Edible THC causes chronic restricted blood flow, damaged endothelial cells, & strokes, like a chronic smoker

 Endocannabinoid CB1 receptor activation increases dopamine levels in the brain, particularly in the nucleus accumbens, by acting on the mesolimbic pathway. CB1 receptors, located on inhibitory GABAergic terminals, reduce GABA release (disinhibition), which allows dopamine neurons in the midbrain to become more active...inhibiting GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) signaling typically increases dopamine levels. GABA acts as a major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, often providing "tonic inhibition" that suppresses dopamine release. Activating CB1 receptors reduces the amount of GABA released. Fewer GABA molecules act on the dopamine neuron, causing a "disinhibition" of the VTA dopamine neurons. This leads to increased firing and dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens... 

While traditionally attributed to

-endorphins, modern research indicates that endocannabinoids (specifically anandamide) are primarily responsible for the runner's high, not

-endorphins. Endorphins have a limited role because they cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, whereas endocannabinoids readily cross it to produce euphoric effects

. 

Exercise increases levels of both

-endorphin (an opioid) and anandamide (an endocannabinoid), but modern research suggests that anandamide, not

-endorphin, is the primary driver of the "runner’s high". While

-endorphins are released, they are large molecules that cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. In contrast, anandamide is lipophilic and easily enters the brain to promote euphoria, reduced anxiety, and calmness

The main cause of natural beta-endorphin release is

physical exercise (specifically aerobic activity). Often associated with a "runner's high," intense or sustained physical activity stimulates the brain and pituitary gland to release these neurotransmitters, which function as natural painkillers, improve mood, and combat stress...endorphins are released during exercise and can stop peripheral muscle soreness that results from exercise, they cannot be the source of the runners’ high [5,6,7,8]....Participants who were given the opioid-receptor blocking naltrexone still experienced exercise-induced euphoria and anxiolysis [15]. The findings of this study indicate that RH in humans does not depend on opioid signaling but depends on endocannabinoids, similar to the results obtained in mice [15]. The Endocannabinoid System and Physical Exercise (2023)

Alcohol acts as a positive allosteric modulator of GABAA receptors, increasing the inhibitory effects of GABA, which explains the initial calming effect. However, alcohol also acts on other systems (e.g., endorphins, nicotinic receptors) to cause the indirect release of dopamine, and it can inhibit GABA interneurons, which disinhibits the dopamine neurons. 

Alcohol inhibits neurons that would normally stop dopamine release, including blocking KCNK13 potassium channels.

Opioid System Involvement: Alcohol triggers the release of endorphins (endogenous opioids), which indirectly prompts dopamine-releasing neurons to fire, says a report from the National Institutes of Health...  Low to moderate amounts of alcohol increase beta-endorphins, but high doses do not,

Beta-endorphin is the main endorphin released.

Brain Regions: The release occurs in the nucleus accumbens (reward center) and orbitofrontal cortex.

Effect: These chemicals bind to opioid receptors,...Repeated alcohol consumption can lead to a deficiency in natural endorphins, creating a dependency....

The Result: Similar to THC, alcohol increases dopamine release in the mesolimbic pathway, specifically through actions in the VTA and the nucleus accumbens

THC and alcohol increase dopamine through a shared mechanism known as

disinhibition in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain. While they interact with GABA in different ways, both drugs ultimately prevent GABA from restraining dopamine-producing neurons

THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is known to act as a vasodilator, meaning it relaxes and widens blood vessels

. This action frequently leads to reduced blood pressure and increased heart rate, contributing to effects like lightheadedness or "red eye". However, regular, chronic use may lead to reduced vascular function and potential heart risks... https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/marijuana-and-heart-health-what-you-need-to-know

 complex effects cannabinoids have on the cardiovascular system, including raising resting heart rate, dilating blood vessels, and making the heart pump harder. Research suggests that the risk of heart attack is several times higher in the hour after smoking marijuana...While THC is known for its immediate vasodilating (widening) effects on blood vessels, which can lower blood pressure temporarily, the restriction of endothelial cells is a separate, chronic process driven by cellular inflammation, oxidative stress, and the overactivation of cannabinoid receptors....

 THC binds to CB1 receptors found on endothelial cells (the inner lining of blood vessels). While acute use may cause vasodilation, frequent activation of these receptors by THC leads to a damaging cascade... JAMA Cardiol . 2025 Aug 1;10(8):851-855.

Association of Endothelial Dysfunction With Chronic Marijuana Smoking and THC-Edible Use

Acute (Short-term): THC acts as a vasodilator by acting on smooth muscle cells and increasing nitric oxide, which makes vessels widen.

