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In 1909, Charles Walcott, a paleontologist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, discovered one of the greatest and most famous fossil troves high in the Canadian Rockies on Burgess Pass in British Columbia. The slabs of Burgess Shale that Walcott excavated contained the earliest known examples at the time of many major animal groups in the fossil record, in rocks that were about 505 million years old.

Walcott’s discovery was further evidence of the so-called Cambrian Explosion — the apparently abrupt appearance of complex animals in the fossil record within the Cambrian Period, from about 542 to 490 million years ago. Although not seen before on the scale documented in the Burgess Shale, the emergence of trilobites and other animals in the Cambrian was familiar to paleontologists, and had troubled Charles Darwin a great deal.

The difficulty posed by the Cambrian Explosion was that in Darwin’s day (and for many years after), no fossils were known in the enormous, older rock formations below those of the Cambrian. This was an extremely unsettling fact for his theory of evolution because complex animals should have been preceded in the fossil record by simpler forms.

In “On the Origin of Species,” Darwin posited that “during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures.” But he admitted candidly, “To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer.”

It took a very long time, and the searching of some of the most remote places on the planet — in the Australian Outback, the Namibian desert, the shores of Newfoundland and far northern Russia — but we now have fossil records from the time immediately preceding the Cambrian. The rocks reveal a world whose oceans were teeming with a variety of life forms, including primitive animals, which is certainly good news for Darwin.

Now, this once-worrisome gap in the fossil record is a period of intense interest to geologists as well as paleontologists. The former have even given it its own division in the geological timescale. The Ediacaran Period, from 635 to 542 million years ago, is the first new geological period to be named in more than a century. Moreover, geologists have developed some intriguing theories about how dramatic changes in the Earth’s climate and chemistry during the Ediacaran may have allowed for the evolution of animals.

The first major advance towards finding the earliest animal life occurred in 1946 when Reginald Sprigg, a geologist for the South Australia government, was checking out some old mines in the Ediacaran Hills of the Flinders Range several hundred miles north of Adelaide. Sprigg noticed some striking disc-shaped impressions up to four inches in diameter on the exposed surfaces of rocks nearby.

Sprigg interpreted the patterns as the fossil remains of soft-bodied creatures like jellyfish or their relatives. But when Sprigg first showed the imprints to leading authorities, they dismissed them as artifacts made by the weathering of the rocks. However, later that year, when Sprigg found the frond-like forms he called Dickinsonia , he was certain that such geometrical impressions could have been made only by living creatures.

Sprigg was excited by both the unusual appearance of the fossils and by their age, which he believed to be the beginning of the Cambrian, and made them the oldest animal forms yet seen. But despite their potential importance, Sprigg’s discoveries were ignored at an international geology meeting and his paper describing the fossils was rejected by the leading journal, . Sprigg moved on to other, more rewarding pursuits in the oil, gas, and mining industries.

Scientific attention to these strange forms was not revived until a decade later when more soft-bodied forms were found in the Ediacaran Hills and in England, and their age was firmly established as actually predating the Cambrian. Deposits of similar aged forms have been discovered at Mistaken Point on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland, in southern Namibia, the White Sea of Russia, and more than 30 other locations on five continents. The global distribution of these disc-, frond-, tube-, branch-, or spindle-shaped forms demonstrate that life was complex and diverse in the Ediacaran.

But finding these fossils has posed many new mysteries. Many of the creatures are so unlike modern forms that deciphering what they are and how they lived continues to challenge paleontologists. Prof. Andrew Knoll of Harvard University has likened the Ediacaran forms to a paleontological “Rorschach” test because different scientists often interpret the same fossil very differently.

Dickinsonia, for example, has been interpreted as being a relative of jellyfish, a marine worm, a lichen, or even as a member of a completely extinct kingdom. The challenge to classifying most Ediacarans is that they lack some features that are characteristic of modern animals, a mouth or an anus in the case of Dickinsonia, or the shells and hard parts typical of many Cambrian groups. But, in fact, such simple bodies are exactly what should be expected of primitive forerunners of later animals.

