The ?Psychic Being? in 'Savitri' ? An Initial Exploration

Savitri, the book of revelations, is Sri Aurobindo?s magnum opus, the book of secrets into inner worlds and worlds above, holding the key to their discovery, to self-mastery and more. The Psychic Being, a central being within, whose discovery in life is pivotal to self-growth and discovery, a widening of consciousness which embraces all, is a ever-recurring theme in Sri Aurobindo?s philosophy. Does Sri Aurobindo mention the term ?Psychic Being? in Savitri? Does he describe it? If so where and how? These questions led to this initial exploration in Savitri, seeking the ?Psychic Being?. An idea of the ?Psychic Being? as glimpsed from literature on Integral Yoga is presented, followed by an examination of part of Canto 5, Book 7: ?Finding of the Soul? for reference to the Psychic Being. Some conclusions are then drawn from the brief study.

The Psychic Being and the Soul - Some Explanations

The Psychic Being is one of the central themes in Sri Aurobindo?s Integral Yoga which seeks the transformation of matter such that it would be capable of revealing the face of the Divine immanent in all of creation and beyond. The agent whose task it is to bring about that transformation of nature - the physical, vital and mental - is the Psychic being, which is a portion of the divine put into all life, and in man being given the opportunity to express itself and take over his nature, effecting a gradual transformation of all of his nature such that Divinity may express itself through the ?divinised mud?.

What is the relationship between the soul and the psychic being? Is there any essential difference between them? Further reading reveals an essential difference between the Soul and the Psychic Being. In Integral Yoga, the soul state is differentiated into two states, namely ?the soul in its essence? and ?the soul in its evolved, individualised form?. The soul in its essence is what is referred to in various terms in this yoga as ?psyche, psychic essence, soul spark or soul element? (Sri Aurobindo, 1989, p. iii). It is by this soul spark or soul element that ?we exist and persist as individual beings in Nature? (Aurobindo, 1970a, p. 891). The soul in its evolved, individualized form is referred to variously as ?psychic being, psychic personality, soul-form? or soul personality? (Sri Aurobindo, 1989, p. iii). This is the soul personality that evolves with the growth of consciousness during each life-time. The Psychic Being then is the evolving soul.

The term ?Psychic? is derived from the Greek term, ?psukhe?, which means the soul. In the many layers that make up the being, the Psychic Being is the innermost being which lends its support to all the other parts of the being, both inner and outer, the layers belonging to both the Purusha (Self) and Prakriti (nature or manifested self). It is described as a ?spark or portion of the Divine? present in all forms of creation. The Psychic Being is a flowering of what is called the Psyche or Psychic entity or soul. This psyche grows, in the course of its evolution and through its various experiences in life-times into an individual psychic personality in the human. This individualized personality is termed the Psychic Being (Dalal, 2007, p. 204).

Here is an extract of Sri Aurobindo?s description of these terms in ?Synthesis of Yoga? (Aurobindo, 1997, p. 141):

?But the true soul of man is not there; (heart of desire) it is in the true invisible heart hidden in some luminous cave of the nature: there under some infiltration of the divine Light is our soul, a silent inmost being of which few are even aware; for if all have a soul, few are conscious of their true soul or feel its direct impulse. There dwells the little spark of the Divine which supports this obscure mass of our nature and around it grows the psychic being, the formed soul or the real Man within us. It is as this psychic being in him grows and the movements of the heart reflect its divinations and impulsions that man becomes more and more aware of his soul, ceases to be a superior animal, and, awakened to the glimpses of the godhead within him, admits more and more its intimations of a deeper life and consciousness and an impulse towards things divine. It is one of the decisive moments of the integral Yoga when this psychic being liberated, brought out from the veil to the front, can pour the full flood of its divinations, seeings and impulsions on the mind, life and body of man and begin to prepare the upbuilding of divinity in the earthly nature.?

The Psychic Being in Savitri

We have a sense of the significance of the Psychic Being and its emergence in man as a decisive action in the course of individual evolution. However, in ?Savitri?, Sri Aurobindo?s magnum opus, it is quite a wonder that the term psychic being occurs nowhere in the 24,000 odd lines that constitute this epic poem, as revealed by a word search. However, its closest root, the term ?Psyche? occurs once, as described below (Aurobindo, 1970b, p. 487).

But for such vast spiritual change to be,

Out of the mystic cavern in man?s heart

The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil

And step into common nature?s crowded rooms

And stand uncovered in that nature?s front

And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life.

The Psyche, in Sri Aurobindo?s yoga is a direct reference to the ?soul? or ?innermost part of the being?(Sri Aurobindo, 1989, p. iii) as opposed to the psychic being. In other words, it is ?the soul; the essence of the soul; spark of the Divine which is there in all things.?

Going through the first 201 lines (in the first 5 pages, from pg. 522-527) of Canto 5; Book 7, there is some indication that Sri Aurobindo was referring to the Psychic Being, although the term psychic being was never used. These following lines especially hold the clue to the fact that Sri Aurobindo was referring to the Psychic Being (Aurobindo, 1970b, pp. 526, 527):

But since she knows the toil of mind and life

As a mother feels and shares her children?s lives,

She puts forth a small portion of herself,

A being no bigger than the thumb of man

Into a hidden region of the heart

To face the pang and to forget the bliss,

To share the suffering and endure earth?s wounds

And labour mid the labour of the stars.

The key to the fact that Sir Aurobindo was indeed referring to the Psychic Being appears in the line, ?A being no bigger than the thumb?. This line is a direct reference to the Upanishadic principle of the caitya purusa (Sri Aurobindo, 1989). It is in the ?Katho Upanishad?, that the Caitya Purusa is described as a being no bigger than the thumb. The subsequent lines give ample description of the being that is no bigger than the thumb is an out flowering or the putting out of this being in question by ?The Spirit?s conscious representative?, referred to in the feminine in order to bear nature?s pangs and toil with her. The Soul-Psychic being relationship echoed in these lines above are taken up again in ?Synthesis of Yoga?. Sri Aurobindo points out (Aurobindo, 1997, pp. 153-154) that even when a semblance of the Psychic Being is present, ?it is still in all but a few a smaller portion of the being??no bigger in the mass of the body than the thumb of a man? was the image used by the ancient seers..? He is referring here to the Caitya Purusa pointed out by the ancient seers, referred to him as the Psychic Being in later works.

Elsewhere too, in ?Synthesis of Yoga?, Sri Aurobindo makes a direct reference to the Psychic Being as the Caitya Purusa (Aurobindo, 1997, p. 238 - 239) as in :

? ??this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine. Not the unborn Self or Atman, for the Self even in presiding over the existence of the individual is aware always of its universality and transcendence, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul, caitya purusa, supporting mind, life and body, standing behind the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience.?

