"When you use [Google Translate] to take a letter from a Swedish girlfriend and check that you have understood what she meant, that's fine, if your Swedish is a bit ropey. ... Google Translate has many perfectly sensible and viable uses, and it's a most impressive intellectual and technical achievement. But ... Google itself wouldn't think of using Google Translate to produce its publicity literature in the languages in which it sells its services. It uses human translators to do that....
"Every human language can fulfill all the needs that its users want to make of it. And if it really needs a word to articulate the wrist and distinguish the hand from the arm, well, they'll jolly well invent one so as to do so. And if they haven't invented one, it's because actually their [are] sort of other ways around it, because life is a very flexible thing.
"I'm personally very skeptical of the idea that any language, any of the languages that human communities have, constrains them to talk about the world in any particular way. It may make it easier to talk about the world in some particular ways, but if you really need to make a distinction, well, you invent a word. You do something new. Language is forever changing in response to [its] users' need."

In one of your essays, you ask the question “Are we it?”—are we the final blossom of the human flower? What is your answer? 


Actually, my answer to “Are we it?” is to turn the assumption on its head. Considering that we are the only survivor of a diverse family tree—that is, an evolutionary tree characterized by lots of extinction—the notion that our twig is the final blossom of evolution is incredibly outdated. It’s incorrect no matter how ingrained it is in our thinking. Our amazing adaptability has allowed us to shape the environment to our own needs. This transformation has taken place in a remarkable period of climate stability, over the past 8,000 years or so. One deeply ironic result is that we have now narrowed our own options at a time when climate fluctuation appears to be increasing. Of an estimated 15,000 species of mammals and birds, fewer than 14 account for 90 percent of what we eat. Of more than 10,000 edible plants, three crops—wheat, rice, and corn—provide half the world’s calories. And through greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels, we’re pulling on the strings of the earth’s unstable climate.


By narrowing our options at a time of increasing instability, could we be inadvertently engineering our demise?


I see two possible scenarios for the future. We could change our current course and try to work carefully with the natural dynamics of the planet and the uncertainties of the environment, especially when it comes to our own inadvertent effects. Or we could continue shaping the earth in our own image, so to speak. We could theoretically, through engineering, create a membrane around the earth that controls temperature and rainfall, for instance. These two courses represent two very different views of the earth and our place on it. Whether the next chapter of the human story will be the last chapter may depend on the balance we strike between those two courses.

Inside the foam’s bubbles, methane reaches levels of 60 to 70 percent, or more than four times what’s considered dangerous. The foam can reach depths of more than four feet.

Disturb the bubbles, and enormous quantities of methane are released in a very short time. Add a spark—from, say, a bit of routine metal repair, as happened in a September 2011 accident that killed 1,500 hogs and injured a worker—and the barn will blow.

According to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of disability and the fourth leading contributor to the global burden of disease, projected to reach second place by 2020. There is also strong evidence that it is an independent risk factor for heart disease, and several studies show that prolonged depression is associated with selective and possibly permanent damage to the hippocampus, a region of the brain critical to memory and learning.
Add the fact that 2 percent to 12 percent of depressed people eventually commit suicide, and the [supposed evolutionary] “advantages” of depression suddenly don’t look so good....
What is natural, the thinking goes, is best. If we are designed to suffer depression in response to life’s ills, there must be a good reason for it, and we should allow it to take its painful and natural course.
But unlike ordinary sadness, the natural course of depression can be devastating and lethal. And while sadness is useful, clinical depression signals a failure to adapt to stress or loss, because it impairs a person’s ability to solve the very dilemmas that triggered it.
Even if depression is “natural” and evolved from an emotional state that might once have given us some advantage, that doesn’t make it any more desirable than other maladies. Nature offers us cancer, infections and heart disease, which we happily avoid and do our best to treat. Depression is no different.

Scientists have proven that cannabis does have medical usefulness, and the more we learn the more intriguing these discoveries become. Since the early 1980s, medical researchers have published about how cannabis relieves pressure in the eye, thus easing the symptoms of glaucoma, a disease that causes blindness. THC is also "neuroprotective," meaning in essence that it prevents brain damage. Some studies have suggested that cannabis could mitigate the effects of Alzheimer's for this reason.
At the same time, we know that THC interferes with memory, and it's still uncertain what kinds of long-term effects the drug could have on memory functioning. No one has been able to prove definitively that it does or does not erode memory strength over time.
[Article strength: quite specific about potentially adverse effects on brain and body before the cautious statement above about neuroprotective effects.
Weaknesses: Ignores action of other cannabinoids and cannabinols. Sets up a false opposition insofar as the short-term memory effects seem to be about memory formation, not memory retention or loss. No citations.—DMM]

Inflammation and the [age-related accumulation of the toxic molecule amyloid beta contribute to] increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the largest cause of blindness in people over 50 in the developed world...
"When we gave older mice the vitamin D we found that deposits of amyloid beta were reduced in their eyes and the mice showed an associated improvement of vision. [Amyloid beta is linked to Alzheimer's disease;] new evidence suggests that vitamin D could have a role in reducing its build up in the brain"...
Professor Jeffery and his team...found that the mice that had been given the vitamin D supplement also had significantly less amyloid beta built up in their blood vessels, including in the aorta...
"[V]itamin D could be useful in helping to prevent a range of age-related health problems, from deteriorating vision to heart disease"....
For much of human history our ancestors lived in Africa, probably without clothes, and so were exposed to strong sunlight all year round. This would have triggered vitamin D production in the skin. Humans have only moved to less sunny parts of the world and adopted clothing relatively recently and so might not be well adapted to reduced exposure to the sun.

[People on high protein-fat diets tend to have intestines with more of the bacteria called Bacteroides; others have] more microbes from the genus Prevotella...

[Regular consumption of certain things, including red wine and aspartame, maps] to subtle changes in the gut bacteria....

Other factors [correlated with gut flora type include whether birth is vaginal or cesarean, and whether a mother breast-feeds. Chronic disease, excessive antibiotics, and genetics may also play a role]...

[Microbial cells in the body outnumber] human cells by a factor of 10-1....

[Some intestinal microbes directly assist in digestion;] others influence which human genes are "turned up or turned down"...

Obesity is a subject of particular interest to bacteria researchers, because of the recent epidemic. Lewis said it was unlikely that microbes alone could explain the increase, given the increase in portion sizes and the decline in exercise. Still, he said there are hints that bacteria indeed play a role.

Texas students once again allowed to learn science.

"The metabolic system is like a hybrid car. [Daytime we use glucose as high octane fuel; at night we switch to the battery of stored fat...SIK3 promotes lipid storage during feeding hours by blocking fat breakdown that normally only functions during fasting]....The complexity of this molecular machine [and its presence in different organisms likely reflects its importance in switching the fat batteries on or off]." <br />
[The SIK3/HDAC4/FOXO machine found in the fruitfly also switches metabolism in mice.]<br />
"Virtually all important components of the insulin pathway are conserved in flies and mammals"... <br />
[Such similarities exemplify nature's reluctance to improve on a good thing, especially one determining survival. "That these pathways are used wholesale in flies and humans is striking. An adaptation that works well will likely be] conserved".... <br />
"The human counterparts of HDAC4 and SIK3 may be mutated in ways that make them work less effectively and enhance our proclivity to become obese."

[Deliberate ingestion of soil is widespread among animals, including humans. Motivations and consequences of geophagy on health remain unclear. We studied Ugandan chimpanzees after observing they sometimes ingest soil shortly before or after consuming leaves of Trichilia rubescens, an in-vitro anti-malarial. Analyses of soil eaten by chimpanzees and soil used by the local healer to treat diarrhea revealed like composition, the clay being dominated by kaolinite. We modeled interaction between soil and leaf samples] in gastric and intestinal compartments and assayed the anti-malarial properties of these solutions. [Both soil samples enhanced the pharmacological properties of the bio-available gastric fraction. Geophagy's adaptive function is likely multi-factorial. Still, medical literature and most occidental people usually consider human geophagy as aberrant. We provide] new evidence to view geophagy as a practice for maintaining health, explaining its persistence through evolution.

Deliberate soil consumption [is poorly understood. Human geophagy may be considered aberrant or a sign of metabolic dysfunction; however, geophagy is normally considered adaptive in other primates and taxa. Clay-rich soil is posited as adsorbing plant metabolites or diarrhea-causing enterotoxins. We tested kaolin, a commonly ingested clay, as an adsorbent of alkaloid quinine and 2 types of digestion-inhibiting tannin, using the TNO Intestinal Model, a device that simulates digestion. Kaolin reduced bioavailability of each compound by ≤30%. We could not replicate clay-epithelial adhesion and reduced motility, so results may underestimate adsorption in vivo. Kaolin fails to render calcium oxalate soluble. Gastrointestinal adsorption seems] the most plausible function of human geophagy. Adaptive advantages include greater exploitation of marginal plant foods and reduced energetic costs of diarrhoea, [which may account for the tropical prevalence of geophagy in children and the pregnant].

