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  • Bad Astronomy notes the remarkably eccentric orbit of gas giant HR 5138b.

  • Centauri Dreams notes the impact that large-scale collisions have on the evolution of planets.

  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber noted yesterday that babies born on September 11th in 2001 are now 18 years old, adults.

  • The Crux notes that some of the hominins in the Sima de los Huesos site in Spain, ancestors to Neanderthals, may have been murdered.

  • D-Brief reports on the cryodrakon, a pterosaur that roamed the skies above what is now Canada 77 million years ago.

  • Dangerous Minds looks at the political artwork of Jan Pötter.

  • Gizmodo notes a poll suggesting a majority of Britons would support actively seeking to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations.

  • io9 has a loving critical review of the first Star Trek movie.

  • JSTOR Daily shares, from April 1939, an essay by the anonymous head of British intelligence looking at the international context on the eve of the Second World War.

  • Language Log notes a recent essay on the mysterious Voynich manuscript, one concluding that it is almost certainly a hoax of some kind.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the future of the labour movement in the United States.

  • Marginal Revolution considers what sort of industrial policy would work for the United States.

  • Yardena Schwartz writes at NYR Daily about the potential power of Arab voters in Israel.

  • Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections explains why, despite interest, Australia did not launch a space program in the 1980s.

  • Drew Rowsome provides a queer review of It: Chapter Two.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how government censorship of science doomed the Soviet Union and could hurt the United States next.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how, in the Volga republics, recent educational policy changes have marginalized non-Russian languages.

  • Arnold Zwicky shares a glossy, fashion photography-style, reimagining of the central relationship in the James Baldwin classic Giovanni's Room, arranged by Hilton Als.

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  • Architectuul notes the recent death of I.M. Pei.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes what, exactly, rubble-pile asteroids are.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about definitions of home.

  • Centauri Dreams considers white dwarf planets.

  • The Crux notes how ultra-processed foods are liked closely to weight gain.

  • D-Brief observes that a thin layer of insulating ice might be saving the subsurface oceans of Pluto from freezing out.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes the critical role played by Apollo 10 in getting NASA ready for the Moon landings.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes the American government's expectation that China will seek to set up its own global network of military bases.

  • Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina reports on the Soviet Union's Venera 5 and 6 missions to Venus.

  • Far Outliers looks at the visit of U.S. Grant to Japan and China.

  • Gizmodo notes a recent analysis of Neanderthal teeth suggesting that they split with Homo sapiens at a date substantially earlier than commonly believed.

  • io9 notes the sheer scale of the Jonathan Hickman reboots for the X-Men comics of Marvel.

  • Joe. My. God. shares the argument of Ted Cruz that people should stop making fun of his "space pirate" suggestion.I am inclined to think Cruz more right than not, actually.

  • JSTOR Daily notes the wave of anti-black violence that hit the United States in 1919, often driven by returned veterans.

  • Language Hat shares a recognizable complaint, written in ancient Akkadian, of bad customers.

  • Language Log shares a report of a village in Brittany seeking people to decipher a mysterious etching.

  • This Scott Lemieux report at Lawyers, Guns and Money about how British conservatives received Ben Shapiro is a must-read summary.

  • Benjamin Markovits at the LRB Blog shares the reasons why he left his immigrant-heavy basketball team in Germany.

  • Marginal Revolution looks at one effort in Brazil to separate people from their street gangs.

  • The NYR Daily looks at how ISIS, deprived of its proto-state, has managed to thrive as a decentralized network.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw tells of his experiences and perceptions of his native region of New England, in southeastern Australia.

  • The Planetary Society Blog notes how the Chang'e 4 rover may have found lunar mantle on the surface of the Moon.

  • The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that while Argentine president Mauricio Macri is polling badly, his opponents are not polling well.

  • Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of things to do in see in the Peru capital of Lima.

  • The Signal examines how the Library of Congress engages in photodocumentation.

