All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

West Virginia students to stage walkout over Christian revival at high school | West Virginia | The Guardian

Between calculus and European history classes at a West Virginia public high school, 16-year-old Cameron Mays and his classmates were told by their teacher to go to an evangelical Christian revival assembly.

When students arrived at the event in the school’s auditorium, they were instructed to close their eyes and raise their arms in prayer, Mays said. The teens were asked to give their lives over to Jesus to find purpose and salvation. Those who did not follow the Bible would go to hell when they died, they were told.

The Huntington high school junior sent a text to his father.

“Is this legal?” he asked.

Max Nibert, a Huntington high school senior, holds signs reading ‘My rights are non-negotiable.’

Source: West Virginia students to stage walkout over Christian revival at high school | West Virginia | The Guardian

Boris Johnson’s leadership past point of no return, says big Tory donor – BBC News

“Politicians should go into politics to do good for their country,” Mr Armitage added. “That is the overwhelming reason to be in politics. I don’t think it’s about your own personal sense of getting to the top of a snakes-and-ladders game.

“And I feel that, if you lose moral authority, and if you do things which the average person – your mother, someone you try to explain to, someone who you admire – if you do something or say something, which on the front page of the Sunday Times looks terrible, and you do that consistently, and you betray a sense of not really caring, I think you should leave

“And I find the lack of honour inherent in modern politics, incredibly distressing.”

Asked if Mr Johnson was “past the point of no return”, he replied: “Well, personally yes.”

Source: Boris Johnson’s leadership past point of no return, says big Tory donor – BBC News

Neanderthal extinction not caused by brutal wipe out – BBC News

Archaeologists found fossil evidence from several layers at the site. The lower they dug, the further back in time they were able to see. The lowest layers showed the remains of Neanderthals who occupied the area for about 20,000 years.

But to their complete surprise, the team found a modern human child’s tooth in a layer dating back to about 54,000 years ago, along with some stone tools made in a way that was not associated with Neanderthals.

The evidence suggests that this early group of humans lived at the site for a relatively brief period, of perhaps about 2,000 years after which the site was unoccupied. The Neanderthals then return, occupying the site for several more thousand years, until modern humans come back about 44,000 years ago.

Source: Neanderthal extinction not caused by brutal wipe out – BBC News

Indian government bows to pressure, repeals farm laws

The laws evoked strong protests from farmers and farmer organisations, particularly from the states of Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, on three major grounds. First, the farmers feared that increased private sector participation in agriculture trade would result in the withdrawal of the minimum support prices offered by the government for agricultural commodities. Second, they feared that the law would lead to the corporate takeover of the Indian agriculture sector. Third, the farmers contended that they were not consulted at the drafting stage of the laws.  Source: Indian government bows to pressure, repeals farm laws

Pastelería Ideal, un recinto con tradición, historia y sabor

Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

SANTIAGO GALICIA ROJON SERRALLONGA

Derechos reservados conforme a la ley/ Copyright

Con mucha amabilidad, una persona me regaló una caja con galletas. En cuanto la recibí, de inmediato reconocí el dibujo de la tapa -un horno con tres hombres elaborando pan y la inscripción “Alemania, 1794”- y los detalles laterales e inconfundibles -cuadros de talavera- de Pastelería Ideal, establecimiento fundado por don Adolfo Fernández Cetina, en los días de 1927, en la Ciudad de México.

Mientras saboreo una taza con café y deleito mi paladar con el inigualable sabor de las galletas de Pastelería Ideal, acuden a mi memoria imágenes de mi niñez, cuando acompañaba a mi padre al centro de la Ciudad de México, donde realizaba una multiplicidad de actividades y trámites relacionados con sus funciones y responsabilidades; pero también recuerdo las conversaciones amenas de mi madre, quien solía relatarme historias de personajes y negocios de épocas pasadas.

Fotografía:…

View original post 513 more words

A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas – SAPIENS

Central Beringia is mainly underwater today, but it was a substantial land connection between 50,000 and 11,000 years ago. The term “Bering Land Bridge” gives the impression that people raced across a narrow isthmus to reach what is today Alaska. But the oceanographic data clearly show that during the LGM, the land bridge was twice the size of Texas.

If the “Out of Beringia” model is correct, Beringia wasn’t a crossing point but a homeland. It was a place where people lived for many generations, sheltering from an inhospitable climate and slowly evolving the genetic variation unique to their Native American descendants.

Either just before or shortly after the start of their period of isolation, the Beringians split into several groups: the Ancestral Native Americans, who would move south, below the ice sheets, and become ancestors of the First Peoples; the Ancient Beringians, who would stay behind in Beringia; and a mystery group (Unsampled Population A) known to us only indirectly from the traces of ancestry it contributed to some Mesoamerican populations.

Source: A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas – SAPIENS