Apatosaurus, formerly known as Brontosaurus, produced a lot of wind

By Ella Davies | Reporter, BBC Nature. BBC Nature News.

Giant dinosaurs could have warmed the planet with their flatulence, say researchers.

British scientists have calculated the methane output of sauropods, including the species known as Brontosaurus.

By scaling up the digestive wind of horses, they estimate that the total population of dinosaurs, produced 520 million tonnes of gas annually.

They suggest the gas could have been a key factor in the warm climate 150 million years ago.

David Wilkinson from Liverpool John Moore’s University, and colleagues from the University of London and the University of Glasgow published their results in the journal Current Biology.

Sauropods, such as Apatosaurus louise(formerly known as Brontosaurus), were super-sized land animals that grazed on vegetation during the Mesozoic Era.

For Dr Wilkinson, it was not the giants that were of interest but the microscopic organisms living inside them.

“The ecology of microbes and their role in the working of our planet are one of my key interests in science,” he told BBC Nature.

“Although it’s the dinosaur element that captures the popular imagination with this work, actually it is the microbes living in the dinosaurs guts that are making the methane.”

Methane is known as a “greenhouse gas” that absorbs infrared radiation from the sun, trapping it in the Earth’s atmosphere and leading to increased temperatures.

Previous studies have suggested that the Earth was up to 10C (18F) warmer in the Mesozoic Era.

With the knowledge that livestock emissions currently contribute a significant part to global methane levels, the researchers used existing data to estimate how sauropods could have affected the climate.

Their calculations considered the dinosaurs’ estimated total population and used a scale that links biomass to methane output for horses.

“Cows today produce something like 50-100 [million tonnes] per year. Our best estimate for Sauropods is around 520 [million tonnes],” said Dr Wilkinson.

Current methane emissions amount to around 500 million tonnes a year from a combination of natural sources, such as wild animals, and human activities including dairy and meat production.

Expressing his surprise at the comparative figures, Dr Wilkinson added that dinosaurs were not the sole producers of methane at the time.

“There were other sources of methane in the Mesozoic so total methane level would probably have been much higher than now,” he said.

Sauropod

Sauropod facts

• Sauropods included some of the largest animals ever to live on land including the gargantuan Argentinosaurus
• Fossil evidence suggests the herbivores lived in herds
• Recognisable features include long necks, long tails and relatively small heads

Tuesday May 01, 2012 | Kitco Commentary. By Dr. Jeff Lewis, Editor, Silver-Coin-Investor.com.

(Image left: goldprice.org)

Since the dramatic drops the silver market saw in May and September of last year, prices in the precious metals market have been suffering from an excess of negative sentiment. This adverse perception is weighing on metal prices and keeping investor demand at bay.

Furthermore, although investors have continued to buy physical silver, the overall quantity being purchased has declined significantly, resulting in reduced support for the metal’s price.

Nevertheless, the supply of silver is naturally limited by the quantity existing in the Earth’s crust, despite ever growing industrial applications for the metal and rising price inflation. This key combination of factors still provides a strong fundamental basis for continuing to hold silver over the long term.

Could Weak Silver Sentiment be Conveniently Manufactured by Central Bankers?

Interestingly, this depressed silver market sentiment picture seems to be the perfect political tool needed during a U.S. election year to lend much needed psychological support to an ever weakening U.S. Dollar in terms of its ability to purchase goods and services.

Keeping silver and other precious metal prices low by depressing market sentiment, and perhaps even engaging in covert market intervention, seems suspiciously convenient after such an excessive amount of liquidity has already been pumped into the U.S. monetary system by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank’s highly controversial quantitative easing measures promoted by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

In addition, given the high amount of liquidity the European Central Bank needed to inject to deal with the debt troubled Eurozone countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, the increasingly obvious end result will be higher consumer price inflation, despite ongoing denials by central bank and government officials.