Clays employed historically in the consumption of astringent acorns plus seven edible clays from Africa were examined in relation to the functional significance of human geophagy. On the basis of sorptive maxima for tannic acid ranging from 5.6 to 23.7 mg/g, we conclude that adsorption of tannic acid in traditional acorn preparation methods in California and Sardinia helped make these nuts palatable. Calcium available in solution at pH 2.0 and 0.1 mol NaCl/L was 2.10 and 0.71 mg/g for the Sardinian and Californian clays, respectively. The African clays released calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, or zinc in amounts of nutritional significance from some clays but not from others. A clay recovered from [a] site occupied by Homo erectus and early H. sapiens was indistinguishable mineralogically, in detoxification capacity and in available minerals, from clays used in Africa today. [The physiological significance of geophagy placed it] in the evolution of human dietary behavior.

Lucy—and the question of her place in the family tree—intensified this rivalry, because Johanson proposed that Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, was older than and ancestral to our genus, Homo, whereas Leakey argued that Homo had very ancient roots, which would have excluded the then-known australopithecines as ancestors. Their disagreement...culminated in a very public falling-out in 1981 during a recorded debate between the two men at the American Museum of Natural History[,] later broadcast on Cronkite's Universe. Roger Lewin and Virginia Morell have written at length about this drama-filled moment, as have others. <br />
So it's a big deal that Johanson and Leakey met once again at the American Museum of Natural History and shared the stage for the first time in 30 years to discuss human origins and why it matters. CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta moderated the discussion on May 5, which started at 6:30 p.m. EDT and was streamed live at: http://www.amnh.org/live/

The skull exhibits a suite of traits in common with australopithecines, particularly A. africanus. Yet it also shares [traits with Homo—more] than any other australopithecine....[Mixed traits include] the apelike ribcage and long arms combined with the humanlike hand, with its short fingers and long thumb.... <br />
[Increasing brain size in the Homo lineage has been argued as driving the evolution of the Homo pelvis from the australopithecine], because in early Homo fossils a larger braincase accompanies the modified pelvis. [H]owever, A. sediba, with its tiny brain, has a pelvis that looks a lot like that of early Homo.... <br />
“I would say it’s the shift from habitual bipedalism to more humanlike obligate bipedal locomotion"...[B]ipedalism probably evolved in two stages: in the first...represented by Lucy’s species, early humans still spent a fair amount of time climbing in the trees in addition to walking upright...In the second, they lost their climbing ability and became fully bipedal.

Reduction or loss of the clavicle is actually normal in both hoofed and carnivorous mammals, so a "floating shoulder" also exists in horses, dogs and many other species. This improves running efficiency because, once the shoulder blade is no longer restrained by the clavicle, it can act almost like an extra limb segment. This results in a lengthened stride, as mentioned on the web page you linked to. Since running speed is equal to stride length times stride frequency (i.e. number of strides per minute, or other unit of time), long stride length allows an animal to run faster without having to move its limbs so quickly.

Human females...experience parent-offspring conflict in a major way. Do we ‘throw in the towel’ after our last offspring has been born, sacrificing ourselves...? Hell no! We like to enjoy our lives outside of our roles as moms[, to take pride in our post-partum appearance, and to focus our energy on our careers or hobbies. W]e are the poster animals for failure when it comes to biological theories like parent-offspring conflict and terminal investment. Does our selfishness [reduce] the biological fitness of our children? Probably….but [humans aren’t really into the habit of maximizing our biological fitness anyway.] <br />
Despite sometimes pulling the trump card (selfishness) during conflicts with my offspring, I’m pretty sure they will turn out ok. Perhaps one day they will one day...achieve the right balance between sacrifice and selfishness. As any human moms out there will attest, it’s a balance we, unlike most other members of the animal kingdom, struggle to achieve each and every day.

[Especially sensitive to salt harm are the old, African-Americans and those] with chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease.... <br />
Our vegetarian ancestors consumed less than a gram of salt a day and even heavy meat eaters took in only about 4 grams on good hunting days.... <br />
Enough sodium is naturally present in foods and beverages to meet the body's need...Only those who labor or exercise strenuously for long periods in hot weather [might] need more sodium.... <br />
[Evolved in a low-sodium environment, our bodies hang on to however much they can get. Potassium being plentiful in the early human diet, the body releases it] to protect against a hazardous excess, which can cause abnormal heart rhythms and muscular paralysis... <br />
[We consume far too little potassium, which helps] lower blood pressure, blunt the effects of salt and reduce the risk of kidney stones and bone loss. [The recommended 4.7 grams of potassium a day for adults is roughly twice typical intake.]