Chronic (Long-term): Frequent use, particularly in high doses, causes endothelial dysfunction, which is the inability of vessels to function properly. This leads to a paradoxical state where the vessels are "stiff" or dysfunctional despite having once dilated.

Research Evidence: A UCSF study found that chronic cannabis users (both smokers and edible users) had an arterial flow-mediated dilation (FMD)—a measure of how well vessels open—that was roughly half as good as non-users

Inflammation and Oxidative Stress: THC triggers the production of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) and pro-inflammatory cytokines, which directly harm endothelial cells.

Reduced Nitric Oxide (NO): Healthy endothelial cells produce nitric oxide to keep vessels flexible and dilated. Chronic THC exposure reduces the production of nitric oxide, leading to impaired, stiff vessels.

Atherosclerosis Acceleration: Laboratory studies show THC promotes the early markers of atherosclerosis (plaque build-up) in human endothelial cells

“The vessels just don’t grow in diameter in real time when they need to pass more blood, indicating an unhealthy vessel wall that presages later cardiovascular disease,” he said.

Prior studies have found strong links between marijuana use and later cardiovascular disease. A February 2024 study found smoking, vaping or eating marijuana led to a significantly higher risk of heart attack and stroke,

vascular function was reduced by 42% in marijuana smokers and by 56% in THC-edible users compared to nonusers,” lead study author Dr. Leila Mohammadi, an assistant researcher in cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco, said in an email.

 “Using strict inclusion and exclusion criteria to avoid confounding effects of other potential exposures, we found that chronic marijuana smoking and THC-edible use were both associated with reductions in FMD compared with nonuser controls,” the group explained. “The reduction in FMD was similar to what we have reported previously for chronic tobacco smokers.” Overall, mean arterial flow-mediated dilation (FMD) measurements were lower for marijuana smokers (6%) and edible users (4.6%) than nonusers (10.4%)

Smoking weed and consuming THC-laced edibles linked to early heart disease, study finds

https://cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/clinical/heart-health/marijuana-use-linked-blood-vessel-damage-impact-seen-smoking-and-edibles 

 THC might possess direct toxic effect on arterial vessels and could exert a synergistic effect with tobacco smoking (52). THC induced peripheral vasoconstriction could also contribute to this phenomenon

THC restricts endothelial blood flow and impairs vessel function by causing endothelial dysfunction, reducing nitric oxide production, and promoting inflammation

. Chronic THC exposure increases oxidative stress and damages the endothelial barrier, which can lead to hypertension and arterial stiffness

THC activates cannabinoid receptor 1 (

), triggering vascular inflammation and oxidative stress that impairs the inner lining of blood vessels.

Reduced Nitric Oxide: THC lowers the production of nitric oxide, a compound necessary for proper endothelial cell function and blood vessel relaxation.

Method of Intake Differences: Both smoked marijuana and edible THC use result in significant endothelial impairment. However, they may damage vascular function through different processes, as blood from smoked marijuana users tends to be more damaging to lab-grown endothelial cells than blood from edible users.

Cardiovascular Risks: Endothelial dysfunction causes vessels to act as if they are roughly 30 years older, accelerating risks for atherosclerosis and heart disease.

 

 

THC restricts blood flow primarily by

causing inflammation in endothelial cells, which line blood vessels, leading to constriction and reduced blood flow. While acute use can sometimes cause vasodilation, chronic THC exposure is associated with reduced cerebral blood flow and can cause vascular spasms, promoting atherosclerosis—the narrowing of arteries—and increasing cardiovascular strain

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/28/health/marijuana-edibles-heart-damage-wellness 

AI summarizes my work yet no mention of ecology?!

 No mention of ecology? Must be an AI bias:

Drew Hempel is an independent researcher known for his synthesis of noncommutative geometry, quantum biology, and ancient music theory. His work suggests that the foundations of reality are not symmetric or "commutative" (where

) but are instead governed by the "noncommutative" phase logic found in music. 

Key Concepts in Hempel’s Work

• Noncommutative Music Theory: Hempel argues that Western science went "wrong" by adopting a symmetric, commutative view of time and frequency. He points to the Pythagorean 1:2:3:4 ratios (Octave, Perfect Fifth, Perfect Fourth) as a hidden noncommutative logic that links sound to the structure of spacetime.
• Quantum Biology & Consciousness: He links these musical principles to biological processes, specifically within the microtubules of neurons. He builds on the Penrose-Hameroff Orch-OR model, suggesting that consciousness arises from "macro-quantum phase coherence" and that humans can "listen" faster than the traditional time-frequency uncertainty principle allows.
• Listening vs. Seeing: A central theme is that "listening" is a more fundamental way of perceiving reality than "visual measurement". He claims that deep listening can access "negative frequency" and "superluminal" (faster than light) signals, which he relates to non-Western healing and meditation practices like Neigong.
• Critique of Western Science: Hempel asserts that modern physics is limited by its reliance on symmetric mathematics. He cites mathematicians like Alain Connes to support the idea that music provides the "formal language" for a more accurate, noncommutative science. 