  • Van Waffle at the Speed River Journal explains how he is helping native insects by planting native plants in his garden.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how scientific illiteracy should never be seen as cool.

  • Towleroad notes the questions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as to why Truvada costs so much in the United States.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how family structures in the North Caucasus are at once modernizing and becoming more conservative.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes how the distribution of US carriers and their fleets at present does not support the idea of a planned impending war with Iran.

  • Arnold Zwicky examines the tent caterpillar of California.

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  • The Conversation notes how urban beekeepers can play a key role in saving bees from extinction.

  • Motherboard looks at the comparative intelligence, and generosity, of wolves versus their domesticated dog counterparts.

  • National Geographic looks at how marine mammals, particularly cetaceans, have been used in different militaries.

  • Smithsonian Magazine looks at how recent studies have demonstrated the diversity among Denisovan populations.

  • Smithsonian Magazine looks at the new consensus about the remarkable capabilities of Neanderthals.

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  • New estimates suggest the costs of global warming will be in the tens of trillions of dollars, with warmer countries taking a particularly big hit. Motherboard reports.

  • Indigenous bumblebee populations in Canada are fast approaching extinction, with a certainty of major negative environmental effects. CBC reports.

  • MacLean's reports on the return to prominence of Jim Balsillie, this time not so much as a tech mogul as a sort off tech skeptic.

  • This Motherboard article makes a somewhat far-fetched argument that Game of Thrones demonstrates the need for human civilization to have backups.

  • The Conversation reports on the recent discovery, in Serbia by a joint Serbian-Canadian team, of a Neanderthal tooth, and what this discovery means for our understanding of the deep past of humanity.

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  • Bad Astronomy shares Hubble images of asteroid 6478 Gault, seemingly in the process of dissolving.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about the experience of living in a body one knows from hard experience to be fallible.

  • Gizmodo notes new evidence that environmental stresses pushed at least some Neanderthals to engage in cannibalism.

  • Hornet Stories notes the 1967 raid by Los Angeles police against the Black Cat nightclub, a pre-Stonewall trigger of LGBTQ organization.

  • Imageo notes the imperfect deal wrought by Colorado Basin states to minimize the pain felt by drought in that river basin.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the cinema of Claire Denis.

  • Language Log reports on the work of linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, a man involved in language revival efforts in Australia after work in Israel with Hebrew.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money wonders if the Iran-Contra scandal will be a precedent for the Mueller report, with the allegations being buried by studied inattention.

  • Marginal Revolution makes a case for NIMBYism leading to street urination.

  • Justin Petrone at North! looks at a theatrical performance of a modern Estonian literary classic, and what it says about gender and national identity.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw makes the case for a treaty with Australian Aborigines, to try to settle settler-indigenous relations in Australia.

  • John Quiggin looks at the factors leading to the extinction of coal as an energy source in the United Kingdom.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that we are not yet up to the point of being able to detect exomoons of Earth-like planets comparable to our Moon.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the occasion of the last singer in the Ket language.

  • Arnold Zwicky shares some cartoon humour, around thought balloons.

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  • D-Brief notes that the Small Magellanic Cloud is losing gas, diminishing its future capacity for starbirth.

  • D-Brief notes evidence that the strange ridges of Pluto are legacies of glaciers.

  • Neanderthals, a new analysis shared by D-Brief suggests, suffered from head trauma at rates similar to that of Homo sapiens.

  • D-Brief notes how recent heavy rain in the Atacama Desert of Chile killed many of the local extremophile microbes adapted to desert conditions, with obvious implications for life on Mars.

  • D-Brief notes the discovery of two rogue planets, OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 and OGLE-2017-BLG-0560.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait goes into more detail about the Milky Way Galaxy's ancient collision with and absorption of dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus.

  • Centauri Dreams considers SETI in the infrared, looking at the proposal to use a laser to signal our existence to observers of our sun.

