NEWS HEADLINES
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US charges Cuba's Raúl Castro with murder over 1996 downing of two planes
Cuba's current president says the charges against Castro - including conspiracy to kill US nationals and destruction of aircraft - are a "political manoeuvre". read more
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Rosenberg: Putin enjoys Xi's Chinese welcome but heads home without pipeline deal
Russia and China showed they were shoulder-to-shoulder on the world stage, but it became clear there are limits, says the BBC's Russia Editor. read more
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DR Congo cancels World Cup training camp over Ebola outbreak
The outbreak, caused by a rare Ebola species, is thought to have caused 139 deaths so far. read more
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Sierra Leone becomes latest African country to receive deportees from US
Nine deportees arrive from the US as part of Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. read more
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Far-right Israeli minister condemned for taunting handcuffed Gaza flotilla activists
France and Italy are among the countries that have criticised a video showing Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting dozens of activists detained at an Israeli port. read more
ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY
STEPHEN JAY GOLD
BIOGRAPHY
Stephen Jay Gould was born and raised in the community of Bayside, a neighborhood of the northeastern section of Queens in New York City. His father Leonard was a court stenographer, and his mother Eleanor was an artist whose parents were Jewish immigrants living and working in the city’s Garment District.[6] When Gould was five years old his father took him to the Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History, where he first encountered Tyrannosaurus rex. “I had no idea there were such things—I was awestruck,” Gould once recalled.[7] It was in that moment that he decided to become a paleontologist.
Raised in a secular Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice religion and preferred to be called an agnostic. Biologist Jerry Coyne, who had Gould on his thesis committee, described him as a “diehard atheist if there ever was one.
