Saturday, March 29, 2014

Underwater Lightning


Underwater Lightning . 


Andre Willers. 
29 Mar2014
Synopsis :
Spinning surfaces of bubbles from a deep source forms a V with charge separation . Over a certain threshold , ionization occurs and underwater lightning happens . An atmospheric storm cell above the V will enhance the effect considerably . SuperLightning  .
 
Discussion :
1.MacroDescription :
2.Clathrates on the seafloor release methane bubbles (usually due to increasing temperature)
3.These bubbles are not globular . More teardrop shaped , with the broad side on top where the pressure is less than at the bottom of the bubble .
4.The surface of the bubble spins in 3 dimensions . This is because the pressure gradients on the sides of the varies randomly  . Very small , but still there .
5. This bubble-surface spin separates negative and positive electric charges in time-honoured friction fashion .
6.The teardrop shape of the bubble concentrates negative charge at the sharp point (the bottom of the teardrop)
7. Swarm of bubbles :
A swarm of bubbles forms a macro-V as they rise due to the pressure decreasing , as well as the charges being separated .
8.Seawater is an electron  conductor .
9.Hence electron charge will migrate down the micro-V bubbles to the bottom of the macro-V swarm of bubbles .
10 . Once the potential volt difference exceeds the ionization potential of water ,
 Underwater Lightning ensues .
The energy release normally staya underwater .
However…
  
11. This can also be triggered by atmospheric effects .
12. A thunderstorm cell directly moving above a macro-V methane bubble swarm will trigger SuperLightning .
Extreme charge release .
Energy release is in nuclear range . Some fusion may occur.
These are regularly picked up by satellites monitoring nuclear explosions , but excluded .
Remember the Antarctic hole in the ozone ? Same here .
 
13 .Aircraft are at risk .
This has already happened , and will get worse as global warming increases .
Note unexplained vanishments of aircraft over clathrate fields off Newfoundland  (5) and off Japan (3)
13.1 EarthRisk :
The balance of charge between ionosphere (presently maintained by thunderstorms) will be disturbed , with unpredictable results on weather and/or climate .

 

 
14. Geo-Engineering .
A floating mill dribbling a few kg/yr of nano iron over big clathrate fields will have the following effects .
14.1 Suppression of clathrate  methane release (the most important effect).
This works by inhibiting the clathrate “burping” mechanism caused by the build-up of negative charge at the bottom of the bubble V Swarm .
 
14.2 Hence no more super lightning .
14.3 There will still be upwellings , but these will be beneficial .
14.4 Thunderstorm frequency per area will normalize .
 
15 The Maths :
These points are all based on known and proven knowledge .
I am too old , stupid and bored to work out the obvious to the indifferent .
Do it yourself .

Regards
Andre



Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Chinese Pyramids

Andre Willers  
26 Mar 2014

Chinese pyramids.
Check them out on Google Earth. 

Notice how the monuments are cheek-by-jowl with domestic dwellings .

No big deal for the locals .

But they haven't stripped them for building materials  ,either . 

Unusual . Empire . Stone is not worth the risk .

Except for treasure . That's long gone .

No wonder Ghenghis preferred an open piece of ground trampled by horses for his grave .

But look underground...

Cities of gold .

Typical of him .

Andre

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Is Earth a Circumbinary Planet ?

Is Earth a Circumbinary planet ?


Andre Willers
25 Mar 2014 
Synopsis :
If Sol is a binary star , with the companion (SolB) inside SolA , it would explain a lot of things .



Discussion :
1.A watery planet in a circumbinary orbit will tend to move into the goldilocks zone and stay there .
2. Why ?
Close binaries will spiral into each other from friction .
Postulate a watery planet in circumbinary orbit that is not unstable (ie 2 to 4 away from the center of stellar mass than the distance between StarA and StarB .
Magnetic and electric forces are maximal when water is liquid . This balances the rotational speed of the two stars .
This sounds insufficient, but consider leverage . And leverage is applicable . Even a small force from an orbiting planet that swings wide leverages it onto the central binaries .
In other words , the binary stars slows down in their orbit around each other and planet spirals outward the  until the planet reaches maximal liquidity of water .
If the planet goes out of goldilocks , it starts freezing ,  the stars start spiralling inwards again and the planet moves back into the goldilocks zone .
 
