The fossils of Antarctica

One hundred million years ago, Antarctica was covered in thick forests, inhabited by dinosaurs. It was a time of warmth, when the polar ice-caps had practically melted. Robert Scott in 1912, was the first to notice fossilized plants. Later Jane Francis of the University of Leeds, as well as others, discovered more. Francis found stunted beech bushes, which were only 3 to 5 million years ago. These plants and trees survived despite unusual polar conditions of night or darkness throughout the winter, and sun and light throughout the summer.
Polar dinosaurs may have lived there throughout the year. A complete dinosaur skeleton was found of Leaellynasura, which looked somewhat like a small kangaroo, lived on plants, and had enlarged optic lobes, indicating it could see in the dark.
Another dinosaur known from its fossils was a meat-eating creature, more than 2 metres tall, living in the James Ross region of Antarctica. It was probably a Titanosaur.
There is also evidence of tetrapods living in Antarctica 245 million years ago.
A meteorite from Mars is believed to have fossilized microbial life.
Recently, there are claims of tiny humanoid fossils being found, which existed 600 million years ago!
Given what we know about human evolution, this is a near impossibility, and I am yet to see something about this in a scientific journal.
But obviously, Antarctica has many mysteries that are still to be discovered.

The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor

There was a book fair in the city recently. There were plenty of books at reduced prices. I was looking to add to my collection on world history, and managed to pick up The Berlin Wall. This book [486pages] is an account of the wall from its inception to its destruction. It analyses the politics behind its construction, and during the time it existed, and the numerous people involved. There is a chapter on the heroic escapes from East to West. The book is interesting, the wall being just one aspect of the Cold War.

Guns, Germs and Steel

Guns, Germs and Steel: a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years by Jared Diamond [first published 1997]. [A review]



This book tries to understand European colonialism, and European domination of the world, beginning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The title of the book is a brief summary of the answer-- the Americas and Australia, conquered and resettled by Europeans, did not have either guns or steel to defend themselves. Nor did they have horses, which were often crucial in early warfare. Disease germs such as small pox and tuberculosis brought by Europeans, were new to the regions they conquered, and the native people were decimated by diseases they had never encountered before.
Of course, the almost 500 page book has much more than this. It attempts to present a broad sweep of history, beginning with the occupation of the world. It provides examples of how weapons and germs devastated certain groups, and then goes on to try and understand how these weapons and germs came to be in Europe. Food production, leading to a surplus, was the basis for sedentary, complex societies, which led to diversification and the development of technology, as well as of writing and political organisation. Animal domestication was the basis for certain germs. Climate, terrain, and naturally available plants and animals were a crucial aspect of where agriculture would develop, how much it could increase, and how it could spread.
This winner of the 1998 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize is vast in its scope.
Some of its ideas are now outdated or disproved, as for instance the view that agriculture spread through Eurasia from the Fertile Crescent.
Why did Europe suddenly overtake Asia in development and technology? Why did Europeans and not the great Asian empires colonise the world? These questions need more analysis, but the book is still an interesting read.