This is a demonstration of an instrument used to measure “cephalic index,” or how big a person’s head was. This was, at this point in the 1800s, deemed important so that… Read the rest “Science Art: Fig. 3, The Pocket Cephalometer, or Compass of Coordinates, by Dr. Gustave Le Bon, c.1878.”
PhysOrg turns the “brutal caveman” stereotype on its head, with a new look at our earliest ancestors as sensitive folks who got a leg up on the competition because we were vulnerable… Read the rest “The Vulnerable Ape theory of human origins.”
Thanks to Science Daily, I’ll never think of my beard the same way again. They’ve got new insight into the evolution of humankind’s most uniquely human feature –… Read the rest “The thing that really sets human beings apart: our chins.”
Sci-News.com showcases the gene that gave us (and our Neanderthal and Denisovan cousins) big brains:
… Read the rest “The Big-Brain Gene. So here’s where the trouble started….”A gene that is responsible for brain size in modern Homo sapiens and their ancient relatives,
University of Cambridge researchers have gotten to the root of the chord. (See, that’s a music theory joke.) No, really, they’ve found was seems to be the oldest written music… Read the rest “The oldest harmony. (Well, polyphony.)”
BBC has more on one unfortunate modern human inheritance from our ancestors interbreeding with Neanderthals:
… Read the rest “Latin American diabetes risk traced to Neanderthal ancestors.”The gene variant was detected in a large genome-wide association study (GWAS)
The medievalists at Medievalists.net are all excited over a new technology that “unerases” writings that were erased by scribes to make more room on precious parchment:… Read the rest “Invisible ink revealed… a few centuries later.”
Not the moving parts kind, but the wedge/screw/lever kind. Want to move giant blocks of stone a few miles, but the locomotive and crane haven’t been invented yet? Nature‘s … Read the rest “How Forbidden City was built: ice machine!”
Those questions were raised in, of all publications, Astrobiology Magazine. Why are astrobiologists so concerned about human culture? Because if civilizations can really die out, that… Read the rest “Utopia or catastrophe: How long do civilizations live? (And how can we find another?)”
Found on Archive.org’s collection of Fieldiana.
A “catafalque” is a kind of dais on which a coffin rests when it’s on display, as for a state funeral.
Alternet (of course) spreads the news that researchers studying our earliest ancestors have collected some intriguing proof that cave painters were tripping:
… Read the rest “Prehistoric art shows psychedelic traces, scientists say.”Their thesis intriguingly
These are probably the world’s largest petroglyphs. They’re ancient rock carvings that we can see from space.
You can’t make out the funky checkerboards, or the hummingbirds… Read the rest “Science Art: Nazca Lines, Peru, 2000, NASA’s Earth as Art”
SONG: “Mesopotamia” (penitential cover) (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: This is a cover (a late one) making up for… Read the rest “SONG: “Mesopotamia” (a penitential B52s cover)”
This is what America meant for Claude Auge, who edited Le Larousse pour tous nouveau dictionnaire encyclopedique in 1909.
Eskimos and tapirs.
You can browse through your… Read the rest “Science Art: Amerique, from the Larousse pour tous encyclopedia, 1909.”
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