Music 'enabled human survival'

Scientists in Germany have published details of flutes dating back to the time that modern humans began colonising Europe, 35,000 years ago.

The flutes are the oldest musical instruments found to date.

The researchers say in the Journal Nature that music was widespread in pre-historic times.

They also suggest that music enabled our species to socialise which may have given our species the edge over Neanderthals who became extinct.

The team from Tubingen University have published details of three flutes found in the Hohle Fels cavern in southwest Germany.

The cavern is already well known as a site for signs of early human efforts; in May, members of the same team unveiled a Hohle Fels find that could be the world's oldest Venus figure.

The most well-preserved of the flutes is made from a vulture's wing bone, measuring 20cm long with five finger holes and two "V"-shaped notches on one end of the instrument into which the researchers assume the player blew.

The archaeologists also found fragments of two other flutes carved from ivory that they believe was taken from the tusks of mammoths.

Creative origins

The find brings the total number of flutes discovered from this era to eight, four made from mammoth ivory and four made from bird bones.

According to Professor Nicholas Conard of Tubingen University, this suggests that the playing of music was common as far back as 40,000 years ago when modern humans spread across Europe.

"It's becoming increasingly clear that music was part of day-to-day life," he said.

"Music was used in many kinds of social contexts: possibly religious, possibly recreational - much like we use music today in many kinds of settings."

The researchers also suggest that not only was music widespread much earlier than previously thought, but so was humanity's creative spirit.

"The modern humans that came into our area already had a whole range of symbolic artifacts, figurative art, depictions of mythological creatures, many kinds of personal ornaments and also a well-developed musical tradition," Professor Conard explained.

These flutes provide yet more evidence of the sophistication of the people that lived at that time Professor Chris Stringer Natural History Museum

The team argues that the emergence of art and culture so early might explain why early modern humans survived and Neanderthals, with whom they co-existed at the time, became extinct.

"Music could have contributed to the maintenance of larger social networks, and thereby perhaps have helped facilitate the demographic and territorial expansion of modern humans relative to a culturally more conservative and demographically more isolated Neanderthal populations," they wrote.

That is a view supported by Professor Chris Stringer, a human origins researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.

"These flutes provide yet more evidence of the sophistication of the people that lived at that time and the probable behavioural and cognitive gulf between them and Neanderthals," he said.

"I think the occurrence of these flutes and animal and human figurines about 40,000 years ago implies that the traditions that produced them must go back even further in the evolutionary history of modern humans - perhaps even into Africa more than 50,000 years ago.

"But that evidence has still to be discovered."

Sole known survivor of plane crash, 14,

MORONI, Comoros - Despite a fractured collarbone, a teenage girl clung to the wreckage of a plane for more than 13 hours before rescuers found her floating in the Indian Ocean, authorities said. The only known survivor of the crash, she was being flown back to Paris last night.

The Yemenia Airbus 310 jet was carrying 153 people when it went down in howling winds early Tuesday in the sea north of the Comoros Islands.

French officials late yesterday retracted claims that one of the plane’s black boxes had been found. French Commander Bertrand Mortemard de Boisse said that a signal detected from the debris of Yemenia Flight IY626 was from a distress beacon and not from one of the plane’s black boxes.

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders in those black boxes are crucial to help investigators determine the cause of the crash off this former French colony.

An Associated Press reporter saw 14-year-old Bahia Bakari in a Comoros hospital yesterday as she was visited by government officials. She was conscious with bruises on her face and gauze bandages on her right elbow and right foot. Her hair was pulled back and she was covered by a blue blanket but she gamely shook the hand of Alain Joyandet, France’s minister for international cooperation.

Her uncle, Joseph Yousouf, said Bahia also had a fractured collarbone.

“She is a courageous young girl,’’ Joyandet said, adding that Bahia held on to a piece of the plane from 1:30 a.m. Tuesday to 3 p.m., then signaled a passing boat, which rescued her.

“She really showed an absolutely incredible physical and moral strength,’’ he said. “She is physically out of danger, she is evidently very traumatized.’’

The girl was traveling with her mother, who is feared dead. They had left Paris on Monday night to see family in the Comoros.