We can be quite assured that Sri Aurobindo was referring to the Psychic Being through these cross-references. A further confirmation of this can also be drawn by analyzing the content in the following lines (Aurobindo, 1970b, pp. 526 -527) as follows:

A being stood immortal in transience,

Deathless dallying with momentary things,

In whose wide eyes of tranquil happiness

Which pity and sorrow could not abrogate

Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes:

This being is the soul, transcendent, ?Observer of the silent steps of the hours, Eternity upheld the minute?s acts And the passing scenes of the Everlasting?s play?.. The Spirit?s conscious representative,..? However, to help the natural portion of man to receive and bear the impacts of life,

She puts forth a small portion of herself,

A being no bigger than the thumb of man

Into a hidden region of the heart

To face the pang and to forget the bliss,

To share the suffering and endure earth?s wounds

And labour mid the labour of the stars.

This being, ?no bigger than the thumb of man? is an out-flowering of the Soul entity or soul element, as described in these lines, something put forth by the Soul. Savitri gains proximity with The Soul through her Psychic Being. It is likely that in Savitri, her Psychic Being was fully formed and therefore eventually opened the gateway to the Soul, with which she merges, as the forthcoming lines depict.

Here in this chamber of flame and light they met;

They looked upon each other, knew themselves,

The secret deity and its human part,

The calm immortal and the struggling soul.

Then with a magic transformation?s speed

They rushed into each other and grew one.

It is to be understood that the soul spark or psychic spark is present in life forms, but in the more evolved human nature it is given a chance to step forward, influence at first the development of the nature - the physical, mental and vital - and eventually, use perfected nature as its means of self-expression which is a crucial step leading to the divine manifestation upon earth. The mental mind perceives this in a somewhat crude chronological order. It appears that soul states flow over each other, although there is apparent an evolutionary development. In this canto, it appears that Sri Aurobindo describes the psychic being as something that is encountered on the way to the Soul, something that aids the eventual soul contact.

The experience of diving into these few lines of Savitri cannot be described in words. It was a momentary dip into an ocean of delight and wonder, something in one knowing fully well that the best and brightest treasures were far, far away, beyond the clutches of this mind or this intellect. There was a sense of silence in the lines that continuously led and also trailed behind the search, there were deeper voices that hummed the secret of the route and the surface being knew itself ill equipped for that journey. A surrender total was demanded, nothing more, nothing less, to open oneself and wait in silent aspiration. One perhaps never finishes with Savitri. Fresh windows open each time something within us reaches out to Savitri. So it is with this initial exploration. It continues.

References

Aurobindo, S. (1970a). Life Divine. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.

Aurobindo, S. (1970b). Savitri. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.

Aurobindo, S. (1997). Synthesis of Yoga (Vol. VOLUMES 33 and 34). Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.

Dalal, A. S. (2007). Sri Aurobindo and The Future Psychology - Supplement to A Greater Psychology. Puducherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.

Huppes, N. (2001). Psychic Education. New Delhi: Sri Auriobindo Education Society.

Sri Aurobindo, A. (1989). The Psychic Being, Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution (First ed.). Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.

Source: http://sassingapore.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-psychic-being-in-savitri-initial.html

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State finance official admits faking audit

SANTA FE (KRQE) - The former controller of the New Mexico Finance Authority didn?t know whether it was laziness or an oversight, but on Thursday he admitted a huge and felonious blunder.

Greg Campbell pleaded guilty to his crimes in a Santa Fe courtroom but couldn?t really explain why he cooked the books at the NMFA.

?I could say it was a time pressure," he said in court.? "I don?t know why I honestly did it because I know I wasn?t going to benefit from it.

"I did want to make sure we got our bond sale done."

Campbell pleaded guilty to three felony counts including forgery and securities fraud for his role in producing a fake audit circulated in the investment community by NMFA.

The scandal that erupted in July prompted a shakeup in the agency that acts something like a bank selling bonds to loan project money to local governments.? NMFA Chief Executive Officer Rick May was suspended and eventually fired .

Chief Operating Officer John Duff, Campbell's boss, was arrested and suspended, but a grand jury declined to indict him on criminal charges.? He, too, left the agency although it was unclear whether he resigned, retired or was also fired.

The scandal also delayed bond sales forcing local governments to delay the work or seek funding elsewhere.

In September the grand jury indicted Campbell on 12 counts of forgery and securities fraud.

Campbell had no prior criminal history and told the judge he had a family to support.? The judge gave him five years probation.

State investigators say they?re making their entire report public and giving it to lawmakers and the governor next week.?

?To institute whatever reforms they see fit to insure this doesn?t happen again, and that the internal controls and management are strengthened,? said Daniel Tanaka, director of the state Securities Division.

Investigators say no one else will likely face criminal charges.
?

Source: http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/state-finance-offial-admits-faking-audit

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Why did Obama invite Romney to lunch?

President Barack Obama is having Mitt Romney over for lunch on Thursday and their meeting is already generating a lot of buzz. Here are five theories about the White House?s motives.

cspandebateObama and Romney were bitter rivals in the 2012 presidential campaign, with Obama getting a surprisingly big victory in the Electoral College.

Since then, Romney has stayed out of the spotlight, while Obama said he would invite Romney to the White House at some point.

The pair will have a private meeting for lunch, so there will be no press coverage or a photo opportunity.

So here are five theories that are floating around about the get together.

1. Obama is extending a common courtesy

In 2008, President-elect Obama met with John McCain on November 17 in Chicago, and there was a photo op with the two men. McCain had lost to Obama, but he was still a U.S. senator.

At the time, McCain said he would ?obviously? help the incoming president and the former foes issued a statement about bipartisanship.

Conditions are different in 2012, with Romney not holding a Senate position and Obama sitting in office as the incumbent.

We?re also not sure that there is a tradition of losing presidential candidates meeting with incumbent presidents.

The protocol for current presidents meeting with former presidents is entirely different.

You can read excerpts from a book called ?The President?s Club? for a look at how presidents interact.

2. Obama will offer Romney a Cabinet job

That doesn?t seem likely, since Romney is self-supporting financially and has a life outside politics, with 18 grandchildren.

If a job were forthcoming in the new Obama cabinet, it would have to be approved by the U.S. Senate, with a majority vote.

Since the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, that could get interesting.

Also, as a Cabinet member, Romney would be reporting to Obama, which also would be interesting, given the mutual dislike between the candidates on the campaign trail.

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3. Obama will enlist Romney in the fiscal cliff debate

One issue where the candidates disagreed sharply on the campaign trail was on the fiscal cliff debate.

Romney was not in favor of raising taxes on higher income earners, because he believed it stunted the growth of business and hurt its ability to create jobs.

Obama was critical of Romney?s philosophy about the fiscal cliff, especially his attacks on entitlement spending.

