Monkey, Man, Fossils and reading in toilets regularly

 

Celebrating Darwin

Many events took place on and around 12 February 2009, which was 200 years since Darwin was born.

Today is another important anniversary on 24 November – 150 years since the publication of his famous book, On the Origin of Species.  (We may also salute Alfred Russel Wallace, an English naturalist who published essentially the same theory on the same day as Darwin, and therefore deserves to be remembered as the co-discoverer of evolution)

Humans and chimps had a common ancestor about 7 million years ago; our genes are about 98.5 percent alike. Our last common ancestor with the fungi appeared more than 500 million years ago, yet about half of our genes are also found in fungi. Why? Because once nature solves a problem, it hoards the genes for that solution. (You can read more of this stuff at http://whyfiles.org/296evolution/index.php?g=1.txt

"Lucy," an Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found in Ethiopia in 1974, is an extinct hominid that lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. Lucy (left)  is one of the "missing links" that illustrate the descent of modern humans.

Still, a near-majority of Americans tell researchers  that they believe the first humans were created less that 10,000 years ago, which follows Genesis ( religious literature)  more closely than science.  In 2002, the school board in Cobb County, Georgia, began to require this warning on textbooks. A court has ordered the stickers to be removed, saying religion has no place in public schools.

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Since writing of The Origin of Species, in 1859, however, many fossils have been found. …. Darwin’s dilemma was the absence of intermediate fossils to show evolution from a common ancestor. These researchers have put one more nail in the coffin of Darwin’s and actually deepen Darwin’s dilemma. 

 
Oldest Skeleton of Human Ancestors Found,write Jamie Shreeve  Science editor, National Geographic magazine on October 1, 2009.

 Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago. The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi."

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

By the way, FOSSIL  is a  remnant or trace of an organism of a past geologic age, such as a skeleton or leaf imprint, embedded and preserved in the earth's crust.[From Latin fossilis, dug up, from fossus, past participle of fodere, to dig.]

Fossils have become a very interesting subject for me (one who did not graduate in science). Wish to know why? Then, read on:

Bill Bryson writes - AS ALWAYS - VERY VERY LUCIDLY ON THIS DULL AND DEAD SUBJECT  in “ A Short History of Nearly everything” :

In order to become a fossil, several things must happen. First you must die in aright place….. must become buried in a sediment where it can leave an impression,….or decompose without exposure to oxygen, permitting the molecules in its bones and hard parts ( and very occasionally softer parts) to be replaced by dissolved minerals, creating a petrified copy of the original. Then as the sediments in which the fossil lies are carelessly pressed and folded and pushed about by the earth’s processes, the fossil must somehow maintain an identifiable shape. Finally, but above all, after tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years hidden away, it must be found and recognized as something worth keeping.

 

Only about one bone in a billion, it is thought, ever becomes fossilized. If that is so, it means that the fossil legacy of all the Americans alive today- that is 270 million people with 206 bones each – will be only about 50 bones, one quarter of a complete skeleton. .… Bearing in mind that they can be buried anywhere within an area of slightly over 9.3 million sq. kms, little of which will ever be turned over, much less examined, it will be something of a miracle if they were ( found out)”

And if this post has become a heavy stuff, there is an inspiring, weird news report published today ( and one is at liberty to draw life-lessons there from as it suits him or her!)

Darwin book worth up to $100,000 found on shelf of a toilet

Tue Nov 24, 2009

LONDON (Reuters) – 

A first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," which had been kept in a toilet bookcase for years, will go on sale this week and is expected to fetch 40-60,000 pounds (US$66-100,000).

Christie's auctioneer will offer the book on Tuesday, the 150th anniversary of its original publication.
The copy was bought by the family of the current owners for "a few shillings" in the late 1960s or early 1970s, the auctioneer said.
They only recognized that they owned such a valuable edition when they recognized a picture of the spine of another first edition of the work at a Darwin exhibition.

How far a 81 year Old man and his 16 year old car can go ?

The iconic “Fill it. Shut it. Forget it” advt. that launched Hero Honda more than 20 years ago. The Forget it part – after filling and shutting the petrol tank lid was best evident in a recent news item.

