The oldest skull ever discovered in the Americas, of a woman who died 13,000 years ago at age 27, was found in Mexico in 1959, but has never been tested until now. Geologist Silvia Gonzalez, who was finally able to get the Mexican skull carbon-dated, says its long, narrow shows it is not Native American. She believes the first Americans came from Japan by boat, and says, “If this proves right, it’s going to be quite contentious. We’re going to say to Native Americans, ‘Maybe there were some people in the Americas before you, who are not related to you.'”
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Lately the Iraq war is being compared to the Vietnam war, because many people aren’t quite sure why we’re there and our soldiers are vulnerable to attack by civilians. But others say it’s becoming more like the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The U.S. has already adopted many of Israel’s military tactics, such as bulldozing terrorists’ houses. One thing many Moslem women’s groups have hoped that the fall of Saddam Hussein would bring is the establishment of women’s rights as part of any new constitution. But, at present, the situation is too violent for anybody’s rights to be respected, least of all women’s.
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As part of our new Communion Letters, we present a letter from Greg, who says: After really, really careful consideration, I’ve decided to write you. Recently, I read your book “The Communion Letters” three times. Though I have no recollections of abductions, the letters in that book have been eating at me for months. Then I had realization: I’ve seen the beings you call the “visitors” in dreams.

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We recently reported that scientists think humans should try behaving more like our close cousins, the chimpanzees. In some ways we already do: chimp females learn faster than males, the same thing that happens with humans.

Shaoni Bhattacharya writes in New Scientist that young female chimps are faster and better learners than young males. While young male chimps spend their time playing, young females carefully study their mothers and learn how to use twigs to fish for termites two years before the males do. Any elementary school teacher will be familiar with a similar phenomenon among humans.

Researcher Elizabeth Lonsdorf says, “A sex-based learning difference may therefore date back at least to the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans.”
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