From ScienceDaily: In a new study, a research team led by Yale University found that even the oldest known human ancestors may have had precision grip capabilities comparable to modern humans. This includes Australopithecus afarensis, which appears in the fossil record a million years before the first evidence of stone tools. … Manual dexterity is traditionally viewed as a key adaptation that separated the earliest primates from other early mammals. It is thought that such abilities evolved in response to no longer needing hands for locomotion, as well as the mechanical demands of using tools. Yet there remains debate about the gripping capabilities of early fossil hominins, especially regarding the use of tools. The new study may shed light on Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: These white-tailed eagle bones, discovered more than 100 years ago, all derive from a single time period at Krapina. Four talons bear multiple edge-smoothed cut marks, and eight show polishing facets or abrasion. Three of the largest talons have small notches at roughly the same place along the plantar surface. The authors suggest these features may be part of a jewelry assemblage, like mounting the talons in a necklace or bracelet. Some have argued that Neandertals lacked symbolic ability or copied this behavior from modern humans, but the presence of the talons indicates that the Krapina Neandertals may have acquired eagle talons for some kind of symbolic purpose. They also demonstrate that the Krapina Neandertals may have made Read More ›

A new study has found that Trichodesmium or “sea sawdust,” a genus of oceanic bacteria described by Captain Cook in the eighteenth century and so prolific it can be seen from space, has a unique, lineage-specific genome. Less than two-thirds of the genome of this crucial ammonium-producing bacteria codes for proteins. No other such bacteria has such a low value, and conversely such a large percentage of the genome that is non coding. This lineage-specific genome, as one report explains, “defies common evolutionary dogma.”  Read more

Anyone remember Darwin’s finches? The clinch bird for Darwinian evolution? Except that “It’s been observed that the species of Darwin’s finches sometimes hybridise – Peter and Rosemary Grant have seen that during their fieldwork,” Prof Andersson told the BBC. “But it’s difficult to say what the long-term evolutionary significance of that is. What does it contribute?” What it contributes is that one would be hard pressed to show that there is any evolution going on, in the face of this much hybridization. Meanwhile, more surprises: Birds on the Galápagos Islands have developed new eating habits “We met some scepticism when we submitted the manuscript for our article. People simply didn’t believe it was possible. But it is — the birds Read More ›

And they don’t like it: ‘The Principle,’ Delano’s latest film project, challenges the Copernican principle, the notion that humans are just an insignificant speck in the universe. Interviews with cosmologists, in depth studies and surveys will leave viewers wondering whether we are indeed a unique species. Yet, it seems this is exactly what liberal academics and the mainstream media don’t want. Actually, they haven’t seen it, but that wouldn’t matter. Anyway, so of course they engaged in respectful debate, right?: Some specific ways the media targeted the film was by contacting the cast and other people involved in the production and convincing them they had been tricked. “First of all, the actual media assault was the result of an attempt Read More ›

The transformation of science from a method to a metaphysic? In a review of William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, historian Jackson Lears writes (Commonweal): It is a platitude that we cannot defend the humanities without slipping into platitudes. Why is that? Part of the answer involves the corrosive impact of contemporary intellectual fashion. We are besieged by a resurgence of positivist scientism—the transformation of science from a method to a metaphysic, promising precise answers to age-old ultimate questions. Yet while pop-neuroscientists, evolutionary psychologists, and other defenders of quantifiable certainty have beaten back postmodern philosophical critiques, the postmodern style of ironic detachment has flourished. The recoil from modernist high Read More ›

Like Dracula it can’t really die, as it is culturally needed.* So it just keeps rising from the grave. Evidence is irrelevant. In the context of giving apes human rights instead of protection, we read: We share about 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees and it has been argued this makes ape experimenters 99% as bad as the Nazis. It has also been argued that the medical benefits obtained from experiments on chimpanzees have been minimal. The chances are that the advancement of medical research would suffer little if the apes were given new rights that protected them from these experimental procedures. Most funding for chimp lab research in the United States was to end immediately in 2011, and the Read More ›

