Human are related to chimps

By Dr Elisha Mafunga

Aunt Ardi is the oldest member of the Human family tree. She lived 4.4 million years.

There is a reason to believe that chimps and human dawn of new era on straight walking and climbing evolved;  Aunt  Ardi - the oldest Citizen of Ethiopia was hairy  with long arms. she roamed the forests of Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago. The discovery reported shed light on evolution.

Aunt Ardi’s discovery is documented in detail for the first time , It highlight on a certain crucial period when we may have been  leaving in trees. There is a School  of theory  from  academics and scientists to reasonable provide  evidence that our ancestors first started walking upright in the pursuit of food and shelter during the disappearance of forest.

Aunt Ardi's Image as  revealed she was hairy ,  4ft tall and weighed 7st 12oz

Academics and Scientists believe that our earliest Ancestors learned to stand upright and walk on two legs and moved out of the forest and into the open savannas however the academic and Scientists cannot explain why Aunt  Ardi's species was bipedal while it was able to walk on two legs while at the same time it was living partly in the trees. Professor Owen Lovejoy from Kent State University  believe that the answer could be as simple as food and sex. If food and sex was the reason, Does Professor Owen Lovejoy believe that there was kind of food which  aunt Ardi was surviving on which was different from the food which Ardi survived on when she started walking on two legs, Does professor Owen believe Aunt Ardi did not have sex before she moved to the open savannas. I find this to be difficult to accept as a reason for moving into the open savannas.

  

It is acceptable that throughout evolution males have fought with other males for the right to mate with fertile females. So it is acceptable that you would  expect dominant males with big fierce canines to pass their genes down the generations. but it is also acceptable that the weaker male with small stubby teeth may believed that they can win entice a fertile female into mating by doing a favor for bringing food  in order to win sex, human history has proved that males are far more successful in providing food from the forest e.g hunting, Professor Owen Lovejoy believe if the male had their hands free to carry home items like fruit and roots if they walked on two legs.

Mr Lovejoy said this could explain why males from Ardi's species had small canines and stood upright - it was all in the pursuit of sex however I believe they were able to walk on two legs to enable then to see the enemies. If they were to walk on four legs, it would be difficult to see the enemies and the other reason was hunting for food.

Ardi  stood 4 ft tall and weighed 110 lb, she lived a million years before the famous Lucy, the previous earliest skeleton of a hominid who was dug up in 1974.Experts believe Ardi is very, very close to the 'missing link to our ancestor of humans and chimps which was thought to have lived five to seven million years ago. This is  the closest we have ever been able to come,' said Dr Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, who reports the discovery  in Science. The first fossilized and crushed bones of Ardi were found in 1994 in Ethiopia's Afar Rift.

But it has taken an international team of 47 scientists 17 years to piece together, analyse and describe the remains. 

 Digital representations of Ardi's hand

Researchers have pieced together 125 fragments of bone - including much of her skull, hands, feet, arms, legs and pelvis - which were dated using the volcanic layers of soil above and below the find. The results were surprising. Previously, scientists believed that our common ancestor would have been very chimp-like, and that ancient hominids such as Ardi would still have much in common with them.But she was not suited like a modern- day chimp to swinging or hanging from trees or walking on her knuckles. This suggests that chimps and gorillas developed those characteristics after the split with humans - challenging the idea that they are merely an 'unevolved' version

Analysis of the skeleton of Ardi, found in Ethiopia in 1994, reveals humans and chimps evolved separately from a common ancestor

Ardipithecus ramidus

- Volcanic layers around the fossil were used to date it from 4.4million years ago

- Ardi's upper canine teeth are more similar to stubby human teeth than sharp   chimpanzee teeth

- Tooth enamel analysis revealed they ate fruit, nuts and leaves

- Ardi's brain was positioned in a similar way to that of humans

- Pelvis and hip show the gluteal muscles were positioned so she could walk upright

Ardi's feet were rigid enough to allow her to walk upright some of the time, but she still had a grasping big toe for use in climbing trees.  She had long arms but short palms and fingers which were flexible, allowing her to support her body weight on her palms The upper canine teeth are more like the stubby teeth of modern people  than the long, sharp ones of chimps. The analysis of her tooth enamel suggests she ate fruit, nuts and leaves. Scientists believe she was a female because her skull is relatively small and lightly built. The teeth were also smaller than other members of the same family that were found later .Alan Walker of Pennsylvania State University, told Science: 'These things were very odd creatures. You know what Tim (White) once said: 'If you wanted to find something that moved like these things you'd have to go to the bar in Star Wars since the discovery, scientists have unearthed another 35 members of the Ardipithecus family. Ardi was found in alongside crumbling fossils of 29 species of birds and 20 species of small mammals - including owls, parrots, shrews, bats and mice. Lucy was found in Africa, thrived a million years after Aunt Ardi more human-like genus Australopithecus.'In Ardipithecus we have an unspecialised form that hasn't evolved very far in the direction of Australopithecus. So when you go from head to toe, you're seeing a mosaic creature that is neither chimpanzee, nor is it human. It is Ardipithecus', said Dr White.

