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Roots of Human Family Tree Are ShallowRoots of the Human Family Tree Are Remarkably Shallow - All Alive Today Share 1 Common Ancestor By MATT CRENSON AP National Writer Jul 1, 2006 (AP)— Whoever it was probably lived a few thousand years ago, somewhere in East Asia Taiwan, Malaysia and Siberia all are likely locations. He or she did nothing more remarkable than be born, live, have children and die. Yet this was the ancestor of every person now living on Earth the last person in history whose family tree branches out to touch all 6.5 billion people on the...

Cat proves size doesn't always matter in his neck of the woods. To his neighbors, he's a loner, a sometimes-friendly, sometimes- surly senior who spends his days wandering through the woods. He is particular about his yard. Strang ers are not always welcomed. But last week, Jack the cat be came a hero when he chased a black bear out of his neighbors' yard and up a tree. Twice. Last Sunday afternoon Suzanne Giovanetti was reading at the kitchen table when her husband Dean cried out from the TV room at the back of the house: A black bear had...

Boy, I sure hope this ends up in General/Chat and not in Breaking News! We are new homeowners and need some advice on eliminating insect infestations on several (about a dozen) fruit trees, mostly apple and pie cherry. The insects in question are black, about the shape of ladybugs but smaller and with white markings. They are prolific - I killed two in the process of mating. Anyone have any experience in this area? Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Drunk Man Rescued After Night in a Tree Tue May 16, 5:38 PM ET He was, quite literally, out on a limb. And so on Tuesday, a drunken student who spent the night in a tree had to be rescued by British firefighters. "Alcohol and climbing trees don't really mix," said Nigel Limbrick, of the Gloucestershire fire department. "In all seriousness, he could've killed himself if he had fallen. "He had had a skinful and in his inebriated state he climbed 100 feet up a pine tree, without his shoes on. He then fell asleep," Limbrick said. "I'm not quite...

US President George W Bush has thanked Prime Minister John Howard for his strong support in the war against terrorism as the two leaders planted a tree in the grounds of the Australian ambassador's residence in Washington. Calling Mr Howard his dear friend, Mr Bush said the tree – an American elm grown from a direct cutting from an elm planted at the White House in 1826 by President John Quincy Adams – was a symbol of the enduring friendship between the two countries. Struggling in the polls, with his personal popularity languishing at 29 per cent as concern about...

April 28, 2006Cornell study of ancient volcano, seeds and tree rings, suggests rewriting Late Bronze Age Mediterranean history By Alex Kwan Separated in history by 100 years, the seafaring Minoans of Crete and the mercantile Canaanites of northern Egypt and the Levant (a large area of the Middle East) at the eastern end of the Mediterranean were never considered trading partners at the start of the Late Bronze Age. Until now. Trenchmaster Vronwy Hankey and foreman Antonis Zidianakis excavate storage jars from the Minoan settlement Myrtos-Pyrgos. The jars were analyzed in the Cornell study using radiocarbon analyses. Cultural links between...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal grand jury in Eugene on Thursday indicted two more people in the 2001 arson at a Clatskanie tree farm, court officials said, bringing the number charged in the case to six. In all 14 people are charged in what government prosecutors describe as an arson conspiracy across several Western states over five years. Nathan Frazer Block, 24, and Joyanna L. Zacher, 28, were arrested Thursday in Olympia, Wash., after the 14-count indictments were handed up. Advertisement Government attorneys will seek their return to Eugene to face trial, said Karin Immergut, U.S. Attorney for Oregon....

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - A rowdy Stanford University mascot was fired after being discovered drunk during a basketball game, university officials said. Fifth-year senior Erin Lashnits, who dresses as a tree for the university's irreverent band, was stripped of her duties last week after her blood-alcohol level was measured at 0.157 during a men's basketball game at the University of California, Berkeley. For the purposes of driving a vehicle in California, legally drunk is .08. Stanford went on to lose the Feb. 9 game 65-62. The university had previously placed the band on "alcohol suspension," which requires a zero-tolerance policy...

Erin Lashnits, a coterminal student in biological sciences, has been suspended for the remainder of her tenure as the Stanford Tree. Band Manager Mike Priest and Assistant Manager Adam Cohen announced their decision to Lashnits on Thursday night, just hours after UC-Berkeley Athletic Department officials Breathalyzed her at a .157 blood-alcohol content at halftime of the men’s basketball team’s 65-62 loss at Berkeley, according to sources, including several in the band. “I’m sad to be done,” said Lashnits, who at 23-years-old, is accused of violating not the law, but the Band’s alcohol probation. “It’s been the best year of my...

