Was Handyman not really human (homo)?

• History with Kayleigh 2025; Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Before animals: the evolution of life

Choanoflagellate colony stained to highlight DNA and other features (Nicole King lab)

Mono Lake’s extreme environment, characterized by high salinity and toxic substances such as arsenic and cyanide, may have driven the evolution of this distinctive species.

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California discovery may explain evolutionary arising of animals

Microscopic choanoflagellate B. monosierra

(The Brighter Side of News) Mono Lake, nestled in Northern California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada, is a haven for unique life forms [as it fills with water washing down from Yosemite National Park's alpine lakes, most of which evaporates faster than it can be replenished].

Its iconic tufa formations and thriving populations of brine shrimp (aka fly larvae) and alkali flies showcase an ecosystem adapted to the lake's hypersaline, alkaline waters.

• PHOTO: Globular colonies of the choanoflagellate Barroeca monosierra seen under a microscope. As indicated by the 50-micron scale bar in the upper left, these colonies are at the limit of what’s visible to the naked eye (Alain Garcia De Las Bayonas, Nicole King lab, © The Brighter Side of News).

Dhamma Aboard Evolution: Agganna Sutta

Now, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have identified a microscopic organism in this extreme environment that could illuminate the early evolution of life.

The discovery is a single-celled organism called a choanoflagellate, a group that holds special significance in the study of evolution. Although not animals themselves, choanoflagellates are the closest known living relatives of animals.

Their biology offers vital clues about the transition from single-celled to multicellular life. What sets this particular species apart is its microbiome.

Unlike other choanoflagellates, which typically consume bacteria, this species forms a stable, physical association with its bacterial partners. This makes it the simplest known organism to host a microbiome, providing researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to study how early interactions between single-celled organisms and bacteria influenced the evolution of complex life, including animals.

This could explain life.

“Very little is known about choanoflagellates, and there are interesting biological phenomena that we can only gain insight into if we understand their ecology,” says Nicole King, a professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. More

• Ancient tribal protectors of Mono Lake: Kucadikadi ("shrimp eaters" or "fly people"), Northern Paiute of California

The Chicken or the Egg?

I don't think, therefore I'm not, Rene

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It's very simple in reality. Only in theory it's impossible to answer because it's a philosophical paradox or causality dilemma. The conundrum is a kind of logical fallacy of getting caught up in categories, terminology, and semantics, losing sight of the fact that we as onlookers are the ones creating the arbitrary labels, determining the limits of categories, and making the subjective judgments to include somethings and exclude others.

• The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens, a situation where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the cause and which should be considered the effect, to express a scenario of infinite regress, or to express the difficulty of sequencing actions where each seems to depend on others being done first.

Wittgenstein would be dismayed. The answer, of course, is the proto-chicken, a creature which is a "chicken" because it lays chicken eggs but is not a chicken because it itself was not born of such an egg. Yet, if it looks like a chicken and clucks like a chicken, it is chicken enough because it does the most important thing, which is to give birth to chickens rather than it itself being born the way "chickens" are thereafter. (The exact same evolutionary question might be asked of Homo sapiens or modern humans. Which came first, the human or the womb? If all humans are born of wombs and all human wombs are produced [only] by humans, we're in the same dilemma. (Neither is completely true, but we begin with this assumption to our detriment).

The excellent thing about this discovery by UC Berkeley, my own alma mater, is that it gets at the reality and avoids the logical trap, causality dilemma, or infinite regress logicians would be caught in. There is a transitional creature that is neither yet fully animal nor solely pre-animal because it has a stable microbiome it has partnered with. Similarly, humans born of a womb and giving birth via a womb must have been preceded by a humanoid creature who did not do both.

Where did animals like us come from? That is the question at hand. If this is how "animals" behave and get defined (born of womb and birthing others via a womb), we will trap ourselves in assumptions and the rules of logic. Once we broaden the category to include the proto-animal, or in this case the choanoflagellate with a microbiome, we can begin to see how things might have gone through an intermediary phase not allowed for, assumed, or understood by our strict logic. So hooray for the transitional creature that yet remains alive to be studied that we might understand these animal bodies we identify with as and cling to as "self."

• PHOTO: A colony of choanoflagellates stained to show its features. Cyan indicates DNA — the doughnut-shaped DNA of the choanoflagellate cells and a cloud of bacterial DNA inside the colony — while flagella are white and microscopic hairs (villi) on each cell are red (Kayley Hake, Nicole King lab © The Brighter Side of News).
• PHOTO (TOP): Microscopic life moves. "With the Volvox, this specialization transforms into a full division labor that you can actually see reflected in the cells... – @adelicateculturecell on Tumblr
• The Brighter Side of News via MSN, 1/23/25; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

What drives evolution, climate or competition?