“She’s asking for her mother,’’ Yousouf said. For fear of upsetting Bahia, Yousouf told her that her mother is in the room next door.

Joyandet said the girl left last night on a chartered executive jet and would be put in a Paris hospital upon arrival.

The passengers on the downed plane were flying the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseille to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Most were from Comoros, 66 were French citizens.

The girl’s father told French radio his oldest daughter could “barely swim’’ but managed to hang on. Kassim Bakari, who spoke with the girl by phone, said Bahia was ejected and found herself beside the plane.

“She couldn’t feel anything, and found herself in the water. She heard people speaking around her but she couldn’t see anyone in the darkness,’’ Bakari said on France’s RTL radio. “She’s a very timid girl, I never thought she would escape like that.’’

Sergeant Said Abdilai told Europe 1 radio that Bahia was too weak to grasp the life ring rescuers threw to her, so he jumped into the sea to get her. He said rescuers gave the trembling girl warm water with sugar.

Said Mohammed, a nurse at El Mararouf hospital in the Comoros capital of Moroni, said the girl was doing well.

The crash a few miles off this island nation came two years after aviation officials reported equipment faults with the plane, an aging Airbus 310 flying the last leg of a Yemenia airlines flight from Paris and Marseille to the Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes.

A top French official said the Airbus 310 crashed in deep water 9 miles north of the Comoran coast and 21 miles from the Moroni airport.

The French air accident investigation agency BEA was sending a team of safety investigators and Airbus specialists to Comoros, an archipelago of three main islands 1,800 miles south of Yemen, between Africa’s southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar.

The London-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association said the plane may have been attempting a go-around in rough weather for another approach when it hit the sea.

The 5 Basic Survival Skills

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Acquiring survival skills is an ongoing process that will last for your entire life. There is always more to learn and experience, which is part of the fun of being a survivor.

As your survival expertise grows the knowledge and abilities you gain are often useful in other areas. For example survivors prepare ahead of time, and they are experts in the art of ingenuity and inventiveness. Excellent attributes for anyone.

The possible environments and situations you could find yourself in are innumerable. Although each situation has its particular requirements for successfully surviving, in the final analysis it is mastery of five basic survival skills that are essential. Proficiency and preparedness in these 5 basic skills will give you the edge and put you on your way toward becoming a talented survivor.

First Basic Survival Skill - Fire

Knowing how to build a fire is the best survival skill you can have. Fire provides warmth, light, and comfort so you get on with the business of survival. Even if you do not have adequate clothing a good fire can allow you to survive in the coldest of environments.

Fire keeps away the creatures that go bump in the night and so you can have the peace of mind and rest you need. And that is not all. Fire will cook your food and purify your water, both excellent attributes when you want to stay healthy when potential disease causing organisms are lurking about. Fire will dry your clothing and even aid in the making of tools and keeping pesky insects at bay.

But even that is not all. Fire and smoke can be used for signaling very long distances.

Always have at least two, and preferably three, ways of making a fire at you immediate disposal. With waterproof matches, a butane lighter, and a magnesium fire starter or firesteel you should be able to create a fire anytime anywhere no matter how adverse the condtions.

So the lesson here is to learn the art of fire craft. Practice and become an expert. Your ability to create a fire is perhaps the most visible mark of an experienced survivor.

Second Basic Survival Skill - Shelter

Shelter protects your body from the outside elements. This includes heat, cold, rain, snow, the sun, and wind. It also protects you from insects and other creatures that seek to do you harm.

The survival expert has several layers of shelter to think about. The first layer of shelter is the clothing you choose to wear. Your clothing is of vital importance and must be wisely chosen according to the environment you are likely to find yourself in. Be sure to dress in layers in order to maximize your ability to adapt to changing conditions.

The next layer of shelter is the one you may have to build yourself, a lean-to or debris hut perhaps. This is only limited by your inventiveness and ingenuity. If the situation requires, your shelter can be insulated with whatever is at hand for the purpose. Being prepared, you may have a space blanket or tarp with you, in which case creating a shelter should be relatively easy.

Before you are in need of making a survival shelter, be sure to practice and experiment with a variety of materials and survival scenarios on a regular basis. Should the need arise you will be glad you did.

