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College of Advanced Health Science & Technology

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Here we archive news and events as they happen in and around CAHST, including relevant information from around the world. Feel free to leave a comment on any article that grabs your interest or you even contribute relevant content yourself and have people reference your post. Just have fun!

Oldest Homo sapiens fossil claim rewrites our species’ history

NHM London/CC BY

Fossils of early members of Homo sapiens found in Morocco (left) display a more elongated skull shape than do modern humans (right).

Researchers say that they have found the oldest Homo sapiens remains on record in an improbable place: Morocco.

At an archaeological site near the Atlantic coast, finds of skull, face and jaw bones identified as being from early members of our species have been dated to about 315,000 years ago. That indicates H. sapiens appeared more than 100,000 years earlier than thought: most researchers have placed the origins of our species in East Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The finds, which are published on 7 June in Nature12, do not mean that H. sapiens originated in North Africa. Instead, they suggest that the species’ earliest members evolved all across the continent, scientists say.

“Until now, the common wisdom was that our species emerged probably rather quickly somewhere in a ‘Garden of Eden’ that was located most likely in sub-Saharan Africa,” says Jean-Jacques Hublin, an author of the study and a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Now, “I would say the Garden of Eden in Africa is probably Africa — and it’s a big, big garden.” Hublin was one of the leaders of the decade-long excavation at the Moroccan site, called Jebel Irhoud.

Jaws and tools

Hublin first became familiar with Jebel Irhoud in the early 1980s, when he was shown a puzzling specimen of a lower jawbone of a child from the site. Miners had discovered a nearly complete human skull there in 1961; later excavations had also found a braincase, as well as sophisticated stone tools and other signs of human presence.

The bones “looked far too primitive to be anything understandable, so people came up with some weird ideas”, Hublin says. Researchers guessed they were 40,000 years old and proposed that Neanderthals had lived in North Africa.

More recently, researchers have suggested that the Jebel Irhoud humans were an ‘archaic’ species that survived in North Africa until H. sapiens from south of the Sahara replaced them. East Africa is where most scientists place our species’ origins: two of the oldest known H. sapiens fossils — 196,000 and 160,000-year-old skulls34 — come from Ethiopia, and DNA studies of present-day populations around the globe point to an African origin some 200,000 years ago5.

Decade-long dig

Hublin first visited Jebel Irhoud in the 1990s, only to find the site buried. He didn’t have the time or money to excavate it until 2004, after he had joined the Max Planck Society. His team rented a tractor and bulldozer to remove some 200 cubic metres of rock that blocked access.

Their initial goal was to re-date the site using newer methods, but in the late 2000s, the team uncovered more than 20 new human bones relating to at least five individuals, including a remarkably complete jaw, skull fragments and stone tools. A team led by archaeological scientist Daniel Richter and archaeologist Shannon McPherron, also at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, dated the site and all the human remains found there to between 280,000 and 350,000 years old using two different methods.

The re-dating and the tranche of new human bones convince Hublin that early H. sapiens once lived at Jebel Irhoud. “It’s a face you could cross in the street today,” he says. The teeth — although big compared with those of today’s humans — are a better match to H. sapiens than they are to Neanderthals or other archaic humans. And the Jebel Irhoud skulls, elongated compared with those of later H. sapiens, suggest that these individuals’ brains were organized differently.

Hublin/Ben-Ncer/Bailey/et al./Nature

A facial reconstruction of fragments of an early Homo sapiens skull found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco.

This offers clues about the evolution of the H. sapiens lineage into today’s anatomically modern humans. Hublin suggests that anatomically modern humans may have acquired their characteristic faces before changes to the shape of their brains occurred. Moreover, the mix of features seen in the Jebel Irhoud remains and other H. sapiens-like fossils from elsewhere in Africa point to a diverse genesis for our species, and raises doubt about an exclusively East African origin.

