New analysis of bones belonging to the ancient human relative Australopithecus sediba confirmed that they walked on two legs like a human but they climbed trees like an ape.

A team of international scientists analyzed lower back bones belonging to a female Australopithecus sediba that were found near the Malapa cave system in South Africa. She has been named Issa and she lived approximately 2 million years ago.

Experts have recovered four lower back vertebrae and a sacrum bone that links the pelvis to the spine. The experts were then able to use the spinal bones as well as other fossils that were previously found in order to reconstruct Issa’s back. As a matter of fact, this is the one of the most complete reconstructions of the back fossils of any hominin that has ever been conducted. They found that she had a curved spine which indicated that she spent a good amount of time walking on two legs. Additionally, they realized that she had five lumbar vertebrae – the same number that humans have.

Professor Lee Berger, who is the leader of the Malapa project, said, “While Issa was already one of the most complete skeletons of an ancient hominin ever discovered, these vertebrae practically complete the lower back and make Issa’s lumbar region a contender for not only the best-preserved hominin lower back ever discovered, but also probably the best preserved.”

Previous analysis of Australopithecus sediba – specifically of their upper body – revealed that they were very well adapted to climbing trees. This means that the now-extinct hominin would have been halfway in between a tree-dwelling ape and a full bipedal human.

Professor Gabrielle Russo from Stony Brook University went into further details by explaining, “While the presence of lordosis (the inward curve of the lumbar spine) and other features of the spine represent clear adaptations to walking on two legs, there are other features, such as the large and upward oriented transverse processes, that suggest powerful trunk musculature, perhaps for arboreal behaviors.” (Arboreal behavior means climbing and living in trees).

The fact that a 2-million-year-old Australopithecus sediba had both ape-like and human-like traits is incredible especially since experts have now been able to confirm it. Reconstruction of the Australopithecus sediba’s body based on the recovered bones as well as an image of what it would have looked like can be viewed here.

Australopithecus sediba silhouette showing the newly-found vertebrae along with other skeletal remains. Right: Life reconstruction of Australopithecus sediba

Left: NYU & Wits University Right: Sculpture: Elisabeth Daynes / Photograph: S. Entres-sangle

© University of Witwatersrand 

Australopithecus sediba was a transitional form of ancient human relative, a study has concluded.

Their study was published in the journal e-Life where it can be read in full.

Ever had a strange and frightening experience in your bedroom? A sense of a dangerous, maybe even deadly, creature lurking in the corners of the bedroom, and that suddenly leaps onto the bend and holds you down? And there are very often sexual aspects to all of this. If this sounds familiar to yourself, don’t worry, you’re not alone. It’s important to note that such creatures are not limited to just one or two parts of the planet – or even to specific time-frames. Incubi and Succubi are everywhere – exactly as they were in the distant past. In Newfoundland, there is the Old Hag – a female monster that, just like legendary Lilith, straddles the unwary in the dead of night and steals semen from terrified men. South Africa has the monstrous Tokoloshe. Scandinavia is home to the Mare – which, rather notably, is from where the word “nightmare” comes. Popobawa creates fear and dread for the people of Zanzibar. The Karabasan is a Turkish version. The Boto haunts the cities and jungles of Brazil. And, the Lidérc plagues the people of Hungary. While the names are many and varied, the key component of a sexual encounter in the dead of night, in which the victim is unable to stop the experience, is worldwide.

There is very little doubt that the most terrifying beings that fall into this category are the Succubus and the Incubus. In his 2011 book, Strange Intruders, David Weatherly says that these creatures ““live in a spirit world and crave the energy and life essence of the living.”

They are dangerous, violent and manipulative things that very often present themselves in the form of a person’s definitive fantasy. There is, however, nothing appealing about these monsters of the night. In fact, they should be avoided at all costs. It’s either that or ultimately pay a terrible price. The problem is that it’s very difficult to escape their clutches when you are in bed, completely paralyzed, and held down by a malevolent thing from another plane of existence.

