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sciencenewsforstudents · 5 years ago

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Humankind’s maternal roots extend back about 200,000 years to what was then a lush region of southern Africa, a study suggests. But these results highlight how much remains unknown about human origins.

Examining variations in a type of maternally inherited DNA, scientists concluded that the founding maternal line of Homo sapiens arose in what’s now northern Botswana. Then around 130,000 years ago, some members of that group migrated in two waves to East Africa via a vegetated corridor created by increased rainfall, the researchers report. Until then, that corridor was arid and sparsely vegetated. Those East African migrants may have eventually given rise to early herding and farming groups there.

A second population pulse out of the maternal homeland moved southwest, all the way to the southern tip of Africa, by around 110,000 years ago, while some members stayed behind, geneticist Vanessa Hayes and colleagues report online October 28 in Nature.

As in the previous migration, climate data indicate that wetter conditions created a green pathway for people to traverse. Southern migrants became specialists in hunting and gathering along the coast, the scientists speculate.

New DNA analyses suggest that, around 200,000 years ago, a founding maternal line of Homo sapiens (red circle) emerged in a region (green) of what’s now Botswana that was home to the ancient Makgadikgadi-Okavango wetlands (blue). Members of that population migrated northeast and southwest between 130,000 and 110,000 years ago.

CREDIT: E.K.F. CHAN ET AL/NATURE 2019

“Everyone alive today goes back genetically to one maternal starting point in southern Africa,” said Hayes, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, in an Oct. 24 news conference. Geologic and archeological evidence suggest that the homeland was characterized by vast, ancient wetlands that allowed humans to thrive there for about 70,000 years.

But the question of how, when and where H. sapiens originated remains far from settled.

That’s because Hayes’ team examined only mitochondrial DNA, which represents a tiny fraction of human ancestry, says archaeologist Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.

Ancient folks who possessed forms of mitochondrial DNA that managed to get passed to people today were not the only people living in Africa 200,000 years ago or earlier, Scerri emphasizes. So only studies of entire genomes (SN: 9/28/17), or at least analyses of nuclear DNA, can provide reliable glimpses of ancient human origins, she argues. In contrast to mitochondrial DNA, nuclear DNA is inherited from both parents and would provide clues to the timing and location of humankind’s paternal roots.

Researchers will need to extract ancient DNA from human fossils to determine whether southern African foraging groups today are related to people who lived in the same region 50,000 or 200,000 years ago, says geneticist Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania. And numbers of East African foragers are now so small that mitochondrial DNA can’t resolve the age and location of their maternal roots, leaving a big question mark about humankind’s maternal evolution, Tishkoff says.

Taking available archaeological, fossil and DNA evidence into account, present-day H. sapiens probably originated from mating among human groups all across Africa that had different mixes of skeletal traits (SN: 12/13/17), beginning around 300,000 years ago, Scerri argues.

“It’s possible, even likely, that [multiple] geographic centers contributed portions of their heritage to build our genome, which cannot be addressed by mitochondrial diversity alone,” says geneticist Rebecca Cann of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

But the new study provides crucial support for evidence that the roots of human mitochondrial DNA extend back as early as 200,000 years ago in sub-Saharan Africa, Cann says. She and colleagues reported the first mitochondrial DNA support for that scenario in a landmark 1987 paper. Cann’s group concluded that living people’s mitochondrial DNA stemmed from one woman, popularly dubbed “mitochondrial Eve,” who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. But it was unclear where she originated and how subsequent human migrations from there might have occurred.

Hayes’ team studied a rare form of mitochondrial DNA, known as L0, which is today largely restricted to the Khoisan people of southern Africa. Khoisan consist of separate populations of herder-gatherers and hunter-gatherers who speak languages containing “click” consonants. Over the last decade, researchers have determined that L0 has far more ancient roots than other forms of mitochondrial DNA that have been inherited by living people.

The researchers collected L0 mitochondrial DNA from 198 indigenous people living in southern Africa, mainly Khoisan. Adding in previously published samples, Hayes’ group analyzed L0 mitochondrial DNA from a total of 1,217 people.

Mitochondrial DNA accumulates changes slowly over many generations. Based on numbers of mitochondrial DNA alterations to samples from different parts of southern Africa, the scientists calculated how long ago and approximately where each L0 variant originated, revealing the ancient migrations and the ancestral homeland.

Comparisons with geologic data and computer simulations of ancient climate shifts corroborated the genetic evidence for the timing of migrations out of that homeland, the researchers say.

While the proposed homeland region is more arid and sparsely populated today, it contained small lakes and abundant vegetation that supported a variety of animals along with humans between 200,000 and 130,000 years ago, Hayes says.

#science #scied #sciblr #humans #DNA #homo sapiens #mtDNA #mitochondrial dna

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garkomedia1 · 6 years ago

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The 10 Most Eco-Friendly Luxury Hotels for Earth Day – Robb Report

With constant news of a climate in peril, some of the world’s most luxurious properties are joining the green revolution with a variety of inventive techniques. Many hotels are making a start with simple methods such as switching plastic straws for the paper variety, and providing guests with drinking water from reusable glass bottles, however, we’ve found a few resorts around the globe that don’t think that’s nearly enough.

From anti-poaching initiatives in South Africa and coral-reef restoration projects in Mexico, to solar panels in the Maldives that help offset the equivalent of hundreds of flights per year, these 10 resorts are going above and beyond in an effort to make every day Earth Day.

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru, Baa Atoll, Maldives

Considering it’s set in the aquamarine waters of the Baa Atoll UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru has an added level of environmental responsibility—one which it takes very seriously. So seriously in fact that the resort recently installed 3,105 solar panels on the rooftops of its staff village, making it one of the country’s largest resort-based solar installations. The perennial sunshine bathing the island nation means the panels will help power the resort’s guest rooms and electric golf carts, and amounts to an annual savings of 300,000 liters of diesel and 800 tons of CO2—the equivalent of 544 flights between London and the Maldivian capital of Malé each year.

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru Photo: Courtesy of Four Seasons

The Datai Langkawi, Malaysia

The Datai Langkawi is surrounded by the ancient gnarled trees, hanging vines and canopies of a 10-million-year-old rainforest. With that kind of natural environment to protect, it’s clear why the resort’s 2018 renovation, led by architect Kerry Hill and interior designer Didier Lefort of DL2A, focused heavily on sustainability. The new on-site nature center is run by a team of dedicated naturalists and marine biologists who not only lead workshops and nature walks for guests, but have launched the “Fish for The Future” program, creating artificial reefs that provide a sustainable ecosystem for local fisheries.

The Data Langkawi’s “Fish for The Future” program Photo: Eric Martin/Le Figaro Magazine/2019

Trisara, Phuket, Thailand

Named for a Sanskrit word that means “the garden in the third heaven,” Trisara is practically nirvana—and not only for its striking infinity pool villas, white-sand beach and emerald hillside location. Its high-concept restaurant PRU, presided over by chef Jim Ophorst, was bestowed with Phuket’s first Michelin star in 2018, and is a promised land for eco-conscious foodies. All ingredients on the six- or eight-course rotating menu are sourced entirely from within Thailand, and mainly from Trisara’s very own four-acre organic farm, which uses natural pesticide alternatives and compost from the restaurant’s leftovers.

A pool villa at Trisara Photo: Courtesy of Trisara

Fairmont Mayakoba, Riviera Maya, Mexico

Giving back to the local community is paramount to the ethos of Fairmont Mayakoba, even if that community is one of the world’s largest aggregate collections of whale sharks whose home is the Mesoamerican Reef offshore from the hotel’s dazzling stretch of sugary beach. In partnership with Oceanus AC, a Mexican organization focused on coral reef reforestation, the resort is allowing guests to get involved in the combat against coral bleaching and loss of marine habitats by participating in coral reef reforestation and adoption programs.

Fairmont Mayakoba Photo: Courtesy of Fairmont Mayakoba

Amanzoe, Porto Heli, Greece

Melding with the ancient land, culture and people of the Peloponnese is the concept behind Amanzoe, Aman’s Porto Heli resort that resembles a modern Grecian temple. With a belief that supporting the local community promotes true sustainability for the area, the property (which is a Robb Report Best of the Best winner) runs a multitude of waste-reduction initiatives, including one that donates used guest slippers, worn staff uniforms, bed linens and room curtains to the KESO Institute, which teaches unemployed women how to sew. The donations are then artfully transformed into new items, thus create jobs for the women, and importantly, keeping the old textiles from ending up in a landfill.

Amanzoe Photo: Courtesy of Man

Tortuga Bay Hotel, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

The Tortuga Bay Hotel set within the Puntacana Resort & Club is famed for soft sand, lapping turquoise waters and jaunty yellow villas with interiors designed by the late Oscar de La Renta. But the complex is also making waves in the area of sustainability. The Puntacana Resort & Club’s not-for-profit foundation has embarked on multiple ambitious environmental projects to reduce their footprint, including a zero-waste program that vastly reduces items being sent to landfills, expanding its wastewater treatment plant which returns 100 percent of the water to irrigation purposes. In 2018, the resort also opened the Caribbean’s first Center for Marine Innovation.

Tortuga Bay Hotel Photo: Courtesy of Tortuga Bay Hotel

Thanda Safari, South Africa

Set 160 miles north of the South African city of Durban, Thanda safari lodge sits on a 34,600-acre Big Five private game reserve with a luxury tented camp, bush suites, and a massive private villa complete with a helipad. The lodge takes its name from the language of the local Zulu people—thanda means “love,” and that’s just what the property is showing South Africa’s population of rhinos. In collaboration with Project Rhino KZN, an organization dedicated to anti-poaching and conservation programs, Thanda lets guests participate in the Thanda Safaris Ulwazi Research & Volunteer Program, which tracks and darts rhinos for identification purposes before releasing them back into their habitat. Since it’s launch, the program has been successful in saving dozens of rhinos from poaching.