“What we think is before 300,000 years ago, there was a dispersal of our species — or at least the most primitive version of our species — throughout Africa,” Hublin says. Around this time, the Sahara was green and filled with lakes and rivers. Animals that roamed the East African savanna, including gazelles, wildebeest and lions, also lived near Jebel Irhoud, suggesting that these environments were once linked.

Genomic evidence

An earlier origin for H. sapiens is further supported by an ancient-DNA study posted to the bioRxiv preprint server on 5 June6. Researchers led by Mattias Jakobsson at Uppsala University in Sweden sequenced the genome of a boy who lived in South Africa around 2,000 years ago — only the second ancient genome from sub-Saharan Africa to be sequenced. They determined that his ancestors on the H. sapiens lineage split from those of some other present-day African populations more than 260,000 years ago.

Hublin says his team tried and failed to obtain DNA from the Jebel Irhoud bones. A genomic analysis could have clearly established whether the remains lie on the lineage that leads to modern humans.

Palaeontologist Jeffrey Schwartz, at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, says the new finds are important — but he is not convinced that they should be considered H. sapiens. Too many different-looking fossils have been lumped together under the species, he thinks, complicating efforts to interpret new fossils and to come up with scenarios on how, when and where our species emerged.

Homo sapiens, despite being so well known, was a species without a past until now,” says María Martínon-Torres, a palaeoanthropologist at University College London, noting the scarcity of fossils linked to human origins in Africa. But the lack of features that, she says, define our species — such as a prominent chin and forehead — convince her that the Jebel Irhoud remains should not be considered H. sapiens.

Shannon McPherron, MPI EVA Leipzig/CC-BY-SA 2.0

The site in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco. When the site was occupied by early humans, it would have been a cave; the covering rock and much sediment was removed by work in the 1960s.

Forefront of evolution

Chris Stringer, a palaeoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, who co-authored a News & Views article accompanying the studies, says he was baffled by the Jebel Irhoud remains when he first saw them in the early 1970s. He knew that they weren’t Neanderthals, but they seemed too young and primitive-looking to be H. sapiens. But with the older dates and the new bones, Stringer agrees that the Jebel Irhoud bones stand firmly on the H. sapiens lineage. “They shift Morocco from a supposed backwater in the evolution of our species to a prominent position,” he adds.

For Hublin, who was born in nearby Algeria and fled at the age of eight when its war of independence began, returning to North Africa to a site that has captivated him for decades was an emotional experience. “I feel like I have a personal relationship with this site,” he says. “I cannot say we closed a chapter, but we came to such an amazing conclusion after this very long journey. It blows my mind.”


Culled from: Nature News https://www.nature.com/news/oldest-homo-sapiens-fossil-claim-rewrites-our-species-history-1.22114?WT.mc_id=SFB_NNEWS_1508_RHBox

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About the Paramedics/Emergency Medical Technology Programme

EMT

 

In partnership with the Canadian Center for Biomedical Sciences and Allied Health Study, Canada, the College of Advanced Health Science and Technology (CAHST) invites applications from interested individuals for trainee  Paramedics / Primary Care Emergency Medical Technologists.

Paramedics are an important player in any health system and contribute to saving a number of lives, especially in providing pre-hospital intervention. Being a paramedic is all about teamwork. There’s a sense of camaraderie you won’t find in many other jobs. But it takes a special kind of person. You must love to help people because you’ll be dealing with all ages in all kinds of crises. You have to work well under pressure, because you’ll be delivering pre-hospital emergency care in people’s homes, in the middle of busy streets, and/or at industrial sites or in your practice centre.

Trainees learn human anatomy and physiology, patho­physiology, pharmacology and related courses, gain skills in advanced life support procedures, and learn to diagnose and treat patients in a variety of medical and trauma situations. Emphasis is on authentic hands-on training in pre-hospital emergency care, with both hospital and ambulance practicums.

