Posts tagged interior
Rodwin Architecture & Skycastle Construction
Aug 27th
Rodwin Architecture is an award-winning green firm located in Boulder, Colorado experienced in both residential and commercial projects of all sizes. Known for their design excellence, friendly, responsive service, and expertise in sustainable design. Rodwin Architecture offers complete architectural, interior and landscape design services and has a proven track record in planning, feasibility, construction management and development.
Skycastle Homes works in partnership with the design team at Rodwin Architecture, as a green design/build company in Boulder, Colorado. They are also known for design excellence, quality construction, friendly, responsive service, business integrity, and an unmatched expertise in sustainable design. From new million dollar custom homes to budget-minded remodels.
1245 Pearl Street, Suite 202
Boulder, CO 80302
Phone: (303) 413-8556
Fax: (303) 413-8557
Email: scott@rodwinarch.com
Website: www.rodwinarch.com
Map & Reviews
Asian migrants stuck on land bridge for milleniums
Feb 27th
likely a long-term refuge for early Americans
A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder bolsters the theory that the first Americans, who are believed to have come over from northeast Asia during the last ice age, may have been isolated on the Bering Land Bridge for thousands of years before spreading throughout the Americas.
The theory, now known as the “Beringia Standstill,” was first proposed in 1997 by two Latin American geneticists and refined in 2007 by a team led by the University of Tartu in Estonia that sampled mitrochondrial DNA from more than 600 Native Americans. The researchers found that mutations in the DNA indicated a group of their direct ancestors from Siberia was likely isolated for at least several thousand years in the region of the Bering Land Bridge, the now-submerged plain that lies between northeast Asia and Alaska once exposed by a significantly lower sea level.
CU-Boulder researcher John Hoffecker, lead author of a short paper article appearing in the Feb. 28 issue of Science magazine, said the Beringia Standstill model gained little traction outside of the genetics community after it was proposed and has been seen by some scientists outside of the field as far-fetched. But the new paper by Hoffecker and co-authors Scott Elias of Royal Holloway, University of London, and Dennis O’Rourke of the University of Utah adds credence to the Beringia Standstill idea by further linking the genetics to the paleoecological evidence.
“A number of supporting pieces have fallen in place during the last decade, including new evidence that central Beringia supported a shrub tundra region with some trees during the last glacial maximum and was characterized by surprisingly mild temperatures, given the high latitude,” said Hoffecker of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. The last glacial maximum peaked roughly 21,000 years ago and was marked by the growth of vast ice sheets in North America and Europe.
While a debate rages on about when early humans first migrated into the New World, many archaeologists now believe it was sometime around 15,000 years ago after retreating glaciers opened access to coastal and interior routes into North America.
The relatively mild summer climate in Beringia at the time was caused by North Pacific circulation patterns that brought moist and relatively warm air to the region during the last glacial maximum. Geologists believe the Beringia gateway between Siberia and Alaska was more than 600 miles wide at the time.
Hoffecker and others are now theorizing that a population of hundreds or thousands of people parked itself in central Beringia for 5,000 years or more. One key to the extended occupation may have been the presence of wood in some places to use as a fuel to supplement bone, which burns hot and fast. Experiments have shown that at least some wood is necessary to make bone practical as a fuel.
Elias, a paleoecologist and also an INSTAAR affiliate, said research using fossil pollen, plant and insect material from sediment cores from the now submerged landscape show that the Bering Land Bridge tundra environment contained enough woody plants and trees like birch, willow and alder to provide a supplement to bone.
Work by Elias and others included the analysis of certain beetle species that live in very specific temperature zones, allowing them to be used as tiny thermometers. The insects indicated that temperatures there were relatively mild during last glacial maximum that ran from about 27,000 years to 20,000 years ago, only slightly cooler than temperatures in the region today.
“The climate on the land bridge and adjacent parts of Siberia and Alaska was a bit wetter than the interior regions like central Alaska and the Yukon, but not a lot warmer,” said Elias. “Our data show that woody shrubs were available on the land bridge, which would have facilitated the making of fires by the people there.”
Evidence from the 2007 study indicated a set of genetic mutations in mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mother to offspring, clearly accumulated after the divergence of people from their Asian parent groups in Siberia but before their dispersal throughout the Western Hemisphere, said O’Rourke. In addition, ancient DNA from human skeletal remains found at a 24,000-year-old archaeological site in southern Siberia also appears consistent with the divergence of Native American groups from their Asian forbearers by that time window, he said.