More QE Measures Likely as U.S. Economy Languishes in Election Year

Bearish for the Dollar, but very bullish for hard precious metal currencies like silver, is the view among many market participants that further rounds of quantitative easing or QE measures by the Fed are still practically a given during this election year to help lend support to a stubbornly struggling U.S. economy.

Nevertheless, allowing metals to trade higher based on their strong fundamentals would severely dampen the U.S. central bankers’ ability to overtly increase the money supply in a substantial way.

EU Moves Toward Ratifying ESM to Provide More Permanent Bailout Mechanism

Another related development is that the European Stability Mechanism or ESM is expected to be ratified by July of this year, provided that enough of the 17 Eurozone member states approve of the bailout system to represent ninety percent of its capital commitments.

This new EU rescue program is expected to permanently replace the existing temporary European Financial Stability Facility within the Eurozone, thereby making meta-government bailouts an ongoing feature of the Eurozone’s economy.

As in the United States, a reasonable person can only expect more liquidity increasing measures will soon also follow in the EU, thereby making an even stronger case for continuing to hold and accumulate precious metals like silver.

Scott Olsen/Getty Images

By Eric Pfeiffer, Friday | April 20, 2012. Yahoo! News

One of the first pennies ever produced by the U.S. Mint was put up for auction Thursday night and reportedly sold for more than $1 million.

Bids for the 1792 Silver Center penny reached $1.15 million Thursday night, according to Heritage Auctions, which conducted the sale. The U.S. Mint itself was founded in April, 1792.

If you don’t have $1.15 million on hand, there are more affordable rare coins available. The Canadian Mint recently began selling a limited-edition glow-in-the-dark quarter featuring a dinosaur skeleton for around $30.

And the website ThinkGeek offers electromagnetically shrunk quarters for $25, or 100 times their actual value as currency.

ABC News reports that the rare penny is made of copper with a small silver plug at its center. It was an experiment by the then-fledgling U.S. Mint, which shelved the penny before it could go into mass circulation. The U.S. Mint determined the penny was too large and heavy for practical use.

Todd Imhof at Heritage Auctions told ABC that unlike today’s legal tender which bears the inscription, “In God We Trust,” the copper-silver penny reads “Liberty Parent of Science & Industry.”

Scott Olson/Getty Images

“At the time, industry and science reflected an enlightenment mindset,” Imhof said. “People believed freedom of thought and industrial growth would bind and unify the new country, not religion or God.”

An anonymous collector who has owned the coin for 10 years sold the penny. “With collectible items, for an item to sell for over a million dollars it is an unusual event,” Imhof said.

However, Imhof also said a coin of the same type sold for close to $3 million over a year ago. Still, the $1.15 million sale is one of only 30 $1 million-plus coin sales in history.

By Armen Vartian | April 06, 2012 9:59 a.m.
Article first published in 2012-04-16, Expert Advice section of Coin World

Individuals can gain tax advantages by owning coins as investments. Net income from the sale of art and collectibles is taxable, but not until the item is sold or otherwise disposed of for value.

For some people, this makes coins a preferred investment vehicle over stocks, whose dividends are taxed annually even if they are in the form of new stock and not cash.

A coin investor can defer taxable gains until a time of his or her own choosing. However, “collectibles,” which includes art and precious metals, are taxed at a rate higher than that for capital assets such as stocks and real estate, which is a disadvantage.

Specialized advice

I recommend specialized advice from financial professionals there.

The key income tax aspects of purchases and sales of art and collectibles relate to the treatment of expenses and losses, and depend largely upon whether you are a collector, an investor or a dealer for tax purposes.

Sounds simple enough, but many people spend a lot of time and effort arguing with the IRS and state taxing authorities over this characterization, because the tax consequences of each can be quite different.

Collectors, who buy and sell coins primarily for personal pleasure, are the most tax-disadvantaged class. They must pay tax on income they earn from their collections, but cannot deduct net losses they might have from collectible sales.

They cannot deduct any expenses relating to their collection, such as insurance, security, membership dues for collectors’ clubs and subscriptions to relevant periodicals, but can offset these expenses against any net income they declare from the sale of items from their collections.

