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Mar. 7th, 2010 12:00 pmDid the discovery of cooking make us human?
A new theory suggests that if we had not learned to cook food, not only would we still look like chimps but, like them, we would also be compelled to spend most of the day chewing. Without cooking, an average person would have to eat around five kilos of raw food to get enough calories to survive. The daily mountain of fruit and vegetables would mean a six-hour chewing marathon.
It is already accepted that the introduction of meat into our ancestors' diet caused their brains to grow and their intelligence to increase. Meat - a more concentrated form of energy - not only meant bigger brains for our ancestors, but also an end to the need to devote nearly all their time to foraging to maintain energy levels. As a consequence, more time was available for social structure to develop.
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Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe'
In many ways, the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa are just like their neighbours. But in other ways their customs are remarkably similar to Jewish ones. They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones. Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.
It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which confirm their Semitic origin.
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Expert: Horses in terracotta army 'castrated'
Most of the horses in the terracotta army in a Chinese emperor's tomb had no testicles, pointing to the possibility of equine castration some 2000 years ago.
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Da Vinci's Huge Horse Statue Proven Feasible
Virtual simulations demonstrate that Leonardo da Vinci's plan for the largest equestrian statue in the world was perfectly feasible. Fluid dynamics software has shown that the 24-foot-high horse would have been cast in a single pouring. The amount of bronze necessary to cast the horse was 70 tons -- exactly as Leonardo had calculated.
"Il Cavallo," the huge equine statue Leonardo Da Vinci never got to make, wasn't plagued by technical problems as was widely believed, a new multidisciplinary research has revealed. On the contrary, Da Vinci's plan for the largest equestrian statue in the world was a perfectly feasible project which, if completed, would have probably been his greatest legacy, more than ''The Last Supper'' or any other work.
Commissioned in 1482 by Lodovico Sforza, duke of Milan, in honor of his father Francesco, the massive bronze horse took Leonardo 17 years of research, but was never completed. Indeed, when the full-scale clay model was finally ready to be cast in a single operation in 1499, all the needed bronze was used to make cannons for an imminent war against the King of France. The molds were lost and the clay model was reduced to rubble by the invading French soldiers.
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Woman Convicted in Case of Stolen Antoinette Watch
Pistol-shaped clock made by the Rochat Brothers in the early 19th century, and one of the items returned after Israeli police detectives cracked a legendary clock heist at a Jerusalem museum after a 25-year search. Nili Shamrat has been convicted of receiving stolen property in a 27-year-old case involving the Mona Lisa of historical watches and 105 other expensive watches and museum artifacts.
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Explorator Newsletter Available Here
A new theory suggests that if we had not learned to cook food, not only would we still look like chimps but, like them, we would also be compelled to spend most of the day chewing. Without cooking, an average person would have to eat around five kilos of raw food to get enough calories to survive. The daily mountain of fruit and vegetables would mean a six-hour chewing marathon.
It is already accepted that the introduction of meat into our ancestors' diet caused their brains to grow and their intelligence to increase. Meat - a more concentrated form of energy - not only meant bigger brains for our ancestors, but also an end to the need to devote nearly all their time to foraging to maintain energy levels. As a consequence, more time was available for social structure to develop.
- - -
Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe'
In many ways, the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa are just like their neighbours. But in other ways their customs are remarkably similar to Jewish ones. They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones. Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.
It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which confirm their Semitic origin.
- - -
Expert: Horses in terracotta army 'castrated'
Most of the horses in the terracotta army in a Chinese emperor's tomb had no testicles, pointing to the possibility of equine castration some 2000 years ago.
- - -
Da Vinci's Huge Horse Statue Proven Feasible
Virtual simulations demonstrate that Leonardo da Vinci's plan for the largest equestrian statue in the world was perfectly feasible. Fluid dynamics software has shown that the 24-foot-high horse would have been cast in a single pouring. The amount of bronze necessary to cast the horse was 70 tons -- exactly as Leonardo had calculated.
"Il Cavallo," the huge equine statue Leonardo Da Vinci never got to make, wasn't plagued by technical problems as was widely believed, a new multidisciplinary research has revealed. On the contrary, Da Vinci's plan for the largest equestrian statue in the world was a perfectly feasible project which, if completed, would have probably been his greatest legacy, more than ''The Last Supper'' or any other work.
Commissioned in 1482 by Lodovico Sforza, duke of Milan, in honor of his father Francesco, the massive bronze horse took Leonardo 17 years of research, but was never completed. Indeed, when the full-scale clay model was finally ready to be cast in a single operation in 1499, all the needed bronze was used to make cannons for an imminent war against the King of France. The molds were lost and the clay model was reduced to rubble by the invading French soldiers.
- - -
Woman Convicted in Case of Stolen Antoinette Watch
Pistol-shaped clock made by the Rochat Brothers in the early 19th century, and one of the items returned after Israeli police detectives cracked a legendary clock heist at a Jerusalem museum after a 25-year search. Nili Shamrat has been convicted of receiving stolen property in a 27-year-old case involving the Mona Lisa of historical watches and 105 other expensive watches and museum artifacts.
- - -
Explorator Newsletter Available Here
