According to paleontologist Jim Gehling, "we're all just sponges." That's
what he said when describing the discovery of the earliest evidence of
mulit-cellular life on Earth--they're "cauliflower" critters roughly 650
million years old found in Australia. The newly described fossil organisms
were likely early sponges, according to the investigators. A full article
regarding the discovery can be found over at
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24386280-30417,00.html .

Here's an image I snapped of what's likely the oldest mostly complete
trilobite one could most reasonably be expected to find in the geologic
record. It's from the Lower Cambrian Montenegro Member of the Campito
Formation, Nevad

Foolish reporters will tell you these could not be confirmed as
Martian animal and numerous cells, as NASA is not scheduled
to verify them until the next Mars mission.

Martian animal is in Fig. 1.
Numerous Martian cell remains are in Fig. 2.
Silts are in Fig. 3.
Some reporters cannot tell silts from cells, as both could have
a size of 2 micrometers to 60 micrometers. The difference
between the two in two-dimensional photos is that silts, unlike
cells, are irregular and have sharp angles (See Ref. 1).
Fig. 1:
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555128108&p=15

Fig. 2:
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555314562&p=93

Fig. 3:
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555343375&p=100

Ref. 1:
http://environment.uwe.ac.uk/geocal/SoilMech/classification/soilclas.htm

Research pushes back history of crop development 10,000 years

Researchers led by Dr Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick's plant research arm Warwick HRI have found evidence that genetics supports the idea that the emergence of agriculture in prehistory took much longer than originally thought.

Until recently researchers say the story of the origin of agriculture was one of a relatively sudden appearance of plant cultivation in the Near East around 10,000 years ago spreading quickly into Europe and dovetailing conveniently with ideas about how quickly language and population genes spread from the Near East to Europe. Initially, genetics appeared to support this idea but now cracks are beginning to appear in the evidence underpinning that model

Now a team led by Dr Robin Allaby from the University of Warwick have developed a new mathematical model that shows how plant agriculture actually began much earlier than first thought, well before the Younger Dryas (the last "big freeze" with glacial conditions in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere). It also shows that useful gene types could have actually taken thousands of years to become stable.

Up till now researchers believed in a rapid establishment of efficient agriculture which came about as artificial selection was easily able to dominate natural plant selection, and, crucially, as a consequence they thought most crops came from a single location and single domestication event.

However recent archaeological evidence has already begun to undermine this model pushing back the date of the first appearance of plant agriculture. The best example of this being the archaeological site Ohalo II in Syria where more than 90,000 plant fragments from 23,000 years ago show that wild cereals were being gathered over 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, and before the last glacial maximum (18,000-15,000 years ago).

The field of Archaeobotany is also producing further evidence to undermine the quick development model. The tough rachis mutant is caused by a single recessive allele (one gene on a pair or group of genes) , and this mutant is easily identifiable in the archaeological specimens as a jagged scar on the chaff of the plant noting an abscission (shedding of a body part) as opposed to the smooth abscission scar associated with the wild type brittle rachis.

Simply counting the proportion of chaff types in a sample gives a direct measure of frequency of the two different gene types in this plant. That study has shown that the tough rachis mutant appeared some 9,250 years ago and had not reached fixation over 3,000 years later even after the spread of agriculture into Europe was well underway. Studies like these have shown that the rise of the domestication syndrome was a slow process and that plant traits appeared in slow sequence, not together over a short period of time.

Genome wide surveys of crops such as einkorn and barley that in the past that have suggested a single origin from a narrow geographical range, supporting the rapid establishment view, have long been in conflict with other gene studies. The most notable conflict is in the case of barley for which there is a large body of evidence that suggests more than one common ancestor was used in its development.

These challenges to the fast model of agricultural development need a new model to explain how and why the development was so slow and demonstrate why artificial selection of just one plant type does not have the expected quick result. This computer model has now been provided by Dr Robin Allaby and his team at the University of Warwick, the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre has outlined the new mathematical model in a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 2008 and in a summary article in the Biologist (2008 55:94-99).

Their paper entitled The genetic expectations of a protracted model for the origins of domesticated crops used computer simulations that showed that over time a cultivated population will become monophyletic (settle into one stable species) at a rate proportional to its population size as compared various gene variations in the wild populations. They found this rate of change matched closely the 3000 years it took the tough rachis mutant to become established.

Ironically, this process is actually accelerated if there is more than one
wild source population (in other words if attempts at domestication happen more than once) because any resulting hybrid between those domesticated populations then has a heightened differentiation compared with either one of the wild populations of the two parent plants.