However, one of Romney?s ideas on the campaign trail, a cap of income tax deductions for wealthier Americans, might become part of the negotiations in Congress in December.

Obama had floated out a similar plan in the past, but just after the election, Senate Democrats attached Romney?s name to it, as a way to get the Republicans to discuss it.

?Let?s just say there?s a renewed interest,? said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, as reported in the New York Times on November 13. ?Part of it is people reflecting on Obama?s proposal, but when Romney said what he said, it just added fuel.?

4. Obama wants Romney?s advice on business issues

That?s also a distinct possibility, since President Obama praised Romney?s business acumen after the campaign.

?He presented some ideas during the course of the campaign that I actually agree with. And so it?d be interesting to talk to him about something like that. There may be ideas that he has with respect to jobs and growth that can help middle-class families that I want to hear,? Obama said.

Of course, President Obama has scores of business advisers already, including friends in the private sector.

5. Obama wants closure on the 2012 presidential election, or something else?

President Obama said after the election that he was interested in talking with Romney about ways the two men could work together.

He used similar words about John McCain in 2008, after Obama easily defeated the Republican candidate. That didn?t come to pass.

One theory is that Obama could just want to be consistent in how he publicly handles his consecutive wins in 2008 and 2012, and it would be a slight to Romney if he didn?t extend a similar invitation for a sit-down meeting.

But in an editorial in Wednesday?s Washington Post, former Romney strategist Stuart Stevens paints a portrait of Romney as a good man who is a Washington outsider, who was never accepted by the GOP establishment.

?I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.?s Green Room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians. That?s why, a year ago, so few of those people thought he would win the nomination,? Stevens said.

Given that some key Republican leaders criticized Romney for his post-election comments about Obama using ?gifts? to win the election, could Obama approach Romney about some kind of position related to bipartisanship or public service?

As odd as the idea sounds, Romney has made it clear he?s done running for public office, but has no plans to retire.

An Associated Press story earlier this month cited a Romney insider as saying the former candidate had an interest in philanthropic efforts or having a role in future Olympics efforts.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/five-theories-obama-meeting-romney-100811036.html

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Suicide bomber wounds key Pakistan Taliban commander, kills 6

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber wounded a senior Taliban commander and killed six people on Thursday in a market in a northwestern Pakistani region on the Afghan border, a spokesman for the commander and police said.

Maulvi Nazir Wazir, also known as Mullah Nazir, was wounded in the attack at the main market of Wana, the capital of the South Waziristan region. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack or the extent of Nazir's wounds.

The blast destroyed Nazir's vehicle, killed six people and injured 12, said Maulana Amir Nawaz, a spokesman for Nazir.

"Nazir is a very important commander with the support of his tribe," said Mansur Khan Mahsud, the director of research at the Islamabad-based FATA Research Centre.

Pakistan's semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), are dominated by ethnic Pashtun tribes, some of which have sheltered and supported militants over decades of conflict in neighboring Afghanistan.

Nazir's faction is one of four major Taliban groups that joined the al Qaeda-brokered Shura-e-Murakeba alliance late last year. The others are Hafiz Gul Bahadar's group, the Haqqani Network and the Pakistani Taliban led by Hakimullah Mehsud.

Nazir's group has previously clashed with other Taliban fighters during a struggle for leadership.

There are many divisions among the Pakistan Taliban leadership that have led to clashes. But despite the rivalries, analysts said the Taliban are unlikely to splinter as that would make them an easier target for the powerful Pakistani army.

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud and Javed Hussein; Writing By Katharine Houreld; Editing by Randy Fabi and Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber-wounds-key-pakistan-taliban-commander-kills-102421895.html

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Rival Palestinian groups show support for UN bid

JERUSALEM (AP) ? Israel's leader, having failed to block the Palestinians from taking their quest for a state to the U.N., defiantly declared Thursday that they would have to back down from long-held positions if they ever hope to gain independence.

Ahead of Thursday's vote, thousands of Palestinians from rival factions celebrated in the streets of the West Bank. In a departure from previous opposition, the Hamas militant group, which rules the Gaza Strip, said it wouldn't interfere with the U.N. bid, and its supporters joined some of the celebrations.

Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned to the United Nations after four years of deadlock in Mideast peace efforts. While the initiative, all but certain to pass, will not immediately bring about independence, Palestinians hope the strong international endorsement will give them more leverage in future negotiations with Israel.

Speaking to reporters in New York, Abbas said diplomatic pressure to abandon the initiative was "tremendous," but that he would not be deterred.

"We said our word, and the vote will take place," he said.

The Palestinians' jubilant mood contrasted sharply with Israel's weak diplomatic position at the world body.

Intense U.S. efforts failed to sway the Palestinians from going ahead with their plan. And one by one, European allies, including heavyweights like France, rejected Israeli appeals to oppose the Palestinian resolution. Germany, a close ally of Israel, said it will abstain.

The resolution calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a pullback to the 1967 lines, saying it would threaten Israeli security. Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem are now home to some 500,000 Israelis.

Netanyahu warned the Palestinians on Thursday that they would not win their hoped-for state until they recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, declare an end to their conflict with Israel and agree to security arrangements that will protect Israel.

"The resolution in the U.N. today won't change anything on the ground," Netanyahu declared. "It won't advance the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather, put it further off."

The Palestinians have resisted demands to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, saying it would undermine the claims of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants scattered across the world.

Israel says Palestinian demands for refugees to return to what is now Israel is an illegitimate attempt to undermine the Jewish character of their state. Instead, Israel says refugees should be resettled in a future Palestine alongside Israel.

The Palestinians have turned to the U.N. in frustration with nearly 20 years of negotiations have that have foundered under the weight of mutual violence, intransigence and failure of will.

Last year, they sought full-fledged membership in the U.N. but failed to muster Security Council support. This year, they set their sights lower, to a lesser status of non-member state, but are assured of approval in the sympathetic General Assembly.

The date they chose is emotionally charged. On Nov. 29, 1947, the U.N. decided to partition what was then British-ruled Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, but Arabs rejected it, and the Palestinians were left without a state.

General Assembly recognition on Thursday of Palestine will not actually deliver a state, end the Israeli occupation or reunify the Palestinians, who are ruled by dueling governments in the West Bank and Gaza.

But the Palestinians hope U.N. recognition will add weight to their claims.

Israel, like the U.S., argues that the Palestinians can win a state only through negotiations, and both countries mounted an aggressive campaign to try to head off the General Assembly vote.

"The path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah (in the West Bank), not New York," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters on Wednesday.

In a last-ditch move Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns promised Abbas that President Barack Obama would re-engage as a mediator in 2013 if the Palestinian leader abandoned the statehood effort. Abbas refused.

