Clipmarks | Africa Clips

Cool! Annie Lennox Honored by Nobel Laureates!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:51:25 GMT

clipped by: nedhamson1

Annie Lennox honored by Berlin summit of Nobel Peace Prize laureates

Meeting in Berlin, a group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates have awarded singer Annie Lennox their own award for her work with women and children suffering from AIDS in Africa. The World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates was meeting for the tenth time and the theme of their talks was "breaking down walls and building bridges."

Tags: aids, annie lennox, honor hiv

Motherhood in the Animal Kingdom...STUNNING PHOTOS

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:12:40 GMT

clipped by: leevardi

Clip Source: by137w.bay137.mail.live.com

Motherhood in the Animal Kingdom...

On the riverbank...

In the Arctic ...

In Africa ...

In India ...

In the Ocean...

In Africa ...

And finally,

Doesn't it bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat..??

Dinosaur find linked to giant plant eaters

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:56:15 GMT

clipped by: ofcapri
clipper's remarks: The Aardonyx celestae species dates back to the early Jurassic period. Dr. Yates said the creature found in South Africa stood nearly 6 feet high at the hip and weighed about 1,100 pounds. It was about 10 years old when it died, and its death may have been caused by drought.

The species shares many characteristics with the plant-eating herbivores that walked on two legs, Dr. Yates said. But the new species also has similar attributes to dinosaurs that grew to massive sizes and went about on all fours with long necks and whip-like tails.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09316/1012833-115.stm#ixzz0Wf3ge1Qc

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09316/1012833-115.stm#ixzz0Wf3ge1Qc

Clip Source: www.post-gazette.com

Dinosaur find linked to giant plant eaters

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Graphic released by Australian paleontologist Adam Yates, based at the University of the Witwatersrand, shows a newly discovered dinosaur species that roamed the Earth about 200 million years ago. Fossils, marked on the outline, were found in the town of Senekal, near Bethlehem in the Northern Free State, in South Africa.

JOHANNESBURG -- A newly discovered dinosaur species that roamed the Earth about 200 million years ago may help explain how the creatures evolved into the largest animals on land, scientists in South Africa said yesterday.

The Aardonyx celestae was a 23-foot-long, small-headed herbivore with a huge barrel of a chest. It walked on its hind legs but also could drop to all fours, and scientists told reporters that could prove to be a missing evolutionary link. This is a species "that no one has seen before, and one that has a very significant position in the family tree of dinosaurs,

Tags: dinosaur

Twitter status update by "Mwai Kibaki"

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:23:23 GMT

clipped by: onlinewagner

Clip Source: twitter.com

MwaiKibaki

Harambee Stars have done us proud. They finally brought the World Cup to Kenya. #soccer

Tags: africa, kenya, humor

Adult Circumcision Can Help Prevent AIDS

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:18:19 GMT

clipped by: roniellemontreal

Clip Source: www.altpenis.com

New studies strengthen circumcision's role in AIDS prevention

Two new studies presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) claim to show that adult circumcision reduces the risk of contracting HIV without reducing pleasure or causing sexual dysfunction.

The first study, by Australian researchers, shows that the inner foreskin has the largest concentration of Langerhans' cells, which are the initial cellular targets for HIV. After analyzing biopsy samples from 10 uncircumcised and 10 circumcised men, researchers found that the inner foreskin has a significantly higher density of Langerhans' cells than other areas of the foreskin. By removing the inner foreskin, circumcision removes the skin surface which is most susceptible to HIV infection, reducing the risk of contracting HIV.

support the concepts that circumcision does not interfere with sexual function and that circumcision is an important element of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa

Tags: circumcision, adult, aids, hiv, africa, urology

Cape Town hotel wins prestigious awards

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:24:48 GMT

clipped by: gup45ah
clipper's remarks: A well-known Cape Town hotel has been awarded the titles of number one city hotel and number one hotel spa in Africa and the Middle East. The Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa was given the accolades in Travel and Leisure's 2009 World's Best Awards.

Clip Source: www.southalltravel.co.uk

Cape Town hotel wins prestigious awards

A well-known Cape Town hotel has been awarded the titles of number one city hotel and number one hotel spa in Africa and the Middle East.

Tags: cape town hotel, cape town best hotel, cape town popular hotel

Poor nutrition stunts growth of millions

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:32:48 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: 200 million. Guess it is better than starving quickly. Most will experience starvation, as the food supply is not improving. Partial cure for overpopulation.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Nearly 200 million children in developing countries suffer from stunted growth and health problems due to poor nutrition in their early years, the UN children's foundation UNICEF says.

However, the percentage of children with retarded growth in Asia fell to 30 per cent last year from 44 per cent in 1990, and in Africa to 34 per cent from 38 per cent over the same period, UNICEF said in a report.

Despite a decline in the rate of the problem, 195 million children under five years old in developing countries have stunted growth due to poor nutrition during the critical period between their conception and second birthdays, UNICEF said.

Undernourished children often have poor physical health and slower mental development.

When the problem is widespread, as in India and Afghanistan, it undermines those countries' ability to improve their economies and eradicate poverty.

"Undernutrition steals a child's strength and makes illnesses that the body might otherwise fight off far more dangerous,"

Tags: we, are, not, very, clever

KP back in SA

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:32:42 GMT

clipped by: dansynth

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Pietersen recharged for SA tour

Kevin Pietersen said he was feeling physically and mentally refreshed after joining up with the rest of the England squad in South Africa.

Pietersen has spent the last three months recovering from surgery to an Achilles tendon, an injury that forced him to miss the last three Ashes Tests.