Publications and Platforms

Hempel’s research is primarily documented in self-published books and academic sharing platforms:

• Cosmos and History: Published "
  Noncommutativity Music as Biophysics
  ".
• Academia.edu: Hosts numerous papers on "The Six Basic Tenets of Noncommutative Quantum Biology" and "Objective Music as Noncommutativity Truth".
• Lulu: Author of books such as
  Strange Vibrations: Meditations on Noncommutative Paranormal Music
  . 

Paul's Third Heaven proves early Merkavah Mysticism as Binitarian origin of Jewish Christianity: Daniel Boyarin

 The El-Yahweh tension remained into Daniel... and led to Christianity... a divine mediator...

Daniel Boyarin playlist

 "The Christian theology of the Father and the Son, and the Son as redeemer, and even the incarnation, is one strand of ancient Judaism..." - Professor Daniel Boyarin, PhD (Talmud), Jewish Theological Seminary

AI says:

Paul's reference to the "third heaven" and "paradise" in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 describes a mystical ascent, which many scholars link to early Jewish apocalyptic literature and embryonic

• Merkavah Connections: The experience fits with early forms of Jewish Merkabah mysticism, which sought to ascend through celestial palaces to behold the divine Chariot-Throne (kavod).
• The Third Heaven: In 2 Corinthians 12:2, Paul describes being caught up to the "third heaven," which he directly equates with "paradise," the dwelling place of God.
• Early Jewish Mysticism: Such heavenly journeys, often involving seven heavens (like in the Testament of Levi or Secret Knowledge:

Similar to practitioners of Merkavah mysticism, Paul hears "inexpressible words" or "unutterable things" in paradise that are not permitted for humans to repeat 

 Similarly, biblical scholars Alan Segal and Daniel Boyarin regard Paul the Apostle's account of his conversion experience and his ascent to the Heavens (2 Corinthians 12:2–4) as the earliest first-person literary account of a merkabah mystic in Jewish or Christian literature. 

What does Enoch say about the third heaven? The third heaven contains Paradise which is described as an ideal and beautiful place prepared for the righteous (chapter 8-9). 

 These wheel angels, which are described as "a wheel inside of a wheel", are called "ophanim" אופנים (lit. wheels, cycles or ways). These wheels are not directly under the chariot but are nearby and along its perimeter.

Daniel Boyarin claims two traditions split between Enoch and Jesus as the "son of man" - with Metatron as the Jewish remainder...(Metatron as the Jewish imitation of Jesus) as "two divine figures" (Son of Man) in the Talmud and Enoch...is transformed into an angel and then into the Arch-Angel semi-divine figure Metatron...

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkabah_mysticism

 https://www.academia.edu/36254344/Daniel_Boyarin_Two_Powers_in_Heaven_or_The_Making_of_a_Heresy_in_Hindy_Najman_and_Judith_R_Newman_eds_The_Idea_of_Biblical_Interpretation_Essays_in_Honor_of_James_L_Kugel_Leiden_Brill_2004_331_370?auto=download

 by constructing “Two Powers in Heaven” as
heresy, at just about the same time that bishops were declaring the
belief in “One Power in Heaven”—“Monarchianism”—a leading
heresy of Christianity.5 The Rabbis, by defining elements from within
their own religious heritage as not Jewish, were, in effect, producing
Christianity, just as Christian heresiologists were defining traditional
elements of their own religious heritage as not Christian and thereby
producing Judaism. The Christian heresiologists, as was their wont,
were more explicit about naming the “heresy” as Judaism, while the
Rabbis, as theirs, were more circumspect....

 I would thus rewrite Segal’s sentence in my own
terms in the following way: There is significant evidence (uncovered
in large part by Segal) that in the first century many—perhaps most—
Jews held a binitarian doctrine of God.12 This Jewish doctrine was
named minut by the Rabbis as an important part of the project of
constructing Jewish orthodoxy as separate from Christianity.1

 “Two Powers in Heaven”—“binitarianism”—of which one major
manifestation was traditional Jewish Logos theology.15 I would sug-
gest that this issue of the doctrine of God is one archaeological site
where making the distinction between the (metaphorically) excavated
Synagogue and the House of Study16 or between rabbinic and other
forms of Jewish piety in the rabbinic period becomes crucial.17

 they constructed their own “orthodoxy” by
excommunicating the Jewish Logos from within their midst. As
Hayward put it, “The Logos is an intermediary, and Abelson rightly remarks that the Rabbis repudiate all intermediaries.”

