Adventure Ausrama Blog

The long held "belief" that humans came out of Africa 60,000 years ago has now been officially announced as wrong by scientists. Migrations had been regularly been pushed back as far as 120,000 years before the present. It seems migration was constant not in waves. New research methods detect Homo sapiens in Asia very early, particularly in China. Genetic traces of these people are very low in modern humans. This indicates that the initial movement was slow from Africa. Later it became of a flood of Inquisitive searchers of new regions beyond. The early arrivals interbred with Denisovans and Neanderthals. These humans were taller and slender than those who came later. Neaderthals made tools from large flakes while humans technology involved lighter, finer cutting blades and spear heads. This was probably because Neanderthals were more muscular and tended to bash the quarry to death. Humans were more creative, carving antlers and bone. They made ivory flutes. C...

You may think humans are changing to adapt to city life. However, animals living in cities are evolving faster. Metabolisms of the little creatures are running hot. In Puerto Rico, anole lizards can travel across concrete due to changes in their feet structure. Charles Darwin did get things wrong. Evolution does not just happen over tens of thousands of years. It is dynamic. Alterations are rapid. PCB (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) levels rise in cities and it will kill some animals. The mummichog fish has quickly evolved to survive the poisonous chemical. The shorter the lifespan of living organisms the faster they evolve. A long-time resident of cities is the European blackbird. It has developed more practical beaks and songs. Moreover, their digestive system can digest food scraps discarded by people. Urban blackbirds no longer migrate. Mosquitoes in the London Underground have changed dramatically. They breed one-on-one, not in the clouds of mozzies in a sexual frenzy like their...

Rice came from Asia, more specifically China, right? You would be wrong. Genetic tests on rice grown today show it come from northern Australia. It was clean, uncontaminated and has been pinned down to Cape York in Queensland. Originally, it was growing wild in the tropics, an unusal place for rice as we associate it with wet conditions all year round. The real question is how did it get to Asia? Obviously, people from Asia came to Australia and took it home. The Middle East is the cradle of Mankind. For rice it is Australia. Wild rice growing there today is more genetically diverse than anywhere else in the world. Asian domestic and wild rice is inbred. Australian rice is wild. It grows there today unchanged by human intervention. This took place 7,000 years ago. Australian rice will be the basis of research to improve world food production. It holds the genetic keys to open the door very wide indeed. Modern rice varieties are just little sparks from the fire...

The world is at war between those who believe in God and those who do not. Christianity is becoming less relevant to some as they lead busy lives. Islam is still strong and growing. The other religions are still important to many, particularly when there are hardships in life. All religions are under threat as people clamber for democracy in countries where whole societies revolved around the dictates of the prevailing religion. From census data taken in 85 Western nations, it was found that the number of people ticking "unaffiliated" is increasing. Though the formula predicts total extinction of religious belief it is doubtful that this will actually occur. Even when a religion is outlawed people tend to go underground with their beliefs. It comes to life again when circumstances improve. The thing is, we will never really know if there is a God. Many go to church as "insurance", just in case there is life after death. Religious books give us answers to the questio...

As developing countries become more developed with rising incomes and better health care so the birthrate is falling. Taiwan is a case in point. They are worrying now about how the large proportion of elderly people in the country will be cared for. Taiwanese couples only have one child, currently. In China with the one-child policy the birthrate is higher than Taiwan's 0.91 per cent. This country has the Western "disease" of very expensive housing and wives finding it necessary to work to pay for a home. The date for having children is put off virtually indefinitely. Like in other "advanced" countries the blame is being laid on the government's failure to provide healthcare. The propensity to allocate responsibility on government is a mistake. Unless healthcare is treated as unskilled labor it will remain expensive, Surely any responsible parent would not leave their children in the care of second-class workers? Taking care of young children, particularly b...

If Man was pushed back into the stone age men would have to get women to fight for them. Men have become real cissies with all the modern amenities. Even laborers today don't do much laboring. Trench diggers and Bobcats are the order of the day. Even farmers use mechanised fence hole diggers. Professional fighter don't do it tough any more. They demand all the luxuries. Take for example ice hockey players. it is deemed to a be tough sport with fights breaking out in just about every game, but with all the protection there are few injuries from the physical clashes. If you were a Roman gladiator you could lose your life or have to fight on with painful injuries. Why are sporting records being broken you say? The reason is due to the greater opportunity for those with preferable genes to succeed at sport as children, not because athletes train harder. As a child I was awed by my father's capacity to carry two one cwt bags of cement, one on each shoulder. He was quite a small ...

It is no wonder China is experiencing a rise in mental illness: production line work is the most demoralizing you can do. Oddly, it is the executives in China's industry who are committing suicide. This could be due to party officials being "given" jobs running large modern businesses, Party work is much different than running a company. Mental illness is shockingly high in China with 17.5 per cent of the population suffering from the malady. The issue is - Why has the rate risen so quickly in China? Of course, a little thought will inform: the largest nation in the world has adopted the Western economic system rapidly. The system was just "dumped" on the people who were told the old ways were bad. The old ways provided guaranteed employment and generous pensions, even housing was a given. My, how things have changed. The Western "disease", the industrial strike, has occurred in recent times. In the past this state of affairs would have been "stom...