Tracking and darting rhinos with Thanda Safaris. Photo: Christian Sperka

Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, Rovaniemi, Finland

Finland was recently named the world’s happiest country according to the 2019 World Happiness Report, an accolade it has won for two years running. A connection with nature is claimed to be the reason behind this high-level cheer, a statement the Arctic TreeHouse Hotel embodies daily. The Northern Lights are a frequent visitor aglow eerily above the streamlined, geometric glass-and-wood houses, all constructed of sustainable Finnish wood that the property contributes to maintaining by planting 5,000 to 10,000 new seedlings per year in the surrounding forest.

Arctic TreeHouse Photo: Courtesy of Arctic TreeHouse

Six Senses Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia

Opened in fall 2018, the goal of the new Six Senses Uluwatu is to blend entirely within the natural surroundings of Bali’s southwest coast. This paragon of sustainable architecture was built on land carved from a sea-hugging limestone cliff, and then entirely reconstructed in a futuristic design using the same limestone. All resort furniture was sourced from sustainable wood found within local regions of Bali. Water also plays a leading role in the hotel’s ambiance, and the water features that permeate the resort grounds are fed by a mix of rainwater catchment and resort wastewater treated at the on-site water treatment plant.

Six Senses Uluwatu Photo: Courtesy of Six Senses

andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge, Botswana

Resorts set in the most remote locations are often champions of sustainability, not only from a desire to do right by the planet, but also out of sheer necessity. AndBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge is no exception. Bordering the vast Moremi Game Reserve, the lodge uses 63 percent renewable energy from an on-site solar plant. Perishable products that must be flown in from elsewhere are transported in specially designed, reusable cooling containers, eliminating the use of the single-use plastics and Styrofoam often used in food freight. Additionally, plans for 2020 include installing a bottling plant to eliminate 100 percent of plastic water bottles.

A game drive at andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge. Photo: Courtesy of andBeyond

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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A controversial new study claims that ancient wetlands south of the Zambezi River were the oasis from which all modern humans emerged. Today, the region is one of the world's largest salt flats known as the Makgadikgadi pans. Photograph By Beverly Joubert, National Geographic Image Collection

Controversial New Study Pinpoints Where All Modern Humans Arose

The research reignites a long-simmering debate about how and where our species emerged.

— By Maya Wei-Haas | National Geographic | October 28, 2019

A powdery white layer blankets the desiccated landscape of Botswana’s Makgadikgadi pans, one of the world's largest salt flats. But some 200,000 years ago, this blank canvas would have been painted in the blues and greens of a flourishing wetland. Set in the middle of a harsh desert in southern Africa, the lush landscape would have been an appealing place for early humans to call home.

Now, a controversial new study in Nature argues that this oasis, known as the Makgadikgadi–Okavango wetland, was not just any home, but the ancestral “homeland” for all modern humans today. The researchers studied mitochondrial DNA—genetic material stored in the powerhouse of our cells that is passed from mother to child—of current residents across southern Africa. Then they layered the genetic data with an analysis of past climate and modern linguistics, as well as cultural and geographic distributions of local populations.

The study’s results suggest that shifts in climate allowed branches of the ancient population to spread from the wetland to newly formed zones of green. Thousands of years later, a small population of these wanderers’ kin eventually would leave Africa and ultimately inhabit every corner of the world.

“We all came from the same homeland in southern Africa,” says Vanessa Hayes of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia, who led the new research.

The study revives a long-simmering debate about exactly where in Africa modern humans emerged, and it has drawn sharp criticism from several scientists. They point out that although all humans alive today have mitochondrial DNA passed on from a common ancestor—a so-called Mitochondrial Eve—this is just a tiny fraction of our total genetic material. So even if the proposed founder population described in the new study is the source of our mitochondrial DNA, many others likely contributed to today’s genetic pool.

“The inferences from the mtDNA data are fundamentally flawed,” Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at the University College London, says via email, adding that in his view, the study amounted to "storytelling."

Yet Rebecca Cann, a geneticist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who was a reviewer of the study and has conducted pioneering work on mitochondrial DNA, argues that the new research is innovative, crossing multiple disciplines in search of answers.

“This is going to start a lot of conversations, and it’s going to stimulate a lot of new studies,” she says. While the study is not perfect, she adds, “It’s going to get us further down the road.”

The Genetic Jigsaw

The hominin family tree has deep roots in Africa. The earliest fossil of our genus, Homo, yet found is a 2.8-million-year-old jaw fragment uncovered in East Africa. Our species, Homo sapiens, didn’t appear till fairly far up the tree, branching off at least 260,000 years ago. Where exactly in Africa that happened, however, remains up for debate.

Fossils carrying a varying mix of features from both modern humans and more ancient hominins seem to be scattered across Africa, from the 260,000-year-old Florisbad remains in South Africa and 195,000-year-old Omo remains in Ethiopia to the 315,000-year-old Jebel Irhoud remains in Morocco. But after baking in the African heat, the DNA from these ancient fossils seems to have largely degraded.

While the hunt for ancient DNA continues, many researchers have instead turned to studying the diverse genetics of populations in Africa. One of the deepest-rooted lines of mitochondrial DNA is commonly found in people living across southern African, and none more so than in the KhoeSan—foragers, herders, and hunters who speak languages that include a clicking sound for consonants. Many past studies, including some of Hayes's own work, tease apart their ancestry for clues to our species’ past.

But for this new study Hayes and her colleagues wanted to pinpoint exactly where this deep-rooted genetic line arose. To fill in some of the gaps in the genetic record, the researchers sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 198 individuals from Namibia and South Africa—some of whom identify as KhoeSan and others who do not—and combined them with previously collected data for a total of 1,217 individuals. Next they grouped southern African populations by ethnicity and linguistics to lay out the geography of people carrying these deep-rooted lines of mitochondrial DNA today. And they crafted a tree tracing their mitochondrial genetic relationships back some 200,000 years to the early days of our species.

The analysis revealed that for some 70,000 years the early human populations remained steady. Climate analysis revealed that the massive wetlands that sprawled across Botswana could have provided a stable home for the early humans. But then about 130,000 to 110,000 years ago, something changed: “They go crazy,” says Hayes. “All these new human lineages just start popping up.”

The study suggests that green corridors likely opened during that period, first in the northeast and then to the southwest, which may have encouraged groups to spread to where some still live today. Hayes, who has long worked with people across southern Africa, discussed the results with study participants soon after the analysis.

“They were the first to hear about it, long before you guys did,” she says. “And they love these stories, they really do. It’s their story.”

Mitochondrial Eve and Company

The new study, importantly, focuses on analyzing today’s African populations, a gaping oversight in many past genetic studies. “Everyone recognizes we’ve been studying Europeans for way too long,” says Joshua Akey, a geneticist at Princeton University. “As studies go out and sample more human genomic diversity, we’ll eventually have a more deep and clear understanding of human history.”

In broad strokes, the results of the new study paint a similar picture to some past work: Today’s southern African populations harbor a deep mitochondrial genetic line. But the details of what the latest analysis revealed remain unclear, says John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It’s difficult to know whether the populations living in those regions today are the same as those hundreds of thousands of years ago, he says. As a result, it’s possible that the researchers are tracing mass migrations around southern Africa. But it’s also possible that there was instead something beneficial in the mitochondrial genetics, giving it a selective advantage that allowed the DNA to spread without massive population shifts.

“It’s giving you one part of the whole story of evolution at very high resolution, and that’s pretty cool,” Hawks says. “But you sort of want the rest of the story.”

Mitochondrial DNA makes up a minute fraction of our genomes: While it contains around 16,500 base pairs, nuclear DNA has more than three billion, explains Carina Schlebusch, an evolutionary geneticist at Uppsala University in Sweden. Untangling information in our complete genomes promises a more complex tale. Researchers have made similar trees for Y-chromosome DNA, which is genetic material present in men. While the details remain hazy, it hints at a very early branching genetic line in some modern humans living in western Africa’s Cameroon.

“On our other chromosomes,” she adds, “we have millions of these separate loci that segregate in populations that probably also have their own ancestors somewhere in the past.”

Tracing those other ancestors is another issue. The nuclear DNA signal is extremely complex. What we do know from full genomes of Africans is that the results of this study aren’t entirely out of line with past work that points to human origins in southern Africa, says Brenna Henn, a population geneticist at the University of California, Davis, who has extensively studied African population history.

Yet scientists are still discovering new ways to study nuclear DNA. They can’t simply peek into its genetic code to read it like a book. Intensive processing and modeling are required to understand what it all means, and the assumptions made during analysis can affect the outcome.

There are also some hints that there’s still more to learn. Several studies point to the presence of even earlier branching “ghost” populations that intermixed with our species, leaving behind small traces of their DNA in some African groups.

“We don’t know where they fit in, we don’t know who they were, but we do know some of them hung around until fairly recently,” Hawks says.

Cutting Down the Tree

The complexity of our evolutionary picture has led many researchers to recently move away from the idea that we emerged from a single locale that branched outward into a global family tree. Instead, they suggest our species evolved from many points across Africa, like a network or braided stream with many inputs, divergences, and some rejoining rivulets that leads to the mighty mix flowing through our veins.

“I don’t see any reason, really, to be wedded to any particular place,” says Thomas, a co-author of a recent paper that challenged a single origin for our species.

