Evolution
Into Africa – the human ancestors from Asia
The human family tree may not have taken root in Africa after all, claimscientists, after finding that its ancestors may have travelled from Asia.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent 7:00PM BST 27 Oct 2010
While it is widelyaccepted that man evolved in Africa, in fact its immediate predecessors mayhave 1colonised thecontinent after developing elsewhere, the study says.
The claims are madeafter a team 2unearthedthe fossils of anthropoids – the primate group that includes humans, apes andmonkeys – in Libya's Dur At-Talah.
Paleontologistsfound that 3amongstthe 39 million year old fossils there were three distinct families ofanthropoid primates, all of whom lived in the 4area at approximately the same time.
Few or anyanthropoids are known to have existed in Africa during this 5period, known as theEocene epoch.
This could eithersuggest a huge gap in Africa's fossil record – 6unlikely, say the scientists, given the amount ofarchaeological work undertaken in the area –7 or that the species "colonised" Africafrom another continent at this time.
As the evolutioninto three species would have 8taken extreme lengths of time, combined with the lack of fossilrecords in Africa, the team concludes that Asia was the most likely 9origin.
Writing in thejournal Nature, the experts said they believed migration from Asia to be themost 10plausibletheory.
Christopher Beard,of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said: "11If our ideas are correct,this early colonisation of Africa by anthropoids was a truly 12pivotal event — one ofthe key points in our evolutionary history.
"At the time,Africa was an island continent; when these 13anthropoids appeared, there was nothing on thatisland that could compete with them.
"It led to aperiod of flourishing evolutionary divergence amongst anthropoids, and one ofthose lineages 14resultedin humans.
"If our earlyanthropoid ancestors had not succeeded in migrating from Asia to Africa, wesimply 15wouldn'texist."
He added:"This extraordinary new fossil site in Libya shows us that in the middleEocene, 39 million years ago, there was a surprising diversity of anthropoidsliving in Africa, whereas few if any anthropoids are known from Africa beforethis time.
"This suddenappearance of such diversity suggests that these anthropoids probably colonisedAfrica from somewhere else.
"Withoutearlier fossil evidence in Africa, we're currently looking to Asia as the placewhere these animals first evolved."
阅读。。选自nytimes,就几千字一篇，讲之前在Wall Street 工作的Mr. Murray患了brain cancer后，写了本书，有五个decisions要readers遵循，然后就是回答问题:
There are no one-handed push-ups orheadstands on the
yoga
mat for Gordon Murray anymore.
No more playing bridge, either — he jokingly accuses his brainsurgeon of robbing him of the gray matter that contained all the biddingstrategy.
But when Mr. Murray, a former bond salesman for
GoldmanSachs
who rose to the managing director level at bothLehmanBrothers
and Credit Suisse First Boston, decided to cease alltreatment five months ago for his glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, hisfirst impulse was not to mourn what he couldn’t do anymore or to buy an islandor to move to Paris. Instead, he hunkered down in his tiny home office here andchanneled whatever remaining energy he could muster into a slim paperback. It’scalled “The Investment Answer,” and he wrote it with his friend andfinancialadviser
Daniel Goldie to explain investing in a handful of simplesteps.
Why a book? And why this subject? Nine years ago, after retiringfrom 25 years of pushing
bonds
on pension andmutual fund
managerstrying to beat the market averages over long periods of time, Mr. Murray had anepiphany about the futility of his former customers’ pursuits.
He eventually went to work as a consultant for Dimensional FundAdvisors, a mutual fund company thatrailsagainst active money management. So whenhis death sentence arrived, Mr. Murray knew he had to work quickly and resolvedto get the word out to as many everyday investors as he could.
“This is one of the true benefits of having a brain tumor,” Mr.Murray said, laughing. “Everyone wants to hear what you have to say.”
He and Mr. Goldie have managed to beat the clock, finishing andprinting the book themselves while Mr. Murray is still alive. It is plentyuseful for anyone who isn’t already investing in a collection of index orsimilar funds and dutifully rebalancing every so often.
But the mere fact that Mr. Murray felt compelled to write it isitself a remarkable story of an almost willful ignorance of the futility ofactive money management — and how he finally stumbled upon a better way ofinvesting. Mr. Murray now stands as one the highest-ranking Wall Streetveterans to take back much of what he and his colleagues worked for duringtheir careers.
Mr. Murray grew up in Baltimore, about the farthest thing from acrusader that you could imagine. “I was the kid you didn’t want your daughterto date,” he said. “I stole baseball cards and cheated on Spanish tests andmade fun of the fat kid in the corner with glasses.”
He got a lot of second chances thanks to an affluent backgroundand basketball prowess. He eventually landed at Goldman Sachs, long before manypeople looked askance at anyone who worked there.
“Our word was our bond, and good ethics was good business,” hesaid of his Wall Street career. “That got replaced by liar
loans
and ‘I hope I’m gone by the time this thing blowsup.’ ”
After rising to managing director at two other
banks, Mr. Murray retired in 2001.
