| Spicy Dip, Served Alfresco The rhythm that pulsates through any number of musical styles from hip-hop to club pop, animates zouk, a dance that originated in the French West Indies and recently found its way to Central Park. nytimes.com |
Will E.T. Look Like Us? What are the odds that intelligent, technically advanced aliens would look anything like the ones in films, with an emaciated torso and limbs, spindly fingers and a bulbous, bald head with large, almond-shaped eyes? What are the odds that they would even be humanoid? In a YouTube video, produced by Josh Timonen of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, I argue that the chances are close to zero ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKAXrmkx12g ). Richard Dawkins himself made this interesting observation in a private communication after viewing it: I would agree with [Shermer] in betting against aliens being bipedal primates, and I think the point is worth making, but I think he greatly overestimates the odds against. [University of Cambridge paleontologist] Simon Conway Morris, whose authority is not to be dismissed, thinks it positively likely that aliens would be, in effect, bipedal primates. [Harvard University biologist] Ed Wilson gave at least some time to the speculation that, if it had not been for the end-Cretaceous catastrophe, dinosaurs might have produced something like the attached [referring to paleontologist Dale A. Russell’s illustrated evolutionary projection of how a bipedal dinosaur might have evolved into a reptilian humanoid]. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Continuum of Change: The Hairless Human Darwin doubters have sometimes questioned evolutionary theory by asserting that no “missing link” exists between humans and other primates. But the fossil record shows that there was no instant leap to humanity: rather our species’ physical hallmarks appeared gradually over the past several million years. “Humans did not suddenly come into existence, but we share features with many other [species],” John G. Fleagle, an anatomist at Stony Brook University, has said. Fingernails evolved 54 million years ago (mya) and the opposable thumb 25 mya, for instance. The pelvis shape needed for walking upright as well as the knee appeared more than 3.5 mya, and the foot arch arose around 1.8 mya. Although skull construction was set around 35 mya, brains only ballooned in size between 2 and 1 mya, and the chin dates from around 200,000 years ago. With apologies to Shakespeare’s Hamlet: what a patchwork is a man.One feature that visibly separates us from most other mammals is our lack of fur. As Nina G. Jablonski explains in our cover story, “ The Naked Truth ,” the transition of hirsute to hairless helped to set the stage for the emergence of large brains and symbolic thought. The appearance of bare skin was one of a suite of adaptations that allowed our ancestors to thrive on the savanna as grasslands expanded in Africa starting about three million years ago. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Governors Island Vision Adds Hills and Hammocks The plan for Governors Island balances a development space with a park by the Dutch firm West 8 that includes hills and a grove for hammocks. nytimes.com |
Report: 21 percent of Africa's freshwater species threatened with extinction More than a fifth of Africa's freshwater species are threatened with extinction , and their disappearance could threaten livelihoods across the continent, according to a new study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).The study, conducted for the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species, assessed 5,167 African freshwater species over a five-year period. Two hundred scientists contributed to the report, which covers fish, mollusks, crabs, aquatic plants and aquatic insects such as dragonflies and damselflies. [More] International Union for Conservation of Nature - Africa - IUCN Red List - Freshwater - Biodiversity rss.sciam.com |