  • D-Brief notes a study of Neanderthal children's teeth that documents their hazardous environment, faced with cold winters and lead contamination.

  • The Island Review shares three lovely islands-related poems by writer Naila Moreira.

  • JSTOR Daily asks an important question: Can the United States and China avoid the Thucydides trap, a war of the rising power with the falling one? Things seems uncertain at this point.

  • Mark Liberman at Language Log looks at the continuing lack of progress of machine translation.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at a recent discussion on the Roman Republic, noting how imperialism and inequality led to that polity's transformation into an empire. Lessons for us now?

  • The Map Room Blog shares a Canadian Geographic map describing the different, declining, populations of caribou in the north of Canada.

  • Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting that global pandemics will not necessarily kill us all off, that high-virulence infections might be outcompeted and, even, controllable.

  • The NYR Daily takes a look at historical reasons for the prominence of Rembrandt in the British artistic imagination.

  • Towleroad notes that Massachusetts voted to keep transgender rights protected.

  • Window on Eurasia suggests that the quality of Russian taught in schools in Uzbekistan is declining. I wonder: Is this a matter of a Central Asian variety emerging, perhaps?

  • Livio di Matteo at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative takes a look at the long-run economic growth of Australia, contrasting it with the past and with other countries. In some ways, Canada (among others) is a stronger performer.

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  • Centauri Dreams looks at the latest images of asteroid Bennu provided by the OSIRIS-REx probe.

  • The Crux notes the impact of genetic research on theories of language among the Neanderthals. If they were, as seems very likely, users of language, did their language use differ from that of homo sapiens sapiens?

  • D-Brief notes that climate change leads to changes in the microbiology of soils. (What effect would this have on the environment? Unknown, as of yet.)

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that the Indian aircraft Vikramaditya has just had its second refit completed.

  • Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the social construction of geography. How are categories created, for instance?

  • Far Outliers looks at efforts to educate prisoners of war in the Second World War-era United States, to use them even as test-beds for a wider reeducation of their societies.

  • L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing, considering the idea of the society of the spectacle of Debord after the thoughts of Foucault, notes the early prediction of a fusion between surveillance and spectacle, of a fusion between the two.

  • Hornet Stories notes the anti-gay policies of the government of Tanzania government, arguing that country cannot be allowed to be a second Chechnya.

  • JSTOR Daily notes how the rhetoric of Richard Nixon helped pave the way for Donald Trump.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that even if the Democratic Party loses today's elections in the United States, Americans should still have hope, should still work for a better future. I wish you all luck, myself.

  • The Map Room Blog looks at Stanford University's archive of the Maps of the Office of Strategic Studies.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining immigrant success in Sweden, noting the complicating picture of general success: Children of more deprived refugees do better than more favoured ones.

  • The NYR Daily looks at early feminist Ernestine Rose.

  • Roads and Kingdoms looks at the work of Cambodian architect Dy Preoung, who during the Khmer Rouge era managed to preserve his work on Angkor Wat.

  • Drew Rowsome looks at the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, focusing on its queer elements.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel examines how black holes actually do evaporate.

  • Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy notes the signal flaws with the argument that migrants should stay at home and fix their country. (What if they have no chance to, for instance?)

  • Window on Eurasia notes that the West has a vested interest in the survival of Lukashenka in Belarus, if only because a sudden liberalization could well lead to a Russian invasion.

  • Nick Rowe at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative takes a look at "bicycle disequilibrium theory".

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at the question of how far, exactly, the Pleiades star cluster is from Earth. It turns out this question breaks down into a lot of interesting secondary issues.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly starts an interesting discussion around the observation that so many people are uncomfortable with the details of their body.

  • Centauri Dreams reports on the exciting evidence of cryovolcanism at Ceres.

  • The Crux reports on new suggestions that, although Neanderthals had bigger brains than Homo sapiens, Neanderthal brains were not thereby better brains.