At the time, his personal portfolio was the standard Wall Streetbig-shot barbell, with a pile of
municipalbonds
at one end to provide safe tax-free income and
privateequity
and hedge fund
investments
at the other.
When some of those bonds came due,
he sought out Mr. Goldie, a former professional tennis player and 1989 Wimble don quarterfinalist, for advice on what to buy next. Right away, Mr. Goldie began teaching him about Dimensional’s funds.
The fact that Mr. Murray knew little up until that point aboutbasic
assetallocationamong stocks and bonds and otherinvestments or the failings of active portfolio management is shocking, untilyou consider the self-regard that his master-of-the-universe colleagues taughthim. “It’s American to think that if you’re smart or work hard, then you canbeat the markets,” he said.
But it didn’t take long for Mr. Murray to become a true believerin this different way of investing. “I learned more through Dan and Dimensionalin a year than I did in 25 years on Wall Street,” he said.
Soon Dimensional hired him as a consultant, helping financialadvisers who use its funds explain the company’s anti-Wall Street investmentphilosophy to its clients. “The most inspirational people who talk aboutalcoholism are people who have gone through A.A.,” said
David Booth,Dimensional’s founder and chairman. “It’s the people who have had theexperience and now see the light who are our biggest advocates.”
Playing that role was enough for Mr. Murray until he received hisdiagnosis in 2008. But not long after, in the wake of the financial collapse,
he testified before aopen briefing at the House of Representatives, wondering aloud how it was possible that prosecutors had not yet woncriminal convictions against anyone in charge at his old firms and theircompetitors.
In June of this year, a brain scan showed a new tumor, and Mr.Murray decided to stop all aggressive medical treatment. For several years, hehad thought about somehow codifying his newfound investment principles, and Mr.Goldie had a hunch that writing the book would be a life-affirming task for Mr.Murray.
“I had balance in my life, and there was no bucket list,” Mr.Murray said. “The first thing you do is think about your wife and kids, butRandi would have killed me having me around 24/7. I had to do something.” Thecouple have two grown children.
And so he has tried to use his condition as a way to get people topay attention. The book asks readers to make just five decisions.
First, will you go it alone? The twoauthors suggest hiring an adviser who earns fees only from you and not frommutual funds or
insurance
companies, which is how Mr. Goldie now runs his business.
Second,divide your money among stocks and bonds, big and small, and value and growth.The pair notes that a less volatile portfolio may earn more over time than onewith higher volatility and identical average returns. “If you don’t have bigdrops, the portfolio can compound at a greater rate,” Mr. Goldie said.
Then, further subdivide between foreign and domestic.Keep in mind that putting anything less than about half of your stock money inforeign securities is a bet in and of itself, given that American stocks’ shareof the overall global equities market keeps falling.
Fourth, decide whether you will be investing in active orpassively managed mutual funds. No one can predict the future with anyregularity, the pair note, so why would you think that active managers can beattheir respective indexes over time?
Finally, rebalance, by selling your winners and buyingmore of the losers. Most people can’t bring themselves to do this, even thoughit improves returns over the long run.
This is not new, nor is it rocket science. But Mr. Murrayspent 25 years on Wall Street without having any idea how to invest like agrown-up. So it’s no surprise that most of America still doesn’t either.
Mr. Murray is home for good now, wearing fuzzy slippersto combat nerve damage in his feet and receiving the regular ministrations ofhospice nurses.
He generally starts his mornings with his iPad,since he can no longer hold up a newspaper. After a quick scan, he fires off ane-mail to Mr. Goldie, pointing to the latest articles about people takingadvantage of unwitting investors.
The continuing parade of stories does not seem to depresshim, though. Instead, it inspires him further, bringing life to his days. “Tohave a purpose and a mission for me has been really special,” he said. “It probablyhas added days to my life.”
In a cruel twist, one of Mr. Murray’s closefriends, CharlesDavis, chief executiveof the private equity firm Stone Point Capital, lost his son Tucker to cancerearlier this year. In his last several months, Tucker was often on the phonewith Mr. Murray.
“Gordon has a peace about him, halfway between WallStreet establishment and a hippie,” Mr. Davis said. “It was clear that he andmy son could talk in a way that very few people can, since they were in apretty exclusive club that nobody really wants to join.”
Mr. Murray managed to outlive Tucker, but he does notexpect to see his 61st birthday in March. Still, he didn’t bother memorializinghimself with a photograph on his book cover or even mention his illness inside.“I’m sick of me,” he said.
But he plays along with the dying banker angle, willingto do just about anything to make sure that his message is not forgotten, evenif he fades from memory himself.
“Thisbook has increased the quality of his life,” Mr. Davis said. “And it’s givenhim the knowledge and understanding that if, in fact, the end is near, that theend is not the end.”
一篇阅读是介绍华尔街的一个成功投资家的，他在诊断出绝症后决定把自己的投资技巧写成书，供大家参考。文章后只给出了四个问答题，每小题10分，供四十分。记得最后一题是要解释文中的一句话，when the end is near, the end is not the end.
最后一部分是作文，就给出了一句话，Not all that counts in life can be counted, 根据这个话题写一篇400字以上的作文。