March 17th, 2017 by James Ayre

Humans may have played a very active role in the desertification of the Sahara, according to new research from Dr David Wright of Seoul National University.

The new findings directly contradict the earlier supposition that the rapid shift from a heavily greened landscape to the modern Sahara desert, over just a few thousand years time, was driven entirely by natural processes. (Obviously, if one considers human behavior to be natural, than there is no real distinction, but that doesnt change the fact that people may have played a major role in the desertification of the region.)

In East Asia there are long established theories of how Neolithic populations changed the landscape so profoundly that monsoons stopped penetrating so far inland, commented Wright. Wright then went on to note that evidence of human-driven climatic and ecological change has been documented in Europe, North America, and New Zealand as well, and that similar scenarios could well have occurred in the Sahara.

Nick Fraser, Journal Development Manager, Frontiers in Earth Sciences, provides more: To test his hypothesis, Wright reviewed archaeological evidence documenting the first appearances of pastoralism across the Saharan region, and compared this with records showing the spread of scrub vegetation, an indicator of an ecological shift towards desert-like conditions. The findings confirmed his thoughts; beginning approximately 8,000 years ago in the regions surrounding the Nile River, pastoral communities began to appear and spread westward, in each case at the same time as an increase in scrub vegetation.

Growing agricultural addiction had a severe effect on the regions ecology. As more vegetation was removed by the introduction of livestock, it increased the albedo (the amount of sunlight that reflects off the earths surface) of the land, which in turn influenced atmospheric conditions sufficiently to reduce monsoon rainfall. The weakening monsoons caused further desertification and vegetation loss, promoting a feedback loop which eventually spread over the entirety of the modern Sahara.

If true, that would make for simply yet another version of the age-old human story of unintended consequences. In other words, its yet another show of the fact that humans arent nearly as clever as most of uslike to thinkwe are.

To reiterate that last point, historical study clearly shows that soil erosion and desertification played a significant role in the collapse of many earlier civilizations. And since were talking about North Africa here it should be remembered that after the Roman Republic had more or less depleted the soils of Southern Europe (and entered into the civil war period that led to the birth of the Roman Empire), it colonized the region which still possessed good soil fertility at the time at the expense of the mostly Phoenician locals. (The Afri were one of the Phoenician groups living there at the time, and served as the basis of the name Africa.)

For many of the years that followed, this colonization of North Africa functioned as the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. The current state of North Africas depleted soils is partly the result of the mass-scale agriculture of the time, and partly the result of the overgrazing and abandonment of the aqueducts that followed Islamic conquest. (There was also a brief period when the Germanic Vandals had control of some parts of the region, before the Arabs then pushed them out.)

Commenting on what comes next, Wright stated: There were lakes everywhere in the Sahara at this time, and they will have the records of the changing vegetation. We need to drill down into these former lake beds to get the vegetation records, look at the archaeology, and see what people were doing there. It is very difficult to model the effect of vegetation on climate systems. It is our job as archaeologists and ecologists to go out and get the data, to help to make more sophisticated models.

Overall, Wrights work makes for an interesting interpretation of the available data. Personally, I wouldnt be surprised at all if humans were the primary driver of desertification in the region aided by the climatic turbulence of the times. Theres probably a parallel to be drawn there with modern times

The new findings are detailed in a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science.

Image bySidy Niang(some rights reserved)

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Tags: desertification, North Africa, overgrazing, Sahara Desert

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

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Humans May Have Played Very Active Role In Desertification Of The Sahara, Research Finds - CleanTechnica

Cyber Defense

As the Pentagons Joint Regional Security Stacks moves forward with efforts to reduce the server footprint, integrate regional data networks and facilitate improved interoperability between previously stove-piped data systems, IT developers see cybersecurity efforts moving quickly toward increased artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

I think within the next 18-months, AI will become a key factor in helping human analysts make decisions about what to do, former DOD Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen said.