Unfortunately, even this benefit is substantially limited because it comprises a “miscellaneous” itemized deduction on Schedule A subject to the 2 percent adjusted gross income floor.

In other words, unless the collector’s total miscellaneous expenses exceed 2 percent of adjusted gross income, there is no benefit.

Investors fare slightly better. They can deduct expenses relating to their art and collectibles portfolios, but not net losses from sales.

However, the IRS makes it more and more difficult to qualify as an investor, clearly preferring to characterize everyone interested in art and collectibles as a collector.

Fun or profit?

The key is whether the taxpayer is engaged in the activity for profit or for enjoyment. Taxpayers who show a profit from their activities for three of the past five years are presumed to be engaged in those activities for profit, although the IRS has the right to rebut that presumption. Relevant factors are the amount of time the taxpayer spent on the activity, whether the taxpayer relied on advice of experts and whether losses could be expected in a particular year (such as when the market drops in particular types of art or collectibles).

Finally, taxpayers who can establish that they buy and sell art or collectibles as part of a trade or business may acquire dealer status, enabling them to deduct expenses as well as net losses against their other income.

As one might expect, the IRS is loath to treat a collector with other sources of income as a “dealer.”

However, over the years, the regulations in this area have been expanded so that it is not impossible for a serious enthusiast to qualify.

The “for profit” determination is similar to that described above for investors. Dealers pay tax at ordinary income rates and may use losses to offset other ordinary income.

It’s always best to get professional help with tax matters.

Owning Gold and Precious Metals in Taxable Accounts

Bischoff: Before jumping in to precious metals, be sure to get your tax facts straight. By Bill Bischoff (November 29, 2011) www.smartmoney.com

With the safest fixed-income investments–CDs, Treasury bonds, and money-market funds—paying next to nothing, investing in gold and other precious metals looks very appealing. But before jumping in to the market for the shiny stuff, be sure to understand all of the nuances and pitfalls.

Physical Ownership of Precious Metal Coins and Bullion – Tax Implications

For individuals, there are no tax-law restrictions on direct physical ownership of precious metal coins and bullion. Such assets, however, are considered collectibles for federal income purposes. As such, any net long-term capital gains when these assets are sold by an individual taxpayer are subject to a maximum federal income tax rate of 28%, instead of the usual 15% maximum rate on long-term gains.

Here’s how the 28% maximum rate deal works. If you are in the 28%, 33%, or 35% federal income tax bracket, your net long-term gains from collectibles are taxed at 28%. If you are in the 10%, 15%, or 25% bracket, your net long-term gains from collectibles are taxed at your regular rate of 10%, 15%, or 25%.

Storage Issues

The other concern with direct physical ownership of precious metal assets is finding a secure place to store them. Burying them in your backyard is legal but not recommended. Using a bank safe deposit box is another possibility, but obtaining insurance coverage could be problematic. One of the best options is to hire a storage company to hold your precious metal assets. Several companies exist for this specific purpose, including the Delaware Depository Service Company.

Depending on the company, you may be able to have your precious metal assets stored on a fully segregated basis–where you continue to hold title to the assets and they are specifically identified and physically separated from everybody else’s assets. Therefore, you can order your coins or bullion to be delivered to you at any time.

An alternative is known as allocated storage where the storage company basically acts as a custodian by holding precious metal assets that add up to what its customers collectively own. In this case, your share is commingled with all the other customers’ shares, and you only have a piece of paper to show for it. If you demand delivery, it could take some time to convert your share into actual physical coins or bullion that could then be shipped to you.

Whether you choose segregated or allocated storage, make sure to ask about insurance coverage.

To find out about Indirect Precious Metal Investments via ETFs and Mining Stocks Read entire article.

The Bottom Line

The important thing to take away from this story is that your profits from taxable investments in precious metal coins, bullion, and ETFs could be taxed at a higher-than-expected rate. That doesn’t make acquiring some of these assets a bad idea, but it’s something to think about before you decide to pull the trigger.