[Among 32 living hunter-gatherer peoples, fewer than 10%] of people in a typical band are close relatives, meaning parents, children or siblings...[The survery provides] a strong foundation for the view that cooperative behavior, as distinct from the fierce aggression between chimp groups, was the turning point that shaped human evolution. If kin selection was much weaker than thought...“then other factors like reciprocity and safeguarding one’s reputation have to be stronger to make cooperation work.” <br />
The finding corroborates an influential new view of early human origins [argued in Bernard Chapais's “Primeval Kinship”]. Dr. Chapais showed how a simple development, the emergence of a pair bond between male and female, would have allowed people to recognize their relatives, something chimps can do only to a limited extent. When family members dispersed to other bands, they would be recognized and neighboring bands would cooperate instead of fighting to the death as chimp groups do.

For reasons lost in the mists of evolution, a mutation in a gene called CMAH occurred about 2 to 3 million years ago, inactivating an enzyme in humans that catalyzes production of Neu5Gc by adding a single oxygen atom to Neu5Ac....<br />
Kim’s group compared mice with a functional CMAH gene to mice with a human-like mutation in CMAH[, developed by earlier researchers. Fed a high-fat diet, m]ice in both groups became obese and developed insulin resistance. [O]nly mice with the CMAH gene mutation experienced pancreatic beta cell failure.... <br />
[T]he findings help refine understanding of why obese humans appear to be particularly vulnerable to type 2 diabetes, and also suggest that current animal models used to study diabetes may not accurately mirror the human condition. In clinical terms...further research to determine how sialic acid composition affects pancreatic beta cell function may reveal new strategies to preserve the cells, improve insulin production and prevent diabetes.

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming (Onion video)

"Nature develops highly advanced structures in combination to solve what at first seems to be an impossible challenge," says Kim Blackburn, an engineer at Cranfield University...which specialises in automotive impact studies. "It may inform our thinking on regenerative dampers for vehicles, redirecting the energy into a form more easily recoverable than dumping it to heat...We need to learn from the woodpecker to recover energy and not give the driver a headache." <br />
Nick Fry, chief executive of Formula One team Mercedes GP Petronas...says such ideas could feed into crash protection for drivers taking part in motorsport: "One big issue with Formula One is protecting the driver by getting them to decelerate in an accident situation in such a way that his internal organs and brain aren't turned to mush...We do that with clever design of composites, very sophisticated seatbelts and a head and neck restraint system...But this research might be something we can draw on in future..."

"A smaller brain is the signature of selection against aggression...Another way to say that is an increase in tolerance"....[F]or a variety of domesticated animals like apes, dogs or turkeys, you can see certain physical characteristics emerge. Among these traits are a lighter and more slender skeleton, a flattened forehead—and decreased brain size... <br />
[Chimpanzees and bonobos, in evolutionary terms,] are much like humans, but are physically quite different from one another. Bonobos have smaller brains than chimpanzees—and are also much less aggressive. <br />
While both have the cognitive ability to solve a given puzzle...chimpanzees are much less likely to accomplish it if it involves teamwork. Not so with bonobos. <br />
"If the food is quite sparse and it's not easy to share, [bonobos] can solve the problem...Chimpanzees, in that same context—where there's not much food and it's not easy to share—they just refuse to work together. They can't solve the problem, even though they know how."

The Denisovans...did not seem to mix much with the modern human Eurasian gene pool...[Genetic variants similar to theirs crop up unexpectedly in] people in Papua New Guinea, suggesting some mixing with Melanesian ancestors. Denisovan genes might compose as much as 4-6% of some Melanesian's genomes...[Such a broad] north-south connection might indicate that the Denisovans had a large range in the east, as modern humans are thought to have lived on those islands in Oceania for some 45,000 years. <br />
"In combination with the Neandertal genome sequence, the Denisovan genome suggests a complex picture of genetic interactions between our ancestors and different ancient hominin groups".... <br />
[T]he finger bone had previously been thought to have come from a modern human...[T]he unclear origins of the small "hobbit" remains (Homo floresiensis) found on the Indonesian island of Flores and dated to about 17,000 years old suggest there might be more recently extinct human relatives yet to be found.

At some point in the evolution of these sea slugs, genes from the algae transferred over and now reside in the genome of the slug. "We found 14 or 15 algal genes so far and I'm pretty confident that we're going to find dozens more"...
Gene transfers are common in single-celled organisms[;] this is the first time it has been described in multicellular organisms...[Research into h]ow the genes got from the algae to the slug...could lead to advances in gene therapy and genetic engineering...
[G]ene therapists are "trying to insert genes from one organism to another...and honestly that doesn't work very well yet, but these slugs have figured that out."
The mechanism could also be important in the study of evolution, giving biologists a new way to explain how organisms acquired certain genes. "You don't have to sit around waiting for a random mutation to occur. You can take a gene or a group of genes, as is the case with the slugs, and really give yourself a real evolutionary boost"...

