Rumour has it that Angelina Jolie may have just bought Brad Pitt Petra Island, a heart-shaped island off the coast of New York that has been languishing on the real estate market for the past five years.
The unconfirmed sale, which The Daily Mail believes could be in honour of Pitt’s upcoming 50th birthday in December, includes a home that was designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Pitt is known to be a big architecture buff (and a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright), so the $US12.2 million purchase wouldn’t be too surprising for the movie star. The sale would even be somewhat of a deal, considering that a little over a year ago the home and island were listed fot $US19.9 million.
The heart-shaped property is just a 15-minute helicopter ride north of New York City. It wascompleted in 2008 with a 5,000-square-foot main residence and a 1,200-square-foot guest cottage. Even if hasn’t been purchased by Jolie, it’s still worth taking a look around.
American officials hope to meet “very shortly” with their Russian counterparts for urgent military talks aimed at resolving the Syrian civil war, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.
Speaking to reporters after he landed in London for talks on Syria with the British foreign secretary, Kerry said President Obama viewed the potential meeting with Russian officials as “important.”
“The president believes that [military to military] conversation is an important next step and hopefully will take place very shortly and help to define some of the different options available to us as we consider next steps in Syria,” Kerry said.
“We’re looking for ways in which to find a common ground,” he said.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter also spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart on Friday, in what the Wall Street Journal reported was the first such conversation since Carter became Pentagon chief in February.
The Pentagon said Carter and Sergei Shoygu discussed Syria and “areas where the United States and Russia’s perspectives overlap and areas of divergence.”
“The secretary emphasized the importance of pursuing such consultations in parallel with diplomatic talks that would ensure a political transition in Syria,” the Pentagon said. “He noted that defeating [ISIS] and ensuring a political transition are objectives that need to be pursued at the same time.”
A Russian defense ministry spokesman said the conversation lasted for one hour. The conversation showed that on “most questions that the ministers discussed, Moscow and Washington hold close and identical opinions,” Life News reported, citing the spokesman.
Moscow and Washington have been urged to do more to find an end to the Syrian civil war, which is currently fueling an exodus of millions of refugees to neighboring countries and Europe.
Our ancestors evolved an upright posture well before our large brains or stone tools even appeared. The question, then: Why stand and walk on two legs when our ape cousins get by on four limbs? Walking as bipedsmight actually use less energy than movement on all fours does. Freeing up the arms might also have enabled our ancestors to carry more food. Standing upright might even have helped them control their temperature better by reducing the amount of skin directly exposed to the sun.
Is human evolution over? That’s the question Briana Pobiner, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, asked an audience here Saturday (May 17).
Humans are evolving at an increasing rate, thanks to medical advances and a larger population, Pobiner said at the “Future Is Here,” a two-day conference celebrating the future of humans, the planet, life beyond Earth and deep space, hosted by Smithsonian Magazine. But just as humans are continuing to evolve, human parasites are evolving, too.
“I invite you to look into the eyes of our ancient relatives,” Pobiner said. "Why did most human ancestors go extinct, while homo sapiens survived? The answer has a lot to do with human brains."
The human brain represents only about 2 percent of the body’s weight, but consumes 20 percent of its energy. The biggest evolutionary changes have occurred in the neocortex, the brain’s outer wrapping that processes abstract thinking, long-term planning, empathy and language, Pobiner said.
As human brains continue to evolve, will humans eventually develop gigantic heads and scrawny bodies, as depicted in some sci-fi films? Historically, the birthing process has limited brain size, because babies’ heads had to fit through the birth canal.
Today, however, Caesarian sections circumvent that process. As many as 46 percent of babies born today in China are delivered via C-section, Pobiner said. With advances in fertility and better postnatal medical care, she asked, "Are we screwing with natural selection?"
The world population is growing, and a bigger population also evolves faster, Pobiner said. But, with rising sea levels and less land available, waterborne and airborne illness could spread more easily, Pobiner said.
The largest virus ever found was a virus thawed from permafrost, known as Pithovirus. While this parasite doesn’t infect humans, what if other ancient viruses thaw out that are harmful? For example, the smallpox virus was eradicated in 1979, according to the World Health Organization, but some experts say it has only been eradicated from the Earth’s surface, surviving instead in frozen form.
And human evolution persists in other areas too, such as sexual selection. A recent study found that beards become more attractive when they’re rare in a population. When “peak beard” is reached, they become less attractive, the study found. Economic conditions may also influence beardedness, as unemployed men may use beards as a sign of masculinity, Pobiner said.
So is human evolution over? "Definitely not," Pobiner said. "As long as there are humans, there will be human evolution."
