The operation was the culmination of the 1st West African Workshop on the Surgical Treatment of Movement Disorders hosted by West African Academy of Neurosurgeons and the Ghana Center for Advanced Brain Surgery, a specialized department of the NGO, neuroGHANA. Since its inception in 1996, neuroGHANA has promoted and pioneered the utilization of modern techniques in brain surgery. These techniques have included computer-assisted brain surgery, key-hole video surgery and Gamma Knife or no incision surgery.
Drawing on 935 individual samples from the French databank, a Stanford University team found deep traces of long-ago population movements, all originating from a “ground zero” in Ethiopia, Kenya or Tanzania. For example, the Pygmies of the Congo forest were found to be quite close to the Bushmen of Namibia — but both were very different from most other sub-Saharan groups. The fierce and proud Bedouin nomads of the Middle East actually have a lot of European and South Asian blood. The Asian-looking Hazara of Afghanistan are correct in claiming ancestry in Mongolia, but the Han, the dominant ethnic group in China, may be disappointed to discover they’re actually two peoples, one north, the other south. Native Americans have at least one closely related group in Asia — the Yakuts of eastern Siberia, who themselves are related to other hunter-gatherer Siberian tribes, some of whom build wooden teepees.
The marauding Mongols left not just a huge cultural and historical impression in central Asia, but also a genetic one. For instance, the Hazara people of central Afghanistan share genetic ties with East Asia. Silk Route traders left their own mark. The Uighur, a Muslim minority in northwest China, share genes with people in Europe and west Asia.
There’s an almost religious belief in the Valley that charging for content is bad. The only business plan in sight is ever more advertising. One might ask what will be left to advertise once everyone is aggregated. How long must creative people wait for the Web’s new wealth to find a path to their doors? A decade is a long enough time that idealism and hope are no longer enough. If there’s one practice technologists ought to embrace, it is the evaluation of empirical results. To help writers and artists earn a living online, software engineers and Internet evangelists need to exercise the power they hold as designers. Information is free on the Internet because we created the system to be that way.
Last month the US Federal Trade Commission cleared the plan by Google to buy DoubleClick. While expressing concern about the privacy implications of the deal, the US authority said that aspect could not be considered in its review. European antitrust authorities, who hold the same view, are set to rule on the matter later this year after the European Commission in November launched a probe, arguing that the merger "would raise competition concerns." According to Cornelia Kutterer, from the European consumers association BEUC, which is partly funded from EU coffers, many ordinary cybersurfers overestimate the level of privacy they enjoy on-line.
Jobs did not pocket the profit from the 120,000 stock options he exercised in 2007, Apple said in the regulatory documents. The options — granted to Jobs for his service on Apple's board of directors — were set to expire in August 2007 so he exercised them and held on to all of the shares. Under a reimbursement agreement, the company repays him for the expenses of operating his private plane when it is used for company business, an arrangement that cost Apple $776,000 in 2007, according to the filings.