  • D-Brief notes evidence that the ability of bats and dolphins to echolocate may ultimate derive from a shared gene governing their muscles.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes that astronomers have used data on the trajectory of 'Oumuamua to suggest it may have come from one of four stars.

  • Far Outliers explores the Appalachian timber boom of the 1870s that created the economic preconditions for the famed feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

  • Language Hat notes the unique whistling language prevailing among the Khasi people living in some isolated villages in the Indian state of Meghalaya.

  • Lingua Franca, at the Chronicles, notes that the fastest-growing language in the United States is the Indian language of Telugu.

  • Jeremy Harding at the LRB Blog writes about the import of the recognition, by Macron, of the French state's involvement in the murder of pro-Algerian independence activist Maurice Audin in 1958.

  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution praises the diaries of Mihail Sebastian, a Romanian Jewish intellectual alive during the Second World War

  • The New APPS Blog takes a look at the concept of the carnival from Bakhtin.

  • Gabrielle Bellot at NYR Daily considers the life of Elizabeth Bishop and Bishop's relationship to loneliness.

  • Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog describes how CubeSats were paired with solar sails to create a Mars probe, Mars Cube One.

  • The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer considers some possible responses from the left to a conservative Supreme Court in the US.

  • Roads and Kingdoms takes a look at the challenges facing the street food of Xi'an.

  • Rocky Planet examines why, for decades, geologists mistakenly believed that the California ground was bulging pre-earthquake in Palmdale.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel examines how some objects called stars, like neutron stars and white dwarfs and brown dwarfs, actually are not stars.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes how China and Europe stand out as being particularly irreligious on a world map of atheism.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the instability that might be created in the North Caucasus by a border change between Chechnya and Ingushetia.

  • Arnold Zwicky shares some beautiful pictures of flowers from a garden in Palo Alto.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how the recently-charted orbit of S2 around Sagittarius A* in the heart of our galaxy proves Einstein's theory of relativity right.

  • D-Brief notes a recent NASA study of Mars concluding that, because of the planet's shortfalls in conceivably extractable carbon dioxide, terraforming Mars is impossible with current technology.

  • Dead Things suggests that one key to the rise of Homo sapiens may be the fact that we are such good generalists, capable of adapting to different environments and challenges with speed even if we are not optimized for them. (Poor Neanderthals.)

  • At the Everyday Sociology Blog, Karen Sternheimer examines how individuals' identities shift as they engage, encountering new problems.

  • Hornet Stories notes that Thailand may well beat Taiwan in creating civil unions for same-sex couples.

  • JSTOR Daily examines the famed, nay iconic, baobab tree of Africa.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money wonders about how, as the centennial of the introduction of women's suffrage approaches, the white racism of many suffragettes will be dealt with.

  • The Map Room Blog reports on Michael Plichta's very impressed hand-crafted globe of the Moon.

  • Russell Darnley at Maximos' Blog reports on the massive forest fires in Indonesia's Jambi Province.

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  • Architectuul looks at how, in Communist Romania, postcards sent from the resorts ot the Black Sea coast were used to bolster the image of the regime.

  • Bad Astronomy notes the evidence for a recent planetary collision in the young system of RW Aurigae A.

  • Crux visits the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, at present the main spaceport for human passengers on Earth.

  • D-Brief notes how radial velocity methods can be used to quickly find exoplanets with relatively distant orbits around their star.

  • Dead Things notes evidence that Neanderthals did make use of fire.

  • Hornet Stories notes an interview given by Barry Humphries, the actor behind Dame Edna, in which he reveals pro-Trump and anti-trans opinions.

  • At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox grapples with the possibility of human technological civilization not being sustainable, not being natural.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how early modern alchemists imagined human beings might be created.

  • Drew Rowsome celebrates the reappearance of Buddy Cole, the signature creation of Scott Thompson.

  • Towleroad shares an extended interview with Steven Canals, the screenwriter behind Pose, talking about this series' background and his goals.