The sheer size of Titanoboa meant it had no trouble devouring prey as large as alligators

By Jane O’Brien – BBC News, Washington \ 2 April 2012

A recently discovered prehistoric monster snake provides answers about the past – and raises questions for the future.

Around 58 million years ago, a monstrous snake slithered out of the swampy jungles of South America and began a reign of terror.

Weighing more than a ton and measuring 14m (approximately 50ft) the giant reptile could swallow a whole crocodile without showing a bulge. But a few years ago, scientists never even knew it existed.

“Never in your wildest dreams do you expect to find a 14m boa constrictor. The biggest snake today is half that size,” says Dr Carlos Jaramillo, a scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and part of the team that made the discovery.

‘World of lost reptiles’

Thought to be a distant relative of the anaconda and boa constrictor, the snake – named Titanoboa – was not venomous. Instead, it crushed its prey with the constricting force of 400lbs per sq inch – the equivalent of lying under the weight of one and a half times the Brooklyn Bridge.

The fossils were exposed by excavation at the massive Cerrejon open-face coal mine in northern Colombia. In 2002, scientists had discovered at that site the remains of a tropical rainforest from the Palaeocene Epoch – perhaps the planet’s first.

As well as fossilised leaves and plants, they unearthed reptiles so big they defied imagination.

“What we found was a giant world of lost reptiles – turtles the size of a kitchen table and the biggest crocodiles in the history of fossil records,” says Jonathan Bloch, an expert in vertebrate evolution at the University of Florida.

They also found the vertebrae of a colossal snake.

“After the extinction of the dinosaurs, this animal, the Titanoboa, was the largest predator on the surface of the planet for at least 10 million years,” says Dr Bloch. “This was a major animal in any sense of the imagination.”

Search for skulls

But scientists needed the snake’s skull to get a full picture of how it looked, what food it ate and how it might be related to modern species. Last year, a team set out to find it, with little expectation of success. Because the bones of a snake’s skull are so fragile, few survive.

“Unlike our skulls, snake skulls aren’t fused together. Instead they’re connected with tissue,” says Dr Jason Head, a snake specialist from the University of Nebraska.

“When the animal dies, the connective tissue decomposes and all the individual bones are generally dispersed. They’re very thin and fragile too and often get destroyed. Because Titanoboa is so big and the skull bones are so large, it’s one of the few snakes that do make it into the fossil record.”

To their amazement, the team recovered the remains of three skulls from which the reptile could be accurately reconstructed for the first time.

From that, they were able to get a better sense of how Titanoboa lived and looked. A life-sized replica is now on display at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, and will begin a nationwide tour in 2013.

Aside from the excitement of discovering a new and enormous species of snake, the reptile can tell scientists a lot about the history of the Earth’s climate – and offer a glimpse of the possible effects of global warming today.

Snakes are unable to regulate their own temperature and depend on external heat to survive.

“We think the Titanoboa became this large because it was much warmer on the equator after the dinosaurs died 60 million years ago,” says Dr Bloch. “We think that’s why reptiles in general were larger.

That ability to thrive in a warm climate could be relevant in the event that global temperatures rise according to the projections of climate scientists, Dr Bloch adds.

“It’s evidence that ecosystems can thrive at temperatures of the levels that are being projected over the next one or two hundred years.”

Return of Titanoboa?

But the climate changes that produced Titanoboa took millions of years. Scientists are less certain about the effects of sudden temperature change.

“Biology is amazingly adaptable. Changing climates and changing continents are the fuel of evolution. But things that happen very quickly can result in the types of change we might not view very positively,” says Dr Bloch.

The Cerrejon open-face coal mine where the fossils were discovered

As well as being warmer, CO2 levels were also 50% higher during the period of the Cerrejon rainforest.

“One big lesson we are learning from the fossils in Cerrejon is that tropical plants and the ecosystem in general have the ability to cope with high temperatures and high levels of CO2, another major concern with the current trend of global warming,” says Dr Jaramillo.