Third Basic Survival Skill - Signaling

Signaling allows you to make contact with people who can rescue you without having to be in actual physical contact with them. There are a variety of ways to signal for help. These include using fire and smoke, flashlights, bright colored clothing and other markers, reflective mirrors, whistles, and Personal Locator Beacons. Three of anything is considered a signal for help: 3 gunshots, 3 blows on a whistle, three sticks in the shape of a triangle.

In a pinch, your ingenuity in devising a way to signal potential help could very well save your life.

Fourth Basic Survival Skill - Food and Water

Whenever you plan an excursion be sure to always bring extra food and water. Having more on hand than you think you need will give you that extra measure of safety should something happened and you have to stay out longer than anticipated.

It is important that you know how to ration your water and food as well as find more in the environment in which you find yourself. You can go without food for a number of days, but living without water for even a few days will cause your efficiency to drop dramatically.

If at all possible, boil any water you find in order to kill disease organisms that may be in even the cleanest looking water. Filtering or chemically treating water is second best.

Fifth Basic Survival Skill - First Aid

Always bring along your first aid kit and a space blanket. Most injuries you are likely to encounter in the wilderness are relatively minor scrapes, cuts, bruises, and burns. Larger injuries are going to need better facilities than that which you have at your disposal, which means you will need outside help.

Panic is your number one enemy when you are in any emergency situation, be it injured, lost, or stranded. What you need in these situations is first aid for the mind.

Think STOP:
Sit
Think
Observe
Plan

Your best defense in any emergency is your ability to think and make correct decisions. Building a fire is often the beginning first aid for the mind. Doing so will keep you busy and provide an uplift from the warmth, light and protection fire provides.

Practice Survival Skills

The expert survival skills and know-how you have accumulated through practice and experience will serve you well. When the real thing comes along, you will be prepared and adept at staying alive. Where others have perished, as a survivor you will know you can make it. And that is a good feeling to be sure.

HOW TO PURIFY WATER

Lost in the wilderness near a river or lake, half the battle is over. In order to safely drink this water, you need to purify it. Boiling is the best and easiest way to make fresh water safe -- 10 minutes at a steady boil is a good rule of thumb. Of course, boiling water means you need a source of fire and a container of some kind. If you don't have a container, you can probably find one or more of these items:

• Aluminum can
• Tin can
• Large shell
• Plastic bottle
• Glass jar

Use your shirt or other cloth to filter out large bits of sediment before boiling. Believe it or not, plastic bottles do work for boiling. One method is to completely fill the bottle with water, cap it and drop it into some hot coals. The lack of air in the bottle should keep it from melting. If you don't have enough water to fill the bottle, suspend it above the fire with rope or vine so the flames just touch the bottom. The risk of boiling in a plastic bottle is that your bottle and main collection device may be gone. If you can't start a fire, leave the water in the sun in a clear container to help kill bacteria.

Purification tablets are another way to purify water. You can find them at hardware stores, also many companies manufacture them, and they're mandatory in any survival kit. Purification tablets use either iodine or chlorine to treat the water. Many people are allergic to iodine, so make sure you know if you are before you use them. Murky water often needs more than one tablet to make it safe, and any tablet needs at least 30 minutes to be fully effective. Like with boiling, it's best to give the water some type of an initial straining. Warm water is also safer to drink, so if it's from a cold mountain stream, allow it to heat up a little in the sun first.

Drop the tablet in the bottle, swish some of the water onto the cap and the mouth's threads. After boiling it or treating it with tablets, pour the water back and forth between two containers. It will add oxygen and improve taste.

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SOLDIER KILLS COMRADES

A U.S. soldier fired on fellow troops Monday, killing five before being taken into custody, the U.S. command said.The White House said President Barack Obama is shocked by news of the shooting.White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that the shooting was a "terrible tragedy" and that Obama plans to meet with Defense Secretary Gates later in the day to discuss the matter.Gibbs said the president's heart goes out to the victims' families and that he wants to know what happened.

