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Neanderthals had shorter lower legs than we do, leading scientists to theorize that this was an adaptation to the cold times in which they lived, even if it slowed them down.?

But two scientists offer a new explanation for those short lower legs: They allowed these early humans to move efficiently across the sloped terrain of their mountainous homes. Instead of being at a disadvantage on rugged terrain, as was generally thought, Neanderthals even may have been at an advantage, depending on the nature of the slope, they found. The research team also found the same connection between shorter lower-leg bones and mountain life among modern animals. [The Many Mysteries of Neanderthals]

"Studies looking at limb length have always concluded that a shorter limb, including in Neanderthals, leads to less efficiency of movement, because they had to take more steps to go a given distance. But the other studies only looked at flat land," said lead researcher Ryan Higgins, a graduate student in the Johns Hopkins Center of Functional Anatomy and Evolution. "Our study suggests that the Neanderthals' steps were not less efficient than modern humans in the sloped, mountainous environment where they lived."

Neanderthals lived between about 200,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the cold of ice-age Europe and Western Asia. They had a shorter, more compact stature than we do. Since animals in colder areas tend to be more compact ? less surface area means less body heat loss ? this appeared to explain the length of a Neanderthal's lower legs. More-modern humans, by contrast, lived in warmer climates, meaning they were less concerned about losing body heat.

Neanderthals also lived in more-mountainous places. Using a mathematical model relating leg proportions to the angle of ascent, the researchers found that Neanderthals' proportions would have helped them move about on slopes.

"It has to do with leg clearance as you are going up a slope," explained researcher Christopher Ruff, also of Johns Hopkins. He said that if the lower half of your leg ? the part below the knee ? is shorter, you can take bigger steps, relative to your height, while traveling uphill. This is because you don't have to bend your knee or hip as much to clear the ground. ???

Higgins and Ruff also analyzed the relationship between lower leg-bone length and habitat for a group of mammals called bovids, which includes flat- and hilly-dwelling species of gazelles, antelopes, goats and sheep. They found that, overall, the mountainous species had shorter lower leg bones than those on flat land, even when they lived in the same climate.

The research was published online in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.?

You can follow LiveSciencesenior writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45007642/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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BEIRUT (AP) ? Inspired by the scenes of euphoria in Libya, Syrian protesters poured into the streets Friday and shouted that President Bashar Assad's regime will be the next to unravel now that ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is dead.

Syrian forces fired on protesters Friday, killing at least 24 people, activists said, most of them in the central city of Homs, a hotbed of dissent.

"Gadhafi is gone, your turn is coming, Bashar," protesters shouted on Friday in the central city of Hama, long a hotbed of resistance to the regime.

The Syrian uprising has proved remarkably resilient over the past seven months, but has shown some signs of stalling in recent weeks as the government forges ahead with a bloody crackdown that the U.N. estimates has killed more than 3,000 people.

Although the mass demonstrations in Syria have shaken one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the opposition has made no major gains in recent months, it holds no territory and has no clear leadership.

Now the armed uprising in Libya that drove Gadhafi from power ? albeit with NATO air support ? appears to have breathed new life into the Syrian revolt.

"Our souls, our blood we sacrifice for you, Libya!" Syrian protesters chanted Friday.

Others held signs linking Assad's fate to those of other deposed Arab leaders. Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been driven into exile, and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is in jail and facing charges of complicity in the deaths of more than 800 protesters in his country's uprising.

"Ben Ali fled, Mubarak is in jail, Gadhafi is killed, Assad ... ?" read one banner.

Gadhafi's death Thursday, after he was dragged from hiding in a drainage pipe, begging for his life, decisively ended the nearly 42-year regime that had turned the oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.

In many ways, the Syrian uprising has taken cues from the Libyans recently.

Syria's opposition formed a national council like the Libyans' National Transitional Council, hoping they could forge a united front against Assad that Syrians and the international community could rally behind.

And with the successes of armed Libyan revolutionaries present in their minds, many Syrian protesters say they are starting to see the limits of a peaceful movement, particularly when compared to the armed uprising in Libya. Some Syrians are now calling on protesters to take up arms and inviting foreign military action, hoisting signs that say "Where is NATO?" and urging the world to come to Syria's aid.

For the most part, Syrian opposition leaders have opposed foreign intervention.