It is stable .

3. Virtual Stars .
A star with a companion inside it can be kept stable as a binary if there are watery or at least magnetic planets in circumbinary orbits . The companion can be seen as a virtual star .
 
4.The habitability zone would then be more like a magnetron . A regular fluctuation .
 
5. This is exactly what we observe . Only we call it Kondratieff , etc , etc .
 
6. This would mean that habitable planets are a dime-a-dozen .
 
7. If Sol is a Virtual Binary , then climate prediction should be a snap .
 
8. Actually , one could say immediately that the present climate warming is mostly due to the lobe of habitability rotating past the Earth’s present position . The period seems to be 400 years . Too aggressive cooling measures will saddle your descendants with an ice-age in about 300 years. If any are still alive .


Aren’t Virtual Stars fun ?

Regards
 
Andre

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Appendix A

circumbinary planet is a planet that orbits two stars instead of one. Because of the short orbits of some binary stars, the only way for planets to form is by forming outside the orbit of the two stars.[1] As of 5 December 2013, there are seventeen confirmed systems of circumbinary planets.[2][3]
Contents
 [show
Observations and discoveries[edit]
Confirmed planets[edit]
The first confirmed circumbinary extrasolar planet was found orbiting the system PSR B1620-26, which contains a millisecond pulsar and a white dwarf and is located in the globular clusterM4. The existence of the third body was first reported in 1993,[4] and was suggested to be a planet based on 5 years of observational data.[5] In 2003 the planet was characterised as being 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter in a low eccentricity orbit with a semimajor axis of 23 AU.[6]
The first circumbinary extrasolar planet around a main sequence star was found in 2005 in the system HD 202206: a Jupiter-size planet orbiting a system composed of a Sun-like star and a brown dwarf.[7] A dynamical analysis of the system further shows a 5:1 mean motion resonance between the planet and the brown dwarf.[8] These observations raise the question of how this system was formed, but numerical simulations show that a planet formed in a circumbinary disk can migrate inward until it is captured in resonance.[9]
Announced in 2008, the eclipsing binary system HW Virginis, comprising a subdwarf B star and a red dwarf, was announced to also host a planetary system. The inner and outer planets have masses at least 8.47 and 19.23 times that of Jupiter respectively, and have orbital periods of 9 and 16 years. The outer planet is sufficiently massive that it may be considered to be a brown dwarf under some definitions of the term,[10] but the discoverers argue that the orbital configuration implies it formed like a planet from a circumbinary disc. Both planets may have accreted additional mass when the primary star lost material during its red giant phase.[11]
On 15 September 2011, astronomers announced the first partial-eclipse-based discovery of a circumbinary planet.[12][13] The planet, called Kepler-16b, is about 200 light years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus, and is believed to be a frozen world of rock and gas, about the mass of Saturn. It orbits two stars that are also circling each other, one about two-thirds the size of our sun, the other about a fifth the size of our sun. Each orbit of the stars by the planet takes 229 days, while the planet orbits the system's center of mass every 225 days; the stars eclipse each other every three weeks or so. Scientists made the finding through NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which launched in 2009 and has been a driving force in the recent explosion in the discovery of distant planets.
Other observations[edit]