The U.N. bid is crucial to maintaining his leadership. The Islamic militant Hamas group's standing in the Arab world has risen as changes sweep the Mideast, while Abbas' Fatah movement, which governs the West Bank, has been sidelined and marginalized, in large part because of his failure to deliver a state through diplomacy. Hamas got a major boost earlier this month, claiming victory after battling Israel in eight days of hostilities that ended with an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire.

The rival Palestinian governments emerged after Hamas seized Gaza from Abbas in 2007, reducing his control to parts of the West Bank.

Hamas supporters took part in Thursday's celebrations. In the West Bank city of Hebron, some in a crowd of several thousand raised green Hamas flags, while in the city of Ramallah, senior figures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups normally opposed to Abbas, addressed the crowd.

"It's the right step in the right direction," Nasser al-Shaer, a former deputy prime minister from Hamas, said of the U.N. bid.

In Hamas-ruled Gaza, several thousand took to the streets, most of them Abbas loyalists. Marchers hoisted Palestinian flags and chanted, "We want our state, today is our date."

While the U.S. focused on pressuring Abbas, Israel concentrated on trying to line up European powers against the measure. But European nations were more interested in bolstering the moderate Abbas in his rivalry with Hamas.

The Palestinians did not need the European backing to win the vote for their bid. Support from most of the developing world, including Arab and Muslim states, assures them an automatic majority in the General Assembly.

But they hope that breaking down the resistance of European heavyweights will further isolate Israel diplomatically, lead to further international criticism of Israeli settlements, and renew pressure on it to withdraw from territories the Palestinians claim for a state.

As potential support fell away, Israel tempered its threats of retaliation, appearing to back off from plans to immediately punish the Palestinians.

Months ago it suggested new settlement construction would be Israel's response to the Palestinians' statehood bid. Now officials are saying they will wait to see whether the Palestinians use their new standing to pursue war crimes charges against Israel in the International Criminal Court, a U.N. body. If so, they threaten punitive measures but have not given details.

Backing for the Palestinians' appeal to the U.N. came from an unexpected quarter Thursday, when former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted as saying the Palestinian request "is congruent with the basic concept" of the two-state solution.

"Therefore, I see no reason to oppose it," said Olmert, according to The Daily Beast news website. An Olmert spokesman did not return a call for comment.

Olmert, Abbas and their teams conducted peace talks in 2007 through early 2009, but never clinched a deal.

___

Laub reported from Ramallah, West Bank.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rival-palestinian-groups-show-support-un-bid-143436185.html

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Women use Twitter to expose video game industry sexism

20 hrs.

Winda Benedetti , NBC News

If you want a look at what it's like to be a woman working in the video game industry, then take a look at?the #1ReasonWhy hashtag that's been?trending on Twitter this week.

Hundreds of female game?developers, designers, publicists, journalists and other professionals are in the midst of?detailing the sexism they've experienced?in the workplace, encountered?while playing video?games?and found in the gaming community at large.

After Luke Crane,?Games Project Specialist?at Kickstarter,?tweeted the question?"Why are there so few lady game creators?"?the #1ReasonWhy hashtag became the launching point for not only answering that question, but for outlining exactly why?women don't feel comfortable or welcome?in the video game industry in the year 2012.

And this is the ugly truth as laid out by?those who do work in the industry:

"#1reasonwhy because when I tell people I'm a designer, I without fail get 'Really? You don't look like you play games. Guys must love you,'?" tweeted game designer?Alexis De Girolami.?

"#1reasonwhy b/c when my desk was nr the door, most clients thought I was the receptionist. This didn't happen to male dev after desk swap," writes developer?Helen Smailes. ?

"Because?I got blank stares when I asked why a female soldier in a game I worked on looked like a porn star," tweeted designer?Caryn Vainio.

Stephanie Harvey, a?game designer at Ubisoft and professional "Counter Strike" player,?tweeted?"Here is what I get everyday," as she shared?a link to a collection of screenshots she's captured revealing the insults (most of them unprintable)?leveled?at her when she's gaming.

Meanwhile,?Tara J. Brannigan, community marketing manager for PopCap Games, tweeted that she?has "been groped by strangers at least once at nearly every major (game)?conference." And she's not alone. Wrote?Filamena Young,?"Because conventions, where designers are celebrated, are unsafe places for me. Really. I've been groped."?

And that's just the beginning. The hashtag has spawned an outpouring of tweets about unequal pay (which?Lindsay Morgan Lockhart, "Halo 4's"?narrative designer, calls?"staggering")?uncomfortable working environments and an industry where women gamers are little more than an afterthought.

As a lifelong gamer and a?game journalist for more than a decade, I can say that I have learned to expect that vicious, sexist comments will be?hurled my way should?I dare write about the preposterous outfits?female game characters are put in. I've learned that using a female avatar or female-sounding gamertag in an online game means dealing with?unwelcome and unwanted advances. And I've grown used to trolls who question whether I really play hardcore games or who deride me for writing about casual "women's" games. (Apparently I'm not capable of the former and am not a "real gamer" if I enjoy the latter).

Clearly,?this is not about one reason why ... this is about hundreds, even thousands of reasons why.

Of course, the Twitter?uprising hasn't been without its detractors and trolls???these are the men?who basically prove the point that the #1reasonwhy hashtag is so elegantly making.

"I look at #1ReasonWhy and I laugh at all the feminists who think they matter. If you were good in your field, you wouldn't be misrepresented," tweeted Dillon Paradis.

But as upsetting?and maddening as it is combing through these experiences and the backlash, one thing is clear: ?This outpouring is just the latest sign that women (and men)?are fed up with the game?business as usual?and?have no intention of quietly putting up with the sexism any longer.

Not only has the website Fat, Ugly or Slutty been outing the online gaming ugliness with humorous flair,?but at the Penny Arcade Expo this summer, the video game?convention?saw a half dozen?panel discussions addressing and looking for?solutions to the harassment and sexism?that not only women gamers, but gay and transgender gamers, face.

Check out this video from the "Harassment and Bullying in Online Games: Technical Solutions" panel for a fascinating look at the problem and some of the proposed solutions.

Meanwhile, women game industry pros are?seizing?this moment,?harnessing the?#1reasonwhy?fervor and turning the ugliness they've revealed into a catalyst for change.

"Tomb Raider" and "Mirror's Edge"?writer?Rhianna Pratchett, started the hashtag?#1reasontobe, highlighting reasons women should work in the game industry.??"#1reasontobe?Because I get to explore my creativity in a rapidly evolving medium, full of unique, exciting challenges," she tweeted.

And even more importantly, women game professionals are using the?movement to start a mentoring program. "Speak up if you're willing to be a mentor to women looking to get into the industry!" tweeted?Ann Lemay, a writer for?BioWare, promoting the new?#1reasonmentors?hashtag.