It was not Hero Honda bike but a 16-year old Hyundai Lantra car and the location was Australia.

The 81 year old gentlemen driving it “forgot” something remarkable . To return back to his wife !

Let us first read this Australian news report

Wed Nov 18, 2009

QUOTE

CANBERRA - An elderly man who went out to fetch a morning newspaper ended up driving nearly 400 miles (640 km) after getting lost and taking a wrong turn onto a major Australian highway, police said on Wednesday. The man, 81-year-old Eric Steward, eventually stopped and asked for directions after driving for nine hours, from the New South Wales country town of Yass to Geelong in the southern Victoria state.

Steward, who did not know where he was, eventually approached a policeman at a petrol station and asked for help late Wednesday.

"This little old man came up to me saying he was lost. He handed me his mobile and asked if I could speak to his wife," said Victorian Police Senior Constable Clayton Smith.

Steward, who was reunited with his family on Wednesday, said he took the wrong turn and just kept on going.

"I just went out on the road to have a drive, a nice peaceful drive," he told reporters, adding he did not need a satellite navigation device as he'd only been lost once.

UNQUOTE

(Reporting by James Grubel, editing by Miral Fahmy for Reuters)

 When I consulted Google Maps to provide me driving directions to Geelong VIC, Australia to repeat this feat of great grand-fatherly Mr. Eric Steward,    I almost re-lived what he did that day.

A suggested route  from Yaas to Geelong is quite long : Distance : 666 km . Travelling Time:   7 hours 35 min .

Will you believe  that in search of one newspaper, Eric  went on three long stretches of 263, km, 310 km and  48 km. apart from 12 other smaller  roads or sections ?.  He turned left and right and entered and exited the roads with great vigour, confidence and missionary zeal.

The press  report is silent about whether he stopped for a rest room or an eatery for a sandwich or a  large glass of Foster beer ( although this route is famous for serving Sydney rock oysters, Hunter Valley wines, Balmain Bugs, Illabo milk-fed lamb, Gippsland beef, Meredith lamb, Malle squab, corn-fed chicken, etc if Eric had some time on this rather long drive).

Ironically, his family name Steward – among other meanings – also stands for somebody who is a custodian, keeper,  defender, guardian, protector, shielder , caretaker,  conservator, curator, etc. hence the chances of his getting lost himself adds a twist to the story, lightly speaking.

The admirable part is that at the age of eighty plus, he had the enthusiasm to out in a car and buy a newspaper, had a car (1993 Hyundai Lantra.) which will not trouble him, had a health that permits him to forget the hunger, thirst and fatigue ( he had slight dementia – no pun intended – but who does not have?). He said he stopped for petrol!

Again, he did not much bother about his wife ( and vice versa – at least for first few hours ) sounded very confident and somewhat self-effacing – which is truly admirable . Thanks to his long married life – the couple seems to have very deepest level of mutual affection and understanding  and the little bit of forgiving bend of mind. If it had been a modern day young couple , a good number  of spouses generally become demanding , less tolerant and fussy – to an extent of becoming nagging. Often mountains are created from mole hills. But when it comes to a great grand ma and a great grand pa, things are entirely different.

This also indicates , that inspite of some  degree of  forgetfulness  (dementia) – very  pardonable at this great-grand-fatherly age -, he had the mental strength of not suffering from  Amaxophobia - Fear of riding in a car, Autophobia - Fear of being alone, or Catagelophobia - Fear of being ridiculed., Anthropophobia - Fear of people or society , Chronomentrophobia - Fear of clocks, Claustrophobia - Fear of confined spaces or Dystychiphobia - Fear of accidents. But the he went ahead undeterred. But he certainly seemed to have a trace  of Androphobia - Fear of men, Ecophobia - Fear of the home and Xenophobia - Fear of strangers or foreigners. That explains why he went on and on , without talking to any one, away from home.