(Nick Redfern)

The bedroom: Potentially a dangerous location for us when we sleep

The term, “Incubus,” is a most appropriate one, as it is derived from ancient Latin term which means “to lie upon.” The word itself is “incubare.” In essence, the term is a most apt one, as the Incubus does exactly that: it lies upon its victim and sexually assaults them. The Incubus is the male version of this menacing beast, while the Succubus is the female. It’s a phenomenon that has been with us just about as long as civilization has existed.

As evidence of this, we’ll now take a trip back to the world and the people of Mesopotamia, which, thousands of years ago, was situated in the eastern part of the Mediterranean and covering Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Is it possible that all of this, from the earliest years of civilization to the present day is due to nothing stranger than the complexities of the human mind? Doubtful. Admittedly, yes, technologically-speaking, we are very different to the people of yesteryear. On the other hand, though, and just like today, the people back then had families and friends, and they laughed and they cried. In that sense our minds are not so different.

Those who are skeptical of the idea that bedroom invaders of a supernatural nature really exist, suggest that all of the above – from the distant past to the present day – can be explained away by what is known popularly as sleep-paralysis. Its medical term is hypnagogia – it’s a period during the sleep state when, sometimes, a person semi-awakens. And, in that half-awake / half-asleep state, the brain can do some very strange things, including creating a sense of something threatening in the bedroom. It’s a condition which was coined back in the 1800s, by Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury, who was a French doctor. Sleep paralysis does not – and cannot – explain away everything, though. There are, for example, cases in which the encounter leaves behind it residual odors, such as brimstone and sulfur – which are reported in numerous paranormal encounters, including the early 1950s-era experiences of Albert Bender, who quickly found himself on the wrong side of the Men in Black, when he started to dig into the UFO mystery. Not only that, Bender had a classic Old Hag type experience back in 1953. On occasion, a wife has seen her husband straddled by one of these crazed things – and vice-versa. As this shows, these encounters are most assuredly not totally internal to the victims: there is a dangerous, undeniable external aspect, too.

If you’re looking for something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving (in the U.S.), how about showing some gratitude you’ve never been tricked by a shape-shifting reptilian alien who turned into your spouse and attempted to have sex with you. If you are preacher Sharon Gilbert, you’re probably more used to leading the Thanksgiving prayer than the object of one, but that’s her story and she stuck with it during a television interview about her alleged encounters with a reptilian alien.

“After Derek and I got married this other Derek appears in our bed. The real Derek is lying down next to me, other Derek sits right up out of him. It startled me. I knew that was not Derek and so I asked this critter, who are you? Because he clearly wanted to have sexual relations. He said: ‘I am your husband.’”

I’m your husband … really!

Thus began the tale of Sharon Gilbert’s encounter with a reptilian who had shapeshifted into her husband Derek, as told on a recent episode of the “Jim Bakker Show” – yes, THAT Jim Bakker. Sharon and Derek Gilbert are ‘End Times’ preachers and the hosts of “SciFriday,” a TV show billed as “Science news from a Christian worldview.” Sharon is the author of a supernatural fiction series and a couple of novels, and is a contributor to the book “God’s Ghostbusters: Vampires? Ghosts? Aliens? Werewolves? Creatures of the Night Beware!”, so it’s a safe bet she’s aware of reptilians and their alleged powers. She also knows her bible stories and immediately questioned when the faux Derek claimed to be Xerses from various books of the Hebrew bible. However, it was a subsequent encounter (she apparently had many like the first) that convinced her she was dealing with a reptilian – she reached over and grabbed his/its face.

“And I pulled that face off. And beneath it was a reptile. Little creatures with him this time, these little half-ling creatures and they looked like gargoyles, they were reptilian as well. So beneath that face of Derek was a reptilian serpentine creature, probably similar to what visited the Anasazi…”

Sharon Gilbert definitely knows her reptilian lore. The Anasazi were an ancient Native American culture that lived for 1,000 years in the Four Corners region of the U.S. until they abruptly and somewhat mysteriously abandoned the area. Why they left is still debated, but Gilbert is referring to the theory that they worshiped a reptilian god and were kidnapped and taken to the Moon by a reptilian – a legend which inspired an episode of The X-Files.

