Look out, there’s a giant galaxy headed our way! Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are predicting when our solar system will collide with Andromeda, currently a galaxy that’s far, far away. The Milky Way and its neighbor will crash into each other in just 4 billion years, but 2 billion years after that, they’ll merge into one big happy galaxy. The collision will look spectacular to humans on Earth, assuming we still exist. Researcher Roeland van der Marel says the sun will be too hot for human survival by then, but “if we find a smart way to use solar energy and turn it into air conditioning, we may still be able to live on this planet.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Leakey predicts skepticism over evolution will soon be history.

Not that the avowed atheist has any doubts himself.

Sometime in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that “even the skeptics can accept it.”

Will the Homosapien (us) go the way of the Neanderthal?  Neanderthals were living alongside Homosapiens and two other species of humans between 50,000 to 30,000 years ago but why were the Homosapiens the only specie to survive?  Did Homosapiens (us) kill off Neanderthals (them)?  Was it a case of survival of the fittest and natural selection due to competing for the same resources? Will modern day humans do the same with each other as we fight for limited means and wealth or will our fate be related to a drastic climate change or a meteor/comet collision or will it be a disease/STD? 

Neanderthal

Now lets look at Neanderthal, he was an “in-between” form of Homo-sapien - less advanced than Modern man, but more advanced than Homo-Erectus. He inhabited much of Europe and the Mediterranean lands during the late Pleistocene Epoch, (about 100,000 to 30,000 years ago). Neanderthal remains have also been found in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. The name Neanderthal, derives from the discovery in 1856 of the remains of this Humanoid in a cave above the Neander Valley in Germany, not far from Düsseldorf.

The last Glacial Ice stage in Europe was about 10,000 to 70,000 years ago, and it is from those times that the most numerous skeletal remains of Neanderthals have been found. These have given us some idea of Neanderthals body-type and habits. Neanderthals were short, stout, and powerful in build. Cranial capacity equaled or surpassed that of modern humans, though their braincases were long, low, and wide and flattened behind. Their faces had heavy brow ridges, large teeth, and small cheekbones. The chest was broad, and the limbs were heavy, with large feet and hands. The Neanderthals appear to have walked in a more irregular, side-to-side fashion than do modern humans.

Neanderthals were the first human group to survive in northern latitudes during the cold (glacial) phases of the Pleistocene. They had domesticated fire, as indicated by concentrations of charcoal and reddened earth in their sites. Yet, their hearths were simple and shallow and must have cooled off quickly, giving little warmth throughout the night. Not surprisingly, they exhibit anatomic adaptations to cold, especially in Europe, such as large body cores and relatively short limbs, which maximize heat production and minimize heat loss.

Neanderthals were cave dwellers, although they occasionally built camps out in the open. They wore clothing, used fire, hunted small and medium-sized animals (like goats and small deer), and they scavenged from the kills of large carnivores. They made and used a variety of stone tools and wooden spears. Neanderthals intentionally buried their dead, both individually and in groups, and they also cared for sick or injured individuals. Evidence of ritualistic treatment of animals, which is sometimes found with their skeletons, may indicate that they practiced a primitive form of religion. Evidence from a few sites indicate that Neanderthals coexisted for several thousand years with Modern Humans; who arrived in Europe at about 45,000 B.C, and Cro-Magnons, who arrived in Europe by 35,000 B.C.

The origins of Neanderthals cannot be established with any certainty. The forerunners of Neanderthal humanoids may date to some 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Some skull fragments found in France are of that age, but they have characteristics more like modern Homo sapiens. And so it may be, that this is where we see the first evidence of modern man (modern man first shows up at about 400,000 years ago, and is much older than Neanderthal); cross-breeding with Humanoids, in this case Homo-Erectus - who still existed as late as 300,000 B.C. Thus producing the hybrid “Neanderthal”.

popculturebrain:

This is painful but true. 

Nobody gets fired by accident — especially the creator of a television show. That’s because when you’re the showrunner of a network TV series, what you actually are is the CEO of a $60 million company, someone who creates a new product from scratch every eight days. As CEO, you make all creative and business decisions. You manage a crew of 200, write or rewrite every episode and have the luxury (and burden) of final cut. It is, in every sense of the word, your show.

So to replace a showrunner is no small thing. That said, it turns out to be surprisingly easy. You just make a couple of phone calls.

There’s a story Lorne Michaels tells at the end of Bill Carter’s book The War for Late Night about quitting Saturday Night Live. Lorne said that in his exit interview, a certain high-level executive at NBC said (I’m paraphrasing), “We paid you to deliver a certain number of episodes for a certain budget in a certain number of days. Nowhere in your contract does it say the show has to be good. If you believe it has to be good, then that’s on you. You can’t get mad at us for getting in your way.” Quality, in other words, is not the point. Money and ratings are the point.

Dan Harmon found this out the hard way on May 18. Sony Television (and, by not standing up for him, NBC) fired Harmon as the CEO ofCommunity. They wanted a product for a certain price in a certain number of days. He wanted it to be good.

Now the rumors are that Harmon was “difficult,” both to work with and to work for. I have no real information about this one way or another, but even if it’s true, Dan’s personality was a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Because —and here’s the dirty secret of television — there are plenty of showrunners who are difficult. Some are even truly Machiavellian, hated and feared by all. But as long as their shows are hits, no one would ever think about replacing them.

Community, as we know, was not a hit. From their actions, though, Sony and NBC made it clear that they hope to get a couple more seasons out of the show so they can push it into the black via syndication. They are apparently willing to do this at the expense of the series itself. But again, remember, neither the studio nor the network cares about making a “good” show, in a fan sense. They need it to be “good” in a ratings sense. A money sense. Which it wasn’t.

It takes a certain temperament to be a TV showrunner — a kind of humble megalomania. You have to like being in charge, but you also have to accept that you work for two major corporations. And ultimately it is they, not you, who decide whether you or your show lives or dies.

So if you’re going to be difficult, you damn well better be successful.

The author is a television writer-producer who has run a broadcast network series.

It’s a shame the circumstances had to be so shitty, because all of this discourse about television and showrunners is fascinating.