Eideard

The tip of a girl’s 40,000-year-old pinky finger found in a cold Siberian cave, paired with faster and cheaper genetic sequencing technology, is helping scientists draw a surprisingly complex new picture of human origins.

The new view is fast supplanting the traditional idea that modern humans triumphantly marched out of Africa about 50,000 years ago, replacing all other types that had gone before.

Instead, the genetic analysis shows, modern humans encountered and bred with at least two groups of ancient humans in relatively recent times: the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia, dying out roughly 30,000 years ago, and a mysterious group known as the Denisovans, who lived in Asia and most likely vanished around the same time.

Their DNA lives on in us even though they are extinct. “In a sense, we are a hybrid species,” Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist who is the research leader in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said in an interview.

The Denisovans were first described a year ago in a groundbreaking paper in the journal Nature made possible by genetic sequencing of the girl’s pinky bone and of an oddly shaped molar from a young adult. Those findings have unleashed a spate of new analyses.

Scientists are trying to envision the ancient couplings and their consequences: when and where they took place, how they happened, how many produced offspring and what effect the archaic genes have on humans today…

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I’ve heard it many times before. Remarkable growth in Asia is leading to big increases in coal consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions. But I didn’t have a good sense of just how big that change has been until I saw this graphic from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Asia’s coal use was smaller than Europe’s in 1980. Now it dwarfs coal consumption even in North America, the world’s second-largest consumer.

Stunning – as a reflection of fossil fuel consumption, energy production. Without differentiating the portion of coal consumed as metallurgical versus thermal coal we’re still looking at enormous growth in industrial potential.

The concurrent pollution problems help to understand why China is fast becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of alternative energy devices. Their conversion rate to solar and wind power is close to first – though still behind Europe. They’re trying equally fast to catch up to and surpass nations like France in nuclear power generation. They have to. That burgeoning middle class is starting to make lifestyle demands to match their growing wealth and education.

Joe Cohen started work on malaria vaccine at GSK in 1987

Millions of small children’s lives could be saved by a new vaccine which has been shown to halve the risk of malaria in the first large-scale trials across seven African countries.

The long-awaited results of the largest-ever malaria vaccine study, involving 15,460 babies and small children, show that it could massively reduce the impact of the much-feared killer disease. Malaria takes nearly 800,000 lives every year – most of them small children under the age of five. It damages many more.

The vaccine has been in development for two decades – the brainchild of scientists at the UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline, which has promised to sell it at no more than a fraction over cost-price, with the excess being ploughed back into further tropical disease research…

GSK’s chief executive, Andrew Witty told the Guardian he was thrilled for the scientists who were thought by many of their peers to be attempting the impossible when they started work on a vaccine 25 years ago.

“When the team was first shown the data, quite a number of them broke down in tears,” he said. “It was the emotion of what they had achieved – the first vaccine against a parasitic form of infection. They were overwhelmed. It says something about the amount of heart that has gone into this project…”

Witty says he is exhorting everybody involved in the vaccine’s production to pare their costs to the bone. “We are absolutely dedicated to making it as low as possible,” he said.

Bravo.

Damned few corporations – especially in pharmaceuticals – are willing to work on solutions for low-profit markets, low-return investments. GSK and Mr. Witty deserve special credit for joining forces with WHO and the Gates Foundation.

It seems to be a national obsession in India: measuring the country’s economic development against China’s yardstick.

At a recent panel discussion to commemorate the 20th anniversary of India’s dismantling parts of its socialist economy, a government minister told business leaders to keep their eye on the big prize: growing faster than China. “That’s not impossible,” said the minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, who oversees national security and previously was finance minister. “People are beginning to talk about outpacing China.”

Indians, in fact, seem to talk endlessly about all things China, a neighbor with whom they have long had a prickly relationship, but which is also one of the few other economies that has had 8 percent or more annual growth in recent years…

“Indians are obsessed with China, but the Chinese are paying too little attention to India,” said Minxin Pei, an economist who was born in China and who writes a monthly column for The Indian Express, a national daily newspaper…

It might be only natural that the Chinese would look up the development ladder to the United States, now that it is the only nation in the world with a larger economy, rather than over their shoulders at India, which ranks ninth. And while China is India’s largest trading partner, the greatest portion of China’s exports go to the United States. China’s largest trading partner is the EU – even if it doesn’t fit the NYT editorial template.…

Evidence of the Indo-Sino interest disparity can be seen in the two countries’ leading newspapers. The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s house organ, had only 24 articles mentioning India on its English-language Web site in the first seven months of this year, according to the Factiva database. By contrast, The Times of India, the country’s largest circulation English-language newspaper, had 57 articles mentioning China — in July alone.

