Monday Updates.

A haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single nucleotide polymorphism mutation. A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent. So, haplogroups are like codes that signify where your ancestry came from genetically. Haplogroups relate to a single line of descent. Y chromosome haplogroups (Y-DNA) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) halplogroups are used to define human genetic populations. The Y-DNA is passed solely along the patrilineal line from father to son. The mtDNA is passed down the matrilineal line (from the mother to the offspring of both sexes). Y-DNA and mtDNA change only by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents’ genetic material. My paternal haplogroup is called E-CTS3764.1. I came from a group of people on my paternal side of my family from eastern Africa over 275,000 years ago. Later, my paternal line came to the Red Sea and met with the haplogroup of DE-M145. My paternal line came from haplogroup E-M96. My paternal line stems from a branch of haplogroup E called E-M132, which is seen at low frequencies in the Bahamas on the islands of Abaco, Eleuthera, Exuma, Grand Bahama, and Long Island. This is likely the part of historical movement of African and Creole slaves before and after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire by 1807. Over 25% of slaves transported to the Bahamas during the slave trade were from West and Central Africa, which is consistent with the most common location of E-M132. Lower numbers of slaves were taken from other ports in Africa, including those along the Gold Coast, the Windward Coast, and the Bight of Biafra. Many African ethnic groups were victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, including the Fulani and Hausa, two groups in which my haplogroup are heavily represented by.

My maternal halogroup is called L3e1e. This haplogroup came from women from eastern Africa from over 150,000 years ago. This branch came from a branch of L3 called L3e. Later, this line’s descendants were part of the migration of Bantu speaking people that began about 4,000 years ago. They were in Cameroon. This migration reached most of sub-Saharan Africa. Today, L3e is mostly found in central and southeast Africa. It is also found among African Americans and about one-third of Brazilians whose maternal lineages trace back to Africa in the slave-trading era, an indication that their ancestors may have originated in Angola rather than the more common slave-trading centers of the African west coast. So, members of L3 were part of the Bantu Migration. This was when black people in West Africa used agriculture, cultivation of lands, etc. They grew yams, legumes, peppers, and gourds. These were major dietary parts of the sub-Saharan diet. About 4,000 years ago, they came into southern Africa. Some remained in Western Africa. Therefore, I was born a Bantu, and I will die a Bantu (as an African American). Today, the majority of sub-Saharan African languages are Bantu.


There is another shooting of a black woman in Texas. We have an epidemic of the police shooting of black people in America. First, one neighbor called the police, because her house’s door was open plus the lights were on. Later, one police officer came into her home. The officer yelled and shot her dead in less than 30 seconds. He didn’t identify himself. He just said put your hands up and let me you’re your hands. Even the video showed no evidence that the officer’s life was in jeopardy, and the officer was never assaulted. The woman, who was killed, was a 28 year old young woman named Atatiana Koquice Jefferson. She was in the bedroom of her home. Hours after the shooting, the police presented an edited video of the shooting from a body camera. In many cases, cops are defended not only by the police union but by other officers. The officer now is on administrative leave. Jefferson was at home with her nephew. She did nothing wrong. James Smith was the neighbor who called a non-emergency number. He said that he wanted the police to check on her.  We know the truth. The truth is self-evident that an innocent black woman was murdered in cold blood by an officer who acted recklessly. There is no excuse for this. There must be justice. Black women (not just black men) experience this form of police murder constantly in America, Brazil, and other places of the world. This is not new. What is new is the increase of video footage and social media recording such injustices. We want black women, black men, and black children to flourish in their lives without injustice. That is our aim. We believe in human beings in general to have freedom and justice. The cop should face accountability for his actions. An investigation should exist, but justice should be served. The family of Atatiana Jefferson deserves that.


This is one of the most popular sports in the world. It is very accessible from beaches to gyms across the world. It's a sport that teaches us about strategy and human togetherness. In America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and other areas of the globe, men, women, and children play it all of the time. The sport is volleyball, and it is a sport that relates to teamwork, strength, and skill. In this game, two teams seek the same goal which is victory. It has been part of the Summer Olympics since 1964 in Tokyo. Since 1895, it has been played. Legends are part of the sport too like Alejandrina Mireya Luis Hernandez, Tara Battle Cross, Paula Weishoff, and Lori Endicott. Volleyball requires the development of the human physical body in a myriad of ways. It can strengthen the upper body, arms, and shoulders. It definitely deals with building up the thighs and lower legs. The cardiovascular and respirator systems are strengthened as a product of playing volleyball as well. Science has already documented that improved circulation in the body helps to spread more blood, oxygen, and nutrients all over the body. That can improve the body’s functions and grow the overall health of a human being. Volleyball requires hand eye coordination, reflexes, etc. The bones and joints are developed further as a product of volleyball too. Therefore, volleyball is an excellent athletic sport that is here to stay. Its components and contributions to athletics should always be honored and respected forever and ever. 