  • At the Volokh Conspiracy, Jonathan M. Adler deconstructs the argument of Michael Anton against birthright citizenship in the United States.

  • At Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Livio di Matteo wonders what Trump's incessant political Russophilia has in common with the CoDominium of SF writer Jerry Pournelle, a Russian-American alliance aimed at dominating the world.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait suggests that strange markings in the upper atmosphere of Venus might well be evidence of life in that relatively Earth-like environment.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly raves over Babylon Berlin.

  • Centauri Dreams considers, fifty years after its publication, Clarke's 2001.

  • Crooked Timber considers Kevin Williamson in the context of conservative intellectual representation more generally.

  • D-Brief considers "digisexuality", the fusion of the digital world with sexuality. (I think we're quite some way off, myself.)

  • The Dragon's Tales considers evidence suggesting that the agricultural revolution in ancient Anatolia was achieved without population replacement from the Fertile Crescent.

  • Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the flight of Apollo 6, a flight that helped iron out problem with the Saturn V.

  • The Frailest Thing's Michael Sacasas is not impressed by the idea of the trolley problem, as something that allows for the displacement of responsibility.

  • Gizmodo explains why the faces of Neanderthals were so different from the faces of modern humans.

  • JSTOR Daily considers if volcano-driven climate change helped the rise of Christianity.

  • Language Log considers, after Spinoza, the idea that vowels are the souls of consonants.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money engages in a bit of speculation: What would have happened had Clinton won? (Ideological gridlock, perhaps.)

  • Lovesick Cyborg explores how the advent of the cheap USB memory stick allowed North Koreans to start to enjoy K-Pop.

  • Russell Darnley considers the transformation of the forests of Indonesia's Riau forest from closed canopy forest to plantations.

  • The Map Room Blog shares some praise of inset maps.

  • Neuroskeptic considers how ketamine may work as an anti-depressant.

  • The NYR Daily considers student of death, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

  • Justin Petrone of north! shares an anecdote from the Long Island coastal community of Greenport.

  • Personal Reflection's Jim Belshaw considers the iconic Benjamin Wolfe painting The Death of General Wolfe.

  • The Planetary Society Blog's Casey Dreier notes cost overruns for the James Webb Space Telescope.

  • pollotenchegg maps recent trends in natural increase and decrease in Ukraine.

  • Roads and Kingdoms talks about a special Hverabrauð in Iceland, baked in hot springs.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel shares his own proposal for a new Drake Equation, revised to take account of recent discoveries.

  • Vintage Space considers how the American government would have responded if John Glenn had died in the course of his 1962 voyage into space.

  • Window on Eurasia considers the belief among many Russians that had Beria, not Khrushchev, succeeded Stalin, the Soviet Union might have been more successful.

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  • Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net notes that the more Neanderthal DNA gets sequenced, the more we know of this population's history.

  • Anthro{dendum} takes a look at anthropologists who use their knowledge and their access to other cultures for purposes of espionage.

  • Crooked Timber tackles the question of immigration from another angle: do states have the authority to control it, for starters?

  • Dangerous Minds shares a fun video imagining Netflix as it might have existed in 1995.

  • The Everyday Sociology Blog considers how the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is an instance of American state failure.

  • The Frailest Thing's L.M. Sacasas considers is vows to abandon Facebook are akin to a modern-day vow of poverty.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and why it still matters.

  • Language Log considers the naming practices of new elements like Nihonium.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests that, based on the stagnation of average incomes in the US as GDP has growth, capitalism can be said to have failed.

  • Lingua Franca considers the origin of the phrase "bad actor."

  • Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that the American opioid epidemic is not simply driven by economic factors.

  • The NYR Daily considers how Poland's new history laws do poor service to a very complicated past.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw has an interesting post examining the settlement of Australisa's inland "Channel Country" by cattle stations, chains to allow herds to migrate following the weather.