The new study’s authors acknowledge that our species could have arisen from multiple origins. But there’s not yet enough data to definitively show that’s the case, says study co-author Eva Chan, a statistical geneticist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. And the latest work was a cross-disciplinary attempt to fill some blanks in the picture of our evolutionary history.

“That’s not to say we have the picture right now,” she says. “With more data, the picture will continue to change.”

All of this work also circles the increasingly confusing definition of a species. While humans like to put everything in boxes, nature doesn’t fit into tidy categories, Schlebusch says. There are no distinct lines between one species and the next; everything works in shades of gray.

The controversy over our origins will surely continue. Unlike many fields of study, human evolution is not something you can design experiments to test, Akey adds. But then again, perhaps scientists need to rethink the debate entirely.

“Maybe the question we’re asking isn’t the right one,” he adds. “Maybe we need a more nuanced question.”

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timespakistan · 4 years ago

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Big cats in evolutionary arms race with prey: study

PARIS: Lions and cheetah are faster, stronger and no less agile than their prey, but zebras and impalas compensate with a surprising tactic, researchers said Wednesday: slow down, and keep the big cats guessing.

Indeed, fleeing at top speed is a fatal mistake, making it easier for the fearsome felines to close in for the kill, they reported in the journal Nature.

“If the prey is running flat out, it cannot speed up and its movements become predictable,” lead author Alan Wilson, a professor at the University of London´s Royal Veterinary College, told AFP.

“Lower-speed hunts favour prey survival, because it gives the animals the opportunity to manoeuvre.”

The proof is in the kill rate: lions (which hunt zebra) and cheetah (which target impalas) fail two out of three times when they give chase.

Data for the study, collected in the savannah of northern Botswana, came from high-tech collars fitted onto nine lions, five cheetah, seven zebra and seven impalas, a kind of antelope.

All the animals were wild and free-ranging.

Over the course of more than 5,500 high-speed runs, the collars recorded location, speed, acceleration, number of steps, and ability to turn several times a second, yielding an unprecedented trove of information.

In addition, the researchers did biopsies to measure muscle power, as one might for world-class athletes.

Lions and cheetah, they found, were significantly more athletic than their prey: 38 percent faster, 37 percent better at accelerating, and 72 percent better at slowing down quickly. Their muscles were also 20 percent more powerful.

Despite these apparent advantages, zebras and impala kept the upper hand when chased by moving unpredictably to evade outstretched claws while just a step or two ahead.

“The prey define the hunt and know not to just run away but to turn at the last moment,” explained Wilson.

– Evolutionary pas-de-deux –

Predator and prey on the African savannah have been locked in an evolutionary arms race for hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps millions.

Over time, the big cats have become better killing machines, while their would-be meals have become more adept at evading capture.

But at the species level, the predator-prey relationship is monogamous: lions don´t go after impalas, and cheetah generally leave zebras alone.

“Lions are large and can take down a larger prey, but their very size limits speed,” said co-author Emily Bennitt, a researcher at the University of Botswana´s Okavango Research Institute.

“Likewise, cheetah are agile and fast, but this requires them to be light, and thus unable to subdue larger prey.”

A zebra, in other words, can defend itself against a cheetah while an impala, unless sick, will always be able to out-run a lion.

For prey species, avoiding the claws and maw of big cats is not the only survival skill required.

“Prey need to be good enough at evading capture to escape from most hunting attempts, but they also need to be adapted to foraging,” Bennitt said by email.

From an evolutionary perspective, sometimes these needs come into conflict, she added.

“Characteristics that enhance speed could reduce foraging and movement efficiency.”

As luck would have it, a collared predator never gave chase to a collared prey during the field research, but scientists were able to use computer models to simulate hunt scenarios with the wealth of data collected.

from Times Pakistan https://ift.tt/34YLxNz via Daily News

#TimesPakistan #PakistanNews #DailyNews #newsgoogle #newsyahoo #newsoftheday #newstoday #newsfortoday

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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Anastasia Mann: All in the Details

Anastasia Mann has never been one to follow a path laid by others. As a child actress in 71 movies, she was always more interested in helping the director create a great performance than in the actual acting. At her first job in the hotel industry as a corporate sales director for Hilton, she created an incentive program that rewarded loyal customers with special corporate rates. The program was a first for the industry and is still in effect today.

Free Luxury Travel Newsletter

Like this story? Subscribe to The Dossier Luxury Travel Advisor’s only newsletter, covering unique destinations and product news for affluent travelers. Delivered every Tuesday & Thursday. When she moved to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, she was a groundbreaker once again, serving as the first female director of sales and marketing at any major hotel in the country. Leadership was clearly in Mann’s DNA; when she shifted to the travel industry side of the business it was as the U.S. president of a London-based travel management firm. Her hotel and airline friends, however, who knew her independent mindset, kept encouraging her to put out a shingle of her own and she did that by opening Corniche Travel in a key West Hollywood locale on Sunset Boulevard. As for those encouraging buddies? They donned overalls and laid carpeting and painted the walls to help her make it feel more like home. That was a fortuitous start and in her first four months alone, Mann generated $5 million in revenue. Corniche Travel was on its way and growing at a rapid pace as her former corporate accounts — including Getty Oil, ARCO, MGM and CBS — came on board. Her book of business was also fueled with many, many celebrity clients, entertainers, politicians and writers. Getting the Los Angeles Dodgers’ travel account was a major coup and the first time in history the team used a travel management firm. That was 33 years ago and what is still ever-present is Mann’s uncanny ability to envision what people need from a trip. It’s her innate attention to the details to bring her clients’ visions to life that has been the key to her success. So has the fact that her knowledge of the world is vast; after almost 50 years in the travel industry, Mann has visited 147 countries.

An affair with Africa: So great is Mann’s love for the destination, she launched Anastasia’s Africa, which operates separately from the travel division with its own dedicated team of Africa experts. Here, she is seen at the Great Plains Conservation, Okavango Delta in Botswana, Southern Africa. Today, Corniche Group is a $35 million enterprise comprising three divisions: Corniche Travel (leisure and corporate), Corniche Entertainment (handling meetings, incentives, conferences, and entertainment services for them), and her personal favorite, Anastasia’s Africa. As always, though, Mann’s vision for her business is a bit different from the norm. Her biggest concern these days, she says, is the proliferation of so-called “luxury” brands; her pet peeve is the misuse of the word “bespoke,” a British term traditionally reserved for custom-made suits. Her mantra is that what is luxury for one person is not necessarily luxury for someone else. The value of travel is not about the cost of a trip, she believes, but rather what the experience brings to the customer. “Luxury in Iceland or in Bhutan is going to be very different from luxury in New York or Paris,” she says. At Corniche, Mann’s focus is on detailed crafted itineraries to destinations where the crowds do not follow. She believes clients should visit the iconic sites in the world but is careful to balance those places with visits to less-traveled locales, as well. Last summer, for example, when a friend said she wanted to revisit Venice, Mann advised her to go to Capri instead. Mann believes the biggest threat to a meaningful travel experience is overtourism; she prefers sending clients to remote spots in Spain and Portugal, in shoulder and off-season, wherever possible. And, of course, to Africa. (More on that later.) Corniche is a big player in the luxury travel arena; however, Mann firmly believes she and her team should do whatever is possible to realistically work within a client’s budget so they have the best possible experience. Every client should be given her team’s full attention, no matter the size of his or her budget. Though she has hobnobbed with Cary Grant and enjoyed her first-ever martini with President George H.W. Bush, she feels that no piece of business is unimportant, and every client is worth your time and best effort. In fact, from the very beginning, Mann built her business by treating all customers equally, be they stars or their assistants seeking to book a weekend in Hawaii. “I never tell someone I’m not going to take their business,” she says. “Everybody deserves a great vacation, and I want to give them the most luxurious experience they can afford. And I know that 25-year-old assistant taking her first trip can one day become my biggest corporate client or plan a three-generation safari worth $100,000.”

Redefining “Travel Agent”

Mann from the very beginning brought a unique and forward-thinking approach to the role of the travel advisor. Thirty years ago, the industry thought of travel “agents” as order-takers who simply delivered whatever the customer asked for. And indeed, she recalls the night at the Beverly Wilshire when a buffet for 1,000 really did run out of shrimp in 20 minutes as the travel agents in attendance wrapped them up in napkins and put them in their pockets to take home. But even then, she envisioned the kind of travel advisor we see today, knowledgeable and skilled, offering that true special service that comes from listening to what a customer hopes to achieve on their vacation, and offering professional — and honest — advice. To that end, she has represented travel advisors on commissions and boards in California and around the world. She was a founding member of the California Travel and Tourism Commission and chaired the international board of directors of the Travel & Tourism Research Association. She’s been the president of the California chapter of HSMAI; a founding member of MPI and a PATA board member. She is the founding chairman of the West Hollywood Visitors and Convention Bureau and participated in a Trade Mission to the Soviet Union. She was also named as a representative to the historic White House Conference on Tourism, and, for the past 30 years, has served on the Board of Governors of the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism.

Mann at the Real Alcázar in Seville. These days, though, Mann leaves much of the advisory board roles to her executives and employees and focuses more on training and mentoring her own advisors and others in the industry. Corniche now has 25 full-time travel advisors and 10 independent contractors. As she hired each one, she emphasized that Corniche is a business, and that their role is to advise and guide and provide great service to their clients. Beginning with that great mix of corporate and leisure business from day one, Mann has always strived to have her corporate clients become leisure clients and vice versa. “It’s about being able to create experiences that are memorable and life-enhancing, where the client will be in awe,” she says. “You have to talk to people and understand their expectations and guide them into an experience you are confident will make them happy. And you have to be honest; I’ll say, ‘On the budget you have, you really are not ready to go to Africa. You will have to wait.’” Today, Corniche Travel’s business is about 80 percent corporate and 20 percent leisure; the Africa division is about 90 percent leisure. The corporate clients bring volume and an upper echelon of C-level executives who fly first class and stay in luxury properties; these customers frequently book their personal vacations through Corniche, as well.

