Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Tumour tot’s £154k for op
‘Garden of Eden’ is pinpointed to desert area of northern Botswana
A BID to raise £120,000 so a baby with a rare heart tumour can have a lifesaving operation in the US has smashed its target.
Football boss Harry Redknapp is among thousands who have backed 10-month-old Michael Labuschagne’s Gofundme page, now at £154,000.
The Bristol tot survived a cardiac arrest against the odds seven months ago.
Mum Emma said: “We cannot believe the generosity we have been shown.”
EXPERTS say they have found the place where modern man originated.
The “Garden of Eden” has been located in a desert area of northern Botswana just south of the Zambezi River.
Previously experts thought that homo sapiens had evolved all over Africa.
Scientists took blood samples from 1,217 people in Namibia and South Africa and examined their mitochondrial DNA.
They were then able to track their ancestors to an area which was originally covered by Lake Makgadikgadi, a massive expanse of water the size of England.
But over time, the lake broke up, creating a vast, lush wetland, with many plants and trees which supported life.
Early humans thrived there for 70,000 years, till the climate changed and many were forced to leave Africa and populate the rest of the planet.
Vanessa Hayes, of
Sydney University, said: “It has been clear for some time modern humans appeared in Africa 200,000 years ago.
“What has been debated is the exact location of this emergence and subsequent dispersal of our ancestors.
This [study] enabled us to pinpoint the ancestral homeland of all humans.
“It is the first time the exact location has been identified.”
Prof Hayes said of those who dispersed: “The first migrants ventured north east.
“A second wave travelled south west. A third population remained in the homeland until today.”
The findings were published in the journal Nature.