Most scholars believe that morbid obesity was relatively unheard of until we began industrializing the food industry and specialized production became privatized...[I]t was actually only about 60 years ago—after the dust settled from WWII and with the advent of slick advertising, cheap transport and prepackaged convenience foods—that those old, previously adaptive fat genotypes that evolved during the Palaeolithic era materialized into the crippling, plus-sized problem that we have today. This is such a tiny sliver of time in our species’ evolutionary history that it can hardly be expressed mathematically, but needless to say, it is not enough time for natural selection to counteract what was, for so long before, clearly adaptive. (That’s not to say that natural selection isn’t operating against obesity today;...the growing negative cultural attitudes toward fatness may be helping to drive this selection alongside the actual detriments to genetic fitness directly caused by obesity.)

The criterion [for] whether an individual fox would be allowed to breed was simply how they reacted [to an approaching human—]back away, hissing and snarling, and try to bite the experimenter? [Or] approach the human and attempt to interact?
The domesticated foxes were more eager to hang out with humans, whimpered to attract attention, and sniffed and licked their caretakers. They wagged their tails when they were happy or excited....Further, their fear response to new people or objects was reduced, and they were more eager to explore new situations. Many of the domesticated foxes had floppy ears, short or curly tails, extended reproductive seasons, changes in fur coloration, and changes in the shape of their skulls, jaws, and teeth....
[S]electing for a single behavioral characteristic— allowing only the tamest, least fearful individuals to breed—resulted in changes not only in behavior, but also in anatomical and physiological changes that were not directly manipulated.

For decades, scientists have [seen chimps using sticks and other objects as tools, and even modifying] tools and transporting them for anticipated use in the future. But until recently, there had been no evidence that tool use among chimps had a very long history. Wild chimpanzees in the Tai National Park in Côte d’Ivoire have been observed using stones as hammers and anvils for cracking large nuts. A team led by archaeologist Julio Mercador found evidence that these tools were being used as long as 4300 years ago: Ancient stones shaped similarly to those being used today as tools....
The researchers created a test, mixing the “tools” with other similar rocks and showing them to other chimpanzee experts, who had to pick out the genuine tools. They were able to do this with over 90% accuracy, suggesting that the rocks Mercador’s team had found were legitimate tools, evidence of a chimpanzee “stone age” that continues to this day.

Lactose tolerance is now well recognized as a [change in the human genome due to a cultural practice—drinking raw milk. The extra nutrition must have been] of such great advantage that [Northern European herding] adults able to digest milk left more surviving offspring, and [a genetic change was left to their descendants]....
[U]p to 10% of the genome—some 2000 genes—shows signs of being under selective pressure.
These pressures are all recent, in evolutionary terms—most probably dating from around 10,000 to 20,000 years ago....
[M]any of the genes under selection seem to be responding to conventional pressures. [Immunity-boosting genes increase due to their effect on mortality; paler skin in Europeans or Asians responds] to geography and climate.
But other genes seem to have been favored because of cultural changes[. M]any genes involved in diet and metabolism...reflect the major shift in diet that occurred [when agriculture largely supplanted foraging some] 10,000 years ago.

overview of current (post-psychoanalytical) theories of the survival advantages of dreaming

[Play is anticipatory learning, encouraging] rapid, flexible responses to...critical situations. As humans grew more social and cooperative...interpersonal understanding became increasingly important[;] representations of events that had not, or not yet, occurred[—fictions—provided] cognitive enhancement, social learning, and community cohesion....
---
[When hominids began walking upright, our anatomy was transformed: The pelvis, and birth canals, narrowed, even as brain size grew. The evolutionary solution: Humans were born less developed than other primates...Helpless] infants could not cling to foraging mothers, who had to put them down, which terrified them. The solution: motherese, or baby talk, which became language....
---
[C]ooked food is more chemically efficient. [Evolutionary] results: "smaller guts, bigger brains, bigger bodies, and reduced body hair; more running; more hunting; longer lives; calmer temperaments; and a new emphasis on bonding between males and females."