Digital afterlife: how the Internet has changed mourning and bereavement Users can post computer-composed messages after death. (This is one of the differences between material entities and informational entities. When Grandma dies, who is to get the Royal Doulton china? Her lacework? If she left no instructions, this must be decided between daughters and granddaughters. Only one of them can get each thing. But a theoretically infinite number of copies of her digitized photos and journal entries could be on line for everyone to see and use – for better or worse.) Canadian Christian writers’ conference big success after the bookstore closes (because obsolescent systems underrepresent demand). But writers may face more serious attempts at censorship now. New media: Information Read More ›

Forty years ago biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant began an ongoing study of the different finch species on the Galápagos Islands. They gathered valuable data and during drought years they observed the finches adapt to the environmental challenges. In particular, the population of medium ground finches, Geospiza fortis, shifted toward a larger beak. This was because the drought left smaller seeds in scarce supply, and so those G. fortis with smaller beaks died off. These initial observations were followed with detailed studies of the changes that took place at the molecular level. The latest such study, published in February of this year, describes how a particular protein affects the embryonic development of the finch’s beak. All of this makes for a good case study Read More ›

The following is a guest post by Aurelio Smith. I have invited him to present a critique of Active Information in a more prominent place at UD so we can have a good discussion of Active Information’s strengths and weaknesses. The rest of this post is his.
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I had hoped that my in-thread response to the latest wave of outing and smear tactics at UD and elsewhere coming from denizens of the penumbra of attack sites surrounding UD would be enough; but based on further enabling behaviour, I find it necessary to headline for reference as follows: _______________ >> . . . a few words need to be said after taking time to ponder how to speak to truly difficult to address issues without further giving currency to slander, outing and implicitly menacing intimidation. As in: we know you, where you are, those you care for, their homes or places of business etc. including things not readily found on the Internet that suggest on the ground casing of Read More ›

I had hoped to be able to let matters rest here, but it now first seems I need to post Cicero’s warning in the opening words of his On Invention: ____________________ >> I HAVE often and deeply resolved this question in my mind, whether fluency of language has been beneficial or injurious to men and to cities, with reference to the cultivation of the highest order of eloquence. For when I consider the disasters of our own republic, and when I call to mind also the ancient calamities of the most important states, I see that it is by no means the most insignificant portion of their distresses which has originated from the conduct of the most eloquent men. But, Read More ›

In breaking news, Climate Audit has obtained exclusive information on output from the first runs of Weaver’s “next generation” climate model. These are the first known climate model predictions of the future of human evolution. The results are worrying: Take a look. Serves us all right, presumably. 😉 If you are interested in climate change issues, you might want to note this new book. Note: No more news posting till later this evening. Follow UD News at Twitter!

Skulls used as bowls, the rest discarded. From ScienceDaily: Dr Silvia Bello, from the Natural History Museum’s Department of Earth Sciences, lead researcher of the work said, “The human remains have been the subject of several studies. In a previous analysis, we could determine that the cranial remains had been carefully modified to make skull-cups. During this research, however, we’ve identified a far greater degree of human modification than recorded in earlier. We’ve found undoubting evidence for defleshing, disarticulation, human chewing, crushing of spongy bone, and the cracking of bones to extract marrow.” The presence of human tooth marks on many of the bones provides incontrovertible evidence for cannibalism, the team found. In a wider context, the treatment of the Read More ›

Suzan Mazur, author of The Origin of Life Circus, interviews Adrian Bejan, orignator of the constructal law at Huffington Post: I’ve quoted Adrian Bejan numerous times in books and articles about evolution, about academic mafias and peer review, but somehow we never got around to having a full conversation. So I called him recently at Duke University, where he is now J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, to chat about both his constructal law of design in nature — which he considers one of the few laws of physics — as well as his formative years in the 50s and 60s in communist Romania. … Suzan Mazur: There continues to be some debate about which came first in origin Read More ›