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18. mai 2006
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It has been known for a long time that chimps are our closest kin, but a new study indicates we may be quite a bit closer than earlier assumed. Scientists have naturally assumed that once our lineages split, that was it. Early hominids are characterised by bipedality, and chimps are knuckle-walkers; that is the distinction normally used anyway.
A detailed analysis of human and chimp DNA suggests the lines finally diverged less than 5.4 million years ago.
The finding, published in the journal Nature, is about 1-2 million years later than the fossils have indicated.
A US team says its results hint at the possibility that interbreeding occurred between the two lines for thousands, even millions, of years.
Now, the idea of early bipedal hominids and early chimps interbreeding poses, eh, a few questions.
Commenting on the research, Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard, told the Associated Press: "It's a totally cool and extremely clever analysis.
"My problem is imagining what it would be like to have a bipedal hominid and a chimpanzee viewing each other as appropriate mates, not to put it too crudely."
Well, Swedes do it with farm animals, so it's not such that much of a stretch that Lucy's uncle did it with Bubbles, uncomfortable as the idea is.
10:34:25 PM 
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Some good news for college graduates in the USA.
Employers expect their college hiring for 2005-06 to surpass that of the year before by nearly 14%, according to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
Aggressive hiring also means that many salary offers are outstripping last year's: The average starting salary offer for accounting degree graduates is up 5.4% over last spring, to $46,188, while salary offers for computer-engineering graduates are up 5.3%, to $54,200.
"It's the best (college job market) in four years," says Andrea Koncz at NACE, a Bethlehem, Pa.-based provider of information on the college job market. "With the economy improving, there is more demand for college grads. It's across the board."
I don't have any statistics, but the work market has improved strongly for college grads here in Norway, too. That is good news not only for me, but my bachelor-level computer science students, too, even though they have a lot of reading and working to do still to get there.
10:23:58 PM
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Three friends who travelled to a cabin along the famous Norwegian fjords to have a very high time apparantly overdid it. When they begun hallucinating and "saw" little white men coming out of the fjords, they were so scared they called the cops.
The cops didn't find any little white men, but other finds explained the visions: 23,7 kg hashish, 314 gram amphetamines and about 9000 pills containing flunitrazepam (aka rohypnol).
The police found drugs estimated to a street value of around a million kroner [~$160K), give or take.
File under very stupid criminals, especially since one of the arrested, a 22-year-old woman, had her three year old daughter with her to this "party."
From a Norwegian article in the local daily Bergensavisen.
10:18:10 PM
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Various leftist and far left groups demonstrated against the Norwegian centre-left government's refusal to meet with Hamas representatives (lower-level Norwegian officials did, however, meet with them).
One of the demonstrators, Jo Skåderud, can be seen in the picture holding a poster saying, as you can probably make out, "Boycott Israel." He then makes the following comment about the effect of boycotts (my translation from article in the daily VG):
- To boycott a people will never lead to peace. Quite the contrary! This isolation will lead to more desperation, and thereby more violence. It may even lead to them turning to more extremist regimes in the Middle East, like Iran, he says.
Norwegian star blogger Vampus brought this to my attention.
6:30:41 PM
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Apropos the 9/11 Pentagon video footage just released, Above Top Secret has an excellent article, with lots of pictures and references, showing the unassailable evidence the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757.
It actually feels incredibly stupid having to argue the point, but I have been amazed at the number of people who believe the weirdest things about 9/11.
Via a Belmont Club article which also covers Ward Churchill's latest defence, and (no surprise, really) Noam Chomsky meeting and shaking hands with Hezbollah leader Nabil Qauq, and then aiding the terrorist organisation's propaganda against Israel and his own country.
Update: When I have been debating 9/11 conspiracies, the low-budget online movie Loose Change (Version 2) quickly comes up. It contains a massive amount of disinformation, while refusing to commit to any comprehensive or cohesive theory of its own. Pat and James B. have set up a great blog, Screw Loose Change, to deal systematically with the disinformation in this movie. Well worth a read!
12:25:10 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.06.2006; 21:16:56.
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