Wallace, Darwin's forgotten "frenemy"

(SciShow) June 29, 2017: Everyone knows the name Charles Darwin, but his lesser known frenemy, Alfred Russel Wallace, was developing a lot of the same ideas around the same time. Hosted by: Hank Green. For 10% off Squarespace: http://squarespace.com/scishow  ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: scishow

Homo Floresiensis skull, hominin species analyzed in the study (The Duckworth Laboratory)

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It's bizarre: humans are competitive like animals

(University of Cambridge via Newsweek) Human evolution might be more "bizarre" than we once thought, according to a new study.

In the past, scientists (anthropologists) believed that hominin evolution was largely driven by changes in climate. But now, research from the University of Cambridge has suggested that competition was, in fact, fundamental to hominin evolution.

Wallace, you were right. - I know, Darwin.

"We have been ignoring the way competition between species has shaped our own evolutionary tree," said lead author Dr. Laura van Holstein, a University of Cambridge biological anthropologist from Clare College.

"The effect of climate on hominin species is only part of the story." Interspecies [not to be confused with intraspecies or between humans] competition is common among most other vertebrates: in any new environment there is an explosion of species evolution as each species adapts to fill a particular niche.

I shoulda killed that Wallace to evolve.

However, once all the niches are filled, competition kicks in and this explosive evolution flatlines. "The pattern we see across many early hominins is similar to all other mammals," van Holstein said. "Speciation rates increase and then flatline, at which point extinction rates start to increase. This suggests that interspecies competition was a major evolutionary factor."

However, when van Holstein studied the evolution of our own genus, Homo, things started to get much more peculiar.

(Biographics) Alfred Russel Wallace: The Forgotten Father of Evolution

"The more species of Homo there were, the higher the rate of speciation," she said. "So when those niches got filled, something drove even more species to emerge. This is almost unparalleled in evolutionary science."

In other words, it appears as if competition between different Homo species actually drove the evolution of even more Homo species — a complete reversal of what we would expect to see based on the evolution of most other vertebrates.

Here's what would happen if ALL humans completely disappeared (Aperture)

COMMENTARY

So Long, Thanks for All Fish

(WQ) Given this breakthrough, we should start having competitive games not (intra) between humans and humans but (inter) between humans and animals. The all-female chicken league can go up against Missourians in worm finding. Bull teams can go up against matadors with horn helmets instead of swords. We can launch Iditarod II, a race where hungry dogs or wolves chase humans across the ice and snow to see who crosses the line first. There can be a surfer versus shark competition in the summers to see who can exclude the other from more waves. Fisherpersons can get out of boats and into the water to have it out with schools of sportfish. We can film a "Survivor Congo" mixed gender social strategy game between bonobos and humans. And we can have an international dolphin versus nerds test of intellect, where we will insist on a handicap for having smaller brains than the sea mammals.

• Pandora Dewan [pronounced dawn?], Newsweek.com via MSN.com, June 11, 2024 ('Bizarre' finding changes the way we think about human evolution); Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Sumerian Adam and Eve, Buddhist cosmology

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Could I play the part of Eve in Asia?

This is a continuation of a discussion of the Tree & Serpent exhibition coming soon to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The "serpent" (royal naga) in the Buddhist story is not related to the tree under which the wandering ascetic Siddhartha awoke. But the famous tree of knowledge and talking serpent in the Bible has brought The Met to this tantalizing topic. This got us to thinking about "creation" (the origins of human life on earth, which are told in the Agganna Sutra) and Buddhist cosmology or the shape of things on this plane and in local space.

We were white? - No, Sumerian.

There's an ancient "creation narrative" (human origin story) stolen by the ancient Hebrews, Semites, Jews: Gilgamesh is the older story, but in the first book of the Jewish Bible called Genesis, Adam and Eve are that bible's first man and first woman [9, 10].

Adam's name appears first in Genesis 1 with a collective sense, as "humankind." Subsequently in Genesis 2–3 it carries the definite article ha, equivalent to English "the," indicating that this is "the man" [9] or "the human."

• [It is this iteration, this generation, this version of a genetically modified earthling human, this time around in the greater cyclical reiteration of life in this small slice of the cosmos, our universe, this part of the multiverse, because there are many world-systems or cakkhavalas, round/spiraling worlds (galaxies?) The human plane is far bigger than this plane or planet, solar system, or galaxy.]

