Paul Harvey says..........
- Thread starter THE KOD
- Start date
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Hey smurph
I wonder what would happen if a american citizen flew into Saudi Arabia. Went to a main city square and started shouting that for about ten minutes.
Attica Attica Attica !
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Blatant Medicare fraud costs taxpayers billions
Officials say outrageous fraud schemes are 'off the charts'
Dec. 10: 'Off the charts' Medicare fraud is fraying the country's social safety net for seniors and the disabled. NBC's Mark Potter reports in the first of a two-part series.
Nightly News
MIAMI, Florida - On an FBI undercover tape, the fraud was plain to see. A patient came to a South Florida AIDS clinic, signed some papers, walked into an office and was handed $150 in cash. She politely thanked the workers and left, her visit to the doctor finished without ever receiving any treatment.
According to records seized by investigators, the office staff -- assured of the patient's cooperation -- then used her name to fraudulently bill Medicare for a list of expensive treatment and medications.
Law enforcement officials said it's just one of the many widespread, organized and lucrative schemes to bilk Medicare out of an estimated 60-billion dollars a year -- a staggering cost borne by American taxpayers.
Officials say the array of criminals running these schemes are stealing blatantly from the social safety net that cares for 43-million seniors and the disabled, and along the way are hurting honest patients, physicians and legitimate businesses.
"These people have absolutely nothing to do with health care," said Kirk Ogrosky, a prosecutor with the U.S. Justice Department. "They're thieves that would be committing other types of crimes if they weren't committing Medicare fraud."
Outrageous fraud called "off the charts"
While Medicare fraud is a national scourge, found primarily in large urban areas, federal authorities said the very worst of it these days is in South Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade County.
Most of these schemes, they said, are found in the cities of Miami and Hialeah, where they are often concentrated in parts of the Cuban immigrant community.
After visiting the region, and seeing the extent of the fraud, Michael Leavitt, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, said, "In a decade and a half of public service, this was the most disheartening, disgusting day I have ever spent. We have to fix this."
A recent report by the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services noted that 72 percent of the Medicare claims submitted nationwide for HIV/AIDS treatment in 2005 came from South Florida alone.
That percentage is of great concern to authorities, since only eight percent of the country's HIV/AIDS Medicare beneficiaries actually live in South Florida--a clear indication that the level of fraud was, as one official put it, "off the charts."
To attack the fraud, the Justice Department this year set up a strike force at a remote office park near Miami, and in just six months prosecutors filed 74 cases charging 120 people with allegedly trying to steal $400-million from Medicare.
While officials claimed the concentrated law enforcement efforts led to a $1.4 billion dollar drop in Medicare billing in the area -- another clear indication of the phony nature of many of the earlier claims -- they said they have still barely scratched the surface of the fraud schemes involving bogus clinics, fake medicines, and illegitimate medical supply companies.
"The problem is far from solved," said Timothy Delaney. a supervisor for the FBI's Miami office. "For every one owner we arrest, another one pops up, maybe even two, tomorrow. It's so lucrative that we have yet to turn the tide."
Illegal billing for non-existent medical equipment
One of the most common schemes, involving billions of dollars a year in illegal claims, is the illicit billing for DME, or durable medical equipment, such as oxygen generators, breathing machines, air mattresses, walkers, orthopedic braces and wheelchairs.
Raul Lopez, the president of the Florida Association of Medical Equipment and Services, and the director of a legitimate medical supply company, said the fraud is so widespread it hurts the many valid DME companies, which are struggling to compete.
"We're in here providing services to patients that need healthcare services," he said, "and as a result of the fraud our industry is suffering enormously."
Unlike real DME companies, which have showrooms, warehouses, public offices, trained staff and professional record-keeping, the fraudulent companies are usually shell companies with shadowy business practices, hidden owners and tiny, locked offices which are only there to create the illusion of legitimacy. They rarely have any medical products for actual sale or delivery.
"They're lined up in hallways one after the other, office after office with a locked door, no foot traffic, no employees, no medical equipment," said Ogrosky. "We're talking about billing that goes up in the tens of millions of dollars for places that don't exist."