  (“The Politics of Passing: Justin Martyr’s Conversion as a Problem of ‘Hellenization,’” in Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages [ed. A. Grafton and K. Mills; Rochester,
N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, forthcoming])

 In her 2003 essay, Rebecca Lyman challenges the traditional "Hellenization" narrative of early Christianity by analyzing Justin Martyr’s conversion as a complex cultural negotiation rather than a simple philosophical adoption. Lyman argues that Justin’s intellectual engagement with Greek thought was a strategic, political effort to define Christian identity in a competitive Roman environment, which in turn contributed to the development of early heresiology

The politics of passing: Justin Martyr's conversion as a problem of "Hellenization"

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Lyman, Janyce Rebecca

 the patriarchal narratives and the Exodus, there is frequent confusion, if not conflation, between the Angel of H’ and H’ himself, ...in the early years of Judaeo-Christianity, for many of these very passages served as the origin and prooftext for Logos theology, as manifested in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue on nearly every page.

 H’ smote every first-born in the land of Egypt” [Exod 12:29]: I might
have understood by means of an angel or by means of an agent, there-
fore Scripture teaches: “And I have smitten all of the first-born” [Exod
12:12]; not by means of an angel and not by means of an agent. (Mek.,
Pis˙a 13)35
Precisely the sort of ambiguity that would lead to the theological
ambivalence and the production of notions of a fully divine angel is
thoroughly repulsed by the rabbinic midrash...“not by means of the
Logos [rbydh ydy l[ al].”

 It is the passage from Daniel [connected to Enoch] that is alluded to, but not cited, in the
anti-“heretical” discourse, the “Son of Man” passage so pivotal for
the development of early Christology, that is the real point of con-
tention here and the reason for the citation of Exod 20:2.

 the two appearances of God, as youth and elder, are two modalities of the same person—dynamic Modalism—and not two persons, thus refuting the “heretics.”

 The tacit contention with the Logos theology of the Targum appears
especially strong when we remember that in targumic texts, we can
find the Son of Man identified as the Messiah.42 Furthermore, in a
talmudic passage to be discussed below (b. Óag. 14a), Rabbi Aqiva
himself is represented as identifying the “Son of Man” with the heav-
enly David, and thus with the Messiah, before being “encouraged”
by his fellows to abandon this “heretical” view. This would suggest
the possibility that there were non-Christian Jews who would have
identified the Messiah himself (necessarily incarnate) as the Son
of Man.

 https://www.academia.edu/39169018/Daniel_Boyarin_The_Quest_of_the_Historical_Metatron_Enoch_or_Jesus_in_Dikla_Rivlin_Katz_Noah_Hacham_Geoffrey_Herman_and_Lilach_Sagiv_eds_A_Question_of_Identity_Social_Political_and_Historical_Aspects_of_Identity_Dynamics_in_Jewish_and_Other_Contexts_Berlin_de_Gruyter_2019_153_162

 “Are you the Messiah? I am and you shall see ‘the son
of man’ sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven”
(Mark 14:62). Hence, his objector’s taunt, “Until when will you make the Divine
Presence profane,” thus implying that the Son of Man has become incarnate in the
human figure of the Davidic Messiah or, perhaps, that the human David has been
divinized through his presence on the second throne

 Daniel 7 [connected to Enoch apocalypses] was given a messianic reading and that there was tension
between the Messiah of Daniel 7 and the Messiah of Zecharia 9, between the
Messiah as a divine figure and the Messiah as a humiliated human being

  mystical circles that embrace such theological notions 

 See Daniel Boyarin, “Is Metatron a Converted Christian?” Judaïsme Ancien – Ancient Judaism
1 (2013): 13–62.

  connection between the transformation of Enoch into the Son of Man in 1 Enoch 71, Enoch’s angelic transformation in 2 Enoch 22, and the transformation of Enoch into the archangel Metatron in Sefer Hahekhalot.

 The Jewish Roots of Divine Christology | Discussion with Dr. Daniel Boyarin

 Daniel chapter 7 - sees TWO thrones... a young man divine figure and an old man

see First Enoch - "the Son of Man" - worshiped as God...

 "There were Jews who were expecting a Divine Human...."