God in the brain (rationality?) is kicking us out

In these chapters God fashions "the human" (ha adam) from earth (adamah) [or dust or ground], breathes life [prana, holy spirit, invisible animating force] into its nostrils, and makes it a caretaker over creation [9].

God [who is ALWAYS plural in the Bible] next creates for the human an ezer kenegdo, a "helper corresponding to him," from his side or rib [10].

The word "rib" is a pun in Sumerian -- because this is a Sumerian tale appropriated by later Jewish  peoples, as if these things happened to them -- as the word ti means both "rib" and "life" [11, 12].

• [By calling her Eve (yin or moon or night), does it not imply that Adam is the masculine (yang or sun or day) as in the ancient yogic word hatha,* which literally means "sun-moon," and is the same linguistic particle ha.
• *The meaning of Hatha Yoga (and no, it's not “sun & moon”)

She is called ishsha, "woman," because, the text says, she is formed from ish, "man" [10]. The man receives her with joy, and the reader is told that from this moment a man will leave his parents to "cling" to a woman, the two becoming one [sticky] flesh [10]. More

Our world-system (cakkhavala)

Old flat map, original in Louvre, Paris

This is the world or plane of humans and human-like beings. They live on the surface of the earth [as distinct from the planes within the earth where other, long-lived humanoid beings live]. Rebirth in this plane results from giving (sharing, letting go, being generous) and moral discipline (observing the Five Precepts) of middling quality.

This is the realm of moral choice where future destiny can be guided. The Khana Sutta mentions that this plane is a unique balance of pleasure and pain. It facilitates the development of virtue (e.g., compassion) and wisdom to liberate oneself from the entire cycle or rebirths.

For this reason, rebirth as a human being is considered precious and extremely rare according to the Chiggala Sutta.

The mountain-rings [or ice walls] that engird the axis mundi Mt. Sumeru [Sumer? su-meru = "Good Meru"] are surrounded by a vast ocean [likely a reference to space within this solar system, with this "continent" (dipa, lit. "island") referring to earth, our ring girded by mountains, or planet].

The ocean is in turn surrounded by a circular mountain wall called Cakravāḍa चक्रवाड (Pāli Cakkavāḷa चक्कवाळ, Thai จักรวาล or จกฺกวาฬ), which marks the horizontal limit of the world.

In this "ocean" there are four continents (dipas, islands, other planets, platforms, or places in local space) which are, relatively speaking, small islands in it.

Because of the immensity of the ocean, they cannot be reached from each other by ordinary vessels.

But in the past, when the "world monarchs" (cakravartins) ruled, communication between our world and the other local worlds was possible by means of a treasure called the cakraratna (Pāli cakkaratana, a sort of "flying saucer").

A world monarch and retinue could use such a craft [vimana] to fly through the air between the worlds or rings of this flat plain divided by immense mountain ranges. These four islands are:

1. Jambudvīpa (Pali Jambudīpa) is located in the south and is the dwelling of ordinary human beings like us. It is said to be shaped "like a cart" or rather a blunt-nosed triangle with the point facing south. (This description may echo the shape of the coastline of Southern India). It is 10,000 yojanas [1 yojana = 7 miles] in extent (Vibhajyavāda tradition) or has a perimeter of 6,000 yojanas (Sarvāstivāda tradition) to which can be added the southern coast of a length of only 3.5 yojanas. The landmass takes its name from a giant roseapple or jambu tree (Syzygium cumini), 100 yojanas [~700 miles] tall, which grows in the middle. Every continent has one of these giant trees. All buddhas are said to appear on this island or lamp [light, beacon, object shining in space] of Jambu-dvīpa. The people here are five to six feet tall, and their length of life varies between 10 and about [80,000] years (Asankya Aayu). More

Bible: The Daughters of Adam and Eve (video)

The Untold Truth of Adam and Eve's daughters

(Grunge) April 1, 2022. Everyone knows the biblical story of Adam and Eve, and most people are also familiar with the story of their famous sons Cain and Abel. But many would have us believe that that's where it ends when it comes to offspring. According to some histories, that's very much not the case.

You can do anything you want...except this...

According to lost or uncanonical biblical texts like The Book of the Daughters of Adam, The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, and the Jewish Book of Jubilees, Adam and Eve "begat" (spawned, hatched, put out) way more than just their two problematic sons. They also had daughters named Luluwa, Aklia, and more — dozens more, making their family way weirder than one might expect.

