Did “Lucy” Climb Trees?

“All of us who are human beings are in the image of God. But to be in his likeness belongs only to those who by great love have attached their freedom to God.”  —St. Diadochus of Photike

This question is at the root of a discovery just announced on the cover of Science magazine by Bay Area scientist Zeray Alemseged, Curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences and Midwestern University Professor David Green.

Australopithecus afarensis (the species of the well-known “Lucy” skeleton) was an upright walking species, but the question of whether it also spent much of its time in trees has been hotly debated for 30+ years, partly because a complete set of A. afarensis shoulder blades has never before been available for study. In an extensive analysis of two complete shoulder blades from the fossil “Selam”—the only ones from this pivotal species known to science—Alemseged and Green found the bones to be quite apelike, suggesting that our forebears were still climbing trees as bipedalism was emerging.

 

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Good-old Cinnamon (ቀረፋ) May Cut off Cancer’s Blood Supply

Cinnamon, one of the most ancient spices in human history, appears to have unique cancer-stunting properties, researchers reported in the Dec. 7 issue of the journal Carcinogenesis. Scientists in City of Hope’s Department of Molecular Medicine showed that extracts of the spice may be able to block the growth of blood vessels, called angiogenesis, in tumors.

“We found that a water-based extract from cinnamon was a potent angiogenesis inhibitor,” said Wei Wen, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular medicine and senior author on the study. Cinnamon comes from the bark of a small evergreen tree.

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Cinnamomum Cinnamon benefits:

• Diarrhea
• Nausea
• Digestion
• Weight loss
• Menopause
• Warms the body
• Yeast infections
• Circulation
• Uterine hemorrhaging
• Fungal infections

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

The Cinnamon Adventure

Past	Present
Opone	Somalia
Malao	Somalia
Aksum Empire	Ethiopia/Eritrea
Himyarite kingdom	Yemen
Frankincense kingdom	Hadramaut/Yemen
Rhapta	Tanzania/Mozambique
Barygaza	India
Early Chera, Chola, etc	India

 

Etymology:

Cyeneum = Cinnamon?

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea or Periplus of the Red Sea (Greek: Περίπλους τὴς Ἐρυθράς Θαλάσσης, Latin: Periplus Maris Erythraei) is a Greco-Roman periplus, written in Greek, describing navigation and trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports like Berenice along the coast of the Red Sea, and others along Northeast Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The text has been ascribed to different dates between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, but a mid-1st century date is now the most commonly accepted. Although the author is unknown, it is clearly a firsthand description by someone familiar with the area and is nearly unique in providing accurate insights into what the ancient world knew about the lands around the Indian Ocean.

Although Erythraean Sea (Greek: Ἐρυθρά Θάλασσα) literally means “Red Sea”, to the Greeks it included the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.

Opposite Mountain Island, on the mainland twenty stadia from shore, lies Adulis, a fair-sized village, from which there is a three-days’ journey to Coloe, an inland town and the first market for ivory. From that place to the city of the people called Auxumites there is a five days’ journey more; to that place all the ivory is brought from the country beyond the Nile through the district called Cyeneum, and thence to Adulis.

Full text of “The Periplus of the Erythræan sea; travel and trade in the Indian Ocean“

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Have India’s Poor Become Human Guinea Pigs?

My note: Can you imagine what sort of venom these evils are capable of spreading among Africans if they are able to trick so easily the relatively better informed Indians ? And the BBC, how come it reported this? Of course, the corporation has enough employees of Indian descent to remain mute on such subject.

Drug companies are facing mounting pressure to investigate reports that new medicines are being tested on some of the poorest people in India without their knowledge.

“We were surprised,” Nitu Sodey recalls about taking her mother-in-law Chandrakala Bai to Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital in Indore in May 2009.

“We are low-caste people and normally when we go to the hospital we are given a five-rupee voucher, but the doctor said he would give us a foreign drug costing 125,000 rupees (£1,400).”

The pair had gone to the hospital, located in the biggest city in Madhya Pradesh, an impoverished province in central India, because Mrs Bai was experiencing chest pains.

Their status as Dalits – the bottom of the Hindu caste system, once known as untouchables – meant that they were both accustomed to going to the back of the queue when they arrived and waiting many hours before seeing a doctor.

“The doctor took the five-rupee voucher given to BLPs [Below the Poverty Line] like us and said the rest would be paid for by a special government fund for poor people,” Mrs Sodey explains. “This was really expensive treatment for the likes of us.”

Source: BBC

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