Congressman Adam Schiff (above) of California presenting Mann with the District Woman of the Year honor in 2018. Mann advises that while a good business itinerary is built around proximity to the meeting place, a great leisure vacation begins with a great hotel, no matter where in the city it is located. “The hotel is your centerpiece, where you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night; it’s your home away from home,” she says. “If you have to spend 10 minutes extra to get somewhere, that doesn’t matter; it’s the hotel that is critically important to your experience.” Her takeaway? “Be sure to invest in a really fabulous hotel, where you are the center of their attention.” Another key part of the Corniche Group is Corniche Entertainment, which works with corporate event planners and travel companies to provide full planning services. Corniche Entertainment also provides top artists for live performances as well as produces concerts; it even oversees and directs artists’ careers. Its roster of entertainers includes the Latin jazz/R&B bandleader, singer, composer, master percussionist Louie Cruz Beltran; blues artist Betty Bryant; and singer Carol Welsman; as well as the acclaimed comedian Mike Marino.

A Special Love

Mann has been enamored with Africa since her first visit there in 1980, and she speaks of her visits, and of the Anastasia’s Africa division, with real love. She recalls walking down the airline steps onto a dirt taxiway at dawn on that first trip and watching a huge dustball in the distance transform itself into a giraffe as it got nearer and nearer. As the giraffe ran past she stood there agape — and she was smitten. “It was chilling and exciting. I was frozen on the spot and in awe; I was transfixed,” she says. “Apart from my late husband, for whom I had the same reaction, Africa is the love of my life. I’ve tried to talk everybody into going there, and all my advisors into selling it.” So great is her love for the destination, she launched Anastasia’s Africa, which operates completely separately from the travel division with its own dedicated team of Africa experts who share her passion and knowledge of the destination. The company, which provides highly customized experiences, works with outside travel businesses and pays travel advisors a 15 percent commission. “I truly want every person on this planet to give themselves the gift of seeing Africa for themselves,” she says. Success stems from passion; Anastasia’s Africa sold approximately $12 million worth of trips in 2019. In addition to leisure trips and larger groups — including one three-generation family that spent $350,000 last year — Anastasia’s Africa organizes corporate trips and events. Several years ago, it ran a corporate safari for 100, using small luxury lodges and negotiating traversing rights throughout the Sabi Sands, a rare opportunity indeed.

The Business of Travel

Moving into 2020, Mann’s focus is on taking care of existing clients to enhance their travel opportunities. New business tends to come through referrals, brought in by those who know Corniche’s strong attention to detail. Customer satisfaction is of paramount importance to Mann. Case in point: A top executive at Corniche, Jonathan Cowley, has the title of “vice president of sales and client services.” At this point in her career, with so many satisfied clients and many team members who have been with Corniche for almost 40 years, Mann’s priority for 2020 is to take care of what she has. “I’ve never been motivated by money,” Mann says. “Sure, I’d love a Gulfstream. But that’s really not the way I look at this business. Once you get to a certain place in life, you can be comfortable making enough income to just maintain everything you have.” With rents and wages on the rise in Los Angeles, and other expenses going up, as well (especially in an agency that pays 100 percent of its employees’ health insurance), she examined each expense line for potential savings. In the end, she also re-evaluated and increased client fees for the first time in years.

Globetrotter: Here seen in Seville, Spain, Mann has a great knowledge about the world, having visited 147 countries. Her marketing efforts last year and into 2020 include a dedicated focus on the Corniche Club, a beautiful color magazine she sends out to 12,000 top clients, and posts online, three times a year. It’s also distributed to about 500 travel advisors at other agencies who have requested it. These advisors, who have heard Mann speak at industry conferences and met her at local events see Mann as a mentor, and that falls right in with her key values. “It’s important that all of us share information and knowledge, so that we all support our industry in an educated manner,” she says. Still, there are many things she hopes to do and see in 2020. She would like to try a Ponant cruise and is looking forward to the new Pendry Hotel scheduled to open on the Sunset Strip in a few months. Looking further down the road, even after 50 years in the business, she really doesn’t have an exit plan. “My business consists of my employees, who are truly my family, and our clients, whom I love. They are my first consideration when I think about the future,” she says. “I know at some point I have to be decisive. I would only hope for a match with a person who shares our ethics and values.” Her tips for other travel advisors? “Travel is a wonderful, but extremely low-margin business. Making a living at it requires a focus on the numbers,” she says. “You can’t just expect to get into the business to travel for free. You have to really know your stuff and be able to connect with partners, to build the relationships that you can carry with you. It takes a service mentality, experience and knowledge, good taste and honesty.” Another key tenet at Corniche? “Equally important, always treat your suppliers with respect.” At her two offices, she mandates that everyone come out when a supplier comes to call. “They are taking time from their own busy days to come by and meet you, and the day will come when you need a favor and that face-to-face relationship pays off,” says Mann. That indeed played into her own experience: There was that day when President Bush called to say he and Barbara wanted to sail for just one leg of a cruise itinerary, not for the entire voyage. Mann knew who to go to to make that happen; she called an old friend who was the head of a cruise line and got the approval for the Bushes to board at one port and get off at the next. To top it all off, she had martinis delivered to their suite in memory of that very first martini he had shared with her in 1974. It’s clear there’s a lot of glamour and history to Mann’s travel career but carrying through to this very day are the core beliefs she’s had since the very beginning. “I was very into the details way back then and I still am today,” she says. “At Corniche we’re still all about taking care of our clients, and I am still all about taking care of my Corniche team.”

More Glory: Mann has also been honored by ASTA’s prestigious Diamond Award.

Corniche Group

Chairman & CEO: Anastasia Mann Headquarters: West Hollywood, CA Annual Sales Volume: $35 million Divisions: Corniche Travel, Corniche Entertainment, Anastasia’s Africa Number of Advisors: 25 plus 10 ICs Affiliations: Signature Travel Network, ARC, ASTA, SKAL, TTMA, TTRA, CLIA, Four Seasons Preferred Partners, Marriott STARS, Marriott Luminous, Langham Couture, PROST, West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, NARA, Visit California, Cal Travel, Los Angeles Vendors

Americans Show No Signs of Slowing International Travel Questex Travel Publications Team Up To Create Cruise Central Defining Luxury at The New York Times Travel Show Black Tomato: The New Experiences That Travelers Are Seeking Read the full article

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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Humans not always to blame for genetic diversity loss in wildlife

https://sciencespies.com/biology/humans-not-always-to-blame-for-genetic-diversity-loss-in-wildlife/

Humans not always to blame for genetic diversity loss in wildlife

Map of KAZA. Credit: Simon Dures

Conservationists should be wary of assuming that genetic diversity loss in wildlife is always caused by humans, as new research published today by international conservation charity ZSL (Zoological Society of London) reveals that, in the case of a population of southern African lions (Panthera leo), it’s likely caused by ecological rather than human factors.

Published in Animal Conservation today the study saw researchers from ZSL’s Institute of Zoology and Imperial College London analyse the genetic diversity of 149 African lions in the KAZA (Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area) in northern Botswana between 2010 to 2013.

While human impacts are the leading cause of genetic diversity loss in many cases, scientists studying the lions found that diversity loss across the population was instead caused by the lions’ need to adapt to differing habitats.

They identified two genetically different populations of lions in the region, each adapted to living in a distinct habitat type; the so-called ‘wetland lions’ residing in the wetland habitat in the Okavango Delta and a ‘dryland lions’ group living in the semi-arid habitat of the Kalahari Desert.

If a separate population is created but cut off from its original source group due to ecological or human barriers, over time there will be less gene flow from lack of breeding between the populations. While a larger more connected population would generally have greater genetic diversity, small amounts of movement between them can maintain diversity while preserving adaptations that allow them to thrive in two different environments. Though not different enough to be classified as separate sub-species and still having slight genetic movement between the populations, it suggests a phenomenon called phenotypic plasticity—animals adapting in various ways to suit the environment they’re in.

African lion. Credit: Simon.dures.com_ZSL

Ensuring wildlife conservation managers understand how a population becomes genetically fragmented is important in order that decisions regarding protection are well-informed and consider animals’ true needs.

Dr. Simon Dures, lead author and ZSL Researcher explained: “The findings have important applications for wildlife managers across Africa. It means translocations of animals, post human-wildlife conflict for example, need to be carefully considered with regards to their genetic predisposition to their new environment.

“The distinct ‘wetland lion‘ populations living in the Okavango are incredibly well adapted to their environment. They’re strong swimmers and seem to thrive in water chasing buffalo down for a kill—which is the opposite for other lions in Africa, which would not typically hunt in water. Moving these animals into a semi-arid environment could be detrimental to their survival.

“Animals need to be able to move freely in order to maintain a level of genetic diversity that builds resilience to changes in their environment caused by climate change, and we think this ecologically-induced separation of the lions pre-dates western Europeans colonisation of southern Africa, so has likely been developing for a long time; way before people came with their fences and hunting.

“Although we didn’t find humans to be the driving force here—it doesn’t mean to say they aren’t having any effect. Impacts such as persecution or increased development could lead to exacerbating inbreeding and threatening the future of these specially adapted lions.”