And many women and men in the industry???from game companies big and small???have responded to the call for mentors, offering their time and advice to women who dare and dream to join this troubled industry. (You can find a list of the mentoring resources compiled?here.)

Artist and animator?Emily Compton, perhaps summed it up best,?"If?#1reasonwhy?made us mad about our industry today,?#1reasonmentors?makes us hopeful and glad. Onward and upward."

Winda Benedetti?writes?about video?games for NBC?News. You can follow her tweets about games and other things?on Twitter?here?@WindaBenedetti?and you can?follow her?on?Google+.?Meanwhile, be sure to check?out the?IN-GAME?FACEBOOK PAGE?to discuss the day's?gaming news and reviews.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/women-use-twitter-expose-video-game-industry-sexism-1C7283842

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Powerball fever sweeps the nation

The allure of the record $500 million Powerball jackpot has led to long lines across the nation at local mini-marts and gas stations, with Americans hoping their champagne and caviar dreams become a reality when the numbers are drawn tonight.

The jackpot was boosted Tuesday from $425 million to the now historic $500 million sum, which is expected to get sweeter as millions of Americans rush to the store for their last chance to purchase a ticket and become a multi-millionaire overnight.

Powerball officials tell ABC News they expect to sell more than 105,000 tickets every minute before the drawing. When the dust settles, more than 189 million tickets would have been sold for the half a billion-dollar jackpot. That's more than double the number sold for Saturday's $325 jackpot that nobody won.

ABC News was allowed access to the Powerball studios in Tallahassee, Fla., where the 11 p.m. ET drawing will take place. The closely guarded machines and balls are locked in a vault before the numbers are drawn and only a select few are allowed inside the room during the actual broadcast.

Anyone who enters or leaves the vault is documented and workers who handle the lottery balls wear gloves, worried that human touch might change what numbers are randomly drawn.

Cameras are located in every nook and cranny of the Powerball studio, spying on workers as they ready the machines for the big moment. Lottery officials in several states will be watching those feeds in real time to monitor the proceedings.

Not everyone has Powerball fever in the country as tickets for tonight's jackpot are not offered in eight states. But that has not stopped many Californians and Nevadans who have flocked to Arizona to get in on the action.

"I'd say the line has to be like three, three and a half hours," one person told ABC News while waiting online to purchase tickets Tuesday.

Still, the long lines have not deterred those who hope to dramatically change their lifestyle and make their wildest dreams become a reality.

"I'm going to the Bahamas and enjoying myself on an island," said one Powerball hopeful.

Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Des Moines, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, said the chance of getting a winner tonight is approaching 60 percent.

"We call it the redneck retirement fund cause sooner or later, somebody is going to," said one man.

There has been no Powerball winner since Oct. 6 ? that's 16 consecutive drawings without a winner. It's the second-highest jackpot in US lottery history, behind only the $656 million Mega Millions prize in March.

Powerball tickets doubled in price in January to $2, and while the number of tickets sold initially dropped, sales revenue has increased by about 35 percent over 2011, according to the Associated Press.

Lottery officials put the odds of winning Wednesday's Powerball pot at one in 175 million. With so many people plaything this time around, some are worried it may hurt their odds.

"Your odds of being a winner are still the same. With so many people playing, it does mean are more likely to split the jackpot if you want," said Scott Norris, math professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Everyone who lines up with cash in their hand and dreams in their head seems to have a strategy in picking the winning combination of numbers. Or, do you simply let the computer pick for you?

"It doesn't matter. Your odds of winning are actually the same no matter who picks it," said Norris. Norris says the only real advantage that can help someone is buying more tickets.

"Your odds increase directly proportional to the number of tickets you buy. So if you buy 100, your odds are 1 in 7 million, but still astronomically small," he said.

With odds so small in a game where just about anyone who plays is a loser, there is some hope for those living in Illinois and New Jersey. Both states have sold three winning tickets for jackpots worth at least $300 million.

A single winner choosing the lump sum cash option would take home more than $327 million before taxes.

ABC News' Steve Osunsami and Ryan Owens contributed to this report.

Also Read

Source: http://gma.yahoo.com/powerball-fever-sweeps-nation-fuels-jackpot-075734645--abc-news-topstories.html

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NIH study suggests immune system could play a central role in AMD

Public release date: 27-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: NEI Communications Office
neinews@nei.nih.gov
301-496-5248
NIH/National Eye Institute

Changes in how genes in the immune system function may result in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of visual impairment in older adults, based on preliminary research conducted by National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigators.

"Our findings are epigenetic in nature, meaning that the underlying DNA is normal but gene expression has been modified, likely by environmental factors, in an adverse way," said Dr. Robert Nussenblatt, chief of the National Eye Institute (NEI) Laboratory of Immunology. Environmental factors associated with AMD include smoking, diet, and aging. "This is the first epigenetic study revealing the molecular mechanisms for any eye disease."

The study identified decreased levels of DNA methylation, a chemical reaction that switches off genes, on the interleukin-17 receptor C gene (IL17RC). The lack of DNA methylation led to increased gene activity and, in turn, increased levels of IL17RC proteins in patients with AMD. IL17RC is a protein that promotes immune responses to infections, such as fungal attacks.

The study, conducted by research teams from the NEI and other NIH institutes, including the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine; the University of Melbourne, Australia; and Oregon Health and Science University, appears in the Nov. 29 issue of Cell Reports.

"Our study also suggests IL17- and IL17RC-mediated immune responses can be crucial in causing AMD," added Dr. Lai Wei, also of NEI's Laboratory of Immunology and first author on the paper. "By measuring IL17RC gene activity in at-risk patients, we have also potentially identified an early method to detect AMD."

AMD damages the light-sensitive cells of the macula, the central part of the retina that allows us to see fine visual detail. As the disease progresses, patients encounter great difficulty reading, driving, or performing hobbies and tasks that require hand-eye coordination. Treatments exist to prevent severe vision loss in certain types of advanced AMD but none prevent or cure the disease. Currently, 2 million Americans have advanced AMD and another 7 million have intermediate stages.

Recent studies have identified several genes with alterations that increase the risk of developing the disease. In addition, environmental risk factors have also been suggested as possible causes of the disease. One explanation may be that environmental exposures influence DNA methylation, which regulates gene expression. Changes in this process may result in the production of too much or too little of a gene's protein, leading to cellular dysfunction and disease. Changes in DNA methylation have been implicated in cancer, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and many other diseases.

To test whether changes in DNA methylation might play a role in AMD, the investigators evaluated three pairs of twinsone pair identical and two pairs fraternalwhere only one of the siblings had AMD. Identical twins have the same genetic makeup while fraternal twins share about half of their DNA. Because of their similar genetic backgrounds, identical and fraternal twins can be helpful in studying the differences between the effects of genetics and the environment. When compared with the unaffected twins, methylation patterns were altered in 231 genes of affected twins. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that environmental exposures may epigenetically regulate expression of many genes and lead to AMD.

