Evolution's Handy Job

Opposable thumbs anyone?

It's actually more than that. NPR is on it.

Mishi tretet, plastika mbetet

Pardon the title in Albanian. It's an allusion that I find very appropriate to this post.

I found another web page through Boing Boing, where there are a few pictures showing dead and partially decomposed albatrosses. The strange thing about them is that the plastic that they ingested prior to their death is still quite intact and present in what used to be their belly. Just wanted to make people aware of our effect on nature. And, since a picture is worth a thousand words,....

Our Foremother Who Were on Earth

The image below shows the skeletal remains and a possible reconstruction of the creature to whom they belonged. It turns out that she is our common ancestor, about a million years older than Lucy. She has both ape- and human-like traits, though, given her pelvic structure, it is believed that she was able to stand and walk upright.

Her discovery provides a missing link in our family tree.

The Workings of a Brain in Argument

A funny flowchart found through BuzzFeed diagramming how a man's brain and how a woman's brain works during an argument. Click the image for a larger view.

Image Source

Wasting on the Seas

Slate magazine has a poignant and sobering article on the wasteful nature of cruises. On average, a person on a cruise creates more than 2.5 times the normal waste in CO2 emissions. That's without counting the waste caused by the amenities and the all-you-can-eat buffets catering to insatiable gluttons.

Hairy Bipeds

This presentation by Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on Congo's bonobos is to remind us that, no matter what we evolved from, we share similarities with these astoundingly humanoid creatures of the wild.

Naked Aquatic Bipeds

I found the video below via The Daily Dish. It puts forth the hypothesis that, unlike previously thought, man might have evolved from aquatic animals rather than the ape family. It does seem plausible, but I am sure nothing will be confirmed for a long while.

Babies Are Smart?!

So it seems. Smarter than we normally think, to be precise. And considering the questions that toddlers ask, I'd have to say the younguns do, indeed, have more intellectual curiosity than their adult counterparts.

I don't know how well intelligence bodes for babies, though. Our consideration of them as merely dumb miniature people is the best thing they've got going for them. That's why I play with them when they're around. Without that, they're simply pooping machines....

Reading Faces

We may all feel the same disgust, fear, passion and whatnot, but apparently we display it differently. Next time you come in contact with people from other cultures, you had better be careful with your facial expressions....