“Perhaps the plants and animals of the tropics today already have the genetic ability to cope with global warming.”

Does that mean the Titanoboa could one day return?

“As the temperature increases, you have the probability they will come back,” says Dr Jaramillo. “But it takes geological time to develop a new species. It could take a million years – but perhaps they will!”

A prototype for the first Jewish coins, the silver shekel struck during the Jewish War circa A.D. 66, realized $1,105,375, including the 19.5 percent buyer’s fee, in a March 8 auction in New York City.

By Jeff Starck-Coin World Staff – COIN WORLD | March 13, 2012 10:00 a.m.  Article first published in 2012-03-26, World Coins section of Coin World.

Two coins, two known, $2 million; that’s the mathematical equation for a pair of coins that are each unique in private hands and that together sold March 8 for more than $2 million in New York City.

(Image courtesy of www.HeritageAuctions.com)

The coins, a silver quarter shekel and a silver shekel that date to the first year of the Jewish war from A.D. 66 to 70, were part of the Shoshana Collection, auctioned by Heritage Auctions.

The silver shekel realized $1,105,375, including the 19.5 percent buyer’s fee. The coin was a prototype design for the first shekel struck by the Jews in the Jewish War.

The quarter shekel realized $896,250, including the fee.

Jeff Rubinger of Antiqua Ancient Art & Numismatics in Woodland Hills, Calif., was the winning bidder, according to Heritage Auctions.

When the Jewish Revolt against the Romans broke out in A.D. 66 in Judea, Jewish fighters captured Jerusalem and the temple treasure became available. The silver (presumably the Tyrian coins that had been paid to meet tax obligations over the years) was used to strike shekel, half shekel and quarter shekel coins, and thus this coinage is viewed as the first act of independence.

The prototype, as with the later regular issues, depicts a ritual chalice surrounded by text on the obverse, with three pomegranates surrounded by an inscription that translates to “Jerusalem is Holy” on the reverse; a small ring of dots encircles the chalice on the prototype.

The type was unknown until the two coins were discovered in the late 1970s, both struck from the same set of dies. The prototype is 24 millimeters in diameter and 13.34 grams, or about the size of a U.S. quarter dollar, but a bit more than twice as heavy.

The other known example is in the collection of the The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

According to the catalogers, the extreme rarity suggests the issue was very small, perhaps limited to a few trial strikes in the manner of a modern pattern. “Both the Shoshana and Israel Museum specimens display similar centering, with the reverse slightly off-center to left, suggesting the moneyers in Jerusalem had not yet perfected their techniques for striking such large silver pieces,” according to the lot description.

The major elements of the design were retained in the second generation issues, but the inner dotted border was removed and the Paleo Hebrew lettering rendered in a much less elaborate style.

In Good Extremely Fine condition, the coin had an estimate of $950,000.

According to David Hendin, writing in Guide to Biblical Coins, he had a chance to acquire one of these prototypes when they were unknown, but because the source was known for sometimes having dealt in fakes, he passed.

“While it looked authentic to me, I was not certain enough to overcome my doubts, and $2,000 for a questionable coin was a lot of money,” he wrote. “It was to my chagrin that in 1991 the [Abraham] Bromberg specimen sold at auction for $242,000.”

The prototype was sold in the first part of the Bromberg auction, a sale that also included the quarter shekel, which realized $253,000 in that sale.

Quarter shekel

Silver quarter shekels from the Jewish War are extremely rare, with five examples known, two from Year One and three from Year Four, according to Hendin’s book.

The Year One example from the Shoshana Collection is the better example, with the second example featuring a repaired hole (the coin is part of a private collection in Israel.)

The difficult circumstances of that time period might explain why quarter shekels were never struck in significant numbers, according to the catalogers, noting the existence of some bronze examples.

The silver quarter shekel measures 16 millimeters in diameter and weighs 3.13 grams, or slightly smaller and heavier than a U.S. dime.