Explore further

Sneaky lions in Zambia are moving across areas thought uninhabitable for them

More information: S. G. Dures, C. Carbone. V. Savolainen, G. Maude, D. Gotelli, Ecology rather than people restrict gene flow in Okavango-Kalahari lions. Animal Conservation (2020). DOI: 10.1111/acv.12562

Provided by Zoological Society of London

Citation: Humans not always to blame for genetic diversity loss in wildlife (2020, January 27) retrieved 27 January 2020 from https://phys.org/news/2020-01-humans-blame-genetic-diversity-loss.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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ericfruits · 5 years ago

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Where was Eden? Perhaps in a sun-baked salt plain in Botswana

NORTHERN BOTSWANA is a land of strange contrast. Drive west from Francistown, the country’s second city, and you skirt Makgadikgadi, a white, salt-encrusted plain that is bone dry for most of the year, but which blossoms into sudden, abundant life during the wet season. Follow the road farther and you arrive at Maun, on the edge of the lush inland delta of the Okavango river, the fourth-longest in southern Africa. Two hundred thousand years ago, though, Makgadikgadi was also lush. Both it and the delta were part of a lake, then the largest in Africa, surrounded by wetlands. For wildlife, the result was a veritable paradise—and also for people, for, if the latest research is correct in its claims, an intriguing episode in humanity’s origins was played out there.

That Homo sapiens began as an African species was pretty-much proved in the 1980s by Allan Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley. He developed what has come to be known as the Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis by looking at a special type of DNA which is passed, unmixed by sexual reproduction, from a mother to her children. This so-called mitogenome is independent of a cell’s nucleus, where the rest of the genes are found. It resides in structures called mitochondria that are the descendants of once-free-living bacteria and which now act symbiotically as a cell’s power packs.

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Wilson’s research showed that the family trees of present-day human mitogenomes, their branches caused by mutations over the millennia, converge in a way which makes clear that their common ancestor lived in Africa. Hence the nickname Mitochondrial Eve. This woman was by no means the first human being. But everyone now alive can claim descent from her.

What is true for Eve is also true for Adam. Part of the DNA on the Y-chromosome, which is passed unmixed from father to son, can be used to draw up a similar tree that is also rooted in Africa. Where, exactly, Y-chromosomal Adam resided has not yet been established. But as they describe this week in Nature, a group of researchers led by Vanessa Hayes of the Garvan Institute in Sydney, Australia, think they have found that Mitochondrial Eve—or, at least, people closely related to her—lived for tens of thousands of years in splendid isolation in northern Botswana.

That northern Botswana was a habitat of early humans has been known for years. Makgadikgadi is littered with stone tools dropped there aeons ago by Palaeolithic hominids. Which particular hominids, however, is not clear. Unlike later artefacts, Palaeolithic tools are not species-specific. Though they were invented about 1.8m years ago by Homo erectus, an early human that spread over Africa and Asia, they were also used by erectus’s numerous daughter species, one line of which leads eventually to Homo sapiens.

People of the lake

The story that Dr Hayes and her colleagues are proposing is that, whoever might have been living there beforehand, by 200,000 years ago the land around Lake Makgadikgadi was indeed occupied by Homo sapiens. For the following 70,000 years these people evolved in isolation, penned into their homeland by desertlike surroundings. Then, in two bursts—one 130,000 years ago and the other 110,000 years ago—they were unleashed on the wider world.

Mitogenomic ancestral trees are made by looking for typos in the sequences of genetic “letters” in mitogenomes—places in the DNA where a single chemical base differs from one individual to another. Because mitogenomes do not recombine during sex, these changes are all the results of random mutations. By comparing mitogenomes, it is possible to work out in what order the mutations happened. And because even random processes have measurable averages, it is also possible to estimate when a particular mutation arose.

Follow the branches of the human mitogenomic tree back through time and they converge on a group of mitogenomes known as L0. This group is largely confined to southern Africa. It is the characteristic mitogenome of the Khoesan people, who long predate the arrival in the area of both Bantu from farther north in Africa and Europeans from overseas. Dr Hayes and her colleagues therefore gathered all of the existing versions of L0 that they could find, and also collected 198 new ones, to bring together a total of 1,217 variants from which they sought to refine the ancestral tree.

With that information, and data about where the samples were collected, maps of how people who share L0 spread can be constructed. And that is what Dr Hayes and her colleagues did. The branches of their new tree converge in time about 200,000 years ago. In space, they converge on northern Botswana.

The tree also suggests that the L0 population lived in one place for perhaps 70,000 years before part of it moved south-west, and a further period of about 20,000 years before another part moved north-east. This suggestion of an isolated population that underwent two outward migrations is supported by work by Dr Hayes’s collaborator, Axel Timmermann of the Institute for Basic Science in Busan, South Korea. He is a climatologist and has pieced together, from paleogeographic and astronomical evidence, a history of Makgadikgadi and its surroundings. In particular, he has looked at the effects on the climate there of the shifts in Earth’s orbit and axial spin that cause ice ages.

His conclusion is that for most of this time Lake Makgadikgadi was surrounded by desert, but that this encircling wall was twice penetrated by green corridors along which animals, people included, would have been able to migrate. The first corridor opened 130,000 years ago to the south-west. The second, 110,000 years ago to the north-east.

The mitogenomic and climatic data thus seem to match. The south-western dispersal would have carried the ancestors of today’s L0 individuals into other parts of southern Africa. In particular, it would explain the traces of habitation along South Africa’s coast that date from shortly after.

It was the north-eastern dispersal, though, that unleashed the children of Makgadikgadi on the wider world. Their descendants spread through what is now Zambia and into the rest of Africa, interbreeding with people already living there, including the descendants of Y-chromosomal Adam, as they merged into the wider gene-pool of humanity. Indeed, the history of human nuclear genes resembles a web more than it does a tree, which is one reason Wilson sought the clarity of the mitogenome in the first place.

Eventually, about 50 millennia after these events, some intrepid adventurers crossed to Asia, took up residence there, and thence spread to Australia, Europe and the Americas. The DNA of these travellers was further changed by interbreeding with at least two other species of human: Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia.

Not everyone believes Dr Hayes’s version of history. The further back the human mitogenomic tree is traced, they point out, the more uncertainty creeps into it, so further investigation would be desirable. But the mix of evidence, genetic and climatic, that she and her colleagues present does paint quite a plausible picture of the experiences of one particular branch of modern people’s ancient ancestors.■

This article appeared in the Science and technology section of the print edition under the headline "Eden?"

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freedomtripitaly · 5 years ago