  • The Planetary Science Blog's Emily Lakdawalla takes a look at the latest science on famously volcanic Io.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel examines how the Milky Way Galaxy is slowly consuming its neighbours, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

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  • The suggestion that there is a relationship between the acoustics of particular caves and the art that early humans painted on those cave walls is fascinating. National Geographic reports.

  • The Neanderthals, archeologists working in Spain have determined, created art. The idea of a significant gap between their cognition and ours seems less and less likely. CBC reports.

  • It turns out that the grey squirrels of North America may be smarter than the red squirrels of Great Britain. This may explain much about the greys' success in the reds' homeland. National Geographic reports.

  • The idea of there being secret, easily overlooked, yet powerful communications networks connecting trees fascinates me. Vaster than empires and more slow, indeed. Quartz reports.

  • Back in 2016, through sheer luck and an excellent amateur model, Argentine amateur astronomer Victor Buso happened to catch supernova SN 2016gkg in NGC 613 from the very start of the visible explosion. Popular Science reports.

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The displays at the AMNH's Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins are amazing, doing a good job of placing Homo sapiens in the much deeper and broader context of our primate kin. This includes Neanderthals, of course, as well as the newly-discovered Homo floresiensis. Who else will be added to our family tree, I wonder, as science progresses?

John Noble Wilford's 2007 review of the hall for The New York Times does a good job of capturing the glory of this hall.

Kin #newyorkcity #newyork #manhattan #amnh #primate #human #chimpanzee #skeleton #homosapiens #neanderthal #homoneanderthalensis #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram


Remains #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #skeleton #bone #human #hominid #primate #homosapiens #homoerectus #homoneanderthalensis #neanderthal #australopithecus #australopithecusafricanus

Family tree #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #skeleton #bone #skull #human #hominid #primate #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram


Turkana Boy #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #skeleton #bone #skull #human #hominid #primate #homoerectus #turkanaboy #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram


Laetoli pair #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #hominid #human #primate #australopithecus #laetoli #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram


Skull, Homo floresiensis #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #hominid #human #primate #skull #homofloresiensis #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram


Homo neanderthalensis #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #hominid #human #primate #skeleton #homoneanderthalensis #neanderthal #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram


Engraved horse #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #hominid #human #primate #archeology #art #horse #abrilabattut #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram


Laurel leaf flint blades #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #amnh #hominid #human #primate #archeology #laurelleaf #flint #blades #tools #volgu #americanmuseumofnaturalhistory #latergram
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  • David Shane Lowry at anthro{dendum} considers the extent to which implicit policies of eugenics, determining whose survival matters and whose do not, exist in the 21st century in an era of climate change.

  • Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net takes issue with the contention of Richard Goss that Neanderthals became extinct because they lacked the physical coordination necessary to be good hunters or good artists.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that the Chixculub asteroid impactor 66 million years ago created a tectonic shock worldwide that made things worse, the effects of the impact winter being worsened by massive induced volcanic activity.

  • D-Brief shares the story of a British man whose chronic pain was relieved by a swim in icy-cold winter waters.

  • The Dragon's Tales reports that China may well be on track to building the first exoscale computer, first in the world.

  • Hornet Stories notes that out Olympic athlete Eric Radford is the first to win a gold medal.

  • JSTOR Daily engages with an old conundrum of economists: why are diamonds more expensive than water?

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money examines how urban Native Americans tend to have insecure housing, being on the margins of the real estate market in cities and without options in their home reserves. This surely also is the case in Canada, too.

  • Lucy McKeon at the NYR Daily writes about all the photographs she has never seen, images that she has only heard descriptions of.

  • Drew Rowsome notes the reappearance of queer theatre festival Rhubarb at Buddies in Bad Times, with shows starting tomorrow.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that the Trump administration's proposed budget for NASA in FY2019 will gut basic science programs.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the emergence of a survivalist subculture in Russia, following somewhat the pattern of the United States.