The shooting occurred at Camp Liberty, a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad near the city's international airport and adjacent to another facility where Obama visited last month.A brief U.S. statement said the soldier "suspected of being involved with the shooting" was in custody but gave no further details. It was unclear what provoked the attack."Any time we lose one of our own, it affects us all," U.S. spokesman Col. John Robinson said. "Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this terrible tragedy."Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called the shooting an "unexpected and tragic event," adding that the incident is under investigation.The names of the deceased are being withheld pending next-of-kin notification and release by the Defense Department.Separately, the military announced Monday that a U.S. soldier was also killed a day earlier when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Basra province of southern Baghdad.The death toll from the Monday shooting was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in Mosul.Attacks on officers and sergeants, known as fraggings, were not uncommon during the Vietnam war as morale in the ranks sank. However, such attacks are believed to be rare in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.In 2003, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for killing two officers in Kuwait just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq of 2003.In June 2005, an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at the U.S. base in Tikrit. A National Guard sergeant was acquitted in the blast.Additionally, there have been several cases recently of gunmen dressed as Iraqi soldiers opening fire on American troops, including an attack in the northern city of Mosul on May 2 in which two soldiers and the gunman were killed.Also Monday, a senior Iraqi traffic officer was assassinated on his way to work in Baghdad. It was the second attack on a high-ranking traffic police officer in the capital in as many days.A car cut off Brig. Gen. Abdul-Hussein al-Kadhoumi as he drove through a central square in the capital and a second vehicle pulled up alongside and riddled him with bullets, police said, citing witnesses. Al-Kadhoumi was director of operations for the traffic authority.The gunmen were armed with pistols equipped with silencers, the police added on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.Incidents involving gunmen armed with sophisticated weapons, including silencers, have been on the rise since a string of high-profile robberies in April.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM CONTRACTING H1N1 Swine Flu

As the swine flu sweeps the world we are all concerned with protecting ourselves and our families from contracting this virus. There are many ways that we can be pro-active and protect ourselves and families. First we must understand how the virus is spread. Whenever a person who has the virus coughs, sneezes, spits, blows their nose or even talks and laughs the virus escapes their body in their respiratory secretions. It is spread by droplet infection. That means that the tiny droplets of moisture from their mouth and nose escape and carry the virus with them. These droplets in the air are then breathed in by others or land on surfaces and the virus is there, waiting for a victim. Once the virus enters another person's system it must fight that person's immune system to cause illness. Since this is a new virus strain, people do not have immunity to it and our immune systems frequently fight a losing battle and the the newly infected person becomes ill. There is currently no vaccine in the world that can be taken to prevent contracting this virus once it has entered your body. It will take several months to develop a vaccine. To avoid contracting the illness, we must break the chain of infection and contamination. So, what can we do to break that chain. Here are some simple steps we can all take to keep that virus away.

Plane Crash The Only One Who Lived

On Christmas Eve 1971, German teenager Juliane Koepcke sat next to her mother in the window seat of a Lockheed Electra. She had just graduated from high school in Lima, Peru, and was on her way to Pucallpa, where she and her mother would rendezvous with her father, biologist Hans Koepcke. But the plane never made it. The Electra hit a freak storm, and the 17-year-old girl looked out the window to see the right wing aflame. She turned to her mother, who said, "This is the end of everything." The last thing Juliane remembers is feeling herself whirling in midair.

She awoke three hours later, still strapped into her seat, in the Amazon. Miraculously, she had only fractured her collarbone, gashed her right arm, and lost vision in one eye. She began looking for her mother, but all she found were empty seats and a row of three young women, covered in flies. Of the 92 people on board, Koepcke was the lone survivor. Although in shock, she remembered her father's advice: Heading downhill in the jungle leads to water, and water leads to civilization. Koepcke bushwhacked along the rainforest floor, frequently hearing planes above, but she had no way to signal them. On the tenth day, she came across a hunter's hut, outfitted with salt and kerosene, which Koepcke used to clean worms out of her skin. The next day, a group of Peruvian hunters arrived. They took her to the town of Tournavista, where a local pilot flew her to her father, in Pucallpa.

"She was in the middle of the jungle," says Herb Golder, who in 1998 revisited Peru with Juliane—now 50 and a zoologist living in Germany—while working as assistant director on Wings of Hope, Werner Herzog's documentary about the ordeal. "And this 17-year-old girl in a torn miniskirt and one sandal walks out alive."