Which do you prefer — me or Derek?

This writer has purposely left out the religious aspects of Sharan Gilbert’s account and focus just on the ‘reptilian’ shapeshifting aspect. Those who believe in reptilians could see Gilbert’s account as a tutorial on why one should avoid them. Those who believe in exorcisms might see her tale and her writings as a guide to helping people who believe they’re possessed or tormented by non-human beings. There are also those who think she’s taking advantage of the gullible for the purpose of marketing her books and services (and those of her husband) … and appearing on “The Jim Bakker Show” certainly doesn’t help ward off those accusations.

Leaving out the religious bias and conspiracy theory aspects of Sharon Gilbert’s story, can you/do you believe any of the rest?

It’s too bad she didn’t keep the reptilian’s face.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

Focusing still on my previous article – on 1951’s movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still – you will now see how easy it was for many of the so-called “Contactees” (people who claimed they had encounters with human-looking extraterrestrials in early 1950s America) to play roles not too dissimilar to those of Klaatu in that still-revered movie. The very-human-like “Space Brothers” (as they were known, and who became big “buddies” with the Contactees) were alien, too. They soon spent much of their time warning the people of Earth to drop their atomic weapons, however. Or else. In other words, they weren’t always buddies. One of the Contactees, whose story fits right into this subject of mind-alteration, was Orfeo Angelucci. In correspondence with Jim Moseley of Saucer Smear, Angelucci said he had been visited in 1954 by people from both the FBI and U.S. Army Intelligence. That was not at all surprising, as most of the Contactees had FBI files opened on them – largely because of their politics, rather than their alien claims. One of the stories that Angelucci shared with Moseley was particularly strange. On one particular night in December 1954, and after finishing working out in Twentynine Palms, California, Angelucci headed out to a local diner. That’s where things got strange. Angelucci recorded: “I felt a strangeness in the air. There is a cosmic spell over the desert most of the time, but tonight the mystery was less distant and intangible; it was close and pulsating.”

Angelucci was soon deep in conversation – in that same diner – with a man who identified himself only as “Adam,” a customer who claimed to be thirty-something and suffering from a terminal illness. Death was said to be just around the corner for the man. In an odd and synchronistic fashion, Adam claimed that he had read Angelucci’s book, The Secret of the Saucers, that he considered their meeting to be beyond just an amazing coincidence, and that he wished to share his thoughts with Angelucci before time ran out. As in quite literally. But, said Adam, before their conversation could begin, Angelucci had to swallow a pill. Of what kind Angelucci didn’t know. That didn’t stop him from doing exactly what Adam demanded from him, though. Angelucci took a gulp of water and the “oyster-white pellet” went down. For Angelucci, there was now no turning back. It didn’t take long before he felt weird, odd, and out of this world. In short, Angelucci had been drugged. It was almost like one of the most famous scenes in the 1999 movie, The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves. You know the scene: the red pill versus the blue pill. But this was the world of the real. Not of Hollywood.

Angelucci said: “I took the pellet and dropped it into my glass. Immediately the water bubbled, turning slowly into the clear, pale amber contained in [Adam’s] own glass. I lifted the glass a few inches from the table, looking into it with a feeling that this might be the drink I dared not hope for. The exhilarating aroma rising from it could not be mistaken…I thrilled from head to foot as I took the glass, lifted it to my lips, and swallowed twice from it. At that instant, I entered, with Adam, into a more exalted state and everything around me took on a different semblance. No longer was I in Tiny’s café in Twentynine Palms. It had been transformed into a cozy retreat on some radiant star system. Though everything remained in its same position, added beauty and meaning were given to the things and people present there. Almost as an aside, Angeluci said: “Among the patrons dining that evening were two marines from the nearby base. Sometimes they glanced our way as they talked and drank beer following their meal.” Angelucci said that Adam seemed oddly obsessed with the glass and was “fraught with expectancy.” Suddenly, the sounds of music filled Angelucci’s ears. Incredibly, the music seemed to be coming from the glass itself. Or, rather, that’s how it seemed to Angelucci. The reality is that he was now completely and utterly stoned.