“The genetic record has been very clear for several years that the Native American genome must have arisen in an isolated population at least by 25,000 years ago, and the bulk of the migrants to the Americas really didn’t arrive south of the ice sheets until nearly 15,000 years ago,” O’Rourke said. “The paleoecological data, which I think most geneticists have not been familiar with, indicate that Beringia was not a uniform environment, and there was a shrub tundra region, or refugium, that likely provided habitats conducive to continuous human habitation.”
“From my view the genetics and paleoecology data come together nicely,” said Hoffecker, who co-authored a 2007 book with Elias titled “The Human Ecology of Beringia.” While the weakest link to the Out of Beringia theory is the lack of archaeological evidence, Hoffecker believes future research on now submerged parts of Beringia as well as lowlands in western Alaska and eastern Siberia that still remain above water may hold clues to ancient habitation by Beringia residents, who eventually moved on to be the first group to inhabit the Americas.
Hoffecker also believes that the Beringia inhabitants during the last glacial maximum could have made successful hunting forays into the uninhabited steppe-tundra region to both the east and west, where drier conditions and more grass supported a plentiful array of large grazing animals, including steppe bison, horse and mammoth.
There is now solid evidence for humans in Beringia before the last glacial maximum, as geneticists first predicted in 1997, said Hoffecker. After the maximum, there are two sets of archaeological remains dating to less than 15,000 years ago. “One represents a late migration from Asia into Alaska at that time,” he said. “The other has no obvious source outside Beringia and may represent the people who are thought to have sheltered on the land bridge during the glacial maximum.
“If we are looking for a place to put all of these people during the last glacial maximum, Beringia may be the only realistic option,” said Hoffecker.
A video news story on the research is available at http://www.colorado.edu/news.
-CU-
CU MBB team–Close but no cigar
Dec 23rd
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
LAS VEGAS – Colorado cut a 12-point Oklahoma State lead to four in the final minute here Saturday night, but that’s where the Buffaloes’ rally and their 10-game winning streak would stop. The No. 7 Cowboys held on for a 78-73 win in the second game of the MGM Grand Showcase.
No. 20 CU (10-2) struggled to get timely stops and had just as much trouble finding an offensive rhythm, and when Phil Forte III drained a long trey just under the 3-minute mark Okie State (11-1) had a 73-61 lead. The Buffs were running out of chances and time, but a 10-2 flurry brought them to within 75-71 on a put-back by Josh Scott with 26 seconds to play.
OSU’s Marcus Smart hit a pair of free throws (77-71) with 23.4 seconds remaining but Scott answered with two (77-73) at the 16-second mark. Two seconds later, Forte hit one of two foul shots for the Cowboys’ final margin.
“I take the blame for this loss,” said CU coach Tad Boyle. “As a coach I didn’t do a good job on the sideline. I didn’t have our team ready to play tonight for whatever reason. I’ve got to look myself in the mirror.”
In hindsight, Boyle questioned whether he had the Buffs practice as much as necessary during semester finals week which preceded Saturday’s game. “That’s where I take responsibility as a coach, coming off of finals and we had two practices as a team,” he said. “I thought that at this time of the season we could carry over without those lengthy practices through finals; I want to respect our guys as students. So, as a basketball coach it’s really hard to take that time and back off, and maybe that hurt us tonight. It’s not an excuse, it’s just the fact that we weren’t as sharp and we need to become sharper and the only way you can do that is by practicing.”
Nonetheless, Boyle added, “We have so much room for improvement, we still haven’t put a (complete) game together, and yet we played the No. 7 team in the country to a five-point game on a neutral court and we don’t feel like we played well, at all.”
CU junior guard
disagreed with Boyle shouldering the loss. “I don’t think the blame goes on coach Boyle,” he said. “He’s just tough on himself – just like I am on myself . . . the only thing we maybe could have done better was a have a couple more days of practice.”
The Cowboys’ 78 points were the most the Buffs have allowed this season. OSU shot 61.9 percent from the field (13-of-21) in the second half and finished at 52.1 percent (25-of-48). CU shot only 40.6 percent from the field (26-of-64). The Buffs outrebounded the Cowboys 41-30 and got 21 second-chance points to the Cowboys’ four.