On the other hand, scientists have had to explain how such creatures functioned. Some of the very flat-bodied Ediacarans, for instance, lived on sediments and appear to have fed by directly absorbing nutrients by osmosis.

The kinds of animals that paleontologists have been especially eager to identify in the Ediacaran are those with bilateral body symmetry, the feature characteristic of the majority of modern animal groups, including ourselves.

Bilateral animals flourished in the Cambrian so tracing their origins is crucial to understanding the pace of animal evolution. Several bilateral Ediacaran animals have been discovered, including Kimberella, a possible mollusc. Hundreds of Kimberella specimens are known that date to about 555 million years ago, 50 million years before the animals of the Burgess Shale.

The Ediacaran fossil record thus stretches the origins of animals to well before the Cambrian Explosion. But it also raises the question of why, after more than 2.5 billion years during which microscopic life dominated the planet, larger, more complex, forms emerged at that time?

A key requirement for larger creatures is oxygen, and the dramatic history of oxygen levels is also etched in Ediacaran rocks. Geologists now understand that the earliest Ediacaran organisms were deep water creatures that emerged 575 to 565 million years ago, shortly after a major ice age ended about 580 million years ago.

Recent chemical analyses of Ediacaran sediments reveal that the deep ocean lacked oxygen before and during that ice age, then became much richer in oxygen and stayed that way after the glaciers melted . That sharp rise in oxygen may have been the catalyst to the evolution of animals, including our ancestors.

Several weeks after the publication of “On the Origin of Species” and amid a torrent of criticism, Darwin added a mischievous postscript to a letter to his friend, the geologist Charles Lyell: “Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind.” The Ediacaran fossils tell us that Darwin was being too generous. Our earliest animal ancestor probably had no head, tail, or sexual organs, and lay immobile on the sea floor like a door mat.

Driver from www.nytimes.com

Herb Alpert is a man of many talents and accomplishments, with the public knowing him best as a trumpet player, songwriter, bandleader, producer and the co-founder of A&M Records.

The 75-year-old Alpert also is an artist, and a collection of his sculptures called “Black Totems” can be seen through Aug. 28 at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills.

According to a press release from Ace Gallery, Alpert’s sculptures “bring to mind a small copse of trees after a rain, their proximity to each other invoking contemplative silence,” and that the works “reference the tall wooden totems of the Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest.”

Click here to read a recent Los Angeles Times story about Alpert, who talks about his interest in art.

“I Feel You,” Alpert’s new album with wife and singer Lani Hall, is due this fall.

Essence Magazine has been called out by some of its readership and supporters for reportedly hiring a white Fashion Director, according to CLUTCH Magazine. Ellianna Placas, formerly of O: The Oprah Magazine and US Weekly is said to be starting at the magazine in September, although Essence hasn't made an official announcement. But just the speculation prompted writer Michaela angela Davis to tweet: "It is with a heavy heavy heart I have learned that Essence magazine has engaged a white fashion director, this hurts, literally, spiritually." On Facebook, Davis wrote, "If there were balance in the industry; if we didn't have a history of being ignored and disrespected; if more mainstream fashion media included people of color before the ONE magazine dedicated to black women 'diversified', it would feel different."

Fashion media personality Najwa Moses told CLUTCH, "How could such a prestigious title who is deeply rooted in its target audience let someone who is not even apart of the African Diaspora detonate our image?" She added, "How can a White woman dictate and decide what style and beauty is for the Black woman?"

CLUTCH also weighed in on the decision:

As the publication unofficially deemed "Essence's little sister"--a growing young urban women's online brand for news, critical commentary, lifestyle, fashion and beauty--it felt like our Mom walked us hand in hand to the center of the biggest shopping mall in the state, turned around, and left us. But we are no longer the little girls eyeballing the glossy giant who taught us how to love ourselves.
However, Charing Ball of The Atlanta Post doesn't think Essence even needs a black perspective anymore:

From the few issues that I had skimmed through during my monthly visits to the hair salon, I can tell you that I don't think I am missing much. Unlike its history of uplifting and honoring the holistic experiences of the black woman, I began to find much of the magazine trite and full of regressive articles much inline with the Cosmo woman of the 18th Century (think Celia advising Harpo on how to handle his Sophia problem). And with the exception of a few featured articles, great covers editorials, and the recipes in the back, I find Essence to hold little relevance to this 21st Century woman of color.