  • Arnold Zwicky starts from noting a sample of a rap song in a Mountain Dew commercial and goes interesting places in his latest meditations.

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  • Kambiz at Anthropology.net notes evidence that Neanderthals in Italy used fire to shape digging sticks 170 thousand years ago.

  • Missing persons blog Charley Ross reminds online commentators to be careful and reasonable in their speculations online, if only because these last forever.

  • D-Brief notes a new study of the TRAPPIST-1 system suggesting that its outermost planets, in the circumstellar habitable zone, are so low density that they must have abundant volatiles. Water is the most likely candidate.

  • Hornet Stories introduces readers to the impressive photography of New York City's Peter Hujar.

  • At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox meditates on the issues of friendship in the contemporary world.

  • Joe. My. God. shares representative Tammy Duckworth's mockery of the authoritarian Donald Trump, aka "Cadet Bone Spurs".

  • JSTOR Daily notes the continuing importance of the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

  • The Map Room Blog notes that someone has made cute maps of seven solar system worlds for children.

  • Marginal Revolution links to an article looking at how some of the schoolgirls abducted in Nigeria by Boko Haram are doing.

  • The NYR Daily engages with "Soul of a Nation", a touring exhibit of African-American art in the era of Black Power.

  • The Planetary Society Blog reports from the scene of the impending Falcon Heavy launch, sharing photos.

  • Towleroad notes a South African church that not only beats its queer parishoners but fines them, too.

  • Window on Eurasia suggests Western sanctions could hinder the Russian development of its Arctic presence.

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  • André Staltz argues the triumvirate of Google, Facebook, and Amazon is ending the free Internet.

  • Sarah Kaplan notes research suggesting Neanderthals were outmatched not by human capabilities so much as by numbers.

  • VICE notes a study looking at exactly how, 65 million years ago, triggered a mass extinction ending the dinosaurs.

  • Heat records for summers around the world are set to be shattered, thanks to global warming.

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  • Anthropology.net notes evidence that injured Neanderthals were cared for by their kin.

  • James Bow shares a photo of Ottawa at night and considers the growing city with its greenbelt.

  • Centauri Dreams reacts to the immense discoveries surrounding GW170817.

  • Crooked Timber considers the vexed nature of the phrase "Judeo-Christian."

  • Bruce Dorminey notes an American government study suggesting a North Korean EMP attack could cause collapse.

  • Hornet Stories reports that Russian pop singer Zelimkhan Bakaev has been murdered in Chechnya as part of the anti-gay purges.

  • Language Hat looks at lunfardo, the Italian-inflicted argot of Buenos Aires.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that, with Trump undermining the US, the prospects of China's rise to define the new world order are looking good.

  • The NYR Daily looks at reports of significant electoral fraud in Kenya.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw looks at the continuing Australian reaction to China's Belt and Road project.

  • Roads and Kingdoms reports from Sichuan's peppercorn fields at harvest time.

  • Drew Rowsome responds to Andrew Pyper's new novel, The Only Child.

  • Strange Company looks at the mysterious 1900 murder of New Yorker Kathryn Scharn.

  • Strange Maps looks at an ingenious, if flawed, map of the Berlin metro dating from the 1920s.

  • Peter Watts considers the question of individual identity over time. What changes, what stays the same?

  • Window on Eurasia notes that a shift from their native languages to Russian will not end minority ethnic identities.

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  • I bet that, as numerous reports have indicated, LIGO picked up a neutron star collision, with EM traces. D-Brief reports.

  • Neanderthal genes seem to have had a big influence on modern human health. I would be surprised not to have some. National Geographic describes.

  • Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go may evoke crises of bioethics, but I'm not sure it relates to genetic engineering. VICE reports.

  • These apocalyptic visions of technophiles who want to create an artificial intelligence to become god are notable. The Guardian takes a look.

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February 2021

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