As technology and advanced algorithms progress, new autonomous programs able to perform a wider range of functions by themselves are expected to assist human programmers and security experts defending DOD networks from intrusions and malicious actors.

Given the volume and where I see the threat moving, it will be impossible for humans by themselves to keep pace, Halvorsen added.

Much of the conceptual development surrounding this AI phenomenon hinges upon the recognition that computers are often faster and more efficient at performing various procedural functions; at the same time, many experts maintain that human cognition is important when it comes to solving problems or responding to fast-changing, dynamic situations.

However, in some cases, industry is already integrating automated computer programs designed to be deceptive giving potential intruders the impression that what they are probing is human activity.

For example, executives from the cybersecurity firm Galois are working on a more sophisticated version of a honey pot tactic, which seeks to create an attractive location for attackers, only to glean information about them.

Honey pots are an early version ofcyberdeception. We are expanding on that concept and broadening it greatly, said Adam Wick, research head at Galois.

A key element of these techniques uses computer automation to replicate human behavior to confuse a malicious actor, hoping to monitor or gather information from traffic going across a network.

Its goal is to generate traffic that misleads the attacker, so that the attacker cannot figure out what is real and what is not real, he added.

The method generates very human looking web sessions, Wick explained. An element of this strategy is to generate automated or fake traffic to mask web searches and servers so that attackers do not know what is real.

Fake computers look astonishingly real, he said. We have not to date been successful in always keeping people off of our computers. How can we make the attackers job harder once they get to the site, so they are not able to distinguish useful data from junk.

Using watermarks to identify cyber behavior of malicious actors is another aspect of this more offensive strategy to identify and thwart intruders.

We cant predict every attack. Are we ever going to get where everything is completely invulnerable? No, but with AI, we can change the configuration of a network faster than humans can, Halvorsen added.

The concept behind the AI approach is to isolate a problem, reroute around it, and then destroy the malware.

About the Author

Kris Osborn is editor-in-chief of Defense Systems. He can be reached at kosborn@1105media.com.

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Pentagon sees more AI involvement in cybersecurity - Defense Systems

The worst cliche in pop culture is the suggestion that platonic friendship is just true love waiting to happen. I don't say worst only because it's lazy, which it is, but because it's a dangerous, false and cruel idea for entertainment to promote.

Chuck Klosterman, in his 2003 book "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs," described this as the "When Harry Met Sally" problem, referring to the romantic comedy that "made it realistic to suspect your best friend may be your soul mate, and it made wanting such a scenario comfortably conventional."

Plenty of movies and shows before and since have validated the notion that a friend you happen to develop romantic feelings for is just a future lover who doesn't realize it yet. Almost every long-running television series featuring an opposite-sex friendship has at some point fallen back on the "let's hook them up" storyline. It makes sense you can't fill 11 seasons of "Friends" or "Cheers" without eventually pairing off some of the leads.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the best and most important show ever created seriously, fight me on this had a clever way of handling the inevitable sexual tension between its lead female and male characters: it abstained.

Fans of the show last week celebrated the 20th anniversary of its premiere on the WB network. Plenty has been written in the media about this milestone, and there is a lot to say about the Joss Whedon series' formal inventiveness, its fierce feminist message, its powerful LGBT advocacy, its subversion of narrative tropes and its role in normalizing geek culture.

But what I remember most from the shows seven-year run is a warning about mixing friendship and more-than-friendship. In the finale of the first season, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) finally musters the courage to confess to his best friend Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) that he loves her. He delivers a well-rehearsed speech asking her to a school dance, but she says no.

Buffy, taken aback by the unexpected advance, feels terrible about rejecting her friend. Xander, his pride wounded by the rebuke, says something mean and stomps off, leaving her hurt and confused even though she didnt do anything. Later in the episode, Xander recognizes that his friendship with Buffy, and all the demon-fighting they do together, is more important than his precious feelings and saves her from death at the hands of a vampire master, as one does.