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Secondo gli ultimi studi effettuati sembra che sia stato scoperto il luogo esatto in cui ha avuto origine l’umanità, il vero “giardino dell’Eden”: si tratta della zona a sud del fiume Zambesi, in Botswana. Il primo Homo Sapiens sarebbe comparso 200mila anni fa in questa parte fertile e umida dell’Africa, poi diventata dimora di tutti gli esseri umani per i successivi 70mila anni: a quanto pare, questa particolare teoria ha trovato conferma in uno studio pubblicato su Nature. Secondo gli scienziati del Garvan Institute of Medical Research australiano, questa zona copriva anche parte della Namibia e dello Zimbabwe, dove migliaia di anni fa c’era anche un enorme lago che permetteva agli uomini di sopravvivere. Noto come il lago Makgadikgadi, era il doppio delle dimensioni dell’odierno lago Vittoria. Ma tra 110mila e 130mila anni fa il clima ha iniziato a cambiare, aprendo nuove zone fertili che hanno incuriosito gli abitanti: quesri si sono così spinti al di fuori dell’Africa, raggiungendo ogni parte del mondo. La professoressa e ricercatrice Vanessa Hayes, genetista presso il Garvan Institute e a capo dello studio, ha dichiarato: «È chiaro da tempo che gli umani anatomicamente moderni sono apparsi in Africa circa 200mila anni fa. Si è però dibattuto a lungo sulla posizione esatta e la successiva dispersione dei nostri primi antenati». Ma come hanno fatto gli studiosi ad avere queste risposte così precise? Il team ha raccolto campioni di sangue da circa 1000 persone viventi in Namibia e Sudafrica, esaminando il loro DNA mitocondriale. Quest’ultimo viene trasmesso esclusivamente dalla madre al figlio e rimane invariato per generazioni: ecco perché sembra uno degli strumenti più utili per osservare le origini materne. Lo studio è stato incentrato sulla discendenza L0, la prima popolazione nota dell’essere umano moderno, e ha confrontato il codice DNA di alcuni individui, unendo anche esami su sotto-lignaggi di varie località africane per verificare gli eventuali collegamenti. Infine, sono stati sovrapposti i dati genetici a quelli cronologici, etnolinguistici e di distribuzione geografica, cercando di ricostruire anche i vari periodi climatici per capire meglio la situazione ambientale che circondava i nostri progenitori storici. A quanto pare, i primi essere umani sono stati rilevati nella zona paludosa dell’Africa meridionale Makgadikgadi-Okavango nella Botswana settentrionale. A vederla oggi, la zona appare occupata solo da saline e deserto, completamente diversa da quella che è emersa dalle analisi: secondo le simulazioni al computer, anche il clima ha subito cambiamenti radicali con il millimetrico movimento dell’asse terrestre, che ha portato lenti e inesorabili spostamenti delle precipitazioni in tutta la regione. Causa forse primaria per l’emigrazione umana. «Abbiamo osservato una significativa divergenza genetica nei primi lignaggi materni degli umani moderni, che indicano che i nostri antenati migrarono fuori dalla loro terra natia tra 130mila e 110mila anni fa. I primi migranti si sono avventurati a nord-est, seguiti da una seconda ondata di migranti che hanno viaggiato a sud-ovest. Una terza popolazione è rimasta sulla terra natia fino ad oggi». Se da una parte l’emozione di una nuova scoperta ha invaso subito i libri e le riviste degli storici e degli studiosi, dall’altro qualcuno ha smorzato l’entusiasmo: il professor Chris Stringer del Museo di Storia naturale di Londra sostiene che non è possibile ricostruire la storia delle origini umane dal solo DNA mitocondriale e che l’evoluzione dell’Homo Sapiens è stata un processo più complesso di quello descritto. Analizzando solo una minima parte del genoma non è tecnicamente probabile raccontare l’intera storia delle nostre origini, tanto che probabilmente esistono ancora numerosi segreti dell’umanità, tutti da scoprire. Il vero giardino dell’Eden, Ph. Tim Graham (Getty Images) https://ift.tt/2PxjIV5 In Botswana, alla scoperta del vero giardino dell’Eden Secondo gli ultimi studi effettuati sembra che sia stato scoperto il luogo esatto in cui ha avuto origine l’umanità, il vero “giardino dell’Eden”: si tratta della zona a sud del fiume Zambesi, in Botswana. Il primo Homo Sapiens sarebbe comparso 200mila anni fa in questa parte fertile e umida dell’Africa, poi diventata dimora di tutti gli esseri umani per i successivi 70mila anni: a quanto pare, questa particolare teoria ha trovato conferma in uno studio pubblicato su Nature. Secondo gli scienziati del Garvan Institute of Medical Research australiano, questa zona copriva anche parte della Namibia e dello Zimbabwe, dove migliaia di anni fa c’era anche un enorme lago che permetteva agli uomini di sopravvivere. Noto come il lago Makgadikgadi, era il doppio delle dimensioni dell’odierno lago Vittoria. Ma tra 110mila e 130mila anni fa il clima ha iniziato a cambiare, aprendo nuove zone fertili che hanno incuriosito gli abitanti: quesri si sono così spinti al di fuori dell’Africa, raggiungendo ogni parte del mondo. La professoressa e ricercatrice Vanessa Hayes, genetista presso il Garvan Institute e a capo dello studio, ha dichiarato: «È chiaro da tempo che gli umani anatomicamente moderni sono apparsi in Africa circa 200mila anni fa. Si è però dibattuto a lungo sulla posizione esatta e la successiva dispersione dei nostri primi antenati». Ma come hanno fatto gli studiosi ad avere queste risposte così precise? Il team ha raccolto campioni di sangue da circa 1000 persone viventi in Namibia e Sudafrica, esaminando il loro DNA mitocondriale. Quest’ultimo viene trasmesso esclusivamente dalla madre al figlio e rimane invariato per generazioni: ecco perché sembra uno degli strumenti più utili per osservare le origini materne. Lo studio è stato incentrato sulla discendenza L0, la prima popolazione nota dell’essere umano moderno, e ha confrontato il codice DNA di alcuni individui, unendo anche esami su sotto-lignaggi di varie località africane per verificare gli eventuali collegamenti. Infine, sono stati sovrapposti i dati genetici a quelli cronologici, etnolinguistici e di distribuzione geografica, cercando di ricostruire anche i vari periodi climatici per capire meglio la situazione ambientale che circondava i nostri progenitori storici. A quanto pare, i primi essere umani sono stati rilevati nella zona paludosa dell’Africa meridionale Makgadikgadi-Okavango nella Botswana settentrionale. A vederla oggi, la zona appare occupata solo da saline e deserto, completamente diversa da quella che è emersa dalle analisi: secondo le simulazioni al computer, anche il clima ha subito cambiamenti radicali con il millimetrico movimento dell’asse terrestre, che ha portato lenti e inesorabili spostamenti delle precipitazioni in tutta la regione. Causa forse primaria per l’emigrazione umana. «Abbiamo osservato una significativa divergenza genetica nei primi lignaggi materni degli umani moderni, che indicano che i nostri antenati migrarono fuori dalla loro terra natia tra 130mila e 110mila anni fa. I primi migranti si sono avventurati a nord-est, seguiti da una seconda ondata di migranti che hanno viaggiato a sud-ovest. Una terza popolazione è rimasta sulla terra natia fino ad oggi». Se da una parte l’emozione di una nuova scoperta ha invaso subito i libri e le riviste degli storici e degli studiosi, dall’altro qualcuno ha smorzato l’entusiasmo: il professor Chris Stringer del Museo di Storia naturale di Londra sostiene che non è possibile ricostruire la storia delle origini umane dal solo DNA mitocondriale e che l’evoluzione dell’Homo Sapiens è stata un processo più complesso di quello descritto. Analizzando solo una minima parte del genoma non è tecnicamente probabile raccontare l’intera storia delle nostre origini, tanto che probabilmente esistono ancora numerosi segreti dell’umanità, tutti da scoprire. Il vero giardino dell’Eden, Ph. Tim Graham (Getty Images) L’Homo Sapiens è nato in Africa, e questo era noto già da tempo: ora, però, pare sia stata rilevata l’esatta posizione in cui fece la sua comparsa.

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johnatos7-blog · 5 years ago

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PROFESSOR/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN HYDROLOGY

Department/Faculty Okavango Research Institute OKAVANGO RESEARCH INSTITUTE (MAUN) VACANCY NO. ORI 2/2019: PROFESSOR/ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN HYDROLOGY, OKAVANGO RESEARCH INSTITUTE (Re-advertisement)

Applications are invited for the following academic position at the Okavango Research Institute (ORI). The Institute is based in Maun in the North Western part of Botswana and specializes in…

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garkodigitalmedia · 6 years ago

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The 10 Most Eco-Friendly Luxury Hotels for Earth Day – Robb Report

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru, Baa Atoll, Maldives

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru Photo: Courtesy of Four Seasons

The Datai Langkawi, Malaysia

The Data Langkawi’s “Fish for The Future” program Photo: Eric Martin/Le Figaro Magazine/2019

Trisara, Phuket, Thailand

A pool villa at Trisara Photo: Courtesy of Trisara

Fairmont Mayakoba, Riviera Maya, Mexico

Fairmont Mayakoba Photo: Courtesy of Fairmont Mayakoba

Amanzoe, Porto Heli, Greece

Amanzoe Photo: Courtesy of Man

Tortuga Bay Hotel, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Tortuga Bay Hotel Photo: Courtesy of Tortuga Bay Hotel

Thanda Safari, South Africa

Tracking and darting rhinos with Thanda Safaris. Photo: Christian Sperka

Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, Rovaniemi, Finland

Arctic TreeHouse Photo: Courtesy of Arctic TreeHouse

Six Senses Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia

Six Senses Uluwatu Photo: Courtesy of Six Senses

andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge, Botswana

A game drive at andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge. Photo: Courtesy of andBeyond

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michaeljtraylor · 6 years ago

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The 10 Most Eco-Friendly Luxury Hotels for Earth Day – Robb Report

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru, Baa Atoll, Maldives

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru Photo: Courtesy of Four Seasons

The Datai Langkawi, Malaysia

The Data Langkawi’s “Fish for The Future” program Photo: Eric Martin/Le Figaro Magazine/2019

Trisara, Phuket, Thailand

A pool villa at Trisara Photo: Courtesy of Trisara

Fairmont Mayakoba, Riviera Maya, Mexico

Fairmont Mayakoba Photo: Courtesy of Fairmont Mayakoba

Amanzoe, Porto Heli, Greece

Amanzoe Photo: Courtesy of Man

Tortuga Bay Hotel, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Tortuga Bay Hotel Photo: Courtesy of Tortuga Bay Hotel

Thanda Safari, South Africa

Tracking and darting rhinos with Thanda Safaris. Photo: Christian Sperka

Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, Rovaniemi, Finland

Arctic TreeHouse Photo: Courtesy of Arctic TreeHouse

Six Senses Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia

Six Senses Uluwatu Photo: Courtesy of Six Senses

andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge, Botswana

A game drive at andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge. Photo: Courtesy of andBeyond

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nicholerestrada · 6 years ago

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The 10 Most Eco-Friendly Luxury Hotels for Earth Day – Robb Report

;

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru, Baa Atoll, Maldives

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru ; Photo: Courtesy of Four Seasons

The Datai Langkawi, Malaysia

The Data Langkawi’s “Fish for The Future” program ; Photo: Eric Martin/Le Figaro Magazine/2019

Trisara, Phuket, Thailand

A pool villa at Trisara ; Photo: Courtesy of Trisara

Fairmont Mayakoba, Riviera Maya, Mexico

Fairmont Mayakoba ; Photo: Courtesy of Fairmont Mayakoba

Amanzoe, Porto Heli, Greece

Amanzoe ; Photo: Courtesy of Man

Tortuga Bay Hotel, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Tortuga Bay Hotel ; Photo: Courtesy of Tortuga Bay Hotel

Thanda Safari, South Africa

Tracking and darting rhinos with Thanda Safaris. ; Photo: Christian Sperka

Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, Rovaniemi, Finland

Arctic TreeHouse ; Photo: Courtesy of Arctic TreeHouse

Six Senses Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia

Six Senses Uluwatu ; Photo: Courtesy of Six Senses

andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge, Botswana

A game drive at andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge. ; Photo: Courtesy of andBeyond

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weddingpearlneecklace · 7 years ago

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( Rapaport ) - Fifty years after independence Botswana still desperately needs to expand its economic diversification. The reason for this is its non-robust dependence on diamonds.

This was clearly seen at a recent industry conference in Gaborone.