But this can not  happen in India. With our city roads full of pot holes, cattle, unruly traffic, wrongly parked vehicles, diversions, encroachment on both sides by hawkers and shop-keepers and the harassment by traffic police once they get interested in stopping you , it is unimaginable that a man of sound body and mind, able and alert, of youthful disposition , with best of the car can get away from the home so far and so fast. In fact, if he is trying to run away from home, the traffic conditions may be, without his knowledge or intent, bring him back to his own apartment! ( Let mention one exception: in my town there is a very respectable old lady , an educationist and social worker. She is past 80 and has robust health - lives alone and drives her Maruti 800 car with grace and gusto. Long live the praiseworth  Pushpaben)

But the effervescent spirit, his enthusiasm, vivacity , buoyancy, ebullience, excitedness, excitement, exhilaration, exuberance, gaiety, happiness, high spirits, joy, liveliness, vim, vitality, volatility &  zing that takes the cake was amply visible when  Mr. Steward shrugged off suggestions that he better invest in a Global Positioning System (GPS)  for his car. "Why would you want one of those? You can't get lost. There is no fun in that," he said.

Some one has mentioned that the Guinness Book of Records has the story of a couple on a one  day trip to Boulogne (Boulogne is a popular destination for people from the UK who want to make a day-trip to do some shopping in France) . They walked so far away from the town centre that they decided to catch a train back. Unfortunately the train took them to Paris. Wishing to return they boarded a train to BOLOGNA, ITALY. They eventually got back to England after some weeks but not before they had had to get jobs to earn some money. I am yet to find it out for myself and till that time, it suits to believe so.

All said and done, no one can beat our Lone Ranger great grand pa Eric. And that is why, any noble French person will shout with joy and a salute :    ”Vive l'arrière grand-père Eric” ! 

We too can join him in chorus, shouting : Long live great –grandfather Eric !

Mediocre MBAs, Engineers & a crashed computer server

When MBAs aspire to be clerks

• There are 300 applicants for each clerical post at State Bank of India (SBI), mostly engineers/MBAs, for a job that just requires a Class 12 qualification for Rs 8,000-a-month job. 
• It has 11,000 clerical posts on offer, but has received 3.4 million applications.
• Mumbai: The server of State Bank of India (SBI) crashed last year when two million candidates applied for 20,000 clerical posts.

A Nasscom study found that India still produces plenty of engineers -- 400,000 a year. But most are deficient in the required technical skills, fluency in English or ability to work in a team and deliver basic oral presentations. 

Studies have indicated that only one in four graduates from India's colleges is employable.

• 
  
  
  
  As a result, those engineers or MBAs who manage to become SBI clerks may still consider themselves lucky. 
  
  
• Listen to what Sandip Mukherjee (name changed) -- he is an engineering graduate from one of the middle-rung private institutes in Kolkata -- has to say. 





• He came to Navi Mumbai to join a windmill company which has its headquarters in Europe. The quality of the job, however, he says, was only slightly better than that of a security guard. Mukherjee, who was lucky enough to find another job within four months, says his ex-boss had asked him to prepare a project report on the security system in the company's godowns.





• Apparently, the company suspected that a lot of pilferage was taking place in one of its godowns. The engineer was asked to station himself in the security office to figure out the lacunae in the system. One of his observations was that some people left the godown unchecked during lunch hour when the security guard would go to the canteen to bring food.

• Impressed with this finding, the boss then asked him to find out whether this was happening during tea break or at dinner time also, or whether the security guards went to the toilet often, leaving the gate unmanned.
• "I didn't pursue engineering to observe people's tea and toilet habits," Mukherjee wrote in his resignation letter.

• Companies say this mismatch between qualification and quality of job is inevitable in a country where everybody and his uncle is either an engineer or an MBA. The quality of teaching in most of the second-rung institutes is poor
• Indian Institute of Technology alumni have repeatedly expressed serious concern over the mushrooming of engineering colleges that are being run as "business ventures" by contractors, builders, coal dealers, brick-kiln owners and sweetmeat sellers. 
• In Uttar Pradesh alone, 250 such engineering colleges have come up in the last decade with an intake of about 60,000 students.
• Two years ago, an assessment of the country's higher education system by the University Grants Commission (UGC) found that as many as 25 per cent faculty positions in universities remained vacant; 57 per cent teachers in colleges did not have either an M Phil or PhD; and there was only one computer for 229 students, on an average, in colleges. 
• The assessment was conducted on 123 universities and 2,956 colleges across India -- an estimated 60 per cent of these institutions were private, the rest government-run.