There is no central call to arms by the opposition, in part because there is no clear leadership in the movement.

The Syrian opposition is disparate and fragmented, with various parties vying for power as they seek an end to more than 40 years of iron rule by Assad and his late father, Hafez.

There have been some clashes in border regions between Syrian forces and apparent defectors from the military, but they have not been widespread.

Still, the growing signs of armed resistance may accelerate the cycle of violence gripping the country by giving the government a pretext to use even greater firepower against its opponents. Authorities have already used tanks, snipers and gangster-like gunmen known as "shabiha" who operate as hired guns for the regime.

The regime has sealed off the country and prevented independent media coverage, making it difficult to verify events on the ground.

The Local Coordination Committees, a Syrian activist network, put Friday's death toll at 24 nationwide. It said 19 of those killed died in the flashpoint city of Homs, where military operations in pursuit of activists and anti-government protesters are a daily occurrence. The LCC said three others were killed in Hama and its suburbs, one in the northern Idlib province and one in the Damascus suburb of Saqba.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group based in Britain, said at least 15 people were killed in Homs and reported heavy fighting in Saqba, near Damascus, between troops and gunmen thought to be army defectors.

In the Syrian town of Qusair near the Lebanese border, Syrian forces closed all mosques to prevent people from gathering. The weekly protests usually begin as Syrians pour out of mosques following Friday afternoon prayers. "Gadhafi's death will boost the morale of Syrians," Osso told the AP in a telephone interview. "It will make them continue until they bring down the regime."

___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS that at least 15 were killed in Homs, not Hama).)

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-21-ML-Syria/id-264a999b43c4432ba60ce1d3121a5db9

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A Kansas City Police crime scene investigator carries items from the home of missing baby Lisa Irwin in Kansas City, Mo., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Members of the FBI evidence recovery team search the home of missing baby Lisa Irwin in Kansas City, Mo., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Investigators carry items into the home of missing baby Lisa Irwin in Kansas City, Mo., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

An investigator leaves the home of missing baby Lisa Irwin in Kansas City, Mo., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) ? An FBI cadaver dog reacted to the scent of a dead person inside the Kansas City home where a baby girl disappeared nearly three weeks ago, according to a police affidavit released Friday.

The affidavit was filed to support a search warrant request for the home of Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin, who reported their 10-month-old daughter, Lisa Irwin, missing Oct. 4 and said someone must have crept into the home and taken the girl while the mother and two other boys slept.

The affidavit said the dog taken into the house Monday indicated a "positive 'hit' for the scent of a deceased human in an area of the floor of Bradley's bedroom near the bed." A judge approved the warrant Tuesday and police and the FBI conducted a daylong search Wednesday.

Court documents filed Friday said police took blankets, toys and clothing from the house, as well as rolls of tape and a tape dispenser.

The family's local lawyer, Cynthia Short, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment, and police declined to discuss what they found.

"We aren't able to talk about specifics of the case," said police spokeswoman Stacey Graves. "The documents that were made public will have to stand on their own."

The FBI dogs, which often are used at both disaster and crime scenes, are trained "specially to recognize the scent of decaying, decomposing human flesh," retired FBI special agent Jeff Lanza said Friday.

"That's what they hit on. What the dogs are saying is that they smell that scent," Lanza said. "That can be the scent of an actual body decomposing, or residual scents after the body is no longer there."

Wednesday's search was perhaps law enforcement's most aggressive yet at the parent's home, drawing officers armed with shovels, rakes and other tools who hauled off bags that appeared to be full of potential evidence.

Police also brought in a bomb and arson truck to assist the search, though spokesman Capt. Steve Young said there were no indications of explosives in the house. Some bomb detection devices use X-ray technology to scan solid objects to reveal items concealed within. An AP reporter saw investigators carrying at least a dozen thin, black rectangular sheets away from the home during the afternoon.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-21-US-Kansas-City-Baby-Missing/id-6b2f2130022f433987d5d3a680c156c6

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GENEVA ? Palestinian diplomats are trying to muster support for a U.N. Security Council vote in New York on Nov. 11 on their bid for membership in the global body, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday.

U.N. diplomats said earlier this week that a Security Council committee considering the membership bid would deliver a report on that day, and that ambassadors would then decide on the next steps.

Any member of the Security Council can request a vote on the Palestinian request, but a resolution recommending membership requires a minimum of nine "yes" votes and no veto by one of the council's five permanent members ? Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S.