On completion, you are eligible to practice as Emergency Medical Technician/Paramedic and will respond to calls for service as per dispatch instructions, providing assessment, treatment and transportation of ill or injured persons. The EMT will cover standby assignments, as operations require.

You’ll focus on:

  • medical and trauma injuries
  • mental health issues
  • obstetrical emergencies
  • pharmacology
  • physical assessments of various body systems
  • cardiac and respiratory emergencies
  • certifications in
    • geriatric education for EMS
    • International Trauma Life Support (ITLS)
    • Pediatric Education for Prehospital Professionals (PEPP)
    • Health Care Provider Level C Certification (HCP-C)

Lab and Simulation Training – The PCP program emphasizes hands-on learning. You’ll spend about one-third of your time in the classroom, one-third in practical labs and one-third in high-fidelity simulation. State-of-the-art simulation facilities use a wide range of scenarios to help you develop your critical thinking and decision-making skills.

  • Field Practicums – You’ll take the knowledge that you’ve learned in the classroom and put it to work with an emergency medical services (EMS) organization (usually ambulance service) to learn about policies, procedures and documentation; conduct independent patient assessments; and provide treatment using ambulance equipment.
  • Clinical Practicums – During your hospital-based practicum, you’ll conduct independent patient assessments and use hospital equipment to provide treatment. You’ll also learn about hospital policies, procedures and documentation.

To apply now visit the application form page.

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The Promise and Pitfalls of Nuclear Power and Health: Insights from Japan

Learning about the particle's true nature
Learning about the particle’s true nature

Japan’s response to an earthquake highlights both the promise and the pitfalls of nuclear power at a critical time for its future.

On the face of it, the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company seem to have reacted competently when an earthquake occurred some 20 kilometres from a huge nuclear facility on 16 July

The incident, at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata prefecture on Japan’s western coast, could have been serious. Seven reactors on the largest single-site nuclear-power facility in the world were hit by a quake of magnitude 6.8, exceeding their design capacity of 6.5.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe responded swiftly to the event, directly instructing the operator to come clean about the full facts of the case. The operator duly grovelled about some incomplete information that was released in the hours after the earthquake.

The nuclear fall-out from the incident was, thankfully, minimal. Despite a few minute leaks into cooling water and the atmosphere, and the upending of some wheelie bins containing low-level nuclear waste, the reactors and their materials seem to have been reassuringly well contained. That’s a substantial engineering achievement.

English: One of the photos taken at the Fukush...
English: One of the photos taken at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant tour sponsored by the Tokyo Electric Power Company on June 23, 1999. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the same time, questions are being asked about why this facility was built on a seismically active fault line. Japan manages to combine an intense hunger for nuclear-generating capacity with a dearth of seismically inactive sites. But last week’s event was the third time in as many years that a nuclear power station in Japan has been subjected to an earthquake more powerful than it was designed to withstand. It would seem that the nuclear regulator, the Nuclear Safety Commission, needs to involve seismologists more fully in its site approval process — and to raise its standards. This need not preclude the construction of new facilities: nuclear power stations in Japan have already been designed and built to deal with earthquakes of magnitude 8.

The power company’s response also seemed a little shaky in the immediate aftermath of the quake — saying that emergency-response teams were difficult to assemble because it was the Marine Day holiday, for example, was unlikely to inspire public confidence. But the subsequent flow of information on the situation inside the plant seemed reassuringly complete. Regular updates for the local population and a comprehensive release of data on the nature of the faults caused by the earthquake combined to suggest that both the operator and the government have learned a lot — including the sublime benefits of transparency — from their shaky track record in this realm in past decades.

The Japanese government has learned about the sublime benefits of transparency regarding nuclear power.

