Africa
hideAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the World's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Not counting the disputed territory of Western Sahara, there are 53 countries, including Madagascar and various island groups, associated with the continent.
Africa, particularly central eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae tree (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago – including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens (human) found in Ethiopia being dated to ca. 200,000 years ago.
Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones.
For more information about Africa, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with africa
French find puts humans in Europe 200,000 years earlier
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Dec 15, 2009 |
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Experts on prehistoric man are rethinking their dates after a find in a southern French valley suggested our ancestors may have reached Europe 1.57 million years ago: 200,000 years earlier than we thought.
Influenza in Africa should not be ignored
Dec 15, 2009 |
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Influenza is circulating in Africa, but virtually no information or attention is evident, says a new essay in this week's PLoS Medicine. Maria Yazdanbakhsh and Peter Kremsner argue that the lack of adequate surveillance means ...
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Student sleuths using DNA reveal zoo of 95 species in NYC homes -- and new evidence of food fraud
11 hours ago |
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Two New York City high school students exploring their homes using the latest high-tech DNA analysis techniques were astonished to discover a veritable zoo of 95 animal species surrounding them, in everything ...
New form of malaria threatens Thai-Cambodia border
16 hours ago |
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(AP) -- O'treng village doesn't look like the epicenter of anything. Just off a muddy rutted-out road, it is nothing more than a handful of Khmer-style bamboo huts perched crookedly on stilts, tucked among ...
First case of highly drug-resistant TB found in US
Dec 27, 2009 |
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(AP) -- It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused to go away.
China defends role at Copenhagen
Dec 25, 2009 |
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China has defended its role at this month's climate change talks in Copenhagen, saying Premier Wen Jiabao played a key part in sealing an accord, after critics blamed Beijing for blocking negotiations.
New tool in the fight against mosquito-borne disease: A microbial 'mosquito net'
Dec 24, 2009 |
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Earlier this year, researchers showed that they could cut the lives of disease-carrying mosquitoes in half by infecting them with a bacterium they took from fruit flies. Now, a new report in the December 24th issue of Cell, ...
Turtles' Christmas journey tracked by scientists
Dec 23, 2009 |
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The journeys of two marine turtles around the world's oceans will be available to view online this Christmas, thanks to a new research project launched by the University of Exeter.
Kew botanists discover more than 250 new plant species in 250th anniversary year
Dec 22, 2009 |
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Giant rainforest trees, rare and beautiful orchids, spectacular palms, minute fungi, wild coffees and an ancient aquatic plant are among more than 250 new plant and fungi species discovered and described by botanists from ...
Meddling in mosquitoes' sex lives could help stop the spread of malaria, says study
Dec 22, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Stopping male mosquitoes from sealing their sperm inside females with a 'mating plug' could prevent mosquitoes from reproducing, and offer a potential new way to combat malaria, say scientists ...
Samsung Launches M5650 Music Phone
Electronics / Consumer & Gadgets
Dec 21, 2009 |
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Samsung Electronics today unveiled the Samsung M5650, a music-focused addition to its popular lineup of full touch screen handsets for young mobile users.
Genetic study clarifies African and African-American ancestry
Dec 21, 2009 |
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People who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent, just one finding of a large-scale, genome-wide study of African and African-American ancestry released ...
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