What a life ! What a Journey !!

Robin Patricia Williams is the author of dozens of best-selling and award-winning books. She is much more than that .  We got introduced to her in before two days while discussing  “dissatisfaction” and  her dictionary “JARGON”.

Her life is full of freshness, zeal, enthusiasm, struggle & determination to carve a new path  and be a winner and only she can describe such a life  fully .

I found it worth reading many times over. Here it is for you ,  her “Real Bio Data” – as she calls it – and as written by her :

 QUOTE 

·        Born in Berkeley, California, (October 9, 1953) ,……

·        Lived a happy '50s childhood in San Jose and Fremont with two brothers and a sister and two parents who actually liked each other and liked all their kids.

·        Was conscious, by the time I was in my late teens, of the importance of trust and unconditional love.

·        Graduated from Washington High School in Fremont at 17.

·        Spent a month camping in Canada with another teenaged girl, Nicki Bouton. Got a job at Highland Hospital in Oakland as a medical secretary;

·        Moved away from home at 18 with Michelle deRoco.

·        Learned to scuba dive.

·        Quit my job to hitchhike across America with another 18-year-old girl, Marcia (Rogers) Carota.

·        Hitched 7,000 miles, got a job in Boston at Boston Children's Hospital, slept in graveyards, sides of freeways, under bridges, with relations.

·        Back in California, got my job back at the hospital.

·        Learned to sky dive.

·        Worked a second job at Herrick Hospital to make enough money to go to Europe.

·        Spent almost two years in Europe on $1,000.

·        Picked grapes in the south of France (got a tattoo);

·        pretended I was Canadian and got a job in London as a secretary for British Airways;

·        peeled potatoes and washed dishes at a pension in Austria, skiing every day;

·        traveled with my lover in the German band through Germany;

·        worked on boats on a Greek island and as a waitress;

·        Worked and lived in a kibbutz in Israel;

·        Spent some time in Paris.

·        Came back to California and got another job at the hospital in Oakland.

·        Quit to go back to school to study veterinary medicine.

·        Cynthia Katona at Ohlone Community College unveiled my passion for Shakespeare.

·        Ryan was born at home in Fremont, California, in 1977.

·        Changed majors because Nicki Bouton introduced me to graphic design;

·        Moved up to Santa Rosa, California, to go through a three-year graphic design program at Santa Rosa Junior College.

·        Began assistant-teaching the course.

·        Carmen Karr and I started our own graphic design business.

·        Was tricked into getting pregnant.

·        Jimmy was born at home in Santa Rosa in 1982.

·        I made the stupid mistake of marrying his father when Jimmy was four months old.

·        Continued to teach at the college part-time,

·        worked part-time designing video boxes for pornographic movies, freelanced graphic design in the middle of the nights,

·        Was a married single mother.

·        When Ryan was 7 years old he and I took a trip down to Oaxaca for several weeks.

·        I got dreadfully sick, came home, got pregnant while dreadfully sick, left that man when I was two months pregnant. I was much happier.

·        Scarlett was born at home in Santa Rosa in 1986.

·        Added a couple of other jobs to my collection because neither of the fathers thought they should pay child support.

·        Worked in an ad agency.

·        I have a tendency to like a job until I have learned everything I can, then move on.

·        Supported myself and my three children on $10,000 to $12,000 a year.

·        I became very good at being poor.

·        We built Christmas trees out of cardboard, stole toilet paper from public restrooms, learned fifty ways to cook beans, read stories and made up plays instead of watching television.

·        I couldn't do everything, though, so for ten years I didn't sleep much and the house was always a mess.

·        You have to give up somethin'. All that time, though, I was very conscious that it was my choice to be poor.

·        It was not an unhappy time. I chose to work several part-time jobs with no security, no benefits, no medical coverage, in exchange for being home when my kids came home from school, in exchange for jobs I could do in the middle of the night (freelance graphic jobs, preparing lesson plans, etc.) when my little ones were sleeping.

·        I traded graphics for theater tickets, for dance lessons for my kids, for books.