Once the 15-member Security Council recommends a country's membership its application must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the 193-member General Assembly.

Washington, Israel's closest ally, has already pledged to use its veto if Palestinian membership gets the support of nine or more council members.

"We still have time until Nov. 11, so there is a lot of efforts pushing certain countries to voting in favor," the Palestinian envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told The Associated Press.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki told reporters in late September that the membership bid has support so far from eight Security Council members: Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Lebanon, Nigeria and Gabon. He said the Palestinians are lobbying for more votes, including from Bosnia and Colombia.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Colombia on Oct. 11 and was told by President Juan Manuel Santos that Colombia will only recognize a Palestinian state that has been established through negotiations with Israel, which leaves Bosnia as the likely key to a ninth "yes" vote.

Khraishi said "several parties are working" to secure the votes, but declined to elaborate. "I think that we will succeed to get the nine," he added.

Elections to replace five nonpermanent members of the Security Council on Friday could create a grouping even less likely to approve the Palestinians' bid, if it rolls over into the new year.

Winners will take their posts Jan. 1. Strong Palestinian backers Brazil and Lebanon, along with Nigeria and Gabon, will be leaving the council at the same time.

Guatemala, running unopposed for the lone Latin America seat, has never recognized a Palestinian state. Neither has Slovenia, one of three candidates for the East European seat being vacated by Bosnia.

The rest of the candidates have all recognized a Palestinian state: Togo, Mauritania, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Pakistan and Kyrgystan.

"The addition of Guatemala and the subtraction of Brazil would make it a bit more difficult" to get statehood approved, if the vote is held over, said Warren Hoge, senior adviser for external relations at the International Peace Institute, a New York think tank.

Abbas delivered the Palestinian application to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sept. 23. Hours later, the Quartet of Mideast mediators ? the U.S., U.N., EU and Russia ? called for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in a month, with the goal of a peace agreement by the end of 2012.

The Israelis and Palestinians are scheduled to meet separately with the Quartet on Tuesday.

___

Edith M. Lederer and Anita Snow contributed to this report from the United Nations.

___

Frank Jordans can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111020/ap_on_re_eu/un_un_mideast

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It has been a busy week for doomsday prophets. A passing comet, falling satellite and the strange predictions of Harold Camping have all been combined into one week. On Oct. 16, the comet Elenin passed by Earth, and much to their dismay it did signal the start of the apocalypse. Meanwhile, Harold Camping and his followers have been preparing for the end of the world on Oct. 21. Additionally, the German Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT) has been predicted to fall to Earth from Oct. 21 to Oct. 24.

Elenin Passes without Turmoil

Nicknamed the "doomsday comet," Elenin, passed by Earth on Oct. 16 without creating any devastating impact on the planet. Despite years of speculation that the comet's arrival would bring an apocalypse or damaging environmental changes, Elenin began to disintegrate after a solar storm and was already in pieces on Oct. 16. I just hope that the people who were waiting for the comet to destroy all life on Earth did not quit their jobs. The massive unemployment rates may make them wish the comet had brought the apocalypse.

Harold Camping and his Followers

Although his May 21 predictions failed and turned him into a mockery, Harold Camping continues to insist that the world will end on Oct. 21. Camping suffered a stroke in June 2011, but this has not slowed him down or stopped his prophecies about Judgment Day. However, I doubt that his words will have the same impact. This time, I do not see large groups of followers giving away their possessions and waiting for the rapture.

ROSAT Falling

Amid the onslaught of doomsday prophecies, the only thing that is actually set to collide with Earth is the German Roentgen Satellite. The time of its exact collision has not been determined, but estimates indicate that it may occur from Oct. 21 to Oct. 24. ROSAT is simply another piece of space debris that has run its course and is now headed for Earth. Similar to NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) that fell on Sept. 24 without any injuries, ROSAT will probably have an uneventful landing.

The Allure of Doomsday

The end of these doomsday prophecies does not signify the conclusion to all false predictions. I am certain that Harold Camping will find another interpretation for his wrong analysis while the people who waited for Elenin to destroy Earth will simply say the apocalypse has been postponed. I am sure they are already working to find another celestial body or date for the next doomsday prophecy.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111020/us_ac/10247243_doomsday_prophecies_and_falling_satellites__again

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