Among the 231 genes, the investigators found that DNA methylation was absent in a region of the IL17RC gene in twins with AMD. The lack of methylation in the IL17RC gene led to increased gene activity and, in turn, increased levels of its protein in circulating blood. The investigators further validated these findings by comparing seven siblings with and without AMD as well as 202 AMD patients and 96 control subjects without the disease. These studies also found increased IL17RC levels in circulating blood and, most importantly, in the retina of patients with AMD but not controls.

Based on these results, the authors propose that chronic increased levels of the IL17RC protein in the retina likely promote inflammation and recruitment of immune cells that damage the retina and lead to AMD.

"This study strongly implicates epigenetic DNA methylation as another crucial biological pathway for understanding the molecular basis of AMD," according to Nussenblatt.

The investigators next plan to evaluate what environmental factors may be responsible for the regulation of IL17RC and how the epigenetic regulation leading to the chronic inflammation in AMD patients can be reversed by novel therapies. They will also evaluate the role of epigenetics in other eye diseases.

###

The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, leads the federal government's research on the visual system and eye diseases. NEI supports basic and clinical science programs that result in the development of sight-saving treatments. For more information, visit http://www.nei.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 27-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: NEI Communications Office
neinews@nei.nih.gov
301-496-5248
NIH/National Eye Institute

Changes in how genes in the immune system function may result in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of visual impairment in older adults, based on preliminary research conducted by National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigators.

"Our findings are epigenetic in nature, meaning that the underlying DNA is normal but gene expression has been modified, likely by environmental factors, in an adverse way," said Dr. Robert Nussenblatt, chief of the National Eye Institute (NEI) Laboratory of Immunology. Environmental factors associated with AMD include smoking, diet, and aging. "This is the first epigenetic study revealing the molecular mechanisms for any eye disease."

The study identified decreased levels of DNA methylation, a chemical reaction that switches off genes, on the interleukin-17 receptor C gene (IL17RC). The lack of DNA methylation led to increased gene activity and, in turn, increased levels of IL17RC proteins in patients with AMD. IL17RC is a protein that promotes immune responses to infections, such as fungal attacks.

The study, conducted by research teams from the NEI and other NIH institutes, including the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine; the University of Melbourne, Australia; and Oregon Health and Science University, appears in the Nov. 29 issue of Cell Reports.

"Our study also suggests IL17- and IL17RC-mediated immune responses can be crucial in causing AMD," added Dr. Lai Wei, also of NEI's Laboratory of Immunology and first author on the paper. "By measuring IL17RC gene activity in at-risk patients, we have also potentially identified an early method to detect AMD."

AMD damages the light-sensitive cells of the macula, the central part of the retina that allows us to see fine visual detail. As the disease progresses, patients encounter great difficulty reading, driving, or performing hobbies and tasks that require hand-eye coordination. Treatments exist to prevent severe vision loss in certain types of advanced AMD but none prevent or cure the disease. Currently, 2 million Americans have advanced AMD and another 7 million have intermediate stages.

Recent studies have identified several genes with alterations that increase the risk of developing the disease. In addition, environmental risk factors have also been suggested as possible causes of the disease. One explanation may be that environmental exposures influence DNA methylation, which regulates gene expression. Changes in this process may result in the production of too much or too little of a gene's protein, leading to cellular dysfunction and disease. Changes in DNA methylation have been implicated in cancer, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and many other diseases.

To test whether changes in DNA methylation might play a role in AMD, the investigators evaluated three pairs of twinsone pair identical and two pairs fraternalwhere only one of the siblings had AMD. Identical twins have the same genetic makeup while fraternal twins share about half of their DNA. Because of their similar genetic backgrounds, identical and fraternal twins can be helpful in studying the differences between the effects of genetics and the environment. When compared with the unaffected twins, methylation patterns were altered in 231 genes of affected twins. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that environmental exposures may epigenetically regulate expression of many genes and lead to AMD.

Among the 231 genes, the investigators found that DNA methylation was absent in a region of the IL17RC gene in twins with AMD. The lack of methylation in the IL17RC gene led to increased gene activity and, in turn, increased levels of its protein in circulating blood. The investigators further validated these findings by comparing seven siblings with and without AMD as well as 202 AMD patients and 96 control subjects without the disease. These studies also found increased IL17RC levels in circulating blood and, most importantly, in the retina of patients with AMD but not controls.

Based on these results, the authors propose that chronic increased levels of the IL17RC protein in the retina likely promote inflammation and recruitment of immune cells that damage the retina and lead to AMD.

"This study strongly implicates epigenetic DNA methylation as another crucial biological pathway for understanding the molecular basis of AMD," according to Nussenblatt.

The investigators next plan to evaluate what environmental factors may be responsible for the regulation of IL17RC and how the epigenetic regulation leading to the chronic inflammation in AMD patients can be reversed by novel therapies. They will also evaluate the role of epigenetics in other eye diseases.

###

The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, leads the federal government's research on the visual system and eye diseases. NEI supports basic and clinical science programs that result in the development of sight-saving treatments. For more information, visit http://www.nei.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/nei-nss112712.php

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United Nations Environment Program Report Urges Policymakers to ...

NSIDC research scientist Kevin Schaefer (left) is lead author in a U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP) report that highlights the impact of permafrost carbon feedback on global climate. The Lena River delta in Siberia (right) is an example of permafrost and shows polygons formed by the intersection of ice wedges. ?Credit: Schaefer's photo by Natasha Vizcarra courtesy NSIDC, polygon photo by Konstanze Piel courtesy Alfred Wegener Institute.)

Boulder, CO--(ENEWSPF)--November 27, 2012. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has released a report recommending the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assess the impact of permafrost carbon dioxide and methane emissions in the negotiation of emissions targets and global climate change policy discussions.

The report recommends that the IPCC compile a special assessment report on permafrost. It also recommends that nations with extensive permafrost create national monitoring networks and make plans to mitigate the risks of thawing permafrost. These nations include Russia, Canada, China, and the United States.

?The infrastructure we have now is not adequate to monitor future changes in permafrost,? said lead author Kevin Schaefer, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). ?We need to greatly expand our current networks to monitor permafrost, which requires direct investment of money and resources by individual countries.?

?Individual nations need to evaluate the risks of thawing permafrost and make plans to protect communities in the most vulnerable regions,? Schaefer said. Homes, businesses, and other infrastructure in the far north were built on ground that stayed frozen, and may collapse if this ground thaws.

?