Over the years, diamonds have brought a lot of good for the country. From 1966 to 2014, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita increased by an average of 5.9 percent and is one of the highest in the world for this period, according to an article published by De Beers for the conference.

And last year, diamonds were a direct or indirect source of more than 34,000 jobs in this South African country, which accounted for 33 percent of its GDP. In addition to the contribution of the Botswana government itself to the country's economy, the largest contribution is made by the partnership between De Beers and this government, the document concludes.

But it was 2014, an almost indecently good year for De Beers.

This year, the reality for the company and by default for the country looks completely different. Rapaport expects that in 2015 De Beers revenues will drop by about 44 percent, leading to a significant drop in the company's contribution to Botswana's economy in value terms. In the third quarter, the country's rough diamond exports fell 41 percent year-on-year, and in the first nine months of the year-23 percent, according to the Bank of Botswana.

Fifty years after gaining independence, Botswana still considers itself dependent on whims in the trade in rough diamonds. But the government should help improve competitiveness and productivity in the economy if it hopes to diversify and reduce its dependence on diamonds, as several speakers at the conference noted.

Exposed weakness

Financial and economic crises, as a rule, reveal the weakness of African countries that rely on one commodity, said at the conference Kato Tshipinare, an economist at Barclays Bank. Just as the government has benefited in the years of growth, it has experienced budget cuts due to lower prices and demand for diamonds and may face a budget deficit in fiscal year 2015/16.

The current decline is likely to be protracted. As noted in this column in September, Botswana has reserves that will help it survive in the short term, but it will not necessarily be able to withstand the protracted crisis (see the article "Diamonds and brilliants lose their luster in the economy of Botswana"). The question of how to behave during the current crisis, received only scant coverage at the conference, although it was expected that at the meeting of De Beers shareholders scheduled for November 26, this issue will be discussed on the eve of the December website.

The diamond mining and processing sectors in Botswana can become catalysts for themselves in gaining a competitive advantage. The country itself should ensure that its diamonds and diamonds meet the social, ethical and marketing standards of consumers of the new generation of the two thousand that are the driving force of today's consumption trends.

All this makes one think about one issue that fell out of the discussion at the conference: how to develop a strong diamond brand "Made in Botswana"?

Bearing in mind that Okavango Diamond Company only sells diamonds mined in Botswana and sends it to a network of 20 limpet factories operating there, a pure Botswana diamond can attract interest from a two thousandth generation that many marketers and consultants in the field of consumer trends see as having a decisive Value for the future retail of diamonds. If local designers and manufacturers are involved in the manufacture of jewelry, this can further strengthen such interest.

Economic support

Of course, a country should invest in its people and, in particular, in the development of professional skills and entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, this will be possible only if there is a stable diamond industry as a pillar of the economy in the next three to four decades, before this natural resource of Botswana is exhausted.

Options for economic diversification appear to be limited. Speakers at the conference expressed the view that exploitation of coal reserves and limited iron ore potential of the country contradicts how Botswana can be viewed in the eyes of a socially responsible generation of two thousand people. Instead, Ross Harvey, Senior Researcher for Africa Resource Management at the South African Institute of International Affairs, saw the potential in solar energy, noting that Botswana, apart from diamonds, has one resource, Which it has in abundance - this is sunlight. Ecotourism is another obvious potential area of growth.

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lavotha · 8 years ago

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Protecting our oceans safeguarding our ecosystem

Patricia Zobel de Ayala, better known as Patsy to her friends, is the very active Honorary Consul of The Philippines in Monaco, and a passionate of diving and water sports in general, who firmly believes in the need to protect our oceans. On June 27, 2017, Patsy, in partnership with the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco unveiled the exhibition Tubbataha, the Philippines’ UNESCO Marine World Heritage Site, in the presence of HSH Prince Albert II, who champions ocean conservation and the safeguarding of our ecosystem.

Musée Océanographique de Monaco, Expo Tabataha

Prince Albert with Patricia Zobel de Ayala and everybody involved in the Tubbataha exhibition @P.Fitte

This first-ever Philippine event in Monaco was made possible thanks the invaluable contributions of Robert Calcagno, Florent Favier and the staff of the Oceanographic Museum, David Doubilet, Jennifer Hayes, Tet Lara and Marissa Floirendo, and Angelique Songco of the Tubbataha Reefs. Also present at the event were Christina Rola from the Philippine Embassy in Paris, and other diplomats from various countries, conservationists, and philanthropists like Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who made a donation to the Tubbataha Reefs.

Coral, heart of the ocean

The privileged guests had the chance to watch a chronicle of the exploration expedition of HSH Prince Albert II to Tubbataha and Cagayancillo, in April 2016, where he dived in the natural coral reefs of Tubbataha.

Prince Albert placing an Argos tracking tag to a marine turtle at Rangers station Philippines 2016 @Copyright Oceanographi Institute

Prince Albert and Robert Calcagno Island of Cagayancillo- Philippines 2016 @Copyright Institut océanographique

The objectives were twofold: to place Argos tracking tags on two marine turtles, as part of the protection program for these animals, threatened by accidental fishing, initiated by the Oceanographic Institute; and highlight the importance of the marine protected areas, seen as a rebirth site for the oceans to regenerate.

In the heart of the Sulu Sea lays the only purely Marine World Heritage Site in Southeast Asia today, the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park. It is located in the Philippines, which is part of the Coral Triangle, center of global marine biological diversity in the world. This 970 square kilometer natural park is the largest marine protected area in the Philippines, comprising over 50% of all no-take zones in the country.

Tubbataha was inscribed in the World Heritage list in December 1993 because of its exceptional natural beauty, its role in on-going ecological and biological processes, and its significance to in situ conservation. Studies have shown that fish and coral larvae from Tubbataha enrich fisheries in the surrounding areas. This ecological function is vital to the food security of the Philippines.

Almost 200 species of endangered marine life find their home in Tubbataha. The Park is a haven to 72% of all coral genera found worldwide. It is one of very few strongholds of seabirds, marine turtles, and sharks in the region. To pass on its outstanding universal value to future generations is shared our obligation to the world. Robert Calcagno said: “It is the first reserve created 30 years ago and later reinforced by the Philippines Government. Today the reefs are considered as the richest in the world in terms of flora and fauna.”

Tubbataha, a national treasure

Also a main feature at the exhibit is a video documentary produced by the Philippines’ top underwater videographer and cinematographer, Marissa Floirendo, similarly entitled, Tubbataha, A National Treasure. The video has the distinction of being one of the Choice Selection at the 2017 Wildlife Conservation Film Festival in New York City.

Since it was discovered by divers in the late 1970s Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park (TRNP) has been considered one of the most extraordinary dive sites in the world, a dream trip for most scuba divers. Recently, it was ranked eighth best dive site in the world by the CNN travel website.

Exhibit will travel from Monaco to The Philippines

The exposition that will be open to the public until August 31, 2017, features large scale stunning underwater and topside photographs of world renowned National Geographic photographers and Rolex partners, David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes, and award winning photographer and featured artist of the book Tubbataha, A National Treasure, Maria Teresa “Tet” Lara. Some of the photos in the exhibit include close up of a Red Spotted Blenny, half-and-half of Brown Bobbies, seascapes, and schooling fish. The public will be able to watch the documentary Corail, Coeur de l’Ocean (Coral, Heart of the Ocean) via virtual reality helmets.

The exhibit is expected to make its debut in the Philippines in late 2017 through the Ayala Foundation and the Ayala Malls. Requests to showcase the photographs in London and France have been received. Finally, the prints will be auctioned by the Tubbataha Management Office in 2018 to raise funds for the protection of the Park.

The photographers

David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes are a photographic team for National Geographic Magazine focusing on ocean environments. Their photography is a universal language to create a visual voice for a fragile and finite world. They believe images have the power to inform, illuminate celebrate, honour and most importantly, create change.

David Doubilet began photographing a dark green Atlantic when he first put his Brownie Hawkeye camera in a rubber anesthesiologist’s bag at the age of twelve, receiving his first National Geographic assignment while at Boston University. Jennifer’s passion for the study and conservation of primitive fishes led to graduate degrees in zoology, marine ecology, later evolving into photography and storytelling to document her findings.

Assignments have taken this team into the vast Coral Triangle from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, beneath into Africa’s Okavango Delta, under oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, into the world of ice in Antarctica, Arctic and most recently Eastern Greenland where glaciers are retreating at a rapid pace. Their most recent collaboration has taken them throughout the Philippines, an ocean nation and cornerstone of the coral triangle.

Marissa Floirendo is one of the Philippines’ premiere cinematographers, having won several awards from the local film industry. She was also one of the country’s pioneering underwater filmmakers, among the first to document its rich marine life.  She is a director of the Antonio O. Floirendo Foundation, and spearheaded the publication of the very first coffee table book on the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, “Tubbataha: A National Treasure,” released in December 2016.  Marissa has been diving in the Tubbataha reefs for almost three decades, and has been a witness to its struggles, its survival, and its rebirth.  With the foundation, Marissa produced the video on Tubbataha, using her collected footage and images, to promote the conservation of this extraordinary natural wonder and pride of the Philippines.

Tet Lara is a photographer, businesswoman, and a staunch advocate for the preservation of the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, Philippines’ premiere marine ecosystem. She has compiled over 10 years’ worth of photographs appearing in the book “Tubbataha: A National Treasure.” Tet has won awards in local and international underwater competitions, such as Best of Show at the Australasia Underwater Festival 2011. She is currently a volunteer speaker who uses her work to create awareness for the continued preservation of Tubbataha.

