Here's the top hit for "Neanderthal" on Google News today:
Today's question:
Are there cavemen in heaven? I mean, during the course of evolution, when did they become “human beings” with “souls”?
I won't venture an answer, but you're welcome to invade his comment section....
A club I won't be joining, from Improbable Research:
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™
The first member, chosen by acclamation, was psychologist Steven Pinker, whose hair has long been the object of admiration, and envy, and intense study. From that lone, Pinkerian seed, there has grown a spreading chestnut, black, blond, and red-haired membership tree, which you can see below and on the other LFHCfS web pages.
Maybe my cool red-headed Neandertal can get on board with that.
I haven't been blogging quite as often, but you can see I've been busy with other business:
VIENNA - A 2-year-old panda who charmed his way into the hearts of Austrians is headed to China.
Fu Long has been the star attraction at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo since he was born there on Aug. 23, 2007.
Yes, now I can make my appearance there as scheduled.
I'm laughing so hard it hurts:
It's kind of embarrassing the way Australia puts itself out there as a barbecue-savvy culture, because you know what, we're crap.
The end:
[T]here might have to be a few fact-finding tours to Texas, and maybe Kansas City. I hear the barbecue is pretty good around those parts as well.
Yes indeed.
Lawn Chair Anthropology: "Halloween special: Heterotopy, pleiotropy, and the origins of vampires"
Seeing a popular portrayal of these monsters (an episode of HBO's True Blood, see figure to the right), I noticed that the vampires' fangs are in the position of their lateral incisors, not their canines. This is odd, since after all, in humans, hominins and most other primates, the canine teeth are the relatively sharp ones--what gives?
From a reader, a comparison:
That's Ardi above and Zira from the original Planet of the Apes. Rock me, Dr. Zaius!
(upper image copyright Jay Matternes, 2009)
EXTREME PILBEAM ON LOVEJOY ACTION!!!!
This was seen as further evidence that the species had already evolved a distinctive trait of early prehumans. C. Owen Lovejoy, an anatomist at Kent State University and lead author of two of the journal reports, speculated that these hominids had a social system that involved less competition among males and that this suggested the beginning of pair bonding between males and females.
Dr. Pilbeam disputed this conjecture, saying, “This is a restatement of Owen Lovejoy’s ideas going back almost three decades, which I found unpersuasive then and still do.”
Ooooooh!
UPDATE (2009-10-02): The LA Times:
Hill was more blunt, calling Lovejoy's speculation "patent nonsense."
Uhhh...
"Giant pandas (also) produce barks, moans, honks, growls, roars and squeals," said Charlton, a postdoctoral research biologist at Zoo Atlanta. "In addition, females produce chirps when they are approaching and entering estrus, and some non-vocal sounds, such as the snort and chomp, which are sometimes heard."
So much for my mental image of prurient zookeepers.
A reader forwarded the news about a new baby panda at the San Diego Zoo. Now, I know everybody expects to get their hot panda news here, but the video was basically unlinkable. So I started looking through the recent headlines about pandas.
The panda probers have been busy:
The panda cub born Aug. 5 at the San Diego Zoo is a boy, the institution's officials said yesterday.
After four weeks of waiting for the right