This mathematical model also more supportive of a longer complex origin of plants through cross breeding of a number of attempts at domestication rather than a single plant type being selectively bred and from a single useful mutation that is selectively grown quickly out paces the benefits natural selection

Dr Robin Allaby says:

"This picture of protracted development of crops has major implications for the understanding of the biology of the domestication process and these strike chords with other areas of evolutionary biology."

Martian Alice has three articulated vertebrates.

Fig. 1 below shows three articulated vertebrates below the skull and a
vessel protruding from the eye socket of Alice on Mars.
Fig. 1:
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555343376&p=101

Fig. 2: Another view of Alice showing more vessels protruding from the
skull:
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555161103&p=45

Source of Fig. 1:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hortonheardawho/2856976774/

Rare Viking-era shield found in Denmark

(AP) -- Danish archaeologists say they have found a well-preserved Viking shield that is more than 1,000 years old.

Archaeologist Kirsten Christensen says the wooden shield has a diameter of 32 inches. It was found Tuesday during excavations near Viking-age castles, some 60 miles west of Copenhagen.

Christensen said Thursday it is the first time such a shield has been found in Denmark. She said the moist soil in the area is "ideal to preserve wood."

The fir shield is believed to date from the late 10th century.

Danish Vikings launched bloody raids along the coasts of Western Europe about 1,000 years ago and even occupied parts of England.

©2008 The Associated Press.
http://www.physorg.com/news140943434.html

--
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Rare Viking-era shield found in
Denmark
(AP) -- Danish archaeologists say they have found a well-preserved
Viking shield that is more than 1,000 years
old.Archaeologist Kirsten Christensen says the...

Updated Three-Stage Model for the Peopling of the Americas
Connie J. Mulligan1, Andrew Kitchen1, Michael M. Miyamoto2

1 Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America,
2 Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America

Abstract
Background
We re-assess support for our three stage model for the peopling of the Americas in light of a recent report that identified nine non-Native American mitochondrial genome sequences that should not have been included in our initial analysis. Removal of these sequences results in the elimination of an early (i.e. ~40,000 years ago) expansion signal we had proposed for the proto-Amerind population.

Methodology/Findings
Bayesian skyline plot analysis of a new dataset of Native American mitochondrial coding genomes confirms the absence of an early expansion signal for the proto-Amerind population and allows us to reduce the variation around our estimate of the New World founder population size. In addition, genetic variants that define New World founder haplogroups are used to estimate the amount of time required between divergence of proto-Amerinds from the Asian gene pool and expansion into the New World.

Conclusions/Significance
The period of population isolation required for the generation of New World mitochondrial founder haplogroup-defining genetic variants makes the existence of three stages of colonization a logical conclusion. Thus, our three stage model remains an important and useful working hypothesis for researchers interested in the peopling of the Americas and the processes of colonization.

--
Source: PLoS One [Open Access]
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0003199

--
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

A Reevaluation of the Native American MtDNA Genome Diversity and Its Bearing on the Models of Early Colonization of Beringia
Nelson J. R. Fagundes1,2, Ricardo Kanitz1, Sandro L. Bonatto1

1 Faculdade de Biociências, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil,
2 Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Abstract
The Americas were the last continents to be populated by humans, and their colonization represents a very interesting chapter in our species' evolution in which important issues are still contentious...

“If this is rock, we are rocks.”—a biology Ph.D. in Mars Forum

I was moved by the courage of a biology Ph. D expressed in above words
in the Mars Forum (Ref. 1) and decided to label the following
photomicrograph taken by Phoenix Mars Lander. For detailed reasons
why those in Fig. 1 were Martian fossils, see Ref. 2. NASA just used
an organic-free blank to test if there really was organics in Mars soil
—at the expense of one TEGA oven. The result shows that there were at
least five organics on the organic-free blank (Fig. 2).

NASA has plans to send more rovers to Mars to look for past life
there. So it could not possibly admit there were fossils or human life
on Mars. NASA is wasting your money, period.

Fig. 1: labeled for five Haversian canals, seven blood vessel remains
(three coiled and four in the Haversian canals) and two cell remains
(one dendritic cell of 10 microns across).
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555327175&p=99

Source of Fig. 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hortonheardawho/2863035451/

Fig. 2: shows at least five organics in organic free blank
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555335891&p=99

Ref. 1: http://www.marsroverblog.com/dyn/entry/70561/discussion_page/301

Hamady wrote:

How about Flying Fish, or Fish the "walk" out of water well onto land ...?

Now contrast that with a Chihuahua, a Saint Bernard, and a Grey Wolf.