• 

  We weren't white. - I know but it makes a better story.

  Unbiblical texts | 0:00
• Adam and Eve's first daughter | 1:10
• The second daughter | 1:56
• Finding their husbands | 2:44
• The first murder | 3:36
• Luluwa marries her brother Cain | 4:27
• Luluwa in Nod | 5:25
• What happened to Aklia? | 6:19
• Many other daughters | 7:17
• Ungodly relations? | 8:21

Read full article: grunge.com/632567/the-untold... This is the untold truth of Adam and Eve's daughters. #Bible #AdamAndEve #Religion

Lost Ancient Humans of Antarctica (video)

Gaia.com via After Skool, Feb. 25, 2020; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Native American origins in Middle East?

The earth has gone through countless changes in its history. Antarctica at one time was uncovered with no ice. So it could have been home to ancient humans. As we develop new methods for uncovering the ice there now, we are beginning to see the possibilities resting beneath the cover.

Mainstream ideology puts forward a popular "Out of Africa" theory, which tracks all humans originating in Africa and spreading out by land only across the planet. However, genetic research is finding evidence that makes the real story far more complex.

One of these findings is the discovery of giants in Paracas on the American coast of Peru, who left behind skulls and artifacts and a revered history as rulers. The other finding is of the Denisovan people of Siberia, which reveals an entirely new, intelligent human subspecies (first discovered in 2008). Findings like these cause us to have to rewrite human history. 

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The Four Imponderables (sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Acintita Sutra: "Imponderables" (AN 4.77); Giphy; derived from unsatisfactory original translation by Ven. Thanissaro (watmetta.org), Wisdom Quarterly

Rodin's Le Penseur ("The Thinker," one of a series of similar sculptures involved in the similarly imponderable Mandela Effect) sits pensively as if on a porcelain throne (norton.org).

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My monkey mind only makes things worse.

"There are Four Imponderables on which it is wise not to dwell [1] as repeatedly doing so would bring about unhinged-madness and wearisome-vexation if one were to try. What are these four?

1. The range of influence of a buddha is imponderable... [2]
2. The range of influence of a person absorbed (jhana) in meditation… [3]
3. The [mysterious] working out of the results of karma... [4]
4. The origin [and so on] of the world is imponderable on which it is wise not to dwell as repeatedly doing so would bring about unhinged-madness and wearisome-vexation if one were to try.

"These are the Four Imponderables on which it is wise not to dwell as repeatedly doing so would bring about unhinged-madness and wearisome-vexation if one were to try."

NOTES

I feel if I just lived long enough and pondered...

1. Nor should they be speculated about because they are staggering, incomprehensible, and ultimately inconceivable]

2. Buddha-range: the range of powers a buddha develops as a result of becoming a supremely enlightened buddha, which is much more than an ordinary arhat (fully enlightened person) because arhats did not develop the Ten Perfections (paramis), so they do not possess the power to know all that a buddha know. Buddhas can teach effectively. They can establish a noble-sangha (community of enlightened disciples), and make the Dharma known in worlds darkened by ignorance. While everyone arhat's enlightenment and experience of nirvana is the same, their ability to make known the path is lacking. The ability to communicate the Dharma to others differs radically from individual to individual. There are countless arhats, shining ones (devas) and human beings, but precious few supreme (samma-sam) buddhas and pacceka (non-teaching) buddhas. Their range of influence is very great.

3. Jhana-range: the range of powers that one is able to manifest as a result of attaining and mastering the meditative absorptions (jhanas).

4. It should always be remembered that karma (intentional action of mind, speech, or body) is one thing, and its resultants (vipaka) and ripening fruits (phala) are quite another. Moreover, all actions impact how results are experienced, so there is hope no matter what one has done. More good now guarantees a better future, and the situation is never hopeless, even in the case of the five heinous acts. See the strange case of Angulimala the serial killer and saint. Even Buddhism's "Judas" figure, Devadatta, is not doomed forever, as his karma would suggest.

Milk is BAD for you (video)

Abby Martin (Breaking the Set/RT); Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Milk Does Your Body Bad: Brainwash Update

Host Abby Martin takes a look at milk, its association with radioactive contamination, and facts pointing at how animal milk consumption is unnatural for humans, particularly adults, and certainly doesn't do our body good.  It, in fact, promotes bone LOSS called osteoporosis due to its acidic nature, which the body much leach from its bones to neutralize.

