This Day In History

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Origins in the News

Contents

• Is evolution still occurring?
• Missing Links
• Alien Life
• Noah's Ark

Is evolution still occurring?

• Hundreds of Human Genes Still Evolving 08 March 2006
  A comprehensive scan of the human genome finds that hundreds of our genes have undergone positive natural selection during the past 10,000 years of human evolution.
  Researchers from the University of Chicago analyzed the genomes of 209 unrelated individuals from three distinct human populations: East Asians, Europeans and Yorubans from Nigeria. Each population contained roughly 250 positively selected genes; however, most of the affected genes differed depending on the group.
  “This study addresses the question 'Are humans still evolving?', and the answer is 'Absolutely,'" study team member Benjamin Voight told LiveScience.

• Darwin's Natural Selection Still at Work in Humans 02 November 2005
  In one of the most detailed human DNA studies ever conducted, researchers analyzed nearly 12,000 genes from 39 people and a chimpanzee, our closest living relative.
  The findings suggest that about 9 percent of the human genes examined are undergoing rapid evolution.
  A separate study announced last month indicated the human brain is still evolving, too.

• Study Suggests Human Brains Still Evolving 08 September 2005
  The human brain may still be evolving. So suggests new research that tracked changes in two genes thought to help regulate brain growth, changes that appeared well after the rise of modern humans 200,000 years ago.

Missing Links - See also Fossil Record

• 'Complete' Whale Fossil Found with Hind Legs 14 January 1994
  "This critter is a missing link between land animals and modern whales," said J.G.M. Thewissen, a paleobiologist at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, Ohio. "It is a very complete specimen and has enough of the anatomy to teach us something about how the animal moved on land."
  Thewissen said the fossil was found in deposits left by an ancient sea that once existed in Pakistan. Fossils found nearby, he said, suggest that the whale died about 50 million years ago.

Alien Life - See also the review of the video The Privileged Planet.

• Signs of water found on one of Saturn's moons 10 March 2006
  The Cassini space probe has found evidence of geysers erupting from underground pools of liquid water on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

• It's Raining Aliens - Possible Case of Panspermia 08 March 2006
  Red rain in India may be an alien biological life form, claims a paper published in the peer-reviewed Astrophysics and Space Science.
  The red rain particles appear to have a cell structure, indicating that they are biological. However, initial tests indicate that the material does NOT contain DNA, which is essential to life as we know it. Dr. Godfrey Louis, the author of the article, claims that the material will reproduce under extreme heat.
  The particles began falling shortly after a meteor broke up in the atmosphere, leading Dr. Louis to believe that this is the origin of the dust.

Noah's Ark - See also Noah's Flood

• Digital image of 'Ararat Anomaly' has researchers taking closer look 10 March 2006
  A new, high-resolution digital image of what has become known as the "Ararat Anomaly" is reigniting interest in the hunt for Noah's Ark.

• Satellite Sleuth Closes in on Noah's Ark Mystery 09 March 2006
  Images taken by aircraft, intelligence-gathering satellites and commercial remote-sensing spacecraft are fueling an intensive study of the intriguing oddity. But whether the anomaly is some geological quirk of nature, playful shadows, a human-made structure of some sort, or simply nothing at all—that remains to be seen.

• Satellite Search Underway For Noah's Ark 30 August 2002
  The high-flying and super-powerful commercial QuickBird satellite has begun snapping imagery of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey - in a quest to spot the possible remains of what is believed to be Noah's Ark.
  Aircraft pictures taken in the late 1940s, as well as more recent secret spy satellite shots of the area do show something odd - a bit of strangeness that has earned the title of the "Ararat Anomaly".
   

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