Hull, Isaac (b. March 9, 1773, Derby, Conn.—d. Feb. 13, 1843, Phila¬ delphia, Pa., U.S.) U.S. naval officer. A nephew of William Hull, he was master of a ship by age 19. He was commissioned a lieutenant aboard the USS Constitution in 1798, becoming its commander in 1810. He distin¬ guished himself in the undeclared naval war with France at that time and in the Tripolitan War (1801-1805). Early in the War of 1812 he engaged the British frigate Guerriere and, after a fierce battle, rendered it a wreck. He was recognized as one of the navy’s ablest commanders, and his ship became known as “Old Ironsides.” He commanded the U.S. squadrons in the Pacific (1824-27) and in the Mediterranean (1839^-1).
Hull, William (b. June 24, 1753, Derby, Conn.—d. Nov. 29, 1825, Newton, Mass., U.S.) U.S. Army officer. He fought in American Revo¬ lutionary campaigns in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. In 1805 he was appointed governor of Michigan Territory. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, he was appointed brigadier general and charged with defending Michigan and attacking Canada. His poorly planned invasion of Canada forced him to retreat to Detroit, where he surrendered without a fight. He was court-martialed and convicted of cowardice and neglect of duty; his death sentence was remitted by Pres. James Madison because of his earlier service.
Hulse, Russell Alan (b. Nov. 28, 1950, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. physicist. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. With his professor, Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., he discovered dozens of pulsars. One pulsar, PSR 1913+16, proved to be a binary star; the two stars’ enormous interacting gravitational fields provided the first means of detecting gravi¬ tational waves, predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of rela¬ tivity. For their discovery of PSR 1913+16, Hulse and Taylor shared a 1993 Nobel Prize.
human being See Homo sapiens
human evolution Evolution of modern human beings from extinct nonhuman and humanlike forms. Genetic evidence points to an evolu¬ tionary divergence between the lineages of humans and the great apes on the African continent 8-5 million years ago (mya). The earliest fossils considered to be remains of hominins (members of the human lineage) date to at least 4 mya in Africa; they are classified as genus Australopithecus. The next major evolutionary stage, Homo habius, inhabited sub-Saharan Africa about 2-1.5 mya. Homo habilis appears to have been supplanted by a taller and more humanlike species, Homo erectus, which lived from c. 1,700,000 to 200,000 years ago, gradually migrating into Asia and parts of Europe. Between c. 600,000 and 200,000 years ago. Homo heidelber- gensis, sometimes called archaic Homo sapiens, lived in Africa, Europe, and perhaps parts of Asia. Having features resembling those of both H.
erectus and modern humans, H. heidelbergensis may have been an ances¬ tor of modem humans and also of the Neanderthals ( H. neanderthalen- sis), who inhabited Europe and western Asia from c. 200,000 to 28,000 years ago. Fully modem humans (H. sapiens) seem to have emerged in Africa only c. 150,000 years ago, perhaps having descended directly from H. erectus or from an intermediate species such as H. heidelbergensis.
human factors engineering See ergonomics
Human Genome Project U.S. research effort initiated in 1990 by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health to analyze the DNA of human beings. The project, intended to be completed in 15 years, proposed to identify the chromosomal location of every human GENE, to determine each gene’s precise chemical structure in order to show its function in health and disease, and to determine the precise sequence of nucleotides of the entire set of genes (the genome). Another project was to address the ethical, legal, and social implications of the information obtained. The information gathered will be the basic refer¬ ence for research in human biology and will provide fundamental insights into the genetic basis of human disease. The new technologies developed in the course of the project will be applicable in numerous biomedical fields. In 2000 the government and the private corporation Celera Genom¬ ics jointly announced that the project had been virtually completed, five years ahead of schedule.
human growth hormone See growth hormone human immunodeficiency virus See HIV
human nature Fundamental dispositions and traits of humans. Theo¬ ries about the nature of humankind form a part of every culture. In the West, debate has traditionally centred on whether humans are selfish and competitive (see Thomas Hobbes; John Locke) or social and altruistic (Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim). Recent research in genetics, evolutionary biology, and cultural anthropology suggests that humans may be both, and that there is a complex interaction between genetically inherited factors (“nature”) and developmental and social factors (“nurture”). Basic drives shared with other primates include food, sex, security, play, and social sta¬ tus. Gender differences include greater investment in reproduction and child-rearing among females, hence less risk-taking; and concomitantly less investment and greater risk-taking among males. See also behaviour genetics; Homo sapiens-, personality; philosophical anthropology; sociobiol¬ ogy.
human rights Rights that belong to an individual as a consequence of being human. The term came into wide use after World War - II, replacing the earlier phrase “natural rights,” which had been associated with the Greco-Roman concept of natural law since the end of the Middle Ages. As understood today, human rights refer to a wide variety of values and capabilities reflecting the diversity of human circumstances and history. They are conceived of as universal, applying to all human beings every¬ where, and as fundamental, referring to essential or basic human needs. Human rights have been classified historically in terms of the notion of three “generations” of human rights. The first generation of civil and political rights, associated with the Enlightenment and the English, Ameri¬ can, and French revolutions, includes the rights to life and liberty and the rights to freedom of speech and worship. The second generation of eco¬ nomic, social, and cultural rights, associated with revolts against the pre¬ dations of unregulated capitalism from the mid-19th century, includes the right to work and the right to an education. Finally, the third generation of solidarity rights, associated with the political and economic aspirations of developing and newly decolonized countries after World War II, includes the collective rights to political self-determination and economic development. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, many treaties and agreements for the protection of human rights have been concluded through the auspices of the United Nations, and several regional systems of human rights law have been established. In the late 20th century ad hoc international criminal tribunals were con¬ vened to prosecute serious human rights violations and other crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The International Criminal Court, which came into existence in 2002, is empowered to prosecute crimes against humanity, crimes of genocide, and war crimes.
human sacrifice Offering of the life of a human being to a god. In some ancient cultures, the killing of a human being, or the substitution of an animal for a person, was an attempt to commune with the god and to participate in the divine life. It also sometimes served as an attempt to