Would you bend over and suck a cow's bacteria smeared teats in the field to get milk? Gross! That's beastiality. But that's what one would have to do to get milk from a mammal outside of its own species in the wild.

 

So much for its calcium content, it actually ends up with us losing more calcium and other minerals trying to digest it than are contained in it. It makes one fat since its existence in the world is to fatten a baby calve into a cow or bull of tremendous weight in a very short time. It causes cancer. It makes us full of mucous. It harms the thyroid.

And because cows -- which are all female (as most bulls are killed for not producing milk and being undocile) and shot through with hormones, animal-grade drugs that are illegal for direct human consumption, and biowaste products from their painful treatment -- milk ends up being full of pus. Look in the bottle. The product is artificially "homogenized" and "pasteurized" to prevent unsightly separation and curdling. The first tears up the fats in milk, and the second cooks out the enzymes and potentially-beneficial probiotics.

Labels

Learn about the Cowspiracy (wth-cow-con.com)

It contains casein, a kind of hard to digest protein. It contains lactose, which most adult humans cannot tolerate. So they suffer symptoms -- rashes, bad breath, indigestion, gas, indigestion, discomfort, acne, fatigue, lethargy, and so on. They also suffer from the consumption of second hand pesticides concentrated in the grain, cement, and cannibalized cows these natural vegetarian animals are fed to make them grow in size. Cows in nature would eat grasses, sprouts, and other livings foods, not stale and contaminated haw, straw, GMO soy, wheat, corn, sorghum, trash, and other industrial commodities. The wrong diet along with all of the added artificial antibiotics, growth hormones, and pharmaceuticals they are given go right into consumers of dairy and meat.

• Breaking the Set @ fb.me/BreakingTheSet 
• Abby Martin @ twitter.com/AbbyMartin

Animal Realm: Immortal Species Found!

An animal that can live forever
One species of jellyfish has no lifespan limits because it can manipulate its cells. Unique biological process - Transdifferentiation - Extinct frog rediscovered

COMMENTARY
Wisdom Quarterly
Jellyfish, which are an invertebrate species, are the most plentiful Earthlings on the planet today. That means that if aliens visitors were to conduct an objective survey, pound for pound, they would have to conclude that this was a jellyfish world. Now scientists have determined that not only are they the most plentiful creatures on Earth, one species of jellyfish has found a way to live indefinitely. It may be "immortal," but it certainly does not live forever: Seas dry up, the planet goes through tremendous upheavals, with the entire world-system passing through phases of apocalyptic dissolution, chaos, and evolution.

Few people appreciate that there are repeatedly (cyclically) times when the average human lifespan increases to tens of thousands of years. Lifespans are not uniform over time in any realm; higher (deva) worlds may always have greater longevity, but it's relative. So to think that we are at much of an advantage because "we are living longer" now than a few years ago is ironic to the point of being absurd.

Nevertheless, the rebirth process ensures that, conventionally-speaking, we already live indefinitely. Meanwhile, the doctrine of impersonality (anatta) of phenomena ensures that, ultimately-speaking, we do not persist for two consecutive moments. The mark of phenomenal objects is that they are radically impermanent, impersonal, and unsatisfactory. But don't tell the jellyfish as they frolic in the sea never being eaten, suffering from global warming, or being dismayed by the environmental degradation that comes from floating next to pools of plastic trash.

Darwin film too controversial for religious US

Anita Singh (Telegraph.co.uk, 9/11/09)
Charles Darwin film "too controversial for religious America"

Paul Bettany plays Charles Darwin in "Creation" (ALLSTAR); Darwin in his later years.

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

The film "Creation," starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday [9/14/09]. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film, which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 percent of Americans believe in the Theory of Evolution.

• Related
• Creation film sparks evolution arguments
• MOVIE TRAILER: Darwin’s story – exclusive

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot, and an 1800's naturalist whose legacy is mass murder." His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning, and genetic engineering," the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying."

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of "Creation," said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published. "That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.

"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules." More>>

PHOTOS: 9/11 (Telegraph.co.uk)

Cardinal says atheist's theories "absurd"

ROME – The Vatican sought Tuesday to show that it isn't opposed to science and evolutionary theory, hosting a conference on Charles Darwin and trying to debunk the idea that it embraces creationism or intelligent design.

Some of the world's top biologists, paleontologists, and molecular geneticists joined theologians and philosophers for the five-day seminar marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the Catholic Church doesn't stand in the way of scientific realities like evolution, saying there was a "wide spectrum of room" for belief... More>>