There are other big gaps. Indian cities, large and small, are filled with Chinese restaurants that serve a distinctly ultraspicy, Indian version of that cuisine. But there are few Indian restaurants in Beijing or Shanghai, let alone in smaller Chinese cities.

RTFA. It rolls on through a chunk of anecdotal information. Useful as far as it goes. And it only goes as far as the NY TIMES habit of continuing the Cold War with China – even though it finally seems to have relented a little over Russia.

Frankly, the significant historic difference lies in handicaps which India retains. Much of the caste system is unrelenting regardless of lip service and law. China’s bureaucratic corruption siphons off a lot less opportunity and value. India’s cachet of wealth and power held by historically “important” families is closer to Japan’s Zaibatsu than anything in China. Ongoing commitments to religion in India – whether as a cultural anchor or dedicated political parties – hinders the growth of the economy as much as you would expect from theocratic ideologues in government.

Red imported fire ant invasions around the globe in recent years can now be traced to the southern U.S., where the nuisance insect gained a foothold in the 1930s, new University of Florida research has found.

Native to South America, the ant had been contained there and in the southeastern U.S. before turning up in faraway places in the last 20 years — including California, China, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand…

The team’s findings could prove helpful in finding new ways to control the invasive species, Solenopsis invicta, Ascunce said. Americans spend more than $6 billion a year to control the ants and offset damage they cause, including medical expenses and $750 million in agricultural losses.

“Fire ants are very annoying pests, and they cause people to suffer,” Marina Ascunce said. “People who are allergic can die (from ant stings).” Red imported fire ants are highly aggressive. They have a painful sting, often discovered by humans only after stepping on a mound.

The research team used several types of molecular genetic markers to trace the origins of ants in nine locations where recent invasions occurred. They traced all but one of the invasions to the southern U.S. The exception was an instance where the ants moved from the southeastern U.S. to California, then to Taiwan.

“I thought that at least one of the populations in the newly invaded areas would have come from South America, but all of the genetic data suggest the most likely source in virtually every case was the southern U.S.,” she said.

The study results show the problematic side of a robust global trade and travel network.

RTFA for details on how folks combat the mean little critters. Resign yourself to the fact that all the efforts to keep dangerous volunteer species, animal, vegetable and insectivorous – effective in the past – will need to be upgraded continually in a global economy.

Five years ago when Costa Crociere S.p.A first entered China, the cruise travel industry was an untapped market.

Today, the Genoa-based cruise operator, which has a 70-percent market share in China’s cruise travel sector, has to compete with other operators – all aiming for a slice of the strong momentum from Chinese tourism.

In 2010, there were 95 cruises departing from the coastal cities of China and 128 international cruises visited those cities, demonstrating a 19-percent year-on-year increase, according to industry figures…

In 2010, Costa Cruise saw almost all of its cabins for short destinations in Asia fully booked…

For 2011, Costa has plans for 41 cruises in China including six port calls from Hong Kong and 35 from Shanghai…

There are also great hopes for a new trend in the cruise market, catering for the needs of retirees who plan to take a cruise. According to industry statistics, 70 percent of senior citizens in China plan to travel abroad…

In addition, a cruise is also a popular way for companies to hold annual conferences or reward their employees, said Costa’s Liu.

Interesting – to see recreation, entertainment, vacation models from completely different cultures making the jump. It’s not a surprise to see it happen; but, I’ll bet there are some hilarious tales of cultural adaptation that were unpredicted.

Looks more like a Royal Enfield to me – but, you get the idea

Harley-Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle brand with a cult-like following, has announced it has chosen to build its second assembly plant ever outside the United States in India.

The “complete knock down” plant or CKD is expected to be up and running in the northern Indian state of Haryana in first half of 2011. Parts made in America will be put together for the Indian market in Haryana.

“What we are doing is made in USA, assembled in India, which will have a positive job effect back home which is why we are driving this investment as quickly as we are,” Anoop Prakash managing director for Harley Davidson India told CNN.

The company is trying to expand its brand internationally from 30 to 40 percent by 2014 according to Prakash and India plays an important role in that.

Beyond the obvious market potential there is another major reason Harley-Davidson is building an assembly plant in India — to bring down India’s import duties which right now are so high Indian consumers pay double for fully assembled imported vehicles.

Exporting just the parts to India could lower the import duty tariffs by around 80 percent according to Prakash.

A certain amount of the tale is complete bullshit, of course. I’ve been teasing my friends who are Harley owners – the types who say they’d never own a “rice-burner” – teasing them with a standing bet.

There have been significant number of Asian parts on a Harley for decades.

We’re all familiar with birds that are as comfortable diving as they are flying but only one family of fish has made the reverse journey. Flying fish can remain airborne for over 40 seconds, covering distances of up to 400 m at speeds of 70 kph.