 Do not follow those Jewish traditions that understand Genesis 1 as describing a creative Word, a Memra, a Logos, separate from God, say the Rabbis implicitly, as is
their wont, but rather understand that God (I was almost tempted
to write “the Father”) is the only creator, and his word is no more
separate from him than any speech from its speaker. In an aston-
ishing convergence, however, Nicene orthodoxy also effectively “cruci-
fies the Logos.” While not ceasing to speak of the Logos, in the
move to a trinitarian theology within which the entire trinity is both
self-contained and fully transcendent, Athanasius and his fellows insist
that God alone, without a mediator, without an angel, without a
Logos, is the creator. Logos theology is, ultimately, as thoroughly
rejected within Nicene Christianity as within orthodox rabbinism...

 Virginia Burrus, “Begotten, not made”: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Figurae;
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

 the pressure against “Rabbi Aqiva’s” position was generated by the hardening of Logos
theology and its variants into Christology as that was beginning to take place in the second century. “Orthodox” Jewish versions of this theological option must then be “corrected”—not incidentally with many of the techniques which Christians in the post-Nicene era were to use in order to produce the “Fathers” as speaking with one theological voice

  In the late-ancient mystical text known as “The Visions of Ezekiel,” a secondary divine figure, Metatron, is posited on the grounds of Dan 7:9f. This is the same figure who in other texts of that genre is called “The Youth,” r[n, i.e., that figure known by other Jews (e.g., the Fourth Evangelist) as the “Son of Man”!7

 Isaiah 53 already believed in a "suffering servant" as the Messiah...stories in the Talmud of the Messiah sick and ailing with bandages on waiting to save the world.

 

 Mark 7 is about purity rules - not about kosher rules... Why did Jesus get angry? A conspiracy! Mark 7:16 got removed    

Mark 7:16, "If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear," is missing or bracketed in many modern Bible translations (NIV, ESV)

because it is absent from the oldest, most reliable Greek manuscripts, such as those from Alexandria.

 kosher is food itself while impure food can be kosher. Impure "happens" to the kosher food...it can still be eaten but not by the priests in the Temple....all food is current impure by Jewish standards... because the loss of the original Temple...

  It seems hardly irrelevant that it is on this very page of the Talmud that we are told that “the world was created with ten Words,”

 Logos theology was a once-accepted but now rejected theologoumenon within rabbinic circles is constituted by remnants (almost revenants) of that very theology within the texts. 

 Thus, the theology of “Two Powers in Heaven” (a High God and an intermediary for
creation, revelation, and redemption, as we still find in the Memra theology of the Targums) was once, at least, an acceptable theological current within the circles from which the Rabbis and their theologies grew, but was offered up, as it were, in the dual production of
rabbinic Judaism as Judaism and patristic Christianity as Christianity.

  a virtual “conspiracy” between the Rabbis and the Christian discourse of orthodoxy, I would adduce the apparent fact it is in Justin Martyr that we find for the first time hairesis in the sense of “heresy” attributed to Jewish usage as well.

 some Jewish teachers, those whom Trypho himself would refer to as an hairesis, have offered but cannot prove: that God was speaking to angels.

 By naming the traditional Logos or Memra doctrine of God a heresy, indeed, the heresy, “Two Powers in Heaven,” the rabbinic theology expels it from the midst of Judaism, hailing that heresy at least implicitly as “Christianity,” at the same time that in a virtual cultural “conspiracy” the emerging Christian orthodoxy embraces the Logos theology and names its repudiation “Judaism.” We have seen this historical, socio-cultural process being virtually enacted within Justin’s Dialogue.

It is this supersession of the Logos by Writing that arguably gives birth to rabbinic Judaism and its characteristic forms of textuality

Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity

Daniel Boyarin

 SAW the VOICE....not heard it - a close connection between Logos and Light....

Amazon review says: 

 Nicaea did away with "Logos" theology especially in St Athanasius. But St Athanasius was also involved in the Alexandrian school of theology from Origen which also espoused the "deuteros theos" theology as well. The Logos theology is generally a part, not exclusive, of Trinitarian theology then.

 Daniel Boyarin, Ph.D. in Talmud, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, is currently Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley.

 A christian scholar critiques Daniel Boyarin

 He doesn't think Jesus is the Logos....

