New Scientist recently got all romantic with an intrepid researcher’s chemical expose of her big fat geek wedding:
WE’D booked the venue, chosen the bridesmaids’ dresses and even decided on the colours of the table decorations. But finding a refrigerated centrifuge and a ready supply of dry ice in rural south-west England was proving tricky. Then there were the worries [...]
We all want a primitive man, says the Telegraph, reporting on new evidence that modern humans got it on with Neanderthals:
[Said Professor Paabo, who is director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institution for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig:] “I’m sure that they had sex, but did it give offspring that contributed to us? We will be [...]
Scientific American resets my priorities (or at least my metaphors) with anthropological research. You think in order to walk, you gotta crawl first? Not really:
According to anthropologist David Tracer of the University of Colorado at Boulder, babies of the Au hunter-gatherers of Papua New Guinea do not go through a crawling stage. Instead their parents and other [...]
New Scientist goes out on a limb with a new study that hints that humans may have learned to walk up in the branches before marching on the ground:
Kivell thinks the wrist bones of chimpanzees may instead have adapted to stabilise the wrist while standing on one tree branch and holding onto another, with knees and elbows bent…. [...]
About two months ago, the BBC tells us, Scottish researchers used computer models to bring a lost medieval instrument back to life:
Bach’s motet (a choral musical composition) “O Jesu Christ, meins lebens licht” was one of the last pieces of music written for the Lituus.
Now, for the first time, this 18th Century composition has been played as it [...]
LiveScience sullies our image of chimpanzees as noble, natural creatures with evidence that these apes practice prostitution:
The primates’ food-for-sex barter occurs indirectly, over the course of weeks or months, with males seeming to accrue credit with the ladies by plying them with meat killed on a hunt.
“What people have been looking for before is an immediate exchange,” [Cristina] [...]
New Scientist, always on the raw, throbbing edge of behavioral science, reveals the heartwarming findings about the couple that spanks together:
SPANKING is stressful at first, but it could bring consenting couples closer together. That’s the implication of two studies of hormonal changes associated with sadomasochistic (S&M) activities including spanking, bondage and flogging.
…In both studies, couples who said the [...]
PhysOrg reveals the high cost of gridlock. All that congestion blocks job growth as well as cars:
A new UC Irvine study found that places with sluggish commutes – usually an indication of economic prosperity – tend to have slower subsequent job growth. The findings suggest that more efficient public infrastructure projects, while costly, can spur local economic growth.
…
Kent [...]
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Norwegian encyclopedists behold African artifacts.
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