rkaja84's Blog

We already knew Nintendo's DS was quite the popular handheld, and while the PSP recently overtook it in Japanese hardware sales, the most recent numbers show that the Big N's famed DS has actually rocketed above the mighty PlayStation 2 in lifetime sales (in Japan). Notably, the numbers do combine DS and DS Lite units, but there's no mention of how the systems stack up worldwide. Nevertheless, the feat is a fairly impressive one when you consider how much longer the PS2 has been available compared to the DS, and unless Sony somehow lightens the PS2 load even further and starts bundling them in with cereals, we doubt it will reclaim the top spot anytime soon.

For decades, a fossil skull discovered in Piltdown, England, was hailed as the missing link between apes and humans. Entire careers were built on its authenticity. Then in 1953, the awful truth came out: “Piltdown Man” was a fake! But who done it? In “The Boldest Hoax,” NOVA gets to the bottom of the greatest scientific hoodwinking of all time.

The search for clues takes NOVA to the archives of Britain’s august Natural History Museum in London, where intriguing documents shed new light on the notorious case. Offering theories on the deception are two prominent paleontologists at the museum, Chris Stringer and Andy Currant. Also sleuthing for NOVA are archaeologist Miles Russell of Britain’s Bournemouth University, historian Richard Milner of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and Giles Oakley, son of Kenneth Oakley, the scientist who blew the whistle on the hoax in 1953.

It all started in the early 1900s, when a laborer digging near the village of Piltdown in southern England reportedly found a strange piece of skull that he passed on to Charles Dawson, a local amateur archaeologist. Dawson obtained more fossils from the site and, believing they were the remains of a very ancient human, approached Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum. In December 1912, the two jointly presented the reconstructed skull to the public as humankind’s earliest ancestor.

“Piltdown Man was a really big deal in 1912, because it was a time when very little was known of human fossil remains,” says historian Richard Milner. “It was perceived to be the missing link, the fossil that connected humans with apes.” Notably, Piltdown Man was even more spectacular than the celebrated human fossils already discovered on the European continent, such as Neanderthal Man in Germany.

More remains turned up in Piltdown through 1915, the year before Dawson’s death. These included a second partial skull and a strange bone artifact resembling a cricket bat—a fishy find that looked suspiciously like a hoax but was accepted by Woodward as an ancient implement. Forty years later, new scientific tests showed that Piltdown Man was a forgery, concocted in part from what was probably an orangutan’s jaw. Suspicion immediately fell on Dawson, but there were other candidates.

Some scholars believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, was the mastermind. Conan Doyle had a motive: desire for revenge against the British scientific establishment for ridiculing his spiritualist research. He also had the opportunity, since he lived just a few miles from Piltdown and frequently played golf nearby. Others think that Woodward was the instigator or at least Dawson’s collaborator, since the fossils were faked with far greater skill than any amateur presumably possessed.

In recent years, another suspect has emerged: Martin Hinton, a staff member at the Natural History Museum who had the motive, means, opportunity, and personality to perpetrate an expert scientific fraud. Plus he left several suggestive hints. On the other hand, the evidence against Hinton can be read in more than one way, and the real swindler may be the obvious one: the man who had the most to gain from convincing the world that Piltdown Man was the fossil to end all fossils—Charles Dawson.

Source

This is NOT a usual "Did you know?" message. Don't skip to the end, Read it steady. Definitely, you WILL feel the siver in your spine.

Did YOU Know?

Sometimes size does matter....

If you're one in a million in China...
there are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100, people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China are with the HIGHEST IQs....
is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, its the top 28%.

Did YOU Know?

China will soon become the number one English Speaking Country in the world.
If you took every single single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China...
it still would have a labor surplus
By the time, you started reading this message...
- 60 babies would have born in U.S.
- 244 babies would have born in China.
- 351 babies would have born in India.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today's learner will have 10 to 14 jobs...
by Age 38
According to U.S. Department of Labor...
1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company for whom they have been employed less than 1 year.
1 out of 2 workers today is working for a company for whom they have been employed less than 5 year.
According to former U.S. Secretary of Education, Richard Riley...
the top 10 jobs that will be demand in 2010 didn't exist in 2004.
We have to prepare students for jobs that don't yet exists.
using technologies that haven't yet been invented....
in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet...

Did YOU Know?

Nintendo invested more than $140 million in Research & Development in 2002 alone...
The U.S. Federal Government spent less than half as much on research & innovation in Education.

Did YOU Know?

There are over 2.7 Billion searches performed on Google each month.
To Whom were these questions addressed B. G. ( Before Google )

Did YOU Know?

The number of text messages that are send and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.

These are just warmers... Know the RED HOT facts that leaves you frozen... at http://www.myistop.com/blogs/mail4kaja/technology-vs-human-race