Posted on Sun, Feb. 12, 2006 Risking life on a limb in Idaho BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Oct. 30, 1994.) There is a simple explanation for why I wound up dangling from a rope 75 feet in the air over a beaver dam somewhere in Idaho: I was a house guest. You know how it is, when you're a houseguest: If your host suggests an activity, you, as a polite person, tend to say ''sure.'' My host in this case was my good friend Ridley Pearson, who makes his living writing thriller...

Brian Morse, 54, was declared dead at the scene, at a home in the 2300 block of Fountain Drive, after his glove became stuck in the wood chipper and pulled him in. The Larimer County Coroner's Office identified Morse, owner of Brian's Tree Trimming & Removal Service, using fingerprints. The cause of death was listed as "total morselization." The gloves protected Morse's hands, leaving the fingerprints intact.

I am sure I grew up with many of the same memories as many of you. Christmas was magical. The music and lights of the season made my heart leap with love, excitement, and anticipation. We remember the food, relatives, and traditions. I can still feel the hope I felt as a child. You know, that swell in your soul that made you want to do cartwheels for no reason other than utter joy of the season. I recall those mornings when one of us awoke and ran through the house, “Wake up! Santa came! Santa came!” The whole family...

An 11-year-old Austrian boy who saved the life of a young relative last summer lit a towering Christmas tree in St. Peter's Square on Saturday, giving Vatican City a festive air.Juergen Lengauer, who last summer saved a 2-year-old relative from drowning in a pool, lit the 100-foot fir from the Upper Austrian town of Eferding. The tree glowed yellow as a choir sang in German just after sunset.The tree, along with a nativity scene, will be the Vatican's centerpiece for tourists and pilgrims who flock there during the holidays.Earlier, Pope Benedict XVI thanked Austrian pilgrims for the gift of the...

AL ASAD, Iraq -- “Twas the night before Christmas, all were asleep, curled up in their racks. I looked all about, a strange sight I did see, no tinsel, no presents, instead a plastic bottle Christmas tree.” These words, from Andrea Schutz’s version of “Twas the night before Christmas,” bring the traditional holiday poem to the deserts of Al Asad, Iraq. Schutz, the key volunteer advisor for Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron 28, and the families of deployed Marines have been able to participate in the Christmas celebration here by making and sending Christmas ornaments for a water bottle Christmas...

Huntington officials worked all night readying staff for the coming snow, but instead they woke up to a different storm Friday: a local lawyer sued to remove a nativity scene from the town's public lawn and stop Friday's Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. Mitchell Pashkin, 39, an attorney from Huntington, filed his suit in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, saying the nativity scene, Christmas tree and two signs on the Village Green that read "Peace on Earth" violated his constitutional rights because of their religious overtones.

Capitol Tree Gets Christmas Moniker Back Friday December 9, 2005 12:46 AM By ELIZABETH WHITE Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Lighting up the chilly night with a resolute flick of a switch, House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Thursday night illuminated this year's Capitol Christmas - not ``holiday'' - Tree, reinstating its religious title for the first time in years. Known as the Capitol Holiday Tree since the 1990s, the Engelmann spruce towering over the Capitol's West Lawn became a symbol of the Republican-led Congress's resolve on the matter of holiday wishes. The issue touched the White House when some...

Hastert Wants 'Christmas,' Tree Together Nov 29 9:46 PM US/Eastern Email this story WASHINGTON If it's a spruce tree adorned with 10,000 lights and 5,000 ornaments displayed on the Capitol grounds in December, it's a Christmas tree and that's what it should be called, says House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert, R-Ill., in a letter to the Architect of the Capitol, recommended that the annual Capitol Holiday Tree, as it has been called the past several years, be renamed the Capitol Christmas Tree. "I strongly urge that we return to this tradition and join the White House, countless other public institutions...

Quito, Nov 4 (EFE).- Hundreds of Ecuadorians are visiting an area in the southern province of Loja where people say an image of Christ's face is visible on the trunk of a tree. The face was first seen on Oct. 19, and since then hundreds of people have visited the site, located in the village of Zamora Guayco. The Catholic Church has asked several priests to examine the tree trunk privately, the TV channel said. Most of Ecuador's 12.5 million people are Catholic. The face on the tree trunk has aroused much interest and drawn increasingly large crowds to the...

Though the Bible does not give a detailed physical description of Jesus Christ, some people believe they're seeing an image of the Son of God on a silver maple tree in upstate New York.

Grammar analysis reveals ancient language treeIt's not the words, it's how you use them that counts. Jennifer Wild The languages used in Papua New Guinea have few common words, making it hard to determine their origins. When it comes to working out the relationships between ancient languages, grammar is more enlightening than vocabulary, scientists say. There are some 300 language families in the world today. Researchers have long studied similarities between the words in different languages to try to work out how they are related. But the rate of change in languages means that this method really only works back...