Angelucci stared at the glass and saw the figure of “a miniature young woman” who was dancing in that same glass! That’s right: the drugs were now kicking in to a high degree. Of the small woman, Angelucci said that: “Her golden-blond beauty was as arresting as the miracle of her projection in the glass. Her arms moved in rhythmic motion with the graceful thrusts of her dancing body.” What began as a pleasant meeting between like-minded souls soon became a drug-driven interrogation. By Angelucci’s own admission, he spilled the entire beans to Adam: the nature of his encounters, and the words of his alien friends. There was even a debate on politics, which is rather telling. Angelucci staggered home, his mind hardly his own for the next few hours. Such bizarre encounters between the Space Brothers and the Contactees were everywhere. At first glance, at least, the answer is very simple: they liked us and they wanted us to stay alive! Maybe, however, there is more to it than that. In fact, much more than that. And, perhaps, there are disturbing reasons for that apparent concern for our welfare – and even our existence. Before we get right into the heart of it all, however, let us first take a look at the Space Brothers, for those who may not be acquainted with the strange subject. Although it was the summer of 1947 when the term “Flying Saucer” was coined, sightings of – or encounters with – alleged aliens didn’t really begin on a large scale until the early 1950s. That’s when the aforementioned Space Brothers surfaced from wherever they came. And it’s also the period in which the matter of nukes began to surface, too.

The Space Brothers were described as looking eerily human-like – the major difference being that the males had very long hair, which, of course, was a rarity during the dawning of the 1950s. The women looked like women on Earth. Both the males and the females occasionally had some very slight differences in their facial appearances, but nothing that really stood out as odd or unusual. The aliens chose certain figures to spread the word that the human race should get rid of its nuclear weapons. And if we didn’t follow the path of the creatures from other worlds, then we would surely all be fried in a radioactive holocaust of our very own making. Those who the Space Brothers and the Space Sisters chose to work with included George Van Tassel, Dana Howard, Truman Bethurum, Mollie Thompson, Orfeo Angelucci, George King and Margit Mustapa. And they were just the tip of the iceberg. For the best of fifteen years, or of a bit more, those Space Brothers and Contactees acted out just like Klaatu did on the big screen.

Nineteen-eighty-seven was one of the most important years in the field of UFO research. That was the year in which Whitley Strieber’s book, Communion, was published. The alien abduction-themed book became a huge bestseller – even a New York Times bestseller, no less. Strieber’s book was an important one because it didn’t follow the same pathway that so many other abduction books did. Strieber postulated that the black-eyed, dwarfish creatures known as “the Greys” are far from being just entities from another world and who have come to visit us. Strieber’s work suggested something far more than that; something that has deep relevance to the world of robots. Some people were excited and intrigued by the story that Strieber told. Others were puzzled, some appalled by the fact that brought into Communion matters relative to magic, to the human soul, to immortality, and to life after death – and all in one big mix. Indeed, Strieber put forth the distinct possibility that the Greys have the ability to operate in both a physical state and a soul-based situation. As for that physical form, Strieber came up with a fascinating theory – based upon his very own experiences with the Greys. He strongly suspected that when not in spirit/soul form, the Greys had the ability to be “downloaded” into physical form. And, in that particular form, they were far more like biological robots than the aliens that the UFO research community embraced.

Mac Tonnies went down that pathway, too. He said: “Given the vast number of out-of-body and near-death experiences, I find it difficult to reject the prospect of ‘nonlocal’ consciousness; perhaps a sufficiently advanced technology can manipulate the ‘soul’ as easily as we splice genes or mix chemicals in test tubes. If so, encounters with ‘extraterrestrials’ may help provide a working knowledge of how to modify and transfer consciousness – abilities that seem remote to the current terrestrial state-of-the-art, but may prove invaluable in a future where telepresence and virtual reality are integral to communication. Already, the capabilities of brain-machine interfaces are tantalizingly like the popular perception of telepathy, often thought of in strictly ‘paranormal’ or even ‘magical’ terms.” It should be noted that this is very much like what has become known as Transhumanism. Basically, it’s a case of being in a state of post-human, rather than present-human. Or, post-alien, rather than alien.