[Sites] around the world yield evidence of human habitation "for centuries, even millennia, with no indications of war"...[Excavations show] that people settled...near the Euphrates River, 11,500 years ago, and lived there for more than 4,000 years...leaving no signs of violence.
Meanwhile..."unmistakable" signs of group violence emerged in other regions in northern Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas[:] skeletons with crushed skulls, hack marks and projectile points embedded in them; rock art depicting battles with spears, clubs, and bows and arrows; and fortifications for protection against attacks. These relics indicate that warfare arose as humans began shifting from "a nomadic existence to a sedentary one, commonly although not necessarily tied to agriculture."
[Warfare may have emerged due] to growing population density, diminished food sources and the separation of people into culturally distinct groups.
[And about property we say nothing?—DMM]

Americans and Chinese were pitted against each other whilst manipulating objects on a grid, with one person from each team being the "director," and another [the "subject".T]he Chinese had a clear advantage; the subject understanding the director's perspective...as though it were second nature. "Despite the obvious simplicity of the task, the majority of American subjects (65%) failed to consider the director's perspective at least once during the experiment, by asking the director which object he or she meant or by moving an object the director could not see...[O]nly one of the Chinese appeared to flounder during...the experiment.
"Apparently, the interdependence that pervades Chinese culture has its effect on members of the culture over time, taking advantage of the human ability to distinguish between the mind of the self and that of the other, and developing this ability to allow Chinese to unreflectively interpret the actions of another person from his or her perspective"...

'Up to 4% of the DNA of people today who live outside Africa came from Neandertals, the result of [their interbreeding with] early modern humans....
'[A] special affinity to Europeans—[as] might have been expected given that Neandertals seem to have persisted in Europe longer than anywhere...before disappearing around 28,000 years ago[—was not found]. Rather the Neandertal sequence was equally close to sequences from present-day people from France, Papua New Guinea and China...[Researchers suggest that] interbreeding occurred in the Middle East between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago, before moderns fanned out to other parts of the Old World and split into different groups.
'Intermixing does not surprise paleoanthropologists who have long argued on the basis of fossils that archaic humans, such as the Neandertals in Eurasia and H. erectus in East Asia, mated with early moderns and can be counted among our ancestors—the so-called multiregional evolution theory of modern human origins.'

For the past two decades archaeologist João Zilhão of the University of Bristol...has been studying our closest cousins, the Neandertals, who occupied Eurasia for more than 200,000 years before mysteriously disappearing some 28,000 years ago. Experts in this field have long debated just how similar Neandertal cognition was to our own....[A handful of Neandertal sites] contain cultural remains indicative of symbol use—including jewelry—a defining element of modern human behavior. Zilhão and others argue that Neandertals invented these symbolic traditions on their own, before anatomically modern humans arrived in Europe around 40,000 years ago. Critics, however, believe the items originated with moderns.
[In January 2010,] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Zilhão [reported on finds of] pigment-stained seashells from two sites in Spain dated to nearly 50,000 years ago—10,000 years before anatomically modern humans made their way to Europe.

'Where sexual fantasy in the form of mental representation has become obsolete, where hallucinatory images of dancing genitalia, lusty lesbians and sadomasochistic strangers have been replaced by [an] online smorgasbord of real people doing things our grandparents couldn’t have dreamt up even in their wettest of dreams, where randy teenagers no longer close their eyes and lose themselves to the oblivion and bliss but instead crack open their thousand-dollar laptops and conjure up a real live porn actress, what [are the general] consequences of liquidating our erotic mental representational skills for our species’ sexuality? Is the next generation going to be so intellectually lazy in their sexual fantasies that their creativity in other domains is also affected? Will their marriages be more likely to end because they lack the representational experience and masturbatory fantasy training to picture their husbands and wives during intercourse as the person or thing they really desire?'

'[Repenomamus giganticus] measures more than 3 feet long and...weighed more than 30 pounds—20 times more than most of the 290 known early mammal species...Its head is 50% larger than R. robustus and its body was larger than some dinosaurs living in the region...[Most other early mammals] ate insects and seeds. A larger mammal could roam and hunt aggressively, preying on young dinosaurs.
'"Giganticus is...the world champion so far for body mass in any Mesozoic mammal."
'[Scientists have long] believed that mammals remained small because larger dinosaurs were hunting them[; that o]nly after dinosaurs went extinct by 65 million years ago did surviving mammals begin to grow larger...[T]he presence of larger mammals is reversing some of the speculation. The Liaoning region already is famous for its trove of small feathered dinosaurs and early birds.
'"Maybe small dinosaurs got larger—or got off the ground—to avoid rapacious mammals," wonders Duke University paleontologist Anne Weil.'

'[The bite marks were] 4 to 7 millimeters long and 1 mm wide, suggesting they were made by squirrel-sized animals[, and] were made by opposing pairs of teeth, something at that time and place that was only seen in mammals. Specifically, the researchers suspect they were made by now-extinct rodentlike animals known as multituberculates, which had paired upper and lower incisors.
"These are really deep bite marks they're really getting into that bone, and probably generated a surprisingly high bite force," Longrich told LiveScience. The animals were most likely gnawing on the bare bones for minerals rather than for meat[:] "The bones were kind of a nutritional supplement for these animals"...
'Several of the bones display multiple, overlapping bites made along the curve of the bone a pattern similar to the way people eat corn on the cob. However, these marks are not very extensive compared with the kind of repeated shearing of bone seen with modern rodent gnawing.'