The village of Qannaaq, Greenland, in the Arctic, is built on permafrost. ?Credit: Photo by Andy Mahoney courtesy NSIDC?High-resolution image

Permafrost is ground that stays frozen for at least two years in a row and occurs in about a quarter of the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere. The report, titled Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost, said Earth?s permafrost contains 1,700 gigatons of carbon as frozen organic matter, twice that currently in the atmosphere. If this organic matter thaws and begins to decay, the resulting carbon dioxide and methane emissions will amplify global warming.

?The release of carbon dioxide and methane from warming permafrost is irreversible: once the organic matter thaws and decays away, there is no way to put it back into the permafrost,? Schaefer said.

?Anthropogenic emissions targets in the climate change treaty need to account for these emissions or we risk overshooting the 2 degrees Celsius maximum warming target,? he added.

Targets for anthropogenic emissions in the proposed U.N. climate change treaty limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100, placing an overall limit on total global carbon emissions.

However, the potential hazards of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from warming permafrost are not included in current climate-prediction models.

?This report seeks to communicate to climate treaty negotiators, policy makers, and the general public the implications of continuing to ignore the challenges of warming permafrost,? said U.N. Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

?Permafrost is one of the keys to the planet?s future because it contains large stores of frozen organic matter that, if thawed and released into the atmosphere, would amplify current global warming and propel us to a warmer world,? he said.

?Its potential impact on the climate, ecosystems, and infrastructure has been neglected for too long,? Steiner added.

According to the report, Arctic and alpine air temperatures are expected to increase at roughly twice the global rate, and climate projections indicate substantial loss of permafrost by 2100. A global temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius means a 6 degrees Celsius increase in the Arctic, resulting in an irreversible loss of anywhere between 30 to 85 percent of near-surface permafrost.

Warming permafrost could emit 43 to 135 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2100 and 246 to 415 gigatons by 2200. Emissions could start within the next few decades and continue for several centuries, the report said.

?Permafrost emissions could ultimately account for up to 39 percent of total emissions,? Schaefer said. ?This must be factored in to treaty negotiations expected to replace the Kyoto Protocol.?

The Kyoto Protocol set binding targets for industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions beginning 2005. While the U.N. climate change treaty encourages industrialized countries to limit GHG emissions, the Kyoto Protocol commits them to do so. Industrialized countries are expected to recommit to the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol in 2013.

Schaefer?s co-authors include Hugues Lantuit of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany; Vladimir E. Romanovsky of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the United States; Edward A.G. Schuur of the University of Florida in the United States; and Isabelle G?rtner-Roer of the University of Z?rich in Switzerland.

?

NSIDC scientist Kevin Schaefer (left) and his field research team drill permafrost cores at Prudhoe Bay, on Alaska's North Slope. ?Credit: Photo by Tingjun Zhang courtesy NSIDC
High-resolution image

Information and graphics

Source:?http://nsidc.org

Source: http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/science-a-environmental/38646-united-nations-environment-program-report-urges-policymakers-to-account-for-thawing-permafrost-in-climate-projections-.html

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Why Are There Mysterious Pac-Men on Saturn's Moons?

After discovering Pac-Man on the Death Star—aka Mimas—NASA has discovered a new Pac-Man in Tethys. And they still don't know why the hell this shape appears, but they have a theory: More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/OfHIh4DHZUk/why-are-there-mysterious-pac+men-on-saturns-moons

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'Boy Meets World' stars reunite for spinoff

By Us Weekly

Cory and Topanga forever! Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel, the beloved '90s TV couple best known to "Boy Meets World" fans as Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence, are set to reprise their roles in a new Disney Channel spinoff pilot of the teen comedy called"Girl Meets World," the network has announced.?

Brenda Chase / Getty Images file

Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel in 1999.

PHOTOS: 90s TV stars then and now

The pilot -- still in the early stages of development with?"Boy Meets World's" original creator Michael Jacobs -- will center around the couple's 13-year-old daughter, Riley. Casting is currently underway to find the actress who will play the titular star.

PHOTOS: 2012's breakout stars

"I'm going to be a father! Well, on TV at least. The 'Boy Meets World' sequel is officially happening!" Savage, 32, tweeted Nov. 26 after the "Girl Meets World" news broke.

Fishel, 31, is equally as excited to see the new project take shape. "First of all, let me say that you, the fans of 'Boy Meets World,' have been awesome. That word is often used incorrectly by people, including myself, on a daily basis but you have truly been awe inspiring," she wrote in a fan appreciation letter posted to her Tumblr page. "You, yes, even you, are the reason that 'Girl Meets World'?will be made."

PHOTOS: Iconic TV characters

Though Fishel confirms the pilot will feature familiar "Boy Meets World" faces and themes, the actress says "Girl Meets World" is a new show entirely.

"'Boy Meets World' never spoke down to the audience and we are going to do our best to never do that with 'Girl Meets World.' But please keep in mind that this there will be episode 1, of season 1, of a brand new show," she wrote. "We started at the same place with 'Boy Meets World' but we evolved and we evolved quickly. For those of you who knew and loved 'Boy Meets World,' please allow this show to evolve as well. Stick with us. Give us a chance."

Will you give the show a chance? Tell us on Facebook.

Related content:

Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2012/11/27/15489530-ben-savage-danielle-fishel-to-star-in-boy-meets-world-spinoff?lite

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Our true dawn: Pinning down human origins

Continue reading page |1 |2 |3

The argument over when our lineage split from chimps is about to be settled, with colossal consequences for prehistory

LINE them up in your head. Generation after generation of your ancestors, reaching back in time through civilisations, ice ages, an epic migration out of Africa, to the very origin of our species. And on the other side, take a chimp and line up its ancestors. How far back do you have to go, how many generations have to pass, before the two lines meet?

This is one of the biggest and hardest questions in human evolution. We know that at some point we shared a common ancestor with chimps, but exactly when - and what that ancestor was like - have been maddeningly hard to pin down. Palaeontologists have searched for fossil remains, and geneticists have rummaged through the historical documents that are human and chimp DNA. Both made discoveries, but they did not see eye to eye.

No more. New estimates for when our lineage and chimps went their separate ways suggest that some of our established ideas are staggeringly wrong. If correct, they demand a rewrite of human prehistory, starting from the very beginning.

When was that beginning? The obvious first place to look for answers is in the fossil record. But fossil humans - or more strictly hominins, the group that includes us and all our extinct relatives from after the split - are notoriously thin on the ground and difficult to interpret.

Geneticists have more to work with. DNA contains telltale traces of events in a species' past, including information about common ancestry and speciation. In theory, calculating the timing of a speciation event should be straightforward. As two species diverge from a common ancestor their DNA becomes increasingly different, largely due to the accumulation of random mutations. The amount of genetic difference between two related species is therefore proportional to the length of time since they diverged. To estimate when the human-chimp split occurred, geneticists can simply count the differences in matching stretches of chimp and human DNA and divide it by the rate at which mutations accumulate. This is known as the molecular clock method.