Cultural Translation and Receptions of Paul in the First Four Centuries

, edited by František Ábel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2025 (Hardcover, 542 pages), examines how Paul’s Jewish-context message was reinterpreted into non-Jewish, Greek, and early Christian contexts. It features contributions from international scholars, focusing on the "Paul within Judaism" perspective

 

 

 Daniel Boyarin argues that Logos theology—the concept of a second, divine, mediating figure (Logos/Memra/Wisdom)—was a core part of1st-century Jewish, not just Christian, belief. He contends this "binitarian" (not trinitarian) thought was a natural Jewish progression, making early Christian beliefs about Jesus less a pagan deviation and more a development of earlier Jewish theology

 AI summary above

 Origen Has the Mind of Christ, Daniel Boyarin

 Enoch or Jesus? The Quest of the Historical Metatron with Q &A

 https://www.academia.edu/36254473/Daniel_Boyarin_Philo_Origen_and_the_Rabbis_on_Divine_Speech_and_Interpretation_in_James_E_Goehring_et_al_eds_The_World_of_Early_Egyptian_Christianity_Essays_in_Honor_of_David_W_Johnson_Washington_DC_The_Catholic_University_of_America_Press_2007_113_129 

 In another iteration of this argument I hope to show that it is precisely that which is common to Paul, Clement, Origen that constitutes something that is definitive (by privation) of rabbinic hermeneutics (Daniel Boyarin, “Origenists Aren’t the Only Christians,” manuscript, 2003).

  “Paul was as much a Platonist as Clement”—or Origen. he question is surely not, then, whether it is the case that “whatever Origen learned from the Platonists it was not the art of commentary” (Edwards, Origen against Plato, 145) but whether the art of commentary itself is subtended by Platonistic structures of understanding of world and Word. I submit that it is,

 Paul’s reference to “gifts” here as an allusion to the Torah, and he is, therefore, producing the earliest version of a Christian hermeneutical theory of allegorical reading, one that insists that scripture can only be interpreted with the direct aid of the Holy Spirit, identified with the mind of Christ who alone knows the mind of the Lord and can, therefore, interpret the Torah as “a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homo Helmei ancestors of Neanderthals/San Bushmen (Khoesan) dispersing out of Africa: Levallois assemblages

 The current idea of the timing of these events within Africa is that ancestors of today’s Khoesan, central African hunter-gatherers, and other groups started to differentiate after 300,000 years ago. These early ancestors may have absorbed genes from archaic African groups. One or more groups may have pushed into Eurasia at this time, spreading similar genes to the Neanderthals.

Wow - very fascinating research 

 By 40,000 years ago the dispersal and networking of modern human groups was certainly dominated by their strengths, but during their early evolution 250,000 years ago their limitations were still very evident.

  Foley and Lahr noted a coincidence of timing of early Levallois assemblages in Europe and Africa starting around 300,000 years ago. Levallois and related methods of stone reduction are known as “prepared core” techniques, because they require the toolmaker to shape the stone core in anticipation of striking one desired flake. The archaeologist Grahame Clark had termed these methods as “Mode 3” technology. The planning required for these techniques seemed to represent an advance over the handaxe-dominated Acheulean (Mode 2) and chopper-based Oldowan (Mode 1) tools that preceded them.

 Foley and Lahr proposed that Neanderthals and modern humans both evolved from a Levallois-using common ancestor. Like Reich, they accepted that Neanderthals were aligned with modern humans and different from the “true archaics” in Europe that preceded them.

 Denisovans, too, used prepared core techniques, hafted points on spears, used ochre, and made markings. https://stonetoolsmuseum.com/story/hafted-spear-and-dart-points/

 Hafted points are stone, bone, or metal spearheads attached to wooden shafts, appearing as early as 500,000 years ago in South Africa.

 A foreshaft is a short section of wood, bone, or ivory that fits inside a socket in the end of the main shaft.  Various cane species were a popular material for main shafts because they are naturally hollow, allowing for insertion of the solid wood foreshaft.  A hunter could carry multiple replacement foreshafts for each main shaft in their hunting kit.

Stone points were mounted into a slot in the end of the foreshaft, usually supplemented with plant resin and/or sinew lashing.  Sinew was wrapped on while wet and, when dry, shrank tight around the point and shaft.  Many stone points were notched or stemmed to provide purchase for the lashing.  Resin was added over the lashing to strengthen the haft and to waterproof the sinew, which will grow loose when exposed to water.  Archaeologists experimenting with North American-style notched obsidian points claimed that, aside for used in binding a point to a foreshaft, deep notches served to weaken the point so it would break off inside the prey animal.

 Denisovans, too, had Levallois and other material culture similarities with Neanderthals and contemporary African peoples. The Denisovans did not, as far as we can tell, have the same extent of gene flow from African sources.

 mtDNA and the Y chromosome, continue to be an extremely important source of information because of their unique pattern of inheritance [7], [8], [9], [10]. As they are uniparentally inherited, they evolve exclusively through the sequential accumulation of mutations along the maternal and paternal lineages, respectively;  ....Key findings indicate a complete replacement of earlier Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) with a lineage related to modern humans, as well as distinct social structures based on high female mobility.

