs."

Maybe in China April Fool's Day happens a few months earlier? Or perhaps this is a freak of evolution, that disappeared shortly afterwards, just like unicorns and dragons?

A golden rule for orthodox evolution scientists is that once a species loses something, it cannot return - for example, humans will never grow monkey tails again (if we ever had them). A whale will never grow legs again. Evolution is a one-way journey. But now there is finally evidence that goes against this rule, and therefore supports sudden complex advantageous mutations.

"So it has been with great surprise that researchers have greeted a paper in the current Nature in which an international team of researchers reports evidence that wingless stick insects have re-evolved wings at least four times in the history of the group."