The ritual chalice appears on the obverse, and a staff with three pomegranate buds is shown on the back, with the Jerusalem is Holy legend.

In Choice Very Fine condition, the quarter-shekel had an estimate of $850,000.

The coins were found close to the Roman Baths

More than 30,000 Roman coins were found by archaeologists working in Bath in 2007, it has been revealed.

The silver coins are believed to date from 270AD and have been described as the fifth largest UK hoard ever found.

The coins are fused together and were sent to the British Museum. Conservators are expected to take at least a year to work through them.

A campaign has now been started at the Roman Baths to try to raise £150,000 to acquire and display them.

The size of the find is not as large as the Frome Hoard in April 2010 when more than 53,500 coins were discovered by metal detectorist Dave Crisp near Frome in Somerset.

The coins found in this hoard date from a similar time and are thought to be the largest ever discovered in a Roman town in the UK.

Roman Baths spokesman Stephen Clews said: “We’ve put in a request for a formal valuation and then hope to buy the coins to display them at the baths.

“At the time there was a lot of unrest in the Roman Empire so there may be some explanation for why the coins were hidden away.

“The find is also unusual as it was discovered by professional archaeologists as opposed to an amateur using a metal detector,” he added.

This mound in Syria was formed as generations built and rebuilt mud-brick homes on the same spot

BBC Mobile – NEWS Science & Environment – 20 March 2012.

Thousands of possible early human settlements have been discovered by archaeologists using computers to scour satellite images.

Jason Ur said he had found about 9,000 potential new sites in north-eastern Syria.

Computers scanned the images for soil discoloration and mounds caused when mud-brick settlements collapsed.

Dr. Ur said surveying the same area on the ground would have taken him a lifetime.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researcher told BBC News: “With these computer science techniques, however, we can immediately come up with an enormous map which is methodologically very interesting, but which also shows the staggering amount of human occupation over the last 7,000 or 8,000 years.

“What’s more, anyone who comes back to this area for any future survey would already know where to go.

“There’s no need to do this sort of initial reconnaissance to find sites. This allows you to do targeted work, so it maximizes the time we have on the ground.”

Iraqi heritage sites

In the past, Dr Ur used declassified spy satellite photographs and the human eye to try to identify potential sites.

But over the last three years, he has worked with computer expert Bjoern Menze, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to create a software application able to classify a huge range of terrain.

He said this had removed subjectivity and allowed them to look at a much larger area.

In all, about 9,000 possible settlements were identified across 23,000 sq km.

Ideally, he said, some of these would be excavated, but the volatile political situation in Syria had forced them to put any ground searches on hold.

However, he did tell the BBC that he hoped to conduct further research in the Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq, and follow that up with excavations that would be “a very rigorous testing of the model”.

Archaeological work in Iraq has not been popular in the past, but Dr Ur feels the time is right to identify heritage sites of importance and ensure they are not lost as the country presses on with widespread development of its towns and cities.

Scientists say the specimens display features that are quite distinct from fully modern humans

By Jonathan Amos. Science correspondent, BBC News.

The remains of what may be a previously unknown human species have been identified in southern China.

The bones, which represent at least five individuals, have been dated to between 11,500 and 14,500 years ago.

But scientists are calling them simply the Red Deer Cave people, after one of the sites where they were unearthed.

The team has told the PLoS One journal that far more detailed analysis of the fossils is required before they can be ascribed to a new human lineage.

“We’re trying to be very careful at this stage about definitely classifying them,” said study co-leader Darren Curnoe from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

“One of the reasons for that is that in the science of human evolution or palaeoanthropology, we presently don’t have a generally agreed, biological definition for our own species (Homo sapiens), believe it or not. And so this is a highly contentious area,” he told BBC News.

Much of the material has been in Chinese collections for some time but has only recently been subjected to detailed analysis.

The remains of some of the individuals come from Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), near the city of Mengzi in Yunnan Province. A further skeleton was discovered at Longlin, in neighbouring Guangxi Province.