'The idea that a diet of aquatic animals "would have been a healthy one in terms of growth and development seems reasonable," Dean Falk, an anthropologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, said by email. But "the old idea that brain size 'took off' ... around [two million years ago] has lost support in the last decade," added Falk, who was not involved in the research.
'For instance, a 2000 study led by Falk and published in the Journal of Human Evolution found that parts of the brain in some species of the human-ancestor genus Australopithecus had started to change shape—a trend associated with an increase in brain size—well before two million years ago.'

'Bones and artifacts from a prehistoric “kitchen” [provide] the earliest evidence that humans ate aquatic animals. Stone tools and the butchered bones of turtles, crocodiles, and fish were found at [a] 1.95-million-year-old site in northern Kenya...[T]he combination of remains suggests early humans used the site specifically to prepare meals.
'[W]ater-based prey into early-human diets may have.. boosted brain size in certain hominins—humans plus human ancestral species and their close evolutionary relatives[—]because reptiles and fish are particularly rich in long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. Some experts think this so-called good fat was “part of the package” of human brain evolution...Discovering evidence for “brain food” in the late Pliocene (about 3 to 1.8 million years ago) may explain how bigger brains—for instance in our likely direct ancestor Homo erectus—arose in humans and their relatives about 1.8 million years ago.'

'The Malapa skeletons seem unlikely to resolve the origin of Homo on their own. But clarification of how they should be classified—Australopithecus or Homo, side branch or main line—may not be far off: Berger told the press teleconference that since submitting his initial findings to Science, he has found at least two more hominin skeletons in the cave. He is currently excavating these, and has assembled a team of about 60 experts to analyze all of the material from the site in detail. Their to-do list includes determining whether the fossils might contain proteins or DNA suitable for sequencing, reconstructing the environment the hominins lived in, and studying the aging process and disease process in this ancient relative. Such efforts will no doubt reveal an incredibly detailed portrait of this newest addition to the human family.'

'Newly discovered painted scallops and cockleshells in Spain are the first hard evidence that Neandertals made jewelry. These findings suggest humanity’s closest extinct relatives might have been capable of symbolism after all.
'Body ornaments made of painted and pierced seashells dating back 70,000 to 120,000 years have been found in Africa and the Near East for decades, and they serve as signs of symbolic thought among the earliest modern humans. The absence of similar finds in Europe at that time, when it was Neandertal territory, has supported the notion that our early relatives lacked symbolism, a potential sign of mental inferiority that might help explain why Homo sapiens eventually replaced them. Although hints of Neandertal art and jewelry have cropped up, such as pierced and grooved animal-tooth pendants, they have often been shrugged off as artifacts mixed in from modern humans or as imitation without understanding.'

'[I]nability to direct attention has important consequences when it comes to learning about uncertain events. [I]magine you are playing a guessing game: You have to choose...either A or B, one of which leads to a prize, and one of which does not. After a few rounds, you notice that about 3/4 of the time the prize is at A, and the rest of the time it is at B, so you decide to guess “A” 75% of the time and “B” 25% of the time. This is called probability matching[: the pattern most adults] adopt in these circumstances. [But] if the goal is to win the most prizes...you should always pick the more frequent outcome (or, in this case, always pick “A”).
'[Toddlers playing this game use] the maximization strategy almost immediately[; they may] lack the cognitive flexibility that would allow them to alternate between A and B. [U]nable to selectively switch between responses, they can only choose the most likely option. Fortunately for them, in this...scenario, maximization is the right choice.'

'The authors found that although the overall trend has been a brainy explosion in primates (an average increase of 2.5 percent each million years), both brains and bodies have diminished in size along many branches of the primate tree. And given these corporeal and cerebral cutbacks, the researchers found that "under reasonable assumptions, the reduction in brain size during the evolution of Homo floresiensis is not unusual in comparison to these other primates," Nick Mundy, also with Cambridge, said in a prepared statement. Given the findings, the researchers concluded, "We should perhaps not be surprised by the evolution of a small-brained, small-bodied hominin."'