http://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.23wmf18/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png
An artist's impression of the binary star system HD 98800 B, which is surrounded by a disc that may be in the process of forming planets. HD 98800 B is itself a member of a quadruple star system.
Claims of a planet discovered via microlensing, orbiting the close binary pair MACHO-1997-BLG-41, were announced in 1999.[14] The planet was said to be in a wide orbit around the twored dwarf companions, but the claims were later retracted, as it turned out the detection could be better explained by the orbital motion of the binary stars themselves.[15]
Several attempts have been made to detect planets around the eclipsing binary system CM Draconis, itself part of the triple system GJ 630.1. The eclipsing binary has been surveyed for transiting planets, but no conclusive detections were made and eventually the existence of all the candidate planets was ruled out.[16][17] More recently, efforts have been made to detect variations in the timing of the eclipses of the stars caused by the reflex motion associated with an orbiting planet, but at present no discovery has been confirmed. The orbit of the binary stars is eccentric, which is unexpected for such a close binary as tidal forces ought to have circularised the orbit. This may indicate the presence of a massive planet or brown dwarf in orbit around the pair whose gravitational effects maintain the eccentricity of the binary.[18]
Circumbinary discs that may indicate processes of planet formation have been found around several stars, and are in fact common around binaries with separations less than 3 AU.[19][20]One notable example is in the HD 98800 system, which comprises two pairs of binary stars separated by around 34 AU. The binary subsystem HD 98800 B, which consists of two stars of 0.70 and 0.58 solar masses in a highly eccentric orbit with semimajor axis 0.983 AU, is surrounded by a complex dust disc that is being warped by the gravitational effects of the mutually-inclined and eccentric stellar orbits.[21][22] The other binary subsystem, HD 98800 A, is not associated with significant amounts of dust.[23]
System characteristics[edit]
The Kepler results indicate circumbinary planetary systems are relatively common (as of October 2013 the spacecraft had found seven planets out of roughly 1000 eclipsing binaries searched.
Stellar configuration[edit]
There is a wide range of stellar configurations for which circumbinary planets can exist. Primary star masses range from 0.69 to 1.53solar masses (Kepler-16 A & PH1 Aa), star mass ratios from 1.03 to 3.76 (Kepler-34 & PH1), and binary eccentricity from 0.023 to 0.521 (Kepler-47 & Kepler-34). The distribution of planet eccentricities, range from nearly circular e=0.007 to a significant e=0.182 (Kepler-16 &Kepler-34). No orbital resonances with the binary have been found.[24]
Orbital dynamics[edit]
The binary stars Kepler-34 A and B have a highly eccentric orbit (e=0.521) around each other and their interaction with the planet is strong enough that a deviation from Kepler's laws is noticeable after just one orbit.[24]
Co-planarity[edit]
All Kepler circumbinary planets that were known as of august 2013 orbit their stars very close to the plane of the binary (in a prograde direction) which suggests a single-disk formation.[24] However not all circumbinary planets are co-planar with the binary: Kepler-413b istilted 2.5 degrees which may be due to the gravitational influence of other planets or a third star.[25][26]
Axial tilt precession[edit]
The axial tilt of Kepler-413b's spin axis might vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to rapid and erratic changes in seasons.[26]
Migration[edit]
Simulations show that it is likely that all of the circumbinary planets known prior to a 2014 study migrated significantly from their formation location with the possible exception of Kepler-47(AB)c.[27]
Semi-major axes close to critical radius[edit]
The minimum stable star to circumbinary planet separation is about 2-4 times the binary star separation, or orbital period about 3-8 times the binary period. The innermost planets in all the Kepler circumbinary systems have been found orbiting close to this radius. The planets have semi-major axes that lie between 1.09 and 1.46 times this critical radius. The reason could be that migration might become inefficient near the critical radius, leaving planets just outside this radius.[24]
Absence of planets around shorter period binaries[edit]
Most Kepler eclipsing binaries have periods less than 1 day but the shortest period of a Kepler eclipsing binary hosting a planet is 7.4 days (Kepler-47). The short-period binaries are unlikely to have formed in such a tight orbit and their lack of planets may be related to the mechanism that removed angular momentum allowing the stars to orbit so closely.[24]
Planet size limit[edit]
As of August 2013 all the confirmed Kepler circumbinary planets are smaller than Jupiter. This cannot be a selection effect because larger planets are easier to detect.[24] Simulations had predicted this would be the case.[28]
Habitability[edit]
All the Kepler circumbinary planets are either close to or actually in the habitable zone. None of the them are terrestrial planets, but largemoons of such planets could be habitable. Because of the stellar binarity, the insolation received by the planet will likely be time-varying in a way, quite unlike the regular sunlight Earth receives.[24]

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Neanderthal KhoiSan .

Neanderthal KhoiSan.