The history of automobiles consists of a long one. Vehicles have existed for centuries. Even thousands of years ago, there were wagons and chariots that looked similar to automobiles later on. This history is divided into different eras. They are times when the use of propulsion was different during the early days of vehicle usage and the later period defined by styling, size, and utility preferences. Back centuries ago, people wanted to find a reliable portable power unit to propel the vehicle. Back then, there were steam powered wheeled vehicles. Ferdinand Verbiest was a member of a Jesuit mission in China. He built a steam powered vehicle around 1672. He created it as a toy for the Kangxi Emperor. It was in a small scale and could not carry a driver. It could possibly be the first working steam powered vehicle (or automobile). Steam-powered self-propelled vehicles large enough to transport people and cargo were first devised in the late 18th century. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrated his fardier à vapeur ("steam dray"), an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor, in 1770 and 1771. As Cugnot's design proved to be impractical, his invention was not developed in his native France. The center of innovation shifted to Great Britain. By 1784, William Murdoch had built a working model of a steam carriage in Redruth, and in 1801 Richard Trevithick was running a full-sized vehicle on the roads in Camborne. The first automobile patent in the United States was granted to Oliver Evans in 1789. By the 1800’s, times changed. Some people tried to make steam powered vehicles more accessible with hard breaks, multispeed transmissions, and better steering came about. Some vehicles were commercially successful until the backlash against large vehicles came about. The United Kingdom in 1865 passed the Locomotive Act that required many self-propelled vehicles on public roads to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn.  This effectively halted road auto development in the UK for most of the rest of the 19th century; inventors and engineers shifted their efforts to improvements in railway locomotives. The law was not repealed until 1896, although the need for the red flag was removed in 1878.

In 1816, a professor at Prague Polytechic named Josef Bozek created an oil fired steam car. Walter Hancock (a builder and operator of London steam buses) in 1838 built a 2 seated car phaeton. In 1867, Canadian jeweler Henry Seth Taylor demonstrated his 4 wheeled steam buggy at the Stanstead Fair in Stanstead, Quebec, and again the following year. The basis of the buggy was a high wheeled carriage with bracing to support a two cylinder steam engine mounted on the floor. He started to build it in 1865. One of the first modern day automobiles was produced in 1873 by Frenchman Amedee Boliee in Le Mans, who built the self-propelled steam road vehicles to transport groups of passengers.  The first carriage-sized automobile suitable for use on existing wagon roads in the United States was a steam-powered vehicle invented in 1871 by Dr. J.W. Carhart, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Racine, Wisconsin. As a result, the device induced the state of Wisconsin in 1875 offered a $10,000 award to the first to produce a practical substitute for the use of horses and other animals. They wanted the machines to go faster than 5 miles per hour over a 200 mile course. The offer led to the first city to city automobile race in America. It started on July 16, 1878 in Green Bay, Wisconsin and ending in Madison, Wisconsin via Appleton, Oshkosh, Waupun, Watertown, Fort Atkinson, and Janesville. Seven vehicles only registered. Two of them started to compete. The entrees came from Green Bay and Oshkosh. The vehicle from Green Bay was faster, but it broke down before completing the race. The Oshkosh finished the 201-mile (323 km) course in 33 hours and 27 minutes, and posted an average speed of six miles per hour. In 1879, the legislature awarded half the prize. By 1828, Anyos Jedlik (who was a Hungarian man) invented an early electric motor. It powered a car. By 1834, the Bermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport invented the first American DC electric motor. He installed his motor in a small model car which he operated on a short circular track. In 1835, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands and his assistant Christopher Becker created a small-scale electrical car, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. In 1838, Scotsman Robert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of 4 miles per hour (6 km/h). In England, a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of tracks as conductors of electric current, and similar American patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in 1847.

Sources point to different creations as the first electric car. Between 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain), Robert Anderson of Scotland invented a crude electric carriage, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris. English inventor Thomas Parker, who was responsible for innovations such as electrifying the London Underground, overhead tramways in Liverpool and Birmingham, and the smokeless fuel coalite, built the first production electric car in London in 1884, using his own specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries. Some believe that the Flocken Elektrowagen of 1888 by the German inventor Andreas Flocken invented the first, true electric car. Electric cars were popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Electricity was used for automobiles a lot. Gasoline cars were limited back then. This changed with the advances in the internal combustion technology. Companies like the Food Motor Company used gasoline cars with more range, quicker refueling times, and a growing petroleum infrastructure (along with the mass production of gasoline vehicles) to advance more cars. Electric cars started to decline. They were nearly gone in the 1930’s. Electric cars made a huge comeback by the 1990’s and the 21st century because of the environmental impact of gasoline cars, higher gasoline prices, improvements in battery technology, and debates about peak oil. Early attempts at making and using internal combustion engines were hampered by the lack of suitable fuels, particularly liquids, therefore the earliest engines used gas mixtures. Many early experiments used gases. That is why by 1806, the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built an engine powered by the internal combustion of a hydrogen and oxygen mixture. In 1826, the Englishman Samuel Brown tested his hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine by using it to propel a vehicle up Shooter’s Hill in south-east London. The Belgian born Etienne Lenoir’s Hippomobile with a hydrogen gas fueled one cylinder internal combustion engine made a test drive from Paris to Jonville le Pont in 1860. It covered 9 km. in about 3 hours. A later version used coal gas. A Delamare-Deboutteville vehicle was patented and trialed in 1884.

About 1870, in Vienna, Austria (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), inventor Siegfried Marcus put a liquid-fueled internal combustion engine on a simple handcart which made him the first man to propel a vehicle by means of gasoline. Today, this car is known as "the first Marcus car." In 1883, Marcus secured a German patent for a low-voltage ignition system of the magneto type; this was his only automotive patent. This design was used for all further engines, and the four-seat "second Marcus car" of 1888/89. This ignition, in conjunction with the "rotating-brush carburetor", made the second car's design very innovative. His second car is on display at the Technical Museum in Vienna. During his lifetime, he was honored as the originator of the motorcar but his place in history was all but erased by the Nazis during World War II. Because Marcus was of Jewish descent, the Nazi propaganda office ordered his work to be destroyed, his name expunged from future textbooks, and his public memorials removed, giving credit instead to Karl Benz. Many people acknowledge that that the first really practical automobiles with petrol/gasoline-powered internal combustion engines were completed almost simultaneously by several German inventors working independently: Karl Benz built his first automobile in 1885 in Mannheim. Benz was granted a patent for his automobile on January 29, 1886, and began the first production of automobiles in 1888, after Bertha Benz, his wife, had proved – with the first long-distance trip in August 1888, from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back – that the horseless coach was capable of extended travel. Since 2008, a Bertha Benz Memorial Route commemorates this event.
Soon after, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart in 1889 designed a vehicle from scratch to be an automobile, rather than a horse-drawn carriage fitted with an engine. They also are usually credited with invention of the first motorcycle in 1886, but Italy's Enrico Bernardi of the University of Padua, in 1882, patented a 0.024 horsepower (17.9 W) 122 cc (7.4 cu in) one-cylinder petrol motor, fitting it into his son's tricycle, making it at least a candidate for the first automobile and first motorcycle;. Bernardi enlarged the tricycle in 1892 to carry two adults.

The first four-wheeled petrol-driven automobile in Britain was built in Walthamstow by Frederick Bremer in 1892. Another was made in Birmingham in 1895 by Frederick William Lanchester, who also patented the disc brake. The first electric starter was installed on an Arnold, an adaptation of the Benz Velo, built in Kent between 1895 and 1898. George F. Foss of Sherbrooke, Quebec built a single-cylinder gasoline car in 1896 which he drove for 4 years, ignoring city officials' warnings of arrest for his "mad antics.” In all the turmoil, many early pioneers are nearly forgotten. In 1891, John William Lambert built a three-wheeler in Ohio City, Ohio, which was destroyed in a fire the same year, while Henry Nadig constructed a four-wheeler in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It is likely they were not the only ones.


By Timothy