  In addition to these two uniparental genetic systems, the African gene flow makes up around 6% of the whole genomes of later Neanderthals.

  In addition, the Y-chromosome diversity is an order of magnitude lower than the mitochondrial diversity, a pattern that we found is best explained by female migration between communities....Neanderthals may have been patrilocal...This result suggests that female-biased migration was a major factor in the social organization of the Chagyrskaya Neanderthal community.... the absence of Neanderthal DNA on the X chromosome could result from the way these two groups interbred. If most successful pairings involved Neanderthal males and human females, fewer Neanderthal X chromosomes would have entered the long-term human gene pool.

 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05283-y

  I propose an early origin of modern humans in northwest Africa in a temporal window of 257-345 thousand years ago. A first population split in central Africa around 175-288 thousand years ago. A subsequent northward spread with additional population subdivisions during a long statistical interval that culminated in a first successful out of Africa migration around 130 thousand years ago. A population constriction in southwest Asia motivated an early return to Africa between 70 and 100 thousand years ago. This ample Eurasian-ebb to Africa, detected by mitochondrial haplogroup L3 and Y-chromosome haplogroup E preceded other later and geographically more limited Eurasian backflows. The archaeological and fossil finds that could be coetaneous to this molecular journey have been integrated into this interdisciplinary model.

 https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/3460

AI: 

Neanderthals exhibit uniparental inheritance (mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes) inherited from a single parent, similar to modern humans, but their late-stage lineages show a complete replacement of original Y chromosomes and mtDNA with those from early modern humans

. This replacement was likely driven by the lower population size and higher genetic load (deleterious mutations) in Neanderthals compared to modern humans, which meant modern human genes were more beneficial

 Paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer suggests

• Potential Intersection: Homo erectus existed in Asia as recently as 117,000–108,000 years ago, placing them in the same region and time frame as early Denisovans.

• Professor Chris Stringer
  , a leading paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum, has been instrumental in identifying Homo longi (or "Dragon Man"), a potential new human species proposed in 2021. Based on a ~146,000-year-old Chinese skull, Stringer suggests this species is a closer sister group to Homo sapiens.....
•  Prof Stringer continued, “Yunxian 2 may help us resolve what’s been called the ‘Muddle in the Middle,’ the confusing array of human fossils from between 1 million and 300,000 years ago. Fossils like Yunxian 2 show just how much we still have to learn about our origins.”
•  https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/analysis-of-reconstructed-ancient-skull-pushes-back-our-origins-.html
•  
•  https://michaelbalter.substack.com/p/human-evolution-a-new-face-for-the
•  

  Thus he quotes John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, as agreeing that the Harbin skull is a Denisovan, but that they, modern humans, and Neanderthals, “are all Homo sapiens.”

  This reflects the views of Hawks, a well-known “multiregionalist,” that modern humans evolved separately in different parts of the world but that interbreeding led to all these family trees coalescing into one species.

  On the other hand, Zimmer quotes Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, as saying “Homo longi is the appropriate species name for this group.” Stringer is closely associated with the anti-multiregionalist position sometimes referred to as the Out of Africa hypothesis. In recent years, many scientists have come to think that both views are correct in some ways, especially as evidence for interbreeding between different hominid groups has mounted.

  I’ve known Chris Stringer for more than a quarter of a century, so I asked him to comment on all of this. ... "most of the large-brained humans from the last 800,000 years can be sorted into one or other of the following groups/species: Asian erectus, heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, sapiens and Denisovans/longi. There is certainly much more to come from extractions of ancient DNA and proteomes from the human fossils."

  https://theconversation.com/morocco-ancient-fossils-shed-light-on-a-key-period-in-human-evolution-275099 

  The Casablanca fossils come from a time [773,000 years ago] when Homo erectus spread out of Africa. It was also a time when older groups of hominins like the Australopithecus and Paranthropus died out.

  In terms of shapes and features, the fossils show a mix of archaic traits typical of Homo erectus and more advanced traits closely related to Homo sapiens. They also fill an important gap in the African fossil record. Palaeogenetic data suggest a split between the African lineage to Homo sapiens and the Eurasian lineages that later produced the Neanderthals and the Denisovans.

  The unique combination of primitive and more evolved features suggests that these individuals were in a population that lived close in time to this split.

   Sima de los Huesos ("Pit of Bones") is located within the Sierra de Atapuerca archaeological complex, situated in the province of Burgos, northern Spain. The site is a deep vertical shaft (approx. 13-14 meters) inside the Cueva Mayor cave system, known for holding the largest collection of 430,000-year-old human fossils...

  the fossils of Homo antecessor unearthed at the Gran Dolina site in Atapuerca, Spain were the only ones to show Homo sapiens-like traits. The fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés [Morocco] offer a new perspective.