Its a delicate handling of something almost everyone encounters, some of us more than others. An even better episode in the second season found Xander empowered by a misfired love spell that made him the object of lust for every girl in school, including his onetime friend-crush, Buffy, where he learns that getting what you think you want might actually be a nightmare.

The show should be mandatory viewing for every high-school student. If Id seen and internalized it when it originally aired, instead of when I fell into a Netflix rabbit hole at about age 30, I might have avoided years of dumb behavior.

For the longest time, I was one of those dudes who would always fail romantically, blame everyone but himself, then use the failure as an excuse to become embittered instead of addressing an underlying terror of intimacy. I was a Xander, which is to say, a jerk.

A Xander will complain about the friend zone as if its some dark corner of the Buffyverse to which all nice guys are banished. He'll will read an embarrassing number of books by self-described pick-up artists (any number above zero is embarrassing) not to learn about human behavior but to gain tools of revenge. He'll act like a victim even though hes the one ruining relationships.

Age cured this self-affliction, but not soon enough. There arent many things from my teens and 20s I want to do over, but I would go to the Hellmouth and back for a few more youthful years uncursed by Xanderness.

Troy Reimink is a writer and musician who lives in west Michigan.

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Troy Reimink: 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' helped me become less of a jerk - Traverse City Record Eagle

According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, depression and anxiety are major causes for illness and death. Maybe you're feeling a bit down this time of year. If so, you are not alone. A nationwide survey indicated that 6 to 8 percent of Minnesotans reported being depressed. Cold winters and long nights do not help matters. Those who study human behavior confirm the idea that if we do not take action, we will tend to stay "down in the dumps." Getting down occasionally is a normal human experience. Staying down is not.

In abnormal cases of depression, the individual wants to feel this way and tends to hold others responsible for it. He believes other people owe him special attention and sympathy. He does not know what has caused him to feel this way and fears that something worse may happen. This individual, with full support of family and friends, should get help right away.

In a more typical case of the "doldrums," we acknowledge that it is not good to be like this, and we do not want it to continue. We feel guilty about being depressed and are willing to admit that it is our own fault. We are not alone in this. Even people in the Bible suffered in this way. One person that stands out to me is the prophet Elijah who appears to be experiencing a temporary state of depression in I Kings Chapter 19. In that passage, three responses to depression come to my mind.

First, do a self-inventory and try to identify the possible causes for our depression. In Elijah's case, he wanted his life to be over because he did not believe he was better than his ancestors (I Kings 19:4). This was pride on his part. Other causes for depression might be selfish anger, refusal to carry out our responsibilities, or running from our problems. Honestly acknowledging our own sinful behavior is the first step to getting right with God.

Next, allow your feelings to motivate you to see what really matters. In I Kings 19:1-7, God sent an angel to encourage Elijah to look at the big picture. God used this down time in Elijah's life to guide the thoughts of his wayward prophet toward the task at hand an upcoming journey that he needed to prepare for. God provided food and water to refresh him. Thus strengthened with physical nourishment, Elijah could respond to God's wisdom and encouragement.

Finally, choose to get back up and do what God wants you to do. In I Kings 19:8, Elijah "arose, and ate and drank, and went..." The depressed feelings were real, but thankfully, only temporary. When Elijah stopped making excuses for himself and started listening to God, his life dramatically improved. Elijah had failed to distinguish between what he wanted and what God wanted.

Getting what we want seldom makes us happy. Obeying what God wants is the right response. God wants us to make it our goal to be pleasing to him and useful to others. Being depressed and self-focused is never pleasing to God. Our designer did not create us to live that way. However, when we get our eyes off ourselves and focus on what's important, as Elijah did, God will restore us and get us back on track.

The Rev. Joe Whiting makes his home in Two Harbors with his wife, two sons, and a standard poodle. On Faith is a weekly column in the News-Chronicle written by area religious leaders.

Continued here:
On Faith: Back on track - Lake County News Chronicle