"We are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate."

At least that's how Wallace Stegner, American novelist and environmentalist, puts it. And it certainly seems to be the word on the street in a lot of other places these days. Humans are at fault for everything under the sun - figuratively and maybe literally.  I don't disagree we can do better but, for the sake of humanity, someone needs to stick up for us.

Humans are the only species in 4.8 Billion years of planetary existence that has completely gone against the basic theory of evolution. Instead of adapting to our surroundings, we've made the environment adapt to us.

We like to think of ourselves as simple beings, living day by day doing what we believe is right, but when we finally take a moment to reflect, we still pursue higher issues like why are we here?

Of course, I can't answer that question, but it gives us a way to think about the real impact we've come to have. We are leaving a significant imprint by our behavior in the present and, I don't know about you, but I personally don't want the entire human race of the early 21st century to be looked down upon for the few mistakes we have made.

Let's begin at the beginning; wayyy back to the age of the Dinosaur.

SAN FRANCISCO and DUBLIN, Ireland, October 2 /PRNewswire/ --

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR), the leading owner and manager of corporate and Internet gateway datacentres, has promoted Bernard Geoghegan to Senior Vice President. In this role, Mr. Geoghegan is responsible for Digital Realty Trust's growing operations in Europe, which includes 12 datacentre properties in the Dublin, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Geneva markets. Mr. Geoghegan will oversee the management and operations of Digital Realty Trust's European portfolio, which comprises nearly 140,000 square metres including 23,000 square metres of datacentre space currently under construction. In addition, he will take a leadership role developing international opportunities in other regions including Asia.

LONDON, October 2 /PRNewswire/ --

- Free Guide From Level Four Aims to Assist Banks to Successfully Outsource ATM Testing

For several decades, scientists have thought that the Solar System formed as a result of a shock wave from an exploding star — a supernova — that triggered the collapse of a dense, dusty gas cloud that contracted to form the Sun and the planets.

Models of this formation process have only worked under the simplifying assumption that the temperatures during the violent events remained constant but astrophysicists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) say their new model says that a supernova could indeed have triggered the Solar System’s formation under the more likely conditions of rapid heating and cooling.

As the world looks for more energy, the oil industry will need more refined tools for discoveries in places where searches have never before taken place, geologists say. One such tool is a new sediment curve (which shows where sediment-on-the-move is deposited), derived from sediments of the Paleozoic Era 542 to 251 million years ago, scientists report in this week's Science. The sediment curve covers the entire Paleozoic Era.

"The sediment curve is of interest to industry, and also to scientists in academia," said Bilal Haq, lead author of the paper and a marine geologist at the National Science Foundation (NSF), "as the rise and fall of sea-level form the basis for intepretations of Earth history based on stratigraphy."

LONDON, October 2 /PRNewswire/ --

- London Business School Responds Directly to Student and Recruiter Needs

London Business School has today announced the launch of a ground-breaking new addition to its existing degree programme portfolio. The new Masters in Management degree will welcome students from around the world for its first intake in August 2009.

The Masters in Management has been designed with an intense focus on what students and recruiters need in today's business environment. As one of the world's leading business schools, London Business School identified the need to equip students with both the intellectual rigour and the practical skills needed in today's competitive marketplace.

PARIS, October 2 /PRNewswire/ --

- European Search Technology Centre will be focused on developing a world-class search offering.

Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer continued his five-city European trip today with additional announcements of plans to step up investment and recruitment in the region. Following an earlier announcement in Norway, creating jobs focused on innovation in enterprise search, Microsoft today announced further details on the plan to open a new European Search Technology Centre (STC).

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO )

LONDON, October 2 /PRNewswire/ --

Splunk (http://www.splunk.com), the IT Search company, today announces the appointment of Brian Haynes as Vice President Sales in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region. The appointment of Haynes follows Splunk's continued and exceptional growth -- in Q2 alone Splunk added 94 new customers and upgraded 45 existing customers to higher data indexing levels. The company ended Q2 with more than 750 enterprise, service provider and government agency customers worldwide, including more than 60 in EMEA.

WATFORD, England, October 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Doing business online has been the mission of Novae Group Plc ('Novae') since deploying Salmon's Application Framework for Insurance (SAFI(TM)) for its underwriting business in 2004. Novae have now launched its Motor Fleet line-of-business on SAFI, extending the web-based platform to get a range of new products to market quickly and efficiently.

Steve Fookes, IT Director Novae said, "The introduction of Novae's Motor Fleet Underwriting Service is an opportunity to strengthen our market position. We needed a completely integrated IT infrastructure that could be aligned across the business which was cost effective and would support ongoing growth."

Belief in God encourages people to be helpful, honest and generous, but only under certain psychological conditions, according to University of British Columbia researchers who analyzed the past three decades of social science research.

Religious people are more likely than the non-religious to engage in prosocial behavior – acts that benefit others at a personal cost – when it enhances the individual's reputation or when religious thoughts are freshly activated in the person's mind, say UBC social psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff