John S. Dykes The ‘beachcomber express’ may have carried our African ancestors to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Did Early Humans Ride the Waves to Australia? By MATT RIDLEY http://online.wsj.com/article Everybody is African in origin. Barring a smattering of genes from Neanderthals and other archaic Asian forms, all our ancestors lived in the continent of Africa until 150,000 years ago. Some time after that, say the genes, one group of Africans somehow became so good at exploiting their environment that they (we!) expanded across all of Africa and began to spill out of the continent into Asia and Europe, invading new ecological niches and driving their competitors extinct. There is…

In this Feb. 19, 2010 photo released by the British Ministry of Defense, MOD, shows Florence Green, left, on her 109th birthday being presented with a birthday cake by LAC Hannah Shaw on behalf of the RAF at her home in King’s Lynn, east England. Florence Green, the world’s last known veteran of World War I, has died at the age of 110, the care home where she lived said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Sac Chris Hill/MoD, HO) NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse…

Queen celebrates 60 years on throne   A small crowd greets Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as the monarch marks 60 years on the throne. The anniversary is normally recognised privately as the anniversary of her accession also marks the day her father George VI died. The Queen travelled on the day from her Sandringham estate to King’s Lynn in the eastern county of Norfolk, to meet local dignitaries and visit a school. Elizabeth II has been on the throne for longer than any other British monarch except Queen Victoria who reigned for almost 64 years. During her reign – which began aged 25 – there have been 12 British prime…

http://techland.time.com/2011/06/15/claim-sunspots-to-disappear-global-cooling-may-ensue/ Claim: Sunspots to Disappear, Global Cooling May Ensue By Matt Peckham | @mattpeckham | June 15, 2011 You know what they say about a leopard not changing its spots, but when it comes to our sun, change is all but guaranteed. In fact new research suggests the sun may be on the verge of changing its sunspots in a way that could significantly alter weather patterns for the long haul, both on Earth and in space. Three studies presented by scientists at a conference in Las Cruces, New Mexico yesterday predict that sunspots are set to temporarily and unexpectedly vanish in coming years as part of a solar “hibernation”…

From Out of a Featureless Crowd By KAREN WILKIN New York Victoria and Albert Museum, on long-term loan to The National Gallery, London ‘Fra Teodoro of Urbino as St. Dominic’ (1515), by Giovanni Bellini. Portraits, from gritty Lucian Freuds to the fatuous kitsch perpetrated by street artists, are such a constant presence in our visual landscape that it’s hard to remember that the genre’s history is far from continuous. For centuries, throughout the ancient world—in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece—human beings were depicted according to strict, near-abstract conventions, except for a short-lived period of relative naturalism during the reign of the renegade monotheist pharaoh, Akhenaten. The Romans, of course, excelled at memorial…