FBI agents looking for suspected front-companies that Medicare records show are actively billing rarely find much to search. "We often don't see places. We find vacant lots, we see mailboxes, we see an office suite shared by 30 companies. We're not finding legitimate companies where we can go in and do a search warrant," said Delaney.
On a recent trip to some shopping centers and office buildings in the Miami area, FBI agents Brian Waterman and Christopher Macrae knocked on the doors of several purported medical supply companies.
Most of the offices were locked during business hours, with no signs of any activity. Calls to the offices went unanswered.
Referring to one of the closed offices, Waterman said, "The amount of money in dollars that this company is billing for in the last month are close to a half million dollars. We're just trying to find out what they're billing for, and what they're doing."
Across the street, in another small office complex, the agents found another six supposed supply companies that also were locked.
"Building's closed, kinda tough to deliver stuff out of here," said Macrae. "It doesn't surprise us at all. I mean this is typical."
A $50 million wheelchair and phony arms
Most taxpayers likely have no idea of the scope and cost of the Medicare billing schemes which they all fund through their payroll deductions.
To show just how bad it can be, federal officials in Miami pointed to a red electric wheelchair they seized from an illicit company. Normally it would cost about $5-thousand. But by billing Medicare over and over, and never delivering the wheelchair to an actual patient, criminals charged a total of $5-million dollars for that one item alone.
Retired Chief Federal Judge Edward Davis, from the Southern District of Florida, was stunned to learn that someone stole his patient ID number and used it to fraudulently bill Medicare in his name for a number of items, including two artificial arms, which he doesn't need.
When he got his Medicare EOB, or explanation of benefits, Davis couldn't believe his eyes. "I was amazed. I looked at it and thought this has got to be a mistake."
After alerting the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, Davis received a visit from two FBI agents, who took pictures of his arms to prove they hadn't been amputated. They told Davis his case was part of a huge scheme involving dozens of illicit companies. "It's just outrageous," said Davis. "You just think of the money being lost. It is millions and millions of dollars."
Prosecutors SAID it's actually a fairly common scheme that sometimes goes to unbelievable heights. "We'll see patients time and time again -- who've never had an amputation, who've never had any problems with their arms and legs -- being billed for two prosthetic arms and two prosthetic arms. " said Ogrosky.
Judge Davis and others worry about what this means for the future of Medicare. "This thing is going broke and part of the reason is because (money) is going to people who are criminals doing the $5-million wheelchairs and prosthesis that don't come to anybody."
Short- and long-term schemes with complicit patients
Law enforcement officials said most Medicare fraud can be divided into two time-frames. One technique involves a quick hit where the practitioners set up their companies, bill Medicare for a while and then quit, usually within the 90 to 120 days it takes for many of the more obvious frauds to be detected.
"They get in, they open up a corporation, they bill, they shut it down, and they move on and they open up another corporation," complained Delaney. "By the time the computer processes the claim and there's data for us to dive into, that money's already been paid."
The companies are often set up using straw purchasers and fictitious or "nominee" owners who have nothing to do with running the actual scheme. One purported medical company CEO actually turned out to be an employee of an auto tire store who had been paid by fraud organizers so they could use his name on the corporate records.
"We've actually seen where they recruit this nominee or store buyer/owners from another country. They pay them for the sole intent of opening up corporations, businesses, bank accounts in their names, and they get the other half of the payment when they go back," said Delaney.
The second technique involves a more lucrative and long-term fraud, which is much more complex and requires the complicity of doctors and patients in order for the billing scheme to continue without the authorities being alerted.
"The office manager, the doctor, the patient, the patients' families often know what's going on. It runs the entire spectrum," said Delaney, the FBI supervisor.
"We are up against an organized foe here, this is very organized," said HHS Secretary Leavitt, referring to the many experts who specialize in setting up illicit medical companies.
Kirk Ogrosky, who headed the Justice Department strike force against Medicare fraud in South Florida said, "The problem stems from what we've seen in our cases, time and time again, is that there's a culture of corruption. This culture starts with the patient."