Andre Willers
25 Mar 2014 
 
Synopsis :
Surprisingly , West Eurasian and Neanderthal genes have been found in KhoiSan .

 
Discussion :
1.Genetic Study :
Ancient west Eurasian ancestry in southern and eastern Africa
Significance
The hunter–gatherer and pastoralist populations of southern Africa are among the culturally, linguistically, and genetically most diverse human populations. However, little is known about their history. We show that all of these populations have some ancestry most closely related to Europeans and Middle Easterners and use this to reconstruct the history of population movements between Eurasia, eastern Africa, and southern Africa.
Abstract
The history of southern Africa involved interactions between indigenous hunter–gatherers and a range of populations that moved into the region. Here we use genome-wide genetic data to show that there are at least two admixture events in the history of Khoisan populations (southern African hunter–gatherers and pastoralists who speak non-Bantu languages with click consonants). One involved populations related to Niger–Congo-speaking African populations, and the other introduced ancestry most closely related to west Eurasian (European or Middle Eastern) populations. We date this latter admixture event to 9001,800 y ago and show that it had the largest demographic impact in Khoisan populations that speak Khoe–Kwadi languages. A similar signal of west Eurasian ancestry is present throughout eastern Africa. In particular, we also find evidence for two admixture events in the history of Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ethiopian populations, the earlier of which involved populations related to west Eurasians and which we date to 2,7003,300 y ago. We reconstruct the allele frequencies of the putative west Eurasian population in eastern Africa and show that this population is a good proxy for the west Eurasian ancestry in southern Africa. The most parsimonious explanation for these findings is that west Eurasian ancestry entered southern Africa indirectly through eastern Africa.
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Neanderthal genes .

(Phys.org) —A team of researchers with representatives from the U.S., Germany and France has found evidence of western Eurasian genes in Khoisan tribes living in southern Africa. This suggests, the researchers conclude in a paper they've had published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that a migration from the Middle East back to Africa occurred approximately 3000 years ago.
Scientists believe humans evolved from ancestral primates in Africa several hundred thousand years ago, but it wasn't until approximately 65,000 years ago that they made their way out of Africa and into the Middle East and eventually the rest of the world. Until recently, that migration has been viewed by most scientists as a one-way trip. Gene studies over the past several years has turned that thinking around, however, as its been found that many people in several parts of Africa have European or Asian gene segments in their DNA. In this latest study, the researchers have found evidence of Eurasian genes in tribespeople who were thought to have a purely African ancestry.
The Khoisan tribespeople of today still live much as their ancestors did—they are hunter-gathers who are also pastoralists—they are most familiar to westerners as the people who speak with distinctive clicking noises. Until now, they were believed to have the purest African gene pool due to their thousands of years of isolationist practices.
The team acquired DNA samples from 32 people living in Khoisan tribes in southern Africa—an analysis revealed Eurasian gene segments in all of them. But that wasn't the end of the story. To understand how the gene fragments got into the Khoisan tribespeople, the researchers turned to archeological and linguistic evidence to build a possible time-line of events. In so doing, they've found what they believe to have been a migration back into Africa by people of the Middle East (ancestors of the people that migrated to Europe and Asia) approximately 3000 years ago. Those people made their way to various parts of the continent, including a part of eastern Africa from which the Khoisan tribespeople had migrated south approximately 900 and 1800 years ago.
The researchers found something else—the Khoisan tribespeople also had snippets of Neanderthal DNA in their genes as well—courtesy of their Eurasian heritage.
More information: Ancient west Eurasian ancestry in southern and eastern Africa, Joseph K. Pickrell, PNASDOI: 10.1073/pnas.1313787111
Abstract
The history of southern Africa involved interactions between indigenous hunter–gatherers and a range of populations that moved into the region. Here we use genome-wide genetic data to show that there are at least two admixture events in the history of Khoisan populations (southern African hunter–gatherers and pastoralists who speak non-Bantu languages with click consonants). One involved populations related to Niger–Congo-speaking African populations, and the other introduced ancestry most closely related to west Eurasian (European or Middle Eastern) populations. We date this latter admixture event to
900–1,800 y ago and show that it had the largest demographic impact in Khoisan populations that speak Khoe–Kwadi languages. A similar signal of west Eurasian ancestry is present throughout eastern Africa. In particular, we also find evidence for two admixture events in the history of Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ethiopian populations, the earlier of which involved populations related to west Eurasians and which we date to 2,700–3,300 y ago. We reconstruct the allele frequencies of the putative west Eurasian population in eastern Africa and show that this population is a good proxy for the west Eurasian ancestry in southern Africa. The most parsimonious explanation for these findings is that west Eurasian ancestry entered southern Africa indirectly through eastern Africa.
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2.Notice the correlations with the various collapses of the Marib dam (Sha’aaba) in Yemen and eco-refugees to East Africa.
 