·        In 1984, of course, the Macintosh was invented. I was very resistant to computers. "I'm going to let computers pass me by. By the time they can do what I do in graphic design, I will be ninety years old and won't care." Well, was that stupid, of course.

·        One of my students, Brad Mager insisted I could not be computer-illiterate. He brought over his Mac Plus and plopped it on my kitchen table, which was the only flat surface in the house clear enough to set anything on.

·        We clicked. The Mac made perfect sense to me. Even the Font/DA Mover made sense.

·        I was teaching 8 hours a week but running the entire graphic design program, which took about 30 hours a week. I got paid for 8. So I quit the design program and asked to teach a HyperCard class.

·        Oh my !  that was fun. I asked if I could teach any other Macintosh classes. They said, "Can you teach spreadsheets and databases?" "Oh sure," I said.

·        I ran home and looked up "spreadsheet" and "database." I discovered that I love spreadsheets and databases--such clear, logical, and oh so useful programs.

·        Taught Microsoft Works, Intro to Macintosh, PageMaker.

·        I am a teacher. It is my path. It is what I am supposed to do.

·        No matter what is going on outside--divorce, unhappiness, anger, poverty, death--when I walk into my classroom nothing else exists except my students and our work.

·        Teachers certainly don't teach for the money. Real teachers teach because they are supposed to.

·        I didn't plan do what I'm doing. When I was in high school I had a small business teaching swimming in my parents' backyard, and all the moms and dads assumed I was going to be a kindergarten teacher. "A teacher!" I exclaimed with dismay. "Oh no, I will do something much more exciting than be a teacher!"

·        It took many years for my path to unfold, and I had no clue where it was leading.

·        But now that I am here, I see that it happened the way it was supposed to. I did not know I was on a path, but I see now that having the courage to live in the "wisdom of uncertainty," to take jobs I had a passion for instead of the ones that offered the most benefits and highest pay, to be willing to struggle to happily make ends meet rather than live in a miserable partnership, to take the anger and bitterness after a divorce and direct that energy to getting my own life together rather than trying to get money out of him, eventually led me to a very satisfying place, a place that offers so much more to me than I ever thought would happen in my life.

·        My teaching turned into writing a booklet for my students, which turned into my first two books, Macintosh Basics (shortly thereafter changed to The Little Mac Book) and The Mac is not a typewriter.

·        I borrowed money from my mother to self-publish these two books.

·        The previous year I had tried to get a HyperCard book published, but not one of the ten computer book publishers I queried said yes. So I decided to publish these two books myself.

·        I took a weekend workshop from Dan Poynter in Santa Barbara to learn how to market and sell them. They started selling.

·        I started work on a PageMaker book.

·        It's a long story, but through Scott Kronick, a contact I made at the Berkeley Mac User Group (BMUG), Ted Nace at Peachpit Press got hold of my book and asked if he could publish it.

·        Peachpit was just getting started at this time--the business was still in Ted's house in Berkeley. He agreed to publish both my existing books and also my PageMaker book.

·        I continued to teach at Santa Rosa Junior College and continued to write more books.

·        I bought a house. I had a broken heart and moved to New Mexico.

·        I realized, when I got here, that this is where I am supposed to be right now.

·        The broken heart was just a painful kick in the butt to get me here. So now I live in Santa Fe.

·        I started the Mac User Group here and have been president, vice-president, and board member, opened (and closed) Zuma's Electronic C@fe, had a column about the Internet in the Sunday edition of the local newspaper, was a Brownie leader for my daughter's troop, taught Electronic Typography at the local community college, appear on the local radio stations now and then, helped found the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association, am madly in love with the best designer in the state (probably the country) (probably the world).

·        In the past few years I have taken to teaching Shakespeare classes and leading monthly readings; I wrote a book about the woman who I believe may have written the works attributed to Shakespeare; founded the Mary Sidney Society; have had time to travel the world and ride elephants, camels, rickshaws, and zip-lines; and I continue to write columns and articles and books. My house is still a mess.

·        Scarlett is now 22, Jimmy is 26, and Ryan is 30.

·        I haven't been bored.

UNQUOTE

You can find more interesting facts  about her at http://www.ratz.com/robin/toc.html