Haecheon Choi, a mechanical engineer from Seoul National University, Korea, became fascinated by flying fish when reading a science book to his children. Realising that flying fish really do fly, he and his colleague, Hyungmin Park, decided to find out how these unexpected aeronauts stay aloft…

Fitting 6-axis force sensors to the fish’s wings and tilting the fish’s body at angles ranging from –15 deg to 45 deg, Park and Choi measured the forces on the flying fish’s fins as they simulated flights.>> [Using dried, stuffed fish BTW]

Choi and Park found that the flying fish performed remarkably well: gliding better than insects and as well as birds such as petrels and wood ducks…Knowing flying fish always fly near the surface of the sea, Choi and Park then decided to find out if the fish derived any benefit from the aerodynamic effect of flying close to the surface.

Lowering the fish’s height in the wind tunnel they found that the lift-to-drag ratio increased as the fish models ‘glided’ near the floor. And when Park replaced the solid surface with a tank of water, the lift to drag ratio rose even more, allowing the fish to glide even further. So, gliding near the surface of the sea helps the fish to go further.

Finally, Choi and Park directly visualised the air currents passing around the flying fish’s wings and body. Blowing streams of smoke over the fish, the duo saw jets of air accelerating back along the fish’s body. Park explains that the tandem arrangement of the large pectoral fin at the front and smaller pelvic fin at the back of the fish’s body accelerates the air flow towards the tail like a jet, increasing the fish’s lift-to-drag ratio further and improving its flying performance even more.

Having shown that flying fish are exceptional fliers, Choi and Park are keen to build an aeroplane that exploits ground effect aerodynamics inspired by flying fish technology.

Anyone in the Caribbean could have explained that flying fish are at least as fast and efficient as birds.

And they taste absolutely superb. Drying and stuffing them should happen after the meal.

Microhyla nepenthicola, which was named after a plant on the island, is the smallest frog discovered in Asia, Africa or Europe.

Adult males of the new micro-species range in size from 10.6 and 12.8 millimetres, according to the taxonomy magazine Zootaxa.

Indraneil Das of the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak said the sub-species had originally been mis-identified in museums.

“Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species, but it turns out they are adults of this newly-discovered micro species,” he said.

The tiny frogs were found on the edge of a road leading to the summit of the Gunung Serapi mountain in the Kubah National Park in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

The scientists said they tracked the frogs by their call, a series of “harsh rasping notes” that started at sundown.

They then made the frogs jump onto a piece of white cloth to study them.

The find was part of a global search being undertaken by Conservation International and International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Amphibian Specialist Group to “rediscover” 100 species of lost amphibians.

Phew! It’s about time we had some good news about amphibians.

Between climate change, disappearing habitat and – no doubt – some lounge lizard discovering they make a tidy snack, it feels like we’re losing little critters faster than ever.

Hong Kong — Shahrzad Moaven quit a public relations job in London and moved to this teeming metropolis four months ago to take up what she saw as a more exciting post: communications director at the exclusive jeweler Carnet.

Jan Mezlik, 29, moved here from the Czech Republic in late April for a job as a trainer in a physical therapy studio called Stretch. For him, the move brought a secure job and the chance to learn to become a yoga instructor.

Charlotte Sumner, a lawyer, arrived eight months ago, thanks to a transfer within her firm. She had spent six months in London and another six in Moscow and had jumped at the chance of a stint in Asia, which she felt would lead to more opportunities than a posting elsewhere.

Before the global financial crisis, none of the three had thought seriously about moving to Asia. But growth in China, India, South Korea and many other countries in the region is outpacing that of Europe and the United States. Many local companies are enjoying rapid expansion, while international employers are shifting positions to Asia and are hiring again. So increasingly, European and American job seekers are hoping that Asia is a place where opportunities match their ambitions…

Landing a position in Asia, though, is not just a matter of being willing to make a new life halfway around the world. Many employers prefer candidates who have track records in the region and who bring language skills and local contacts to the job.

Mike Game, chief executive in Asia for Hudson, an international recruitment agency, said the number of Westerners actually making the move was still fairly small. Many employers, he said, are more demanding than they were during the economic peak of 2007 and are “setting the bar very high in terms of what they want.”

Nevertheless, many Westerners seem to be looking to make the move…

Local language skills are a plus — and often a must — for anything China-related…

“Employers don’t want to have to do a lot of baby-sitting and training,” said Matthew Hoyle, who runs his own company, which specializes in hiring senior staff members for banks and hedge funds. “There are plenty of local people with good qualifications who speak Mandarin and Cantonese — you’d have to bring something pretty special to the table to top that.”

I recall watching a tech panel on TV a while back – when the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, mentioned he was pushing his grandkids to learn to speak Chinese.

Go East, young man – and young woman, Go East.