SDB Evening News Reads for 071811: Phone Hacking, Neanderthals and Happy Birthday Mandela!

Good afternoon everyone.  My mother is making a Boliche Roast and the smells coming from the kitchen are absolutely delicious.  Tonight at  8pm,EST, Anthony Bourdain show is highlighting Cuba.  It is a great episode, so if you can watch it, please do…all I can say is that I wish I could go to Cuba and see it first hand.

So, things are getting more interesting in the Murdoch hack job. After the body of Sean Hoare, the scandal’s whistleblower, was found and the police declare the death, “not suspicious” (cough…cough) the press is gearing up for the expected blood bath as Murdoch’s face Parliament tomorrow afternoon.  Rupert and James Murdoch prepare for perilous performance before MPs | Media | The Guardian

James and Rupert Murdoch at Cheltenham in 2010. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA

It seems fair to say that the stakes could not be higher for Rupert and James Murdoch when they appear in front of 11 members of parliament at 2.30pm on Tuesday.

Their appearance, scheduled to last an hour, will not only be scrutinised by the world’s media but will also be pored over by criminal investigators and investors looking for signs of culpability from one of the world’s most powerful media owners and his heir apparent.

Next up in front of the MPs will be Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of News International, the newspaper business that owned the News of the World, who is to give evidence after her resignation on Friday and arrest two days later.

The scale of the crisis saw the two men locked in meetings with their advisers over the weekend and all day on Monday, preparing for a performance that could have devastating consequences for News Corp, which owns three national newspapers in the UK as well as the Fox film and television network and a 39% stake in the satellite business BSkyB.

Today is Nelson Mandela’s birthday, he is 93 years old.  (Same age like Betty Ford and my Nana…) So the UN has a special day planned for him.  Nelson Mandela honored with global call to serve – World Watch – CBS News

A group of schoolchildren participate in a symbolic handover on July 17, 2011 at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg to set the tone before the Mandela’s 93rd birthday and Mandela Day on July 18, 2011.

(Credit: Getty)

For 2011, the U.N. is marking Mandela Day, and Mandela’s 93rd birthday, with a request: 67 minutes of community service, from everyone, in honor of the man who has given so much himself.

The “Take Action! Inspire Change” campaign for Nelson Mandela International Day asks communities to take just over an hour for community service to honor Mandela’s 67 years of service, which culminated in his election as the first democratically-elected president of a post-apartheid South Africa.

“Everybody remembers — and, indeed, needs — an inspirational figure who has played a signal role in their lives,” said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “Nelson Mandela has been that role model for countless people around the world.”

Take Action Inspire Change web page can be found here:  Nelson Mandela International Day, July 18, For Freedom, Justice and Democracy

Give it a look see and get inspired.

Alrighty then, now I find this next link interesting…you may remember the study that was done a few years ago about tracing DNA throughout the world to study the migration of peoples.  The Genographic Project – Human Migration, Population Genetics, Maps, DNA – National Geographic

So finding out that non-African people contain Neanderthal DNA is yet another peice of the puzzle in our early history.  All Non-Africans Part Neanderthal, Genetics Confirm : Discovery News

If your heritage is non-African, you are part Neanderthal, according to a new study in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. Discovery News has been reporting on human/Neanderthal interbreeding for some time now, so this latest research confirms earlier findings.

Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal’s Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center conducted the study with his colleagues. They determined some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but only in people of non-African heritage.

“This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred,” Labuda was quoted as saying in a press release. His team believes most, if not all, of the interbreeding took place in the Middle East, while modern humans were migrating out of Africa and spreading to other regions.

The ancestors of Neanderthals left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago. They evolved over the millennia mostly in what are now France, Spain, Germany and Russia. They went extinct, or were simply absorbed into the modern human population, about 30,000 years ago.

From using science to understand human evolution and development to using science to create an internet that has touched every aspect of our present human lives. Check out this “inforgraphic” developed by CISCO and see just how far humans have come since they mated with Neanderthals…The Internet of Things Infographic | Geekosystem

Beyond all that prognostication, this handsome infographic also has some staggering numbers about the how much information is being pushed around the Internet. Read on, and be amazed.

Well? What doyou think of that? Cool huh?