NEWS HEADLINES
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CIA chief visits Cuba as energy crisis worsens
The reported visit to Havana came after the US renewed an offer of aid to ease the effects of its oil blockade. read more
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New outbreak of Ebola kills 65 in eastern DR Congo
Africa's top health agency says around 246 cases have been reported. read more
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Five Italians die during cave scuba dive in Maldives
Four of the Italians were part of a team from the University of Genoa. read more
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India's Adanis agree to pay $18m to settle civil fraud case in the US
The US securities regulator had accused the Adanis of paying bribes and misleading investors, which they denied. read more
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US Supreme Court restores abortion pill access for now
Abortion pills are the most common method of terminating pregnancies in the US. 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.