But there's a catch. To arrive at the answer you have to know how fast the mutations arise. And that leads you back to square one: you first need to know how long ago we split from chimpanzees.

To get around this catch-22, geneticists turned to orang-utans. Fossils suggest that they split from our lineage between 10 and 20 million years ago. Using this fudge, geneticists arrived at a mutation rate of about 75 mutations per genome per generation. In other words, offspring of humans and chimps each have 75 new mutations that they did not inherit from their parents.

Fossils or DNA

This number rests on several big assumptions, not least that the orang-utan fossil record is a reliable witness - which most agree it is not. Even so, it led to a guess that human ancestors split from chimpanzees between 4 and 6 million years ago.

When fossil-hunters hear this number, they cry foul. The lower end of the estimate is particularly hard to swallow. Australopithecus afarensis - an early hominin from east Africa - already has distinctly human characteristics yet dates back at least 3.85 million years. Its canines were small, for instance. And it walked upright.

Both of these traits are considered hominin, meaning they evolved in our lineage after the split and did not appear on the chimp side. And yet it is hard to see how they could have evolved so quickly, in perhaps as little as 150,000 years after the split.

"Geneticists ignored the palaeontologists completely," says Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio. "We would get estimates around 4 million years, and yet there are unmistakable and highly evolved hominins that go back almost 4 million years. To claim a 4 million year divergence date is just silly."

Even a 5 to 6-million-year split was met with scepticism. That's largely because of three recently discovered fossils from Africa dating from around the same period. All three predate Australopithecus, but still bear unmistakable marks of humanity. Though the interpretation of the remains is controversial, many regard them as being post-split.

Simply put, the palaeontologists were sure there was little chance that the DNA results were accurate. Humanity, they affirmed, had to be older than the geneticists claimed.

History looks set to prove them right. In the past three years, researchers studying human populations have for the first time been able to observe mutations almost as they happen. And that makes all the difference. Instead of relying on an estimate based on rare fossils, we can now watch the molecular clock ticking in real time. "Until we were able to compare genomes of children with their parents, we could not estimate the mutation rate in humans," says Aylwyn Scally of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK.

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Jodie Foster, Inside the Actor?s Studio (video) (Americablog)

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Egypt's Islamists seek to defuse crisis over decree

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's ruling Islamists tried to defuse a political crisis on Monday, with President Mohamed Mursi backing a compromise over his seizure of extended powers and his Muslim Brotherhood calling off a planned demonstration.

Mursi provoked outrage last week that led to violent protests when he issued a decree that put beyond judicial review any decision he takes until a new parliament is elected, drawing charges he had given himself the powers of a modern-day pharaoh.

Opponents plan to go ahead with a big demonstration on Tuesday to demand he scrap the decree, threatening more turmoil for a nation that has been stumbling towards democracy for almost two years since president Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

However, the Brotherhood, which was behind Mursi's election win in June, said it had called off a rival protest also planned for Tuesday in Cairo. Violence has flared when both sides turned out in the past.

Mursi's opponents have accused him of behaving like a dictator and the West has voiced its concern, worried by more turbulence in a country that has a peace treaty with Israel and lies at the heart of the Arab Spring.

Mursi held crisis talks with members of the Supreme Judicial Council, the nation's highest judicial body, to resolve the crisis over the decree that was seen as targeting in part a legal establishment still largely unreformed from Mubarak's era.

The council had proposed he limit the scope of decisions that would be immune from judicial review to "sovereign matters", language the presidential spokesman said Mursi backed.

"The president said he had the utmost respect for the judicial authority and its members," spokesman Yasser Ali told reporters in announcing the agreement.

After reading out the statement outlining what was agreed with judges, Ali told Reuters: "The statement I read is an indication that the issue is resolved."

PROTEST GOES ON

Protesters camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square since Friday to demand that the decree be scrapped said the president had not done enough to defuse the row. "We reject the constitutional declaration (decree) and it must be completely cancelled," said Sherif Qotb, 37, protesting amongst tents erected in the square.

Mursi's administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation. Leftists, liberals, socialists and others say it has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

Mona Amer, spokesman for the opposition movement Popular Current, said Tuesday's protest would go on. "We asked for the cancellation of the decree and that did not happen," she said.

Protesters are worried that the Muslim Brotherhood aims to dominate the post-Mubarak era after winning the first democratic parliamentary and presidential elections this year.

The crisis has exposed a rift between Islamists and their opponents. One person has been killed and about 370 injured in violence since Mursi issued Thursday's decree, emboldened by international praise for brokering an end to eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Before the president's announcement, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahy said protests would continue until the decree was scrapped and said Tahrir would be a model of an "Egypt that will not accept a new dictator because it brought down the old one".

As well as shielding his decisions from judicial review, Mursi's decree protected an Islamist-dominated assembly drawing up a new constitution from legal challenge. Liberals and others say their voices are being ignored in that assembly, and many have walked out.

Only once a constitution is written can a new parliamentary election be held. Until then, legislative and executive power remains in Mursi's hands.

Though both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, his rivals oppose Mursi's methods.

'NO CONFLICT'

The Supreme Constitutional Court was responsible for declaring the Islamist-dominated parliament void, leading to its dissolution this year. One presidential source said Mursi was looking for ways to reach a deal to restructure that court.

"The president and the Supreme Judicial Council confirmed their desire for no conflict or difference between the judicial and presidential authorities," spokesman Ali said.

The council had sought to defuse anger in the judiciary by urging some judges and others who had gone on strike to return to work and by proposing the idea that only decisions on "sovereign matters" be immune from legal challenge.

Legal experts said "sovereign matters" could be confined to issues such as declaring war or calling elections that are already beyond legal review. But they said Egypt's legal system had sometimes used the term more broadly, suggesting that the wording leaves wide room for interpretation.

A group of lawyers and activists has also already challenged Mursi's decree in an administrative court, which said it would hold its first hearing on December 4. Other decisions by Mursi have faced similar legal challenges brought to court by opponents.

Mursi's office repeated assurances that the steps would be temporary, and said he wanted dialogue with political groups to find "common ground" over what should go into the constitution.

The president's calls for dialogue have been rejected by members of the National Salvation Front, a new opposition coalition of liberals, leftists and other politicians and parties, who until Mursi's decree had been a fractious bunch struggling to unite.

The Front includes Sabahy, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

The military has stayed out of the crisis after leading Egypt through a messy 16-month transition to a presidential election in June. Analysts say Mursi neutralized the army when he sacked top generals in August, appointing a new generation who now owe their advancement to the Islamist president.

Though the military still wields influence through business interests and a security role, it is out of frontline politics.

(Writing by Edmund Blair, Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh; editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-mursi-meet-judges-over-power-grab-111516181--business.html

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