A larger pall is cast by the commercial consequences of the inevitable decision to close the seven reactors on the site until there has been a full assessment of the damage done. The loss of eight gigawatts of electrical-generating capacity (enough to power half of Tokyo) is a major blow despite the well-planned nature of Japan’s generating system. In a precautionary move, major industrial corporations have been asked to plan reductions in their peak power consumption to help see the grid through the summer peak in electricity demand.

Global warming and high energy prices have put nuclear power firmly back in the picture around the world. Plans are afoot to build new plants in Britain and the United States, and China and India look set to press ahead with nuclear power on a significant scale.

Investors in planned nuclear plants continue to worry about waste disposal and liability issues, and look to sympathetic governments to provide assurance regarding these. Lurking in the back of their minds, however, is the ever-present risk of accidents of the sort that played havoc with the global industry at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979 and at Chernobyl in 1986. Another such event could undermine political support for nuclear power and so up-end their planned investments altogether, possibly before a single megawatt of power is generated and sold.

On balance, last week’s events go some way towards bearing out the industry line that such unfortunate incidents can be averted. For that to remain the case will demand not revolutionary, next-generation technology, but rather a combination of diligent engineering, careful regulation and public transparency.

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FEC Approves Six-Levels NVQF for Nigeria

English: Seal of the President of Nigeria Cate...

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The Federal Executive Council (FEC) had at its meeting of Wednesday April 10, 2013 approved a Six-Level National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF) for the country. In her briefing at the end of the meeting, the Honourable Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i explained that the framework as approved by the Federal Executive Council would recognize and certify skills and vocations outside the school system and place same in the scheme of service.

“What this means is that Nigeria, for the first time, recognizes that skills development can be done within or outside the school system and there are six areas that are being developed in terms of coming from the lowest level to the highest level”, the minister explained.

National Vocational Qualifications Framework (NVQF) by President Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria

In meeting the skill needs of teeming youths and to address the ever-rising challenges of unemployment and under-employment, governments in many countries have been compelled to strengthen the link between vocational training institutions and the work place. This in most cases takes the form of closely involving the industry in developing occupational standards and work-based verification and continuous assessment of trainees and this is part of what we are about to witness today. In this way, it makes vocational skills qualifications more qualitative and relevant to the needs of the society.

In this way, they make vocational skills qualifications more qualitative and relevant to the needs of the society.  This process of bridging the gap between training and industry takes a formal structure through the establishment of some kind of qualifications framework

According to the  International Labour Organization (ILO), which has taken a  great deal of interest in this world wide phenomenon, a  qualifications framework is intended to improve  understanding of qualifications in terms of information they convey to an employer about prospective a worker’s competencies. Frameworks are also intended to explain how qualifications relate to each other and thus can be combined to build pathways within and across occupations in the education and training sectors.

Importance of National Vocational Qualifications in Development of Skills

The National Vocational Qualifications Framework (NVQF) is a system for the development, classification and recognition of skills, knowledge and competencies acquired by individuals, irrespective of where and how the training or skill was acquired. The system gives a clear statement of what the learner must know or be able to do whether the learning took place in a classroom, on the job, or less formally. The framework indicates the comparability of different qualifications and how one can progress from one level to another.

The concept of NVQ scheme, as currently popularised around the world, initially started in the UK in 1986. It has now spread widely to other countries, including: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Caribbean Islands, etc. At the moment, several African countries, including Ghana, Gambia, Mauritius, and Botswana, are also attempting to introduce it. A recent ILO survey indicates that over 70 countries are in the process of developing or implementing some kind of qualifications framework, either specifically for vocational skills training or for the entire education system. Apart from national systems, regional qualification frameworks have also emerged. Thus, we have European Qualifications Framework (EQF), Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQ), and there are plans for regional qualifications for the various African countries.

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ABOUT NYA

The Nigerian Young Academy (NYA) is a unified platform for interaction
among brilliant young researchers below the age of 45 in Nigeria who are
from various research disciplines and regions. The Academy seeks to nurture
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improving the state of the nation. The NYA recognizes excellence among
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