This very much all revolves around what is known as the Transhumanist Party. All of this brings us very close to – if not right into the very heart of – what is known as Transhumanism. We’re talking about us, as a species, becoming something amazing; a new type of human. Becoming post-human and, potentially, immortal. We’re even talking about the merging of man and highly advanced technology in ways that, right now, are difficult to understand, but that are currently seen as a viable way to ensure we have far more than our measly eighty years, or thereabouts, and, instead, possibly even living forever. It’s hard to get one’s head around the concept, today. But, that may not be the case for the people of another century away. For them, immortality may just be an everyday thing. The man who has flown the flag for Transhumanism is Zoltan Istvan, who is determined to become immortal and President of the United States. In which particular order hasn’t been confirmed yet.

The BBC say of this: “Transhumanists dream of achieving immortality and physical perfection through futuristic technologies like mind uploading, cyborg body augmentation, and genetic manipulation; they want us to evolve into a race of post-human super-beings. While the other presidential candidates are claiming they know best how to deal with Iran, the economy, and immigration, Istvan is trying to appeal to the US electorate with more ambitious goals. He wants to eradicate death, and for everyone in America to live forever.” Istvan has said that all of this “literally means beyond human. Transhumanists consist of life extensionists, techno-optimists, Singularitarians, biohackers, roboticists, AI [artificial intelligence] proponents, and futurists who embrace radical science and technology to improve the human condition. The most important aim for many transhumanists is to overcome human mortality, a goal some believe is achievable by 2045.” It’s a fact that 2045 isn’t too far away. Some of us will get to see what the future offers.

A jaw-dropping 301 newly confirmed exoplanets have recently been added to the total of worlds outside of our Solar System. These planets are just the latest to be added to the staggering number of 4,569 that have already been confirmed.

As for why such a large number of planets were found in a relatively short amount of time, we can thank a new deep neural network named ExoMiner for that help. In fact, ExoMiner has been trained to pick out actual exoplanets from a variety of other space objects or “false positives”. ExoMiner is a huge help considering the tons of data collected by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft and K2 mission which observed thousands of stars – each with the potential of having at least one planet orbiting them.

And it certainly isn’t an easy task as there are confirmed exoplanets and those that are validated, which have two very different meanings. Based on different data statistics, a world can be validated on how likely or unlikely it is to be a planet. But when numerous different observations show definitive planetary features, it is categorized as a confirmed exoplanet.

ExoMiner found the 301 planets by combing through data on planetary candidates in the Kepler Archive. The planets were discovered by the Kepler Science Operations Center pipeline and then the Kepler Science Office categorized them as planet candidate status. Then ExoMiner validated them.

Jon Jenkins, who is an exoplanet scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, discussed the project by explaining, “Unlike other exoplanet-detecting machine learning programs, ExoMiner isn’t a black box – there is no mystery as to why it decides something is a planet or not,” adding, “We can easily explain which features in the data lead ExoMiner to reject or confirm a planet.”

While hundreds of new explanets have been confirmed, experts don’t think that any of them are located in the habitable zone or similar to Earth. Nevertheless, the discovery is certainly very important as Jenkins noted, “These 301 discoveries help us better understand planets and solar systems beyond our own, and what makes ours so unique.”

ExoMiner will also be able to help in other projects as explained by Hamed Valizadegan, who is the ExoMiner project lead and machine learning manager with the Universities Space Research Association at Ames, “Now that we’ve trained ExoMiner using Kepler data, with a little fine-tuning, we can transfer that learning to other missions, including TESS, which we’re currently working on.” “When ExoMiner says something is a planet, you can be sure it’s a planet.”

The study can be read in full here.