The skulls and teeth from the two locations are very similar to each other, suggesting they are from the same population.

Scientists continue to excavate at Maludong

But their features are quite distinct from what you might call a fully modern human, says the team. Instead, the Red Deer Cave people have a mix of archaic and modern characteristics.

In general, the individuals had rounded brain cases with prominent brow ridges. Their skull bones were quite thick. Their faces were quite short and flat and tucked under the brain, and they had broad noses.

Their jaws jutted forward but they lacked a modern-human-like chin. Computed Tomography (X-ray) scans of their brain cavities indicate they had modern-looking frontal lobes but quite archaic-looking anterior, or parietal, lobes. They also had large molar teeth.

Dr. Curnoe and colleagues put forward two possible scenarios in their PLoS One paper for the origin of the Red Deer Cave population.

One posits that they represent a very early migration of a primitive-looking Homo sapiens that lived separately from other forms in Asia before dying out.

How the Red Deer Cave people might have looked 11,500 years ago

Another possibility contends that they were indeed a distinct Homo species that evolved in Asia and lived alongside our own kind until remarkably recently.

A third scenario being suggested by scientists not connected with the research is that the Red Deer Cave people could be hybrids.

“It’s possible these were modern humans who inter-mixed or bred with archaic humans that were around at the time,” explained Dr Isabelle De Groote, a palaeoanthropologist from London’s Natural History Museum.

“The other option is that they evolved these more primitive features independently because of genetic drift or isolation, or in a response to an environmental pressure such as climate.”

Dr. Curnoe agreed all this was “certainly possible”.

Attempts are being made to extract DNA from the remains. This could yield information about interbreeding, just as genetic studies have on the closely related human species – the Neanderthals and an enigmatic group of people from Siberia known as the Denisovans.

Attempts are being made to extract DNA from the remains. This could yield information about interbreeding, just as genetic studies have on the closely related human species – the Neanderthals and an enigmatic group of people from Siberia known as the Denisovans.

Whatever their true place in the Homo family tree, the Red Deer People are an important find simply because of the dearth of well dated, well described specimens from this part of the world.

And their unearthing all adds to the fascinating and increasingly complex story of human migration and development.

Project leaders Darren Curnoe and Ji Xueping discuss the Longlin skull

“The Red Deer People were living at what was a really interesting time in China, during what we call the epipalaeolithic or the end of the Stone Age,” says Dr Curnoe.

“Not far from Longlin, there are quite well known archaeological sites where some of the very earliest evidence for the epipalaeolithic in East Asia has been found.

“These were occupied by very modern looking people who are already starting to make ceramics – pottery – to store food. And they’re already harvesting from the landscape wild rice. There was an economic transition going on from full-blown foraging and gathering towards agriculture.”

Quite how the Red Deer People fit into this picture is unclear. The research team is promising to report further investigations into some of the stone tools and cultural artefacts discovered at the dig sites.

The co-leader on the project is Professor Ji Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

A 12.76 carat pink diamond, the largest of the rare and precious stones ever found in Australia, has been named the Argyle Pink Jubilee

Huff Post World | The Internet Newspaper | First Posted: 02/22/2012

A massive rough pink diamond has been unearthed in Rio Tinto’s Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia, CNN reports.

At 12.76 carats, the remarkable find is said to be the largest stone ever discovered in the country and is expected to sell for up to $10.6 million, according to the Herald Sun.

Named the Argyle Pink Jubilee, the gem is similar in color to the 24-carat Williamson Pink given to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding gift, explains the Telegraph.

“A diamond of this caliber is unprecedented — it has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone, and we may never see one like this again,” Argyle Pink Diamonds Manager Josephine Johnson said in a statement.

The gem is being cut and polished into a single stone over a 10 day period and will be up for auction later in the year, Rio Tinto said.

In November 2010, Sotheby’s Geneva office sold a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond for more than $46 million, which set the world’s auction record for any diamond and jewel at $1.86 million per carat.

More than 90 percent of the world’s pink diamonds come from the Argyle mine.