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Human interest story
The oldest remains of modern humans, dated to around 160,000 years ago, have been found by a team of scientists from Berkeley and Ethiopia. The findings of the fossilized skulls of two adults and one child were published in the June 12 issue of Nature, and are said to provide physical proof of the "Out of Africa" hypothesis of human evolution.
The skulls were dug up near the village of Herto in the Afar region of eastern Ethiopia. The adult male skull, the most complete of the three, bears many characteristics of modern humans--including a less-prominent brow than is found in earlier hominids--but is larger than normally seen in humans living today. Because of the differences, the researchers have characterized the skulls as coming from a subspecies of humans, Homo sapiens idaltu (idaltu means "elder" in the Afar language).
The skull of the child was found in more than 200 pieces and took three years to reconstruct; it also displayed many ritual cut marks suggestive of ancient mortuary practices. Along with the skulls, archaeologists unearthed over 600 stone tools and some fossilized hippopotamus bones with stone cut marks.
Most scientists adhere to the idea that all modern humans are descendants of a species that emerged in Africa quite recently in evolutionary terms--the "Out of Africa" hypothesis. Others contend that modern humans arose in many areas around the world as the descendants of hominids, including Neanderthals, who had migrated from Africa at a much earlier time. In the early '80s, Berkeley molecular biologists, using mitochondrial DNA from living people, determined that the common ancestor of all modern humans lived in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. But, before now, the fossil evidence for this recent origin was missing.
"We've lacked intermediate fossils between pre-humans and modern humans, between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago, and that's where the Herto fossils fit in," says Berkeley palaeoanthropologist Tim White, a leader of the team that found the fossils. "Now the fossil record meshes with molecular evidence."
"These fossils show that near-humans had evolved in Africa long before the European Neanderthals disappeared," says F. Clark Howell, professor emeritus of integrative biology and a world expert on early humans. "They thereby demonstrate conclusively that there never was a Neanderthal stage in human evolution."
Up and down: North Field hits a new pitch with the addition of the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library (left), while the old Stanley Hall (above) was torn down last spring to make way for the Stanley Biosciences and Bioengineering Facility, which will house the new California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3).
Students tested
The Board of Regents had a busy July 17 meeting, approving a number of proposals, including a student fee increase of 30 percent. UC President Richard Atkinson cited a "budget crisis that is clearly the worst in the state's history," resulting in severe cuts to UC, in asking for the unprecedented increase.
These changes bring the cost of an undergraduate education at the University of California to just under $5,000 per year.
Immediately after the announcement, Berkeley law student Mohammad Kashmiri and seven others filed suit against the regents, claiming the board was in breach of contract in raising fees "without fair warning."
Also at the meeting, the regents approved an amendment to the UC Faculty Code of Conduct prohibiting romantic relationships between faculty members and their students. In 1983, the faculty passed a resolution strongly discouraging such relationships.
The regents were prompted to revisit UC's policies last November, when John Dwyer, dean of the Boalt School of Law, resigned over allegations that he sexually assaulted a student. Dwyer claimed that the encounter was consensual.
Finally, as anticipated, the regents officially approved a change to the admissions tests required of UC freshmen entering in 2006. Those students will have to take the new SAT I, which includes a writing component, plus two SAT IIs. The changes were prompted by President Atkinson's call in early 2001 for a review of standardized tests in the admissions process.
Fueling the green debate
Two technologies widely believed to be good for the environment may not be, according to Berkeley researchers.
In June, professor of bioengineering Tad Patzek wrote a report arguing that adding ethanol to gasoline may do more harm than good. Ethanol is set to replace MTBE as an oxygenating gasoline additive that would reduce the amount of smog emitted from car exhausts.
Patzek conducted his study with undergraduate students in his civil engineering course, reviewing government and industry research and data. They concluded that the amount of fossil energy expended from the use of fertilizer, pesticides, machinery, and irrigation to grow the corn--together with the energy required to produce the ethanol from the corn--was equivalent to 1.76 gallons of gasoline per bushel. When burned, the ethanol provided the energy equivalent of only 1.74 gallons of gasoline.
"We are burning the same amount of fuel twice to drive a car once," says Patzek, who calls the switch to ethanol "one of the most misguided public policy decisions of recent history. It makes more sense to produce reformulated gas without oxygenates, but that is not the popular choice politically."
In July, assistant professor of energy and resources Alex Farrell published a paper in Science arguing that hydrogen-powered vehicles may not be the best way forward.
Many believe that the use of hydrogen as a fuel will reduce air pollution, greenhouse gases, and dependence on foreign oil. President Bush has even promised $1.7 billion for research into the "FreedomCAR"--a vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel-cells.
But Farrell points out that substantial amounts of carbon dioxide are created when hydrogen is produced from oil and coal rather than from renewable sources. He adds that the cost of creating a new infrastructure for distributing hydrogen would amount to $5,000 per vehicle. The same benefits expected from switching to hydrogen could be achieved much more simply and cheaply, Farrell says, by increasing the fuel efficiency of gasoline-powered vehicles using existing technologies and by raising the price of gasoline.
"Hydrogen cars are a poor short-term strategy, and it's not even clear that they are a good idea in the long term," he concludes.
Blues in the News
 | Duane De Witt '03, a 48-year-old re-entry student, was profiled in the Bay Area press for graduating from Berkeley despite having been homeless when he gained admission. |
Physicist Robert Dynes, chancellor of UC San Diego, was named the 18th president of the University of California. He succeeds Richard Atkinson, who will retire on October 1. |  |
 | Tamara Keith '99, M.J. '01, a 23-year-old reporter for KQED radio, is one of "15 under 30"--a list of up-and-coming Bay Area 20-somethings selected by the San Francisco Chronicle. Also among the 15 were entrepreneur Rasheen Smith '99 and community organizer Carla Maria Perez '99. |
Professor of music Jorge Liderman won a 2003 Guggenheim Latin American and Caribbean Fellowship Award. Liderman is a composer whose music has been performed around the world. |  |
 | Richard Reinsberg '95, a trader at a Mill Valley brokerage firm and an amateur golfer, played in the 103rd U.S. Open golf tournament in Olympia Fields, Illinois in June. |
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