Prince Albert II and David Doublet @M. Dagnino

Maria Teresa Lara, Robert Calcagno, David Doubilet @P.Fitte

Monaco Explorations – The legacy goes on

The interesting Tubbataha exhibition is the perfect prelude to the Monaco Explorations, a scientific program that will be launched on July 27, 2017, with the departure of the transoceanic scientific vessel Yersin, for a 3-years long navigation over the oceans of the world with dozens of researchers on board.

An important expedition to be revived by HSH Prince Albert II, following the tradition of the marine explorations lead by Prince Alber 1st, founder of the Oceanographic Museum, and continued by Commanding Office Cousteau who was its director during three decades.

Today’s Quote

“No water, no life. No blue, no green.” Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer

TUBBATAHA Philippines UNESCO Marine World Heritage at Oceanographic Museum of Monaco Protecting our oceans safeguarding our ecosystem Patricia Zobel de Ayala, better known as Patsy to her friends, is the very active Honorary Consul of The Philippines in Monaco, and a passionate of diving and water sports in general, who firmly believes in the need to protect our oceans.

#Argos tracking #David Doublet #HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco #Jennifer Hayes #marine turtles #Monaco Explorations #Oceanographic Museum of Monaco #Patricia Zobel de Ayala #Robert Calcagno #Tet Lara #Tubbataha #Tubbataha Philippines UNESCO Marine World Heritage #Yersin

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sigrise · 9 years ago

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Bame Keabetswe Explores the Okavango Delta: “I Feel So Grateful to Work Here” (SSAWRN)

by Alan Anderson

March 28, 2016

As someone who spent her formative years at the edge of one of the driest regions on earth — the Kalahari Desert — it seems only logical for Bame Sanah Keabetswe to have chosen a career that has to do with water. Born in Zimbabwe to a Motswana father and Zimbabwean mother, Bame grew up in the Motswana village of Mahalapye, a parched community on the main road between the capital of Gaborone and the second largest city, Francistown. Thanks to her curiosity, love of nature and hard work, she is eagerly studying the wetlands, minerals, and soil of one of the wettest places in southern Africa, the Okavango Delta of northern Botswana. Now a SSAWRN MPhil student at the University of Botswana’s Okavango Research Institute (ORI), Bame aspires to a research career as a full faculty member at UB or some other university in the region.

Across the flat expanse of the Okavango, the delta is flooded for large portions of each year by the enormous rivers of rainy Angola, just across the border to the north. This flooding supports myriad populations of riverine plants and animals, from the tiniest plankton to the large, wild African mammals that draw thousands of tourists each year. Bame’s interest is in the chemistry of heavy metals in the water, soil, and vegetation of this complex ecosystem.

Bame laid the foundations for her studies in Mahalapye, completing primary school and entering Madiba Senior School in 2005. From there she was accepted by the University of Botswana in Gaborone, where she majored in chemistry. After earning a BSc in 2011, she took up a position as a research assistant at the Okavango Research Institute (ORI) in the town of Maun, about a thousand kilometers away from her home. She was eager to try something new.

After two years of working at ORI, assisting with the RISE node there and becoming steadily more familiar with the research projects underway, there was an opening for a RISE-sponsored MPhil student, and ORI’s Director Prof. Wellington Masamba urged her to apply. In 2013, Bame was accepted into SSAWRN and she began her MPhil research.

Bame in the Laboratory at ORI

Her enthusiasm for the Okavango — and her confidence — came from a fortunate upbringing and supportive parents. “My dad especially always believed in me. If I had told him I wanted to be president of the country, he would believe that I could. And I did too!”

“I always wanted to do things for myself. Growing up, I loved this cartoon called Dexter’s Laboratory. It’s about a kid who spends all his time in a lab he built in his parents’ house. They didn’t know what he was doing; he just built things and solved problems all by himself. I liked the thrill of that. I always wanted to work in science, and especially to work in nature. Out here it’s like Jurassic Park, and I just love it.”

Like the scientists in that movie, she works amid a vast tableau of African wildlife that includes the beautiful, the dangerous, and the bizarre: bounding impalas; lumbering elephants; hippos; lions; and countless burrowing colonies of naked mole rats.

She did admit that the delta island where she does her research is not without some of its own Jurassic Park-like dangers. “One day the lab technicians were working near here, out on the island with the pickup truck, when suddenly a water buffalo came after them. They dropped all their tools and ran. Another day I was pumping out ground water and a really big elephant was watching me from about 30 meters away. He wasn’t showing any signs of charging, but I lost my nerve and dropped my tools and ran anyway.”

ORI scientists examine elephant bones found on Nxaraga Island. (L to R: Bame; Mangaliso Gondwe; Alan Anderson; Kaelo Makati)

She feels it is a privilege to spend her research days — and some of her nights — in a remote and primitive camp about two hours by fast boat from a dock near Maun. “You know how sometimes you get so used to your surroundings or situation that you don’t notice it any longer? I never really get ‘used to’ working in the Okavango. I feel so grateful that I work here. It is an absolutely spectacular and fascinating place to be conducting my research. As a child, I always imagined myself working as a scientist in the Amazon. But hey, the Okavango isn’t much different!”

ORI Scientists' Camp on Nxaraga Island

As a chemist, Bame was well prepared to study many complex relationships between animals, plants, and their environment. The focus of her master’s research has been analyzing the water, soil, and plants for heavy metals around Nxaraga Island, her research site. This remote point of dry land provides sufficient shelter and battery-powered instruments to allow her to work for several days at a time before returning to analyze her samples in the laboratory.

The Nxaraga Island camp attendant keeps watch over the grounds from this tree. He even sleeps up there!

A major focus of the lab is water quality, and another project for Bame and others is to determine whether the chlorination of drinking water in communities around the delta is producing carcinogenic chemicals. “At the camp, we can drink the water, where it is very safe. The delta acts as a filter. It’s cleaner there than it is downstream, and that is an issue.”

Various kinds of carbonates and toxins, such as cadmium and lead, concentrate for unknown reasons near the edges of the delta’s islands, such as Nxaraga. Bame acknowledges that she and her colleagues have only just begun to investigate the countless chemical challenges of the Okavango Delta, and she relishes the opportunity to make her own contributions.

Bame with SIG Program Associate Sarah Rich on Nxaraga Island

Bame hopes to continue on to a PhD in chemistry after finishing her MPhil. When she’s not in the lab, she is actively involved in Femina Woman Association, a local NGO that fosters women’s empowerment through the mentoring of young girls.

In a major recognition of her work thus far, Bame was named the 2016 Next Einstein Forum (NEF) Ambassador for Botswana. She represented her country at the inaugural Next Einstein Forum Global Gathering, which was held in Dakar, Senegal on March 8–10. Bame plans to use her platform as NEF Ambassador to encourage other Motswana women to pursue careers in STEM and to visit local schools with the goal of getting schoolchildren excited about STEM subjects. “Young scientists in Africa [must be] innovative, and courageous enough to rise up and drive change in their own communities.” Bame is certainly playing a key role in driving that change, and we are eager to see what the future holds for this passionate, young activist-scientist.

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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Humankind's ancestral 'homeland' pinpointed in Botswana

https://sciencespies.com/news/humankinds-ancestral-homeland-pinpointed-in-botswana/

Humankind's ancestral 'homeland' pinpointed in Botswana

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A large ancient wetlands region spanning northern Botswana – once teeming with life but now dominated by desert and salt flats – may represent the ancestral homeland of all of the 7.7 billion people on Earth today, researchers said on Monday.

FILE PHOTO: Vanessa Hayes speaks with Headman ǀkun ǀkunta, from an extended Ju/’hoansi family, who provided genome data for a study identifying the ancestral homeland in southern Africa of all living members of our species, in Namibia, February 6, 2019. Chris Bennett/Evolving Picture/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Their study, guided by maternal DNA data from more than 1,200 people indigenous to southern Africa, proposed a central role for this region in the early history of humankind starting 200,000 years ago, nurturing our species for 70,000 years before climate changes paved the way for the first migrations.

A lake that at the time was Africa’s largest – twice the area of today’s Lake Victoria – gave rise to the ancient wetlands covering the Greater Zambezi River Basin that includes northern Botswana into Namibia to the west and Zimbabwe to the east, the researchers said.

It has been long established that Homo sapiens originated somewhere in Africa before later spreading worldwide.

“But what we hadn’t known until this study was where exactly this homeland was,” said geneticist Vanessa Hayes of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and University of Sydney, who led the study published in the journal Nature.

The oldest-known Homo sapiens fossil evidence dates back more than 300,000 years from Morocco. The new study suggests that early members of our species as represented by the Morocco remains may not have left any ancestors living today, the researchers said.

“There is no contradiction between the presence of an early Homo sapiens-like skull in northern Africa, which may be from an extinct lineage, and the proposed southern African origin of the Homo sapiens lineages that are still alive,” added study co-author Axel Timmermann, a climate physicist at Pusan National University in South Korea.

The ancient lake Makgadikgadi began to break up about 200,000 years ago, giving rise to a sprawling wetland region inhabited by human hunter-gatherers, the researchers said.

“It can be viewed as a massive extension of today’s Okavango Delta wetland area,” Timmermann said.

Changes in Earth’s axis and orbit caused climate, rainfall and vegetation shifts that set the stage for early migrations of this ancestral group of people away from the homeland region, first toward the northeast 130,000 years ago, then toward the southwest 110,000 years ago, Timmermann added.

“Our study provides the first quantitative and well-dated evidence that astronomically driven climate changes in the past caused major human migration events, which then led to the development of genetic diversity and eventually cultural, ethnic and linguistic identity,” Timmermann added.

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

#News

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