Origin Of Man: Why Africa ?

While it is still quite common to hear the views of the divine origin of man, or even cosmic, but people are educated and savvy can hardly doubt the truth. The emergence of Homo sapiens occurred during the biological evolution of anthropoid obezyan. By the middle of the XX century in the scientific community firmly established opinion about the African origin of human heart, and in 1974 the whole world shook a sensational discovery. Where African Rift divides into two "horns" in Ethiopia, in Afar region, was found a complete skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, one of our most ancient ancestors, the age of about 3.8 million years. While all were passionate group of the Beatles, and the skeleton (it belonged to a female) was named Lucy, the eponymous song. This finding is summed up decades of hard and, sometimes, dramatic work on the study and systematization of data on the anatomy and way of life of early hominids and the first representatives of the genus Homo. Not touching the essence of much debate about human origins, we give the main results, which is now generally agreed academic science, based on extensive data research in paleoanthropology, Comparative genetics and evolutionary psychology.

1. We know exactly who was the direct ancestor of man kind (Homo). They were the gracile australopithecines, creatures with a small brain volume, but very active, with good social organization and had a real family. Homo genus Australopithecus or separated from other similar hominids about 2 million years ago in Africa. There are several types of people, most of whom had died. These include, inter alia, include erectus and Neanderthals.

The earliest representatives of Homo sapiens were the result of the evolution of 400-250 thousand years ago. 2. We know exactly the place of human origins. This is Africa, and that its area, which adjoins the Great Rift valley, crossing the continent from south to north. There are no other places of human origin have been identified. According to this ruling today in a science hypothesis, our species emerged in Africa and spread from there around the world, replacing existing populations in other regions of Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. 3. We are certain that our early ancestors began walking on two legs at least 2 million years before they began to use specially made tools. It is interesting that Darwin knew nothing about the future of numerous anthropological finds, however, wrote in his book "The Descent of Man," that our ancestors probably lived in Africa. But why in Africa? This question is only beginning to be discussed in academic circles and is of great interest. Ask him to our guide and the tourists who buy the tour in Tanzania, "In the wake of the African Adam." Answer this and many other the evolution of life can be also bought in any book of scientific and popular novel DA Chernyakhovsky "Resources and Development: from bacteria to the market", or received it for free at our office.

Genetic Predisposition To Alcoholism

The role of heredity in disease, alcoholism is very high. The presence of alcoholism among parents is the risk of disease in children at 7 times the risk of dependency in children of healthy parents, which will allow identify children in alkozavisimyh particular risk. It has long been observed that alcoholism usually develops in children whose parents abuse alcohol. According to the research of family alcoholism risk of dependency patients with alcoholism of parents (one or both) to 7 times higher than children of healthy parents. In certain forms of alcoholism, parental likelihood of disease in children up to 88%. Research performed by tracking the fate of children born to parents suffering from alcohol dependence. It turned out that even the education of children in the "healthy" families with a non-drinker adoptive parents and brothers and sisters, the risk of developing alcoholism is 3 times higher than that of nekrovnyh sisters and brothers.

Compared with the non-drinker foster children a large number of drinkers foster children have biological parents – alkozavisimyh. In addition, there is no connection between alcoholism and alcohol abuse adoptive parents of their children, suggesting less influence of the medium. Observations of the twins showed that if one of monozygotic brothers ill from alcoholism, the the other has a 3-fold higher risk of developing the disease than would happen with fraternal twins. Therefore, the influence of genetic factors is not in doubt. However, such observations for single-valued conclusions about the role of heredity is not enough, because with equal bases responsible for the occurrence of alcoholism may be given to environmental factors – education in an atmosphere of drunkenness. Genetics are not children alkozavisimyh as victims, freeing them from liability, and various environmental factors have great importance for the occurrence of alcoholism. Research geneticist, of course, important as the development of prevention treatment, and for specialists who treat alcoholism, to better understand the specifics of the disease.