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Researchers in South Africa claim they have extracted the DNA of an early human.

The microscopic traces of blood which yielded the sample are apparently from a 1.8 million-year-old hominid. If the claim is authenticated the DNA will be the oldest sample ever extracted.

Wits University micro-archaeologist Bonnie Williamson, says, ?The DNA we have found is something between a chimpanzee and a human, which suggests a hominid.? Williamson and her colleague Professor Tom Loy of the University of Queensland believe this DNA sequence is from either our direct ancestor Homo habilis or Paranthropus robustus. The tools on which the blood was found were in the Sterkfontein Caves, a World Heritage site in the Gauteng region.
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The Bush administration has received enormous worldwide criticism for its refusal to support the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, but new scientific evidence suggests that one of the treaty’s key strategies may be dangerously flawed.

The protocol gives governments the option to plant trees to soak up carbon dioxide, rather than cutting emissions of greenhouse gas. But this provision is not realistic, warns Richard Betts of Britain?s Meteorological Office. He says it does not take into account other ways that new forests can affect climate.
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A company in the United States claims it has invented a powder that can be used to remove clouds from the sky and even stop the development of hurricanes. The new product could help many areas of the world that are subject to extreme weather conditions, as well as areas of the U.S. that regularly get hit by violent storms.

The company, which produces materials to absorb pollutants such as oil and acids, says this is a specially developed powder that absorbs large quantities of water, which turns into a gel before falling out of the sky. They state that the gel is completely safe, bio-degradable, and breaks down in seawater (but they refuse to say exactly what?s in it).
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The far north town of Iqaluit in Canada is experiencing extraordinary heat. Temperature spikes in the far north are a sudden climate change danger signal, and the situation in this area is highly unusual.

“We’ve had a really stagnant situation,” saod Yvonne Wallace, a meteorologist with Environment Canada’s Arctic Weather Centre in Edmonton. Four Iqaluit records were broken in July. “You had an amazing month here,” she said.

On July 15, the temperature reached an all-time record of 75F, breaking a record set in the 1980s. Again on July 27, a temperature of 74F broke a 1969 record.
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