The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
Here is a map to help you visualize human migration over the course of our 200,000 year existence. Using data based on mitochondrial DNA difference, the map models migratory patterns as humans “moved outward from Africa into Asia, and later the Americas, Indonesia and Australia.” The visual distinguishes between land and water or temporary land/ice bridges, while highlighting genetic populations and the extent of ice.
...moreFossils found in a South African cave may be “the most plausible known ancestor of archaic and modern humans,” argue the scientists who discovered the bones, citing the combination of apelike and human features in the newfound species—dubbed Australopithecus sediba.
Some scientists disagree that the fossils represent a transitional link between the australopithecines and humans, suggesting instead that the discovery provides important evidence of the extensive diversity of australopithecine apes and the difficulty of determining which is actually the ancestral species.
...moreNext time you’re basking in the glory of your ability to reason, thinking that you’re closer to arriving at some sort of ultimate truth, consider this first.
Apparently, our reasoning instincts come from a primordial impulse to win arguments, a “hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena,” or at least that’s the theory.
...moreA new documentary paints Italy as “a democracy of boobs (in all senses).”
How does one “explain the gay” in terms of evolution? (via The Daily Dish)
“That’s not what countries think of when they go to war.” Why no one ever cleans up the environmental mess they make after sending their citizens off to kill each other.
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The Context Project is seeking to blur the line between industrial design and fine art. It is also totally rad.
Yesterday marked the 31st anniversary of the first robot homicide and the 50th of bubble wrap. So watch out I guess.
...moreBusiness Week suggests some ways in which the Apple Tablet, whatever it ends up being called, could change the world. Hyperbolic? Probably. But I suspect I’ll want one.
Hominids might have taken to the oceans a lot earlier than once thought.
...moreLook, I know it’s been a long week and you still have one more day to go. Look at these pictures of waves. Everything is going to be ok.
Women are evolving.
Cookie cup! Who says the environment can’t be totally delicious?
...moreLots of fascinating science news this week. Here we go.
The IgNobel Prizes were given out last night, and the honored research included a bra that doubles as a gas mask, diamonds made from tequila, and the discovery that an empty beer bottle can cause more damage as a weapon than a full one.
...moreDr. Wolfgang Enard, head of a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, announced that genetically engineered mice who have had their FOXP2 gene swapped out for a human one (this gene is believed to play an important role in language) “speak” differently than mice with the regular gene.
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