3This occurred when the Makgadigadi Sea was full and the Mapungubwe ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mapungubwe)   and  Zimbabwe cultures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe )
were active.
  
4. Earlier interactions took place  .

 
5. Diseases :
Why were the KhoiSan a virgin population for many infectious diseases (smallpox , flu , whooping cough , etc) did eventually did them in ?
A theory is that the drying-up of the Makgadigadi sea turned the whole interior of Southern Africa into an impenetrable desert .
The KhoiSan flourished around the southern coasts , but were isolated until Portuguese and Dutch deep-sea ships reached them .
Then they perished from plagues .
Because genes giving at least some protection against the latest plagues never got to them at the tip of Southern Africa .
The only traders/travellers/slavers around that area at the time were the Arabs  in their dhows .
 
6.Why did the Arab trader dhows not go further south ?
The exact origins of the dhow are lost to history. Most scholars believe that it originated in China between 600 B.C. to 600 A.D. 
They got to present Maputo (26 degrees south) , but not further south to Durban (30 degrees south)
Why ?
I can only think that the strong Southward Aghulhas current and the weak and variable winds of the Horse Latitudes formed a very effective barrier to a coast-hugger like a dhow ,

See http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/tradewinds.htm

Horse Latitudes

Between about 30° to 35° north and 30° to 35° south of the equator lies the region known as the horse latitudes or the subtropical high. This region of subsiding dry air and high pressure results in weak winds. 
A dhow could get down there , but could not get back because of the strong current and weak winds .
There might even be traces at Durban of old Arab expeditions .
The net result was that the whole region was written off as too dangerous to explore , and nothing worthwhile to exploit
  
7.Caravels .
This did not affect the Portuguese , because their caravels were true deep-sea ships . They were not coast-huggers and were much more efficient in using the winds .
 
8.The man who did it .
The deep-sea characteristics of the caravel evolved from the requirements of fishermen in the stormy North Sea .
Henry the Navigator was a crux figure in recent history .
A sort of combination of old 1969 NASA and Elon Musk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX)
He reshaped the future history of all humans .
The skills involved were politics (money and influence) , management , navigation , ship design and a spirit of adventure .
 
A salute to Henry the Navigator !
May he still navigate between the stars ! .
 
Regards Andre

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Sunday, March 23, 2014

Neanderthal Basques

Neanderthal Basques . 


Andre Willers . 
23 Mar 2014
Synopsis :
Basques are second level descendants of Neanderthals .
 
Discussion :
1.Rhesus factor .
Population data[edit]

The frequency of Rh factor blood types and the RhD neg allele gene differs in various populations.
Population data for the Rh D factor and the RhD neg allele[12]
Population            Rh(D) Neg          Rh(D) Pos              Rh(D) Neg alleles
Basque people            21–36%                   65%                          approx 60%
other Europeans         16%                        84%                      40%
African American        approx 7%       93%                        approx 26%
Native Americans       approx 1%       99%                             approx 10%
African descent           less 1%                   over 99%              3%
Asian                   less 1%                over 99%              1%


2. Chile
The frequency of the standard Rh factor percentage is very high (98.6 per cent) but not 100 per cent as in the data of North American investigators.


Miguel de Unamuno said: "There are at least two things that clearly can be attributed to Basques: the Society of Jesus and the Republic of Chile.[7] Chilean historian Luis Thayer Ojeda estimated that 45 per cent of immigrants to Chile in the 17th and 18th century were Basque.[8] Over 2.5 million Basque descendants live in Chile; the Basque have been a major influence in the country's cultural and economic development.