Driver from www.huffingtonpost.com

Village decision-making is organized through community councils and cooperative boards of directors, institutions which the Eskimos were encouraged by the government to adopt.They have been more readily accepted in villages like Fort Chimo where people are more accustomed to working independently for a living and where ties of kinship are less important than in the rural villages such as Port Burwell,where communal sharing between kinsmen is more emphasised. Greater contact with southern Canadians and better educational facilities have shown Fort Chimo Eskimos that it is possible to argue and negotiate with the government rather than to comply passively with its policies.

The old-age paternalism (MfcA^iffi) of southern Canadians over the Eskimos has died more slowly in the rural villages where Eskimos have been more reluctant to voice their opinions aggressively.This has been a frustration to government officials trying to develop local leadership amongst the Eskimos, but a blessing to other departments whose plans have been ac¬cepted without local obstruction.In rural areas the obligations of kinship of¬ten ran counter to the best interests of the village and potential leaders were restrained from making positive contributions to the village council.More re¬cently, however, the educated Eskimos have been voicing the interests of those in the rural areas.They are trying to persuade the government to recog¬nise the rights of full-time hunters,by protecting their hunting territories from mining and oil prospectors (ibSI^ ),for example.The efforts of this active minority are being gradually extended to the remoter villages whose inhabitants are becoming increasingly vocal.

Continuing change is inevitable but future development policy in Un-gava must recognise that most Eskimos retain much of their traditional out¬look on life.New schemes should focus on resources that the Eskimos are used to handling,as the Port Burwell projects have done,rather than on en¬terprises such as mining where effort is all too easily directed towards an unskilled labour force.The musk-ox ( H? 41 )project at Fort Chimo and the tourist lodge at George River are new directions for future development but there are unexpected difficulties.

I counted five people reading Harry Potter novels. Not children these were real grown-ups reading children's books. It was as if I had wandered into a John Wyndham (3£H:¥^5?4£jf£=^) scenarios (ffil ^ ) where the adults' brains have been addled by a plague and they have returned to childishness, avidly hunting out their toys and colouring-in books.

Maybe that would have been understandable. If these people had jumped whole-heartedly into a second childhood it would have made more sense. But they were card-carrying grown-ups with laptops (^Stfeli!) and spreadsheets returning from sales meetings and seminars. Yet they chose to read a children's book.

I don' t imagine you' 11 find this headcount exceptional. You can no longer get on the London Tube and not see a Harry Potter book,and I pre¬sume the same is true on the Glasgow Metro or the Manchester trams,or the

beaches of Ibiza or clubs of Ayia Napa. Who told these adults they should read a kids' book? Do we see them ploughing through Tom's Midnight Garden? Of course not;if you suggested it they would rightly stare, bemused, and say:Isn't that a kids' book? Why would I want to read that? I'm 377 42/63.

Nor is it just the film;these throwback readers were out there in droves long before the movie campaign opened. Warner Brothers knows it can' t hope to recoup its reputed one hundred million dollars costs through ticket sales to children alone. But the adult desire to tangle with Harry, Hermione and Voldemort (±£;ft<l>pf!l -Wi^)^ A%3) existed long before the director Chris Columbus (^^PoflJ •MW»W-i!S) got his hands on the story.

So who are these adult readers who have made JK Rowling (Pp^ 1\f)) fHjf^^i') the second-biggest female earner in Britain (after Madonna)? As I have tramped along streets knee-deep in Harry Potter paperbacks,I've mentally slotted them into three groups.