Many patients, he said, are paid $500 dollars a month for the use of their Medicare numbers, which the crooked companies attach to repeated claims that they send to Medicare. Anticipating that the patients will receive notices of these claims in the mail, the crooked health care providers instruct the patients to just to ignore them.
"We have a large number of what we call professional patients, people who's livelihood it is to exist off their Medicare numbers," said Delaney. Some of them are actual HIV/AIDS patients who accept kickbacks to receive phony "infusion", or intravenous, treatments which are then billed to Medicare at very expensive rates.
For many involved in the fraud schemes, Ogrosky added, the illegally-derived Medicare payments are viewed as somewhat of an entitlement. "I've heard people say things like if you don't take this money that the government's giving out, they're just going to give it to someone else, and that's outrageous."
Homemade medicines sold to the public
One of the most disturbing schemes, law enforcement officials said, involved the formulation, or "compounding" of homemade aerosol respiratory medications for which Medicare was billed for hundreds of millions of dollars, along with the costs of the machines supposedly used by patients to inhale the drugs.
"These aren't real drugs, they're being whipped up in the back of pharmacies," said Ogrosky. "One of the independent pharmacies that was whipping up medicine had people making the medicine that were not at all qualified." One of those people, he said, was actually an air-conditioning repairman, who was making medicine that was "disseminated to thousands of patients."
A problem for law enforcement officials is that as soon as they catch on to a certain phony drug, the illicit medical providers concoct something else for which to bill. "We and the Medicare program catch on to the fact that they are abusing that drug, so we clamp down," Delaney said. "They switch to another form of therapy that isn't being looked at so closely."
A criminal's perspective on easy fraud
In a recent interview with NBC News, a man who made millions of dollars by defrauding Medicare before his arrest explained how easy it was to steal from the government.
"First of all, you create a corporation," he said. "There are some people who are like facilitators, who tell you what it is that Medicare requires." One requirement is to buy some props -- medical equipment and office furniture -- that can help make the corporation appear legitimate during rare inspections by Medicare officials. "A lot of times an inspector doesn't visit a corporation more than once a year," he claimed.
One thing he found shocking was how agreeable Medicare was in paying his phony claims, even after patients whose names were used without permission filed complaints. "Why is Medicare paying" he asked. "Medicare keeps on paying, so who's at fault? I think the government is at fault, the government doesn't have any control of this."
The man said stealing from Medicare can be a very lucrative endeavor. "If in a year you want six, eight million dollars you can do it."
One Medicare fraud suspect, who is now a fugitive, used to drive a $200-thousand Phantom Rolls Royce. "Everyone should be outraged by it," said Ogrosky, "and should be concerned about their taxpayer dollars going to fund this personal wealth that we're seeing in these people who are a really just thieves."
Federal law enforcement official said they've seen other Medicare criminals also living extravagantly from their ill-gotten gains.
"We've seized luxury homes on waterfront properties. We've seized boats, we've seized bank accounts, jewelry worth thousands of dollars," said Delaney. "They're just killing the Medicare program and living the high-life off of it."
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wtf could be more important to work on in this country than people stealing 60 billion from the goverment and american taxpayers.
its fawking pathetic.
It is unbelieveable.
what do they do ? You audit people and companies. You dont let up. You find the theifs, take back the money from them, and put them in fawking prison.
Geez Louise.
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"wtf could be more important to work on in this country than people stealing 60 billion from the goverment and american taxpayers.
its fawking pathetic.
It is unbelieveable.
what do they do ? You audit people and companies. You dont let up. You find the theifs, take back the money from them, and put them in fawking prison."
I agree Scott. How do we get the 1 TRILLION+ back from KBR, Bechtel, Hali, Blackwater, etc... that was stolen and sqaundered in the biggest war profiteering heist in the history of the world?
btw, do you know anything about what the idiot boy you voted for pushed through? You might want to do some research, king of the dogs.
A crisis has arisen in health care for senior and disabled Americans. The Bush administration and Republican Congressional leaders pushed through a bill that they promised would bring relief from the rising costs of prescription drugs. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Public Law 109-173), also known as "MMA legislation," is in fact a Trojan horse. In reality, Bush and his associates are trying to induce Medicare recipients to leave their traditional Medicare program and enroll in private managed care plans.