'Lemasson’s team previously described the monkeys’ use of calls with specific meanings in a paper published in November. It detailed the monkeys’ basic sound structures and their uses: “Hok” for eagle, “krak” for leopard, “krak-oo” for general disturbance, “hok-oo” and “wak-oo” for general disturbance in forest canopies. A sixth call, “boom,” was used in non-predatory contexts, such as when calling a group together for travel or arguing with neighboring groups. Impressive as that was, however, it was still relatively one-dimensional, not much different from verbalizations heard in many animal species, from other non-human primates to songbirds. The team’s latest findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describe something far more complicated: syntax, or principles of word sequence and sentence structure. Though some researchers have ascribed syntax to animals, it’s never been formally demonstrated — until now.'

'Professor, that man claims the earth is 6000 years old!'

'Macho and Shimizu think the emergence of photosynthesizing plants at the Miocene/Pliocene boundary led to "major global and local environmental changes." These caused more seasonality, which meant fluctuating food supplies, greater predation risk at the forest edge and increased competition for resources. To cope with these challenges, the scientists believe primates developed different strategies. Gorillas essentially became herbivores, chimps evolved into fruit specialists and hominids became omnivores, which was a wise path to follow. Macho explained, "This subtle interplay between diet, social structure and life history ultimately led to the evolution of our large brains."'

'Western capitalism...imagining itself the undisputed victor and incarnation of global progress, is at risk of leading western society and the rest of the world down another historical blind alley. Today's global economic crisis [revealed] the organic defects of the present model of western development...imposed on the rest of the world as the only one possible[;] not only bureaucratic socialism but also ultra-liberal capitalism are in need of profound democratic reform—their own [perestroika.] Many truths and postulates once considered indisputable...have ceased to be so, including the blind faith in the all-powerful market and, above all, its democratic nature. There was an ingrained belief that the western model of democracy could be spread mechanically to other societies with different historical experience and cultural traditions. In the present situation, even a concept like social progress, which seems to be shared by everyone, needs to be defined, and examined, more precisely.'

'50 [to 80%] of all antimicrobials in the United States are not used by doctors to treat sick people or animals but are added to farm animal feed, mostly in [the] subtherapeutic dosages [that drive the development of bacterial drug resistance]...."[D]rug resistance scares the hell out of me. If we continue on and we lose the ability to fight these microorganisms, a robust, healthy individual has a chance of dying, where before we would be able to prevent that death." Schwab says that if he tried, he could not build a better incubator of resistant pathogens than a factory farm...."[You are] trying to fight off an infection that will not go away because the last mechanism to fight it has been usurped by someone putting it into a pig or a chicken"....[A microbe can get and use genetic material from even a much different microbe] and thus acquire resistance to an antibiotic it has not yet even encountered. It's as if bacteria [could download] resistance from a gene database.'

'Karban suspects the plants are communicating using volatile chemicals. When one plant is clipped, or comes under attack from herbivores, it emits these chemicals into the air, warning those around it to put up a defence, either by filling their leaves with noxious chemicals, or by physically moving their stems or leaves in some way to make themselves less palatable. Because his team doesn't yet know exactly how the plants are communicating, others remain sceptical of the research, Karban admits[:] "It's controversial[. But] sagebrush appears able to distinguish self from non self. And that opens up a lot of other possibilities." Not least is that wild plants may preferentially be cooperating with their relatives. [Karban] hopes others will now do more research to investigate the possibility. In animals, cooperation between related individuals is recognised to be a powerful evolutionary force, one that has been given its own name: kin selection.'

"Since natural selection favors traits that increase fitness, it seems that populations should eventually become genetically homogeneous"? Not really. Due to a linguistic historical accident, we have forgotten that in the 19th century "fitness" meant only "suitability", not robustness or health, and was always in context ("fitness for..."). There is no "eventually" in evolution, except in the sense of dependent on events. When environmental events are static, fitness tends toward homogeneity; when dynamic, toward heterogeneity.Posted by: Michael | Jan 1, 2009 12:09:23 PM

'The full genome of the Neanderthals, an ancient human species probably driven to extinction by the first modern humans that entered Europe some 45,000 years ago, is expected to be recovered shortly. If the mammoth can be resurrected, the same would be technically possible for Neanderthals. But the process of genetically engineering a human genome into the Neanderthal version would probably raise many objections, as would several other aspects of such a project. Church said there might be an alternative approach that would "alarm a minimal number of people." The workaround would be to modify not a human genome but that of the chimpanzee, which is about 98 percent similar to that of people. The chimp's genome would be progressively modified until close enough to that of Neanderthals, and the embryo brought to term in a chimpanzee.'

A committee of Texas's Higher Education Coordinating Board has recommended that the Institute for Creation Research be given the authority to grant Master's degrees in science education. The Institute's mission statement includes a Biblical conduct code.

Based on questioning conditions, women reported having sex for the first time at a later age, and men at an earlier age, when they expected less privacy. Women also reported more sexual partners as their expectation of anonymity or verificability rose.