3. Basque term for Neanderthal ancestors : jentilak
The jentilak ('Giants'), on the other hand, are a legendary people which explains the disappearance of a people of Stone Age culture that used to live in the high lands and with no knowledge of the iron. Many legends about them tell that they were bigger and taller, with a great force, but were displaced by the ferrons, or workers of ironworks foundries, until their total fade-out. They were pagans, but one of them, Olentzero, accepted Christianity and became a sort of Basque Santa Claus. They gave name to several toponyms, asJentilbaratza.


4. Society[edit]
Matriarchy would be a natural form of societal power-structure in Rh+ to Rh-  interactions .
Who controls reproduction , controls the society . 


“Historically, Basque society can be described as being somewhat at odds with Roman and later Western European societal norms.
Strabo's account of the north of Spain in his Geographica makes a mention of "a sort of woman-rule—not at all a mark of civilization" (Hadington 1992), a first mention of the—for the period—unusual position of women. "Women could inherit and control property as well as officiate in churches. Combined with the issue of lingering pagan beliefs, this enraged the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition, perhaps leading to one of the largest witch hunts in the Basque town of Logroño in 1610".[19]
This preference for female dominance existed well into the 20th century:
...matrilineal inheritance laws, and agricultural work performed by women continued in Basque country until the early twentieth century. For more than a century, scholars have widely discussed the high status of Basque women in law codes, as well as their positions as judges, inheritors, and arbitrators through ante-Roman, medieval, and modern times. The system of laws governing succession in the French Basque region reflected total equality between the sexes. Up until the eve of the French Revolution, the Basque woman was truly ‘the mistress of the house', hereditary guardian, and head of the lineage.[20]
Although the kingdom of Navarre did adopt feudalism, most Basques also possessed unusual social institutions different from those of the rest of feudal Europe. Some aspects of this include the elizate tradition where local house-owners met in front of the church to elect a representative to send to the juntas and Juntas Generales (such as the Juntas Generales de Vizcaya or Guipúzcoa) which administered much larger areas. Another example was the fact that in the medieval period most land was owned by the farmers, not the Church or a king.[15][21]
 
5.The Neanderthals paddled everywhere . Were top dogs . But because they were Rh- , and homo saps were Rh+ , their genes got lost . Thus , Basques are second level Neanderthals . Similar culture , but the Rh- frequency fell below critical reserve levels (38%)

 The majority (58.7%) of R1b1b2 chromosomes from Europe were found to be ancestral for both U106 and U152 (paragroup R1b1b2*) and showed a frequency cline from western to eastern Europe. 

Finally, several ancient DNA samples have been recovered and amplified from Palaeolithic sites in the Basque region. The collection of mtDNA haplogroups sampled there differed significantly compared to their modern frequencies. The authors concluded that there is "discontinuity" between ancient and modern Basques.[45]
Thus, while Basques (like all Europeans) harbour some very archaic lineages (such as mtDNA Hg U8a),[46] they are not of "undiluted Palaeolithic ancestry", nor are they ancestral to large parts of western Europe. Rather, their genetic distinctiveness is a result of centuries of low population size, genetic drift and endogamy.[45]


6.Beautiful women .
Being alpha males , Neanderthals attracted the most beautiful women (set the standard) . Hence the correlation Red hair and beauty .
Though many red heads dye their hair blonde to fit fashion . Humans . Go figure .

7.Red-haired giants
 
8. Neanderthaler’s delight .
And here I thought the Dutch biggest average height was due to nutrition .
They just have a very large percentage of red heads . Neanderthal descent .






Notice the very tall women at the bottom left . Typical Neanderthal descendant . Tall , redheaded , pretty , big head , long torso , short legs , short arms .
She takes pains to disguise the short legs , but measure the length of the femur against the torso .
Do not arm wrestle her . She will beat you . Also packs a hair-trigger temper .


 
9.Summary :
If it wasn’t for the Rhesus factor , we would all be Neanderthals now .
 
Regards
Andre
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