                     How Ardipithecus fits into humankind's evolutionary path

 Charles Darwin whose research in the 19th century paved the way for the science of evolution, was cautious about the last common ancestor between humans and apes.

'Darwin said we have to be very careful. The only way we're really going to know what this last common ancestor looked like is to go and find it. Well, at 4.4 million years ago we found something pretty close to it,' Dr White added. Darwin appreciated, evolution of the ape lineages and the human lineage has been going on independently since the time those lines split, since that last common ancestor we shared some details about  Aunt Ardi in the collection of papers: Ardi was found in Ethiopia's Afar Rift Valley where many fossils of ancient plants and animals have been discovered. Findings near the skeleton indicate that at the time it was a wooded environment. Fossils of 29 species of birds and 20 species of small mammals were found at the site.

Geologist Giday WoldeGabriel of Los Alamos National Laboratory was able to use volcanic layers above and below the fossil to date it to 4.4 million years ago.

Paleoanthropologist Gen Suwa of the University of Tokyo reported that Ardi's face had a projecting muzzle, giving her an ape-like appearance it did, however it did not thrust forward quite as much as the lower faces of modern African apes do. Some features of her skull, such as the ridge above the eye socket, are quite different from those of chimpanzees. The details of the bottom of the skull, where nerves and blood vessels enter the brain, indicate that Ardi's brain was positioned in a way similar to modern humans possibly suggesting that the hominid brain may have been already poised to expand areas involving aspects of visual and spatial perception.

The first signs of Ardi were discovered in Middle Awash, a desert site that would have been much wetter, terming with animal life and thickly covered with trees 4 million years ago. A graduate student from the University of California at Berkley found two finger bones. Further excavation turned up pieces of pelvis, feet, hands and skull. By the end of three years, scientists realised they'd found a paleontological treasure.

The search continues for the 'last common ancestor' from which both we as modern humans and the modern chimpanzees can trace our ancestry history. Many experts think the common ancestor lived at least 7 million years ago. Research on Ardi suggests that this ancestor didn't look nearly as much like a modern chimpanzee as had been previously suspected. 

There is a school of thoughts amongst academics and scientists that they believe  that modern human and  chimpanzees have evolved significantly over the 4.4  million years

Name:                               Ardi

Nationality:                        Ethiopian

Age:                                  4.4 Million Years ?

Height                               4 Ft

Weight:                             110 lbs

Proffession                       Climbing trees

Merital Status                   not known

Continent                          Africa                                                                          

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England Manager's Job

The England Manager's Job.

The media has gone silent on the England Manager's Job. Let us examine the job which every Premier Manager aspire to be appointed. What is there in the job?. Most managers who would like to be England manager only think about the prestige of the job but they do not think about the  Risk .

There are two hurdles which any England manager has to overcome if he is to survive the Gun Tooting British Media. The two are you have to win the UEFA and the World cup. If you are a England Managers, you fail to win one of these two, you are out of the England. Job and who push the trigger.

The Media push the trigger and the whole country start cheering while the England Manager is been slaughtered. The FA comes at the end to clear the mess created by the British media.

Why should Harry Redknapp take the England Job.

The media had reservation for his suitability because he was been tried for tax.  The media behave as though he was guilt of the offence. The same media change there position when he was found not guilt. This is the same behaviour which the British media will behave in the future if he is appointed England Manager when he losses games. There is nothing wrong in criticising and manager but the media tend to over play there music creating confusion to England Players.

I personal believe Harry Redknapp must serious consider staying at Spurs. He has built up a team that is position to challenge for honours in the future.

By  Dr Elisha Mafunga

Mafunganews: Aunt Ardi

Mafunganews: Aunt Ardi

Aunt Ardi

Aunt Ardi is older than Lucy



The human may be our direct ancestor.
The view for Researcher’s assessment of the 4.4-million year old Ardi called Ardipithecus ramidus is reported in the journal Science offering new insights into how we evolved from the common ancestor we share with chimps, the team says, The fossils for Ramidus were first discovered in Ethiopia in 1992 but it have taken as long as seventeen years to assess their importance.

It is Believed that the specimen is part of skeleton for a female nicknamed “Ardi” The most important specimen is a partial skeleton of a female nicknamed "Ardi".
The Researchers has recovered bones, including skull with teeth, arms, pelvis, legs and feet. The discovery has other parts that represent other different individuals including youngsters, male and females. Professor Tim white from the University of California Berkeley confirmed that the Investigation has been painstaking.