  They open up the possibility of an evolutionary link with the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils – those from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, dated to around 315,000 years ago. These discoveries help clarify the emergence of the Homo sapiens lineage while reinforcing the idea that its deep roots are African.

   Originally classified in 1935, H. helmei has since been re-visited by numerous anthropologists, most of whom now believe that the Florisbad skull actually belonged to a very early Homo sapiens individual. However, despite being the same species as us, the morphology of this prehistoric fossil is pretty different from modern human skulls,

   

  Homo helmei
  (often associated with the ~259,000-year-old Florisbad Skull from South Africa) is an ambiguous, sometimes debated, archaic human classification often considered a late form of Homo heidelbergensis or a very early ancestor of Homo sapiens. It typically bridges the morphological gap between middle Pleistocene hominins and modern humans, characterized by a larger, modern-like braincase...

   Stringer’s analysis places the 146,000-year-old Harbin cranium (and affiliated 1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 skull) as a sister group to Homo sapiens, suggesting the common ancestor of our lineage lived in Asia...

  https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2025/september/origin-of-our-species-lineage-pushed-back-by-half-a-million-years.html 

  “Our analysis suggests that all large-brained humans from the last 800,000 years or so can probably be put into one of five groups,” explains Chris. These are the groups of Asian Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, the Homo longi group which likely contains the Denisovans, and of our own species Homo sapiens.

  “What’s revolutionary about our analysis is that it suggests all these five lineages trace their ancestry back more than a million years, which is much older than almost everyone has said, including me. And there are a couple of aspects that suggest that it could be an even more ancient divergence.”

  What they arrived at was something [a skull 1 million years old in China] which looked less like Homo erectus and more like those of a fossil known as Dragon Man.

  The Dragon Man fossil, also unearthed in China, was described by Chris and his colleagues in 2021 and has been named as the species Homo longi.

  “Our analysis suggests that the Yunxian skulls are actually an early member of the same group as Dragon Man,” says Chris. “And because Dragon Man increasingly now looks like it’s a Denisovan, there’s a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that the Yunxian fossils also belong to the Denisovan group.” https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado9202

   Feng et al. reconstructed the 1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 cranium using an approach that allowed for removal of much of the compression and distortion naturally present in the fossil. In doing so, they found that the cranium contained both primitive and derived traits and concluded that it is representative of the H. longi clade, which is sister to H. sapiens and likely contained the Denisovans.

   the Denisovan lineage of humans had already split off from other humans by a million years ago. On the surface this might appear like a fairly minor discovery, but its ramifications could be huge....Therefore, if the Denisovans split off over a million years ago, it means that ours did too and that the Homo sapiens lineage is equally as ancient....

  there must be some early members of the lineages of H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens that we haven’t found yet, or which we have found but we haven’t recognised yet. There must be some million-year-old proto-sapiens, proto-neanderthals and proto-heidelbergensis out there.”

  It also opens the door for the potential that our own lineage first emerged somewhere in Eurasia, before populations migrated into Africa where Homo sapiens then evolved. Chris, however, is quick to point out that this conclusion still needs checking against million-year-old human fossils unearthed on the African continent that were unavailable for the current study.

   

   

Ohio River plunges into drought and the comments blame the libs? hahaha

@JohannDrittenthalerjohann

9 minutes ago

It's that fucken Biden and the Democrats... literally draining the country dry! Where is trump?

@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885

0 seconds ago

Drumpf is a child rapist

@MPHarveyCo

3 hours ago

Find out who's taking the water. We have a million of these environmental warriors so find out where it's going. DO THE WORK and stop bitching.

@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885

0 seconds ago

by environmental warriors you mean those dirty hippies who beg for donations door to door and over the phone? How are they supposed to do any work when they can barely cover rent? Also they are labeled as ecoterrorists by private investigation firms hired by big corporation associations - like fur farm association, etc. Have you ever tried practicing your Bill of Rights - protesting to get policy changes is the hardest work of all. In Latin America the environmental activists are just "disappeared." No thanks - let Mother Nature do the work! Mother Nature will finish the job fast of wiping out civilization. Environmentalists don't need to do jack. If you don't care about ecology and the environment - then enjoy the wrath of Mother Nature. hahaha. She's taking revenge fast.

Qigong Master Chunyi Lin predicted Middle East War this year

 

 

 

 Qigong Master Chunyi Lin predicted war for the Middle East this year