CU junior guard Spencer Dinwiddie called OSU’s second-half shooting percentage “very disappointing . . . we just dug ourselves a hole.” But the self-burial started in the first half.
Among Boyle’s pre-game goals was to limit the Cowboys’ layups, targeting six as a minimum to give the Buffs the best chance of winning. That was six for the game – not the first half.
But that’s what CU allowed in the first 20 minutes, which helped Okie State roll to a 32-26 lead at intermission. Also contributing were nine of the Buffs’ 14 total turnovers, which resulted in 11 Cowboys points (20 for the game off). Smart, who finished with 18 points, and Markel Brown, who scored a game-best 23, got to the rim unimpeded twice each in the opening half, with the other two layups scored by Kamari Murphy and Michael Cobbins.
The Buffs tightened their interior defense by a couple of clicks, allowing five second-half layups. But the Cowboys’ presented other offensive problems – namely a pair of late, long treys by Forte, who scored 16 points off the bench on four-of-seven shooting from beyond the arc and four-of-seven free throws.
Dinwiddie, who finished with 19 points, called Forte’s treys “timely” and said the Buffs’ first-half turnovers and their porous second-half defense are “never good enough against a good team. Those are probably the three (biggest) things.”
CU got a double-double from Scott – 20 points, tying a season high, and 12 rebounds. Scott hit 10-of-13 free throws and scored 18 of his total in the second half, when Boyle said the Buffs began to focus more on getting the ball inside: “We had 17 paint touches in the first half; we want 50 for the game.”
“If we could get that first half back and play like we did in the second, I think it would be a different outcome,” Scott said, referring more to his team’s nine turnovers and yielding six layups than him not getting more touches.
The Buffs’ largest lead was three points (7-4) following a five-point burst by Booker. That also was CU’s last lead, with four ties following before intermission.
But permitting the six layups undoubtedly wasn’t Boyle’s only beef with his Buffs in the first half. In addition to their nine turnovers, they made a season-low (for a first half) three assists and got to the free throw line just once (Xavier Johnson hit one of two). CU finished the night making 15-of-20 free throws – not close to an average night’s work for the Buffs – while OSU made 23-of-35.
“Coming into this game, we’re eighth in the country in free throw attempts,” Boyle said. “We’re eighth in the country for free throws made; we didn’t get to the free throw line tonight, for whatever reason. Obviously we have to figure out how to score when we’re not getting to the free throw line, but that’s frustrating when you know over an 11 game schedule how many free throws you shoot and that’s a big part of your offensive identity and then you don’t get to the free throw line – for whatever reason – frustration sets in a little bit. We’ve got to get better in that regard, so we have to become a better half court execution team.”
Boyle also said the Cowboys’ zone defense in the second half “got us standing, which is exactly what they want, but we didn’t handle that well at times.”
Also, getting forward Wesley Gordon back after a two-game absence didn’t help CU that much in the opening half. At the 16:06 mark, Gordon was whistled for his second foul and went to the bench with two rebounds and a steal.
He didn’t return (or score) until the second half opened, hitting a foul line jumper – his only points for the night – that brought the Buffs to 34-30. A Booker layup off a steal by Scott cut the deficit to 34-32 half a minute later. But the Cowboys widened their lead to five points (37-32) on one of three free throws by Smart and a jumper by Brown with just over 161/2 minutes remaining.
Okie State’s advantage ballooned to eight (44-36) before Dinwiddie hit a trey from the left corner and one of two free by Scott cut the Buffs’ deficit in half (44-40). The Cowboys went another layup spree, getting three – including a dunk and free throw by Smart – and a pair of treys by Forte to take their first double-figure lead of the night (63-53) with 7:32 to play. At that point, Boyle tried to regroup his troops with a timeout. It didn’t help immediately, but the Buffs kept grinding.
“I love the toughness, and the grit, and the fight in our team, and I have a lot of respect for Oklahoma State and their players,” Boyle said. “t’s just disappointing because we will never have this opportunity again unless were fortunate enough to get them in the (NCAA) tournament.”
The Buffs don’t play again until Saturday, Dec. 28 when they host Georgia at the Coors Events Center. Their first post-Christmas practice is scheduled for Thursday.