First come the Never-Readers,whom Harry has enticed into opening a book. Is this a bad thing? Probably not. Ever since the invention of moving pictures,the written word has struggled to be as instantaneously (BP^'J^fc) exciting. Writing has many advantages over film,but it can never compete with its magnetic punch. If these books can re-establish the novel as a thrilling experience for some people,then this can only be for the better. If it takes obsession-level hype to lure them into a bookshop,that's fine by me. But will they go on to read anything else? Again,we can only hope. It has certainly worked at schools,especially for boys,whose reading has clearly taken an upward swing for this alone, Rowling deserves her rewards.

The second groups are the Occasional Readers. These people claim that tiredness,work and children allow them to read only a few books a year. Yet now to be part of the crowd,to say they've read it they put Harry Potter on their oh-so-select reading list. It's infuriating,it's maddening,it sends me ballistic. Yes,I'm a writer myself .writing difficult, unreadable, hopefully unsettling novels,but there are so many other good books out there,so much rewarding,enlightening,enlarging works of fiction for adults; and yet these sad cases are swept along by the hype,the faddism,into read¬ing a children's book. Put like that,it's worse than maddening,it's pathetic. When I rule the world, all editions will carry a heavy-print warning: "This Is A Children's Book,Designed For Under Elevens. It May Seriously Damage Your Credibility."! can dream,can't I?

Within a year, consumers had returned millions of aluminum cans and glass and >lastic bottles. Plenty of companies were eager to accept the aluminum and glass as raw materials for new products, but because few could figure out what to do with the plastic, much if it wound up buried in landfills (JfeiiMMS^). The problem was not limited to New York. Jnfortunately, there were too few uses for second-hand plastic.

Today, one out of five plastic soda bottles is recycled (&>&.%>] Jfl ) in the United States, "he reason for the change is that now there are dozens of companies across the country buying liscarded plastic soda bottles and turning them into fence posts, paint brushes, etc.

As the New York experience shows, recycling involves more than simply separating 'aluable materials from the rest of the rubbish. A discard remains a discard until somebody igures out how to give it a second life — and until economic arrangements exist to give that econd life value. Without adequate markets to absorb materials collected for recycling, tirowaways actually depress prices for used materials.

Shrinking landfill space, and rising costs for burying and burning rubbish are forcing local pvernments to look more closely at recycling. In many areas, the East Coast especially, ecycling is already the least expensive waste-management option. For every ton of waste ecycled, a city avoids paying for its disposal, which, in parts of New York, amounts to avings of more than $ 100 per ton. Recycling also stimulates the local economy by creating abs and trims the pollution control and energy costs of industries that make recycled products y giving them a more refined raw material.

We have seen that they now pollute soil, water, and food, that they have the power to make our streams fishless and our gardens and woodlands silent and birdless. Man, however much he may like to pretend the contrary, is part of nature. Can he escape a pollution that is now so thoroughly distributed throughout our world?

We know that even single exposures to these chemicals, if the amount is large enough, can cause extremely severe poisoning. But this is not the major problem. The sudden illness or death of farmers, farm workers, and others exposed to sufficient quantities of pesticides is very sad and should not occur. For the population as a whole, we must be more concerned with the delayed effects of absorbing small amounts of the pesticides that invisibly pollute our world.

Responsible public health officials have pointed out that the biological effects of chemicals are cumulative (Hf.R)over long periods of time, and that the danger to the individual may depend on the sum of the exposures received throughout his lifetime. For these very reasons the danger is easily ignored. It is human nature to shake off what may seem to us a threat of future disaster. "Men are naturally most impressed by diseases which have obvious signs, " says a wise physician, Dr. Rene Dubos, "yet some of their worst enemies slowly approach them unnoticed."

Would black powder in the smoke from the fires circle the globe and block out the sun? Many said "No way. Rain would wash the black powder from the atmosphere." But in America air-sampling balloons have detected high concentrations of particles similar to those collected in Kuwait. Now the fires are out, scientists are turning their attentions to yet another threat: the oil that did not catch fire. It has formed huge lakes in the Kuwaiti desert. They trap insects and birds and poison a variety of other desert animals and plants.

The only good news is that the oil lakes have not affected the underground water resources. So far the oil has not been absorbed because of the hard sand just below the surface. Nothing, however, stops oil from evaporating. The resulting poisonous gases are choking nearby residents. Officials are trying to organize a quick clean-up, but they are not sure how to do it. One possibility is to burn the oil and get those black powder protectors ready.

A spate of legislation emerging from Brussels aims ultimately to hold manufacturers responsible for the fate of their products along after they've left store shelves or car showrooms . They're being told they must ensure that as much as 85 percent of their products is recycled or reused , and the remainder disposed of n environmentally sound ways.

Something surely needs to be done. In recent decades consumers have grown used to an ever-speedier urnover of hardware. A computer built in the 1960s lasted 10 years on average; now they are scrapped in just our. In the past more than 90 percent of this detritus had been buried in landfills. Europe's junk heap of lectronic goods now weighs 6 million tons and will double in 12 years. All this waste is taking an obvious toll >n the planet.

Even at this early stage in Europe's recycling experiment, though, the new laws have already caused Jiintended problems. Some European countries have been caught wholly unprepared. Because of the new egulations, waste sites and incinerators throughout Europe are being inundated with hardware. Recycling icilities now coming online face a backlog of six months. Another problem; replacing bad but essential laterials. The EU will soon ban the use of the lead, a hazardous substance that's been used for decades to Dlder circuit boards. Electronics companies are struggling to find alternatives. "This could be a much bigger hallenge for us than the waste-disposal regulations," says Michelle O'Neill, a Hewlett-Packard lobbyist in Brussels.

Business leaders also warn of excessive costs. 'Society and the politicians have another objective here: to love costs onto industry," says Viktor Sundberg, European-affairs director of Swedish manufacturer lectrolux. Inevitably some of those costs will trickle down to the consumer. And there's the sticky problem of ssigning responsibility. Is one manufacturer liable for recycling the products of a former rival that has gone out " business? Should carmakers pay for dismembering vehicles built years before the directive took effect? urope hasn't worked out these issues.

The new recycling laws may not cost as much as one might think. Many of the new targets are only icrementally tougher than existing ones. Carmarkers, for instance, will in five years have to recycle or reuse ) percent, by weight, of their old cars. But in the more ecoconscious northern states, they already voluntarily cycle 60 percent. That may be why manufacturers have greeted the new rules meekly. Ford claims that its test Fiesta hatchback, newly built for the European market, is already 85 percent recyclable. That's a >werful image for the new ecofriendly manufacturing, provided Europe's medicine works without too many side fects. The author says "something surely needs to be done" because the environment has already been seriously polluted.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Hundreds of mourners Friday marked the death of a teenage bottlenose dolphin who won hearts and sometimes annoyed New Zealand swimmers and surfers with his boisterous antics.

Moko's body, placed in a blue coffin bedecked with flowers, was carried through a seaside town.

After a ceremony that drew more than 400 admirers, his casket was loaded on a charter boat that toured his favorite bays. He was buried privately on Matakana Island, where his carcass was found one week ago.

For three years, Moko was a familiar sight around the beaches of New Zealand's eastern coastal city of Gisborne, where he swam among beach-goers and stole balls and surf boards. He received worldwide fame in 2008, when he guided two stranded pygmy sperm whales back to deep waters.

Not everyone was charmed, though. Moko was known for pushing surfers out to sea, even leaving one woman stranded on a buoy when he stole her board. He also overturned kayakers and water skiers.

Moko's body was found a week ago on a beach on Matakana Island. The cause of death has not been determined, but post mortems have ruled out deliberate violence or a boat collision.

Initially, indigenous Maori contested the right to determine how and where Moko should be buried. They agreed after negotiations with New Zealand's Ministry of Conservation to lay him to rest on Matakana.

Sand from his gravesite will be exchanged with sand from the Mahia peninsula on the North Island, which local Maori say will convey his spirit to the mainland.

Friday's service was hosted by elders of a local tribe and involved prayers and speeches of remembrance.