The University took many years to clean the bones in the National Museum of Ethiopia and then set about to restore this skeleton to its original dimensions and form; and then study it and compare it with all the other fossils that are known from Africa and elsewhere, as well as with the modern age," Professor Tim White told the Science Journal that "this is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be."

Tree life
The fossils came from the Middle Awash study area in the Afar Rift, about 230km northeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. Natural History Museum's Professor Chris Stringer: "The skeleton is very primitive"
Some of the characteristics of the animal's skeleton are said to echo features seen in very ancient apes; others presage traits seen in later, more human-like species.

The Human details
The scientists confirmed the details of the creature as 1.2m-high (4ft) The researcher also believed that Ardi was good at climbing trees but also walked on two feet. However she did not have arched feet like us, indicating that she could not walk or run for long distances. "She has opposable great toes and she has a pelvis that allows her to negotiate tree branches rather well," explained team-member Professor Owen Lovejoy, from Kent State University, Ohio.

"So half of her life is spent in the trees; she would have nested in trees and occasionally fed in trees, but when she was on the ground she walked upright pretty close to how you and I walk," he told BBC News.



She lived in what would have been a wooded area 4.4 million years ago is somewhat challenging, says the team. It had been thought that early human evolution was driven, if only in part, by the disappearance of trees encouraging our ancestors to walk on the ground.

These creatures were living and dying in a woodland habitat, not an open savannah," said Professor White. Because of its age, Ardipithecus is said to take science closer to the yet-to-be-found last common ancestor with chimps, our close genetic relatives. And because many of Ardipithecus' traits do not appear in modern-day African apes, it suggests this common ancestor may have existed much earlier than Lucy.

In comparisons with modern chimps and gorillas anatomy, there is an underling reasons how these African apes themselves have evolved since parting company with the line that led eventually to modern humans.

Rapid evolution
When researchers Asked whether A. ramidus was our direct ancestor or not, the team said more fossils from different places and time periods were needed to answer the question. “We need many more fossil recoveries from the period of 3-5 million years ago to confidently answer that question in the future," the scientists said in a briefing document that accompanied their journal papers. "But if Ardipithecus ramidus was not actually the species directly ancestral to us, she must have been closely related to it, and would have been similar in appearance and adaptation.

It has been a 17-year investigation to assess the discoveries
Independent experts in the field are struck by how primitive Ardipithecus appears compared with the Australopithecines, another group of hominid (human-like) creatures from Africa that lived slightly nearer to us in time. One species in particular, Australopithecus afarensis, the famous "Lucy" fossil found in 1974, is very strongly linked into the human story because of its developed walking ability.

For Ardipithecus ramidus to also sit on that direct line seemed to require some rapid evolutionary change, commented Professor Chris Stringer from London's Natural History museum. "With Australopithecus starting from four million years ago, one would have thought that things would have moved further down the line by 4.4 million years ago,"



Name: Ardi

Age: 4.4 Million years old

Sex: Female

Hieght: 1.2M (4ft)

Weight: 50kg (110 lbs)

Nationality: Ethiopian
( Abyssinian)












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Christmas

By Elisha.

Christmas is the time when the Rich and Famous look forward to meet relatives and friends whom they have not met. They look forward to enjoy the trapings of power and money. They shomwer friends and relatives with expenses gifts. They go for the best holiday which money can buy such as sea cruise, hire yatche for burning there monies.

Governments

This time of the year, Governments around the world are busy burning our public monies in christmas parties. They spend spend our monies as there is no tomorrow while on the other hand preaching prudence. They talk of cutting services inorder to balance the books.These messages are aimed to the people who have nothing and are struggling to think of how they can coupe with Christmas presents for children, friends and relatives.

Financial instutions

The Banks throughout the world especially in USA and Europe have failed in managing the assets of the public assets for customers. The bank have no source of income but rely on customers who bank there money for security.This is the money banks lend to business and others, invest into stock and shares, buy features and other form of income generating scheme. If the banks as it has happen failed to give security to small customers who deposit there money for the rain day in retirement.Who on earth will help the ordinay people to secure there hard earned money.Whe the Banks goes into trouble, they approach the Government and the poor customer's voice is not heard in dicsussion to bail out the bank. Even when the banks are bailed out by tax payers' money. The benefit will not flow enough to benefit the poor people who are struggling to make end meet.


The Poor People
The world is crying for help to poor people who does not know where there next meal is going to come from. People are dying evryday around the world will thos in powerful position in Businesses and Governments are enjoying themself. They preach of a fair world and the distribution of wealth to those under priviledged.

Where is justice.

Justice is about those in a stronger position to care for those in a waeker position, We are not talking about taking the money from the reach people but we are talikng of the reach people paying there fair share in society as these people have been helped by workers who made them reach. They is not many who have made it in society who can claim to say I made it withour people working for him.