"I'm feeling good and I'm feeling fresh mentally," said England's star batsman.

"I'm certainly not going to rush things, I tried that a while back and I got an infection in the wound."

Tags: cricket

How Dinosaurs Got Their Iconic Look

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:08:10 GMT

clipped by: clip-on-tie
clipper's remarks: Saurpods may have evolved after their ancestors fattened up on prehistoric junk food.

Clip Source: www.copytaste.com

via

Clip Source: news.discovery.com

The recently documented sauropodomorph, described in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B, lived around 200 to 183 million years ago in South Africa and was nearly 30 feet in length.

"It had a rather long, slender neck and a heavy, barrel-shaped body," Adam Yates, lead author of the paper, told Discovery News, adding that the dinosaur also sported a big nose and was cheek-less.

"The teeth were braced on the outside by a sheet of bone that may indicate the animal was a foliage stripper, which in other words means that when feeding, it grabbed large mouthfuls of browse and pulled backwards to strip the leaves from the branches,"

The iconic sauropod body structure could have evolved when "proto-sauropods began to specialize on bulk-feeding of perhaps lower quality browse," Yates said. In other words, these types of dinosaurs evolved by fattening up prehistoric junk food.

They needed bigger guts to deal with it

which in turn slowed them down, making them vulnerable to predation

Clip Source: www.copytaste.com

via

Tags: saurpods, dinosaurs

Stone Age Humans Crossed Sahara in the Rain

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:46:26 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Wet spells

While about 40 per cent of hydrocarbons in today's dust come from water-dependent plants, this rose to 60 per cent, first between 120,000 and 110,000 ago and again from 50,000 to 45,000 years ago. So the region seemed to be in the grip of unusually wet spells at the time.

That may have been enough to allow sub-Saharan Stone Age Homo sapiens to migrate north: the first fossils of modern humans outside Africa date from 93,000 year ago in Israel. And both genetic analysis and archaeology show that humans didn't spread extensively beyond Africa until 50,000 years ago, suggesting a second migration at the time of the second wet spell.

Fossil record

Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York is impressed by the findings. "They tie in approximately with the information we have from the fossil record."

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

It used to be wetter (Image: Sergio Pitamitz/Getty)

Wet spells in the Sahara may have opened the door for early human migration. According to new evidence, water-dependent trees and shrubs grew there between 120,000 and 45,000 years ago. This suggests that changes in the weather helped early humans cross the desert on their way out of Africa.

The Sahara would have been a formidable barrier during the Stone Age, making it hard to understand how humans made it to Europe from eastern Africa, where the earliest remains of our hominin ancestors are found.

Isla Castañeda of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and colleagues studied land plant hydrocarbons in Saharan dust that has settled on the sea floor off west Africa over the past 192,000 years. From the ratio of carbon isotopes in the hydrocarbons they can work out which types of plants were present at different times.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0905771106

Tags: anthropology, human evolution, migration, science

Cape Town the "perfect introduction" to South Africa

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:26:35 GMT

clipped by: gup45ah
clipper's remarks: People planning holidays to South Africa may be interested to know that Emma Crosby has called Cape Town the "perfect introduction" to the country.

Clip Source: www.southalltravel.co.uk

Cape Town the "perfect introduction" to South Africa

People planning holidays to South Africa may be interested to know that Emma Crosby has called Cape Town the "perfect introduction" to the country.

Tags: holidays to south africa, cape town holiday destination, south africa news

Ireland v France 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:06:18 GMT

clipped by: MickR
clipper's remarks: We're gonna win!

Clip Source: diaspora.ie

We’re in the World Cup qualifier play-offs and it’s Ireland vs France before we can get to South Africa. The first tie is in Dublin on the 14th November, and the second in Paris on 18th November.

Tags: ireland, france, 2009, world cup

On The Rise

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:15:33 GMT

clipped by: pdanzis
clipper's remarks: Glad to see the African giraffe on it's way back.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

In this Aug. 1, 2009 photo, a giraffe from Africa's most endangered giraffe subspecies stands in the bush near Koure, Niger. By all accounts, they should be extinct. Instead, their numbers have quadrupled to 200 since 1996, an unlikely boon experts credit to the concurrence of an impoverished government keen for revenue that has enacted laws to protected them, a conservation program that encourages people to support them, and a rare harmony with humans who have accepted their presence.

Tags: animals, culture, news, photography

Keys for revolution

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:52:07 GMT

clipped by: chetler

Clip Source: www.slate.com

Lenin once defined a revolutionary situation as one that occurred when the rulers could not go on in the traditional way and the ruled did not wish to continue in that old way. Engels was more metaphorical, saying that revolution was the midwife that delivered a new life out of an older body. Both images come to mind in remembering the revolutions of 1989, which humbled a ruling system that believed itself to be based on the historical wisdom of Lenin and, indeed, of Engels.

Also overlooked in most histories and much commentary is the role played by "people power" movements in non-Communist countries. Throughout the 1980s, democratic insurgencies in the Philippines and South Korea, as well as the long resistance of the anti-apartheid forces in South Africa, showed that when the ruled do not want to go on in the old way, all they really need do is to fold their arms.

Tags: pol

Guide to Gauteng Accommodation. Where to Stay – Johannesburg, Pretoria

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:45:34 GMT

clipped by: pmilan1970
clipper's remarks: A Gauteng accommodation guide (South Africa). Locate and book your Gauteng holiday accommodation. Includes Johannesburg and Pretoria accommodation guides.

Clip Source: www.golflinx.co.za

South Africa's Golf Portal