The method for doing this is to offer disproportionate federal subsidies to private managed care plans so they can offer more attractive benefits, such as prescription drugs, than traditional Medicare. This will, in the end, be ruinous for those the plan promised to help, and hugely profitable for the private health care sector. This blatant sellout of Medicare for profit is not only ruinously expensive, it threatens the very fabric of Medicare ? one of the best, most socially responsible pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States.
its fawking pathetic.
It is unbelieveable.
what do they do ? You audit people and companies. You dont let up. You find the theifs, take back the money from them, and put them in fawking prison."
I agree Scott. How do we get the 1 TRILLION+ back from KBR, Bechtel, Hali, Blackwater, etc... that was stolen and sqaundered in the biggest war profiteering heist in the history of the world?
btw, do you know anything about what the idiot boy you voted for pushed through? You might want to do some research, king of the dogs.
A crisis has arisen in health care for senior and disabled Americans. The Bush administration and Republican Congressional leaders pushed through a bill that they promised would bring relief from the rising costs of prescription drugs. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Public Law 109-173), also known as "MMA legislation," is in fact a Trojan horse. In reality, Bush and his associates are trying to induce Medicare recipients to leave their traditional Medicare program and enroll in private managed care plans.
The method for doing this is to offer disproportionate federal subsidies to private managed care plans so they can offer more attractive benefits, such as prescription drugs, than traditional Medicare. This will, in the end, be ruinous for those the plan promised to help, and hugely profitable for the private health care sector. This blatant sellout of Medicare for profit is not only ruinously expensive, it threatens the very fabric of Medicare ? one of the best, most socially responsible pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States.
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smurph
why would you post a naked tom arnold in my Paul Harvey thread ?:shrug:
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If you have to ask, then you won't understand the answer.
....Where are those pennies you promised???!!!!
:thinking: :thinking:
must be one of them deep thinking posts
is it a analogy thingee ?
I hate when I have to think too much
I SMELL MONEY AND IT SMELLS GREEN
must be one of them deep thinking posts
is it a analogy thingee ?
I hate when I have to think too much
I SMELL MONEY AND IT SMELLS GREEN
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O.J. Simpson jailed in Florida
The Associated Press
Published on: 01/11/08
Las Vegas -- O.J. Simpson is in custody in Florida on allegations that he violated terms of his release on bail by calling one of his co-defendants in a Las Vegas armed robbery case, a court official said Friday.
Prosecutors allege that Simpson, identifying himself as "Miguel," telephoned Clarence "C.J." Stewart on Nov. 16 and expressed frustration with Stewart's testimony at a preliminary hearing, court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer said.
That was two days after a Las Vegas justice of the peace ruled that Simpson, Stewart and another co-defendant should stand trial on 12 charges, including kidnapping and robbery.
Clark County District Attorney David Roger was filing a motion Friday to revoke Simpson's bail, according to a court clerk.
Simpson was to go before a judge Wednesday.
"We understand he's in the custody of his bail bondsman in Florida right now and will be brought to Las Vegas for the hearing," said Elana Pitaro, a clerk for District Court Judge Jackie Glass.
A bail bondsman at You Ring We Spring bail bonds in North Las Vegas declined to comment.
Simpson was freed Sept. 19 on $125,000 bail following his arrest on allegations he and several friends burst into a Las Vegas hotel room and robbed two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint.
Simpson has maintained that he was retrieving items that belonged to him. He and the two other men are scheduled to stand trial April 7.
His lawyer, Yale Galanter, did not return phone messages seeking comment
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Miguel - hello this is Miguel you know who this is mofo.
defendant - yeh I know who this is.
Miguel - listen you tell them the truth or there is going to be hell to pay.
defendant - I did tell the truth.
Miguel - listen you tell them the truth about you and leave me the fawk out of it.
defenant - so you were not there then ?
Miguel - yeh I wasnt there you can take that to the bank. your going to federal prison not me. get it .
defendant - click
ring ring -
attorney - hello
defendant - you will never guess who is under court rules not to call me and he just did.
attorney - was it Miguel ?
Miguel
The Associated Press
Published on: 01/11/08
Las Vegas -- O.J. Simpson is in custody in Florida on allegations that he violated terms of his release on bail by calling one of his co-defendants in a Las Vegas armed robbery case, a court official said Friday.
Prosecutors allege that Simpson, identifying himself as "Miguel," telephoned Clarence "C.J." Stewart on Nov. 16 and expressed frustration with Stewart's testimony at a preliminary hearing, court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer said.
That was two days after a Las Vegas justice of the peace ruled that Simpson, Stewart and another co-defendant should stand trial on 12 charges, including kidnapping and robbery.
Clark County District Attorney David Roger was filing a motion Friday to revoke Simpson's bail, according to a court clerk.
Simpson was to go before a judge Wednesday.
"We understand he's in the custody of his bail bondsman in Florida right now and will be brought to Las Vegas for the hearing," said Elana Pitaro, a clerk for District Court Judge Jackie Glass.
A bail bondsman at You Ring We Spring bail bonds in North Las Vegas declined to comment.
Simpson was freed Sept. 19 on $125,000 bail following his arrest on allegations he and several friends burst into a Las Vegas hotel room and robbed two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint.
Simpson has maintained that he was retrieving items that belonged to him. He and the two other men are scheduled to stand trial April 7.
His lawyer, Yale Galanter, did not return phone messages seeking comment
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Miguel - hello this is Miguel you know who this is mofo.
defendant - yeh I know who this is.
Miguel - listen you tell them the truth or there is going to be hell to pay.
defendant - I did tell the truth.
Miguel - listen you tell them the truth about you and leave me the fawk out of it.
defenant - so you were not there then ?
Miguel - yeh I wasnt there you can take that to the bank. your going to federal prison not me. get it .
defendant - click
ring ring -
attorney - hello
defendant - you will never guess who is under court rules not to call me and he just did.
attorney - was it Miguel ?
Miguel
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Hillary Clinton is banning all guns in America
Hillary Clinton is banning all guns in America. She is considered by all those who have dealt with her to be more than just a little self-righteous. At a recent rural elementary school meeting in Florida, she asked the kids audience for total quiet. Then after the silence, she started to clap her hands once every few seconds. Holding the audience in total silence, she said into the microphone, "Everytime I clap my hands, a child in America dies from gun violence".
A young voice with a proud southern accent spoke out from the front of the crowd
"Well stop clappin' you stupid bitch".:142smilie :142smilie
Hillary Clinton is banning all guns in America. She is considered by all those who have dealt with her to be more than just a little self-righteous. At a recent rural elementary school meeting in Florida, she asked the kids audience for total quiet. Then after the silence, she started to clap her hands once every few seconds. Holding the audience in total silence, she said into the microphone, "Everytime I clap my hands, a child in America dies from gun violence".
A young voice with a proud southern accent spoke out from the front of the crowd
"Well stop clappin' you stupid bitch".:142smilie :142smilie
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Power of prayer
A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been
going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long,
long time.
So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he
was walking slowly up to the holy site.
She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to
leave, using a cane in a very slow fashion , she approached him for an
interview.
"Pardon me Sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN, What's your name?
"Maury Fishbein" he replied.
"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"
"For about 60 years."
"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"
"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray
for all the wars and hatred to stop, I pray for all our children to grow
up safely as responsible adults, and to love their fellow man."
"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"
"Like I'm talking to a fuk' wall."
......................................................
A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been
going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long,
long time.
So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he
was walking slowly up to the holy site.
She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to
leave, using a cane in a very slow fashion , she approached him for an
interview.
"Pardon me Sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN, What's your name?
"Maury Fishbein" he replied.
"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"
"For about 60 years."
"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"
"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray
for all the wars and hatred to stop, I pray for all our children to grow
up safely as responsible adults, and to love their fellow man."
"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"
"Like I'm talking to a fuk' wall."
......................................................
Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study saysStory Highlights
Drought in Africa reduced population into small, isolated groups, study says
Separate study says number of humans may have fallen to 2,000
Analysis: Humans banded together again in Stone Age, increased in numbers
Migrations out of Africa appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.
Geneticist Spencer Wells, here meeting an African village elder, says the study tells "truly an epic drama."
The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.
The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.
"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence.
"Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA."
Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Studies using mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through mothers, have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
Don't Miss
Genographic Project
The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.
The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, who appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.
The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations before the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.
Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago, and researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups that developed independently.
Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, asked, "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction?"
Today, more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, IBM, the Waitt Family Foundation, the Seaver Family Foundation, Family Tree DNA and Arizona Research Labs. E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast,
...........................................................
Drought in Africa reduced population into small, isolated groups, study says
Separate study says number of humans may have fallen to 2,000
Analysis: Humans banded together again in Stone Age, increased in numbers
Migrations out of Africa appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.
Geneticist Spencer Wells, here meeting an African village elder, says the study tells "truly an epic drama."
The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.
The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.
"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence.
"Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA."
Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Studies using mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through mothers, have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
Don't Miss
Genographic Project
The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.
The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, who appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.
The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations before the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.
Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago, and researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups that developed independently.
Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, asked, "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction?"
Today, more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, IBM, the Waitt Family Foundation, the Seaver Family Foundation, Family Tree DNA and Arizona Research Labs. E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast,
...........................................................
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- The world's rarest rhino does not like the limelight.
The mother rhino, right, apparently thought the camera posed a threat to its calf, left.
A Javan Rhino was captured on video attacking a camera set up in an Indonesian jungle to study the habits of the animal, apparently because she sensed the lens was a threat to her calf, the WWF said Thursday.
There are only around 70 Javan Rhinos in the wild, about 60 of which live in Ujung Kulon National Park on the western tip of Java island. The remainder live in Vietnam.
In the first month of operation, five infrared video traps have captured two images of the camera-shy mother and calf, said Adhi Rachmat Hariyadi, head of the WWF's Ujung Kulon project.
"It is very unusual to catch a glimpse of the Javan Rhino deep inside the rain forest," he said, adding the attacked camera was undamaged and put back on its stand the day after the incident.
WWF officials said they planned to relocate several of the rhinos in the park to another part of Indonesia in the hope that they breed. Otherwise, they fear the species could be wiped out in the event of disease or natural disaster.
Adhi said the WWF decided to implement the video technology based on the success of similar methods used to track rhinos in Sabah, Malaysia.
Rhino numbers in Indonesia over the past 50 years have been decimated by rampant poaching for horns used in traditional Chinese medicines and destruction of forests by farmers, illegal loggers and palm oil plantation companies.
Apart from the 60 Javan Rhinos, there are thought to be around 300 Sumatran rhinos still alive in isolated pockets in the forests of Malaysia and Sumatra island.
The mother rhino, right, apparently thought the camera posed a threat to its calf, left.
A Javan Rhino was captured on video attacking a camera set up in an Indonesian jungle to study the habits of the animal, apparently because she sensed the lens was a threat to her calf, the WWF said Thursday.
There are only around 70 Javan Rhinos in the wild, about 60 of which live in Ujung Kulon National Park on the western tip of Java island. The remainder live in Vietnam.
In the first month of operation, five infrared video traps have captured two images of the camera-shy mother and calf, said Adhi Rachmat Hariyadi, head of the WWF's Ujung Kulon project.
"It is very unusual to catch a glimpse of the Javan Rhino deep inside the rain forest," he said, adding the attacked camera was undamaged and put back on its stand the day after the incident.
WWF officials said they planned to relocate several of the rhinos in the park to another part of Indonesia in the hope that they breed. Otherwise, they fear the species could be wiped out in the event of disease or natural disaster.
Adhi said the WWF decided to implement the video technology based on the success of similar methods used to track rhinos in Sabah, Malaysia.
Rhino numbers in Indonesia over the past 50 years have been decimated by rampant poaching for horns used in traditional Chinese medicines and destruction of forests by farmers, illegal loggers and palm oil plantation companies.
Apart from the 60 Javan Rhinos, there are thought to be around 300 Sumatran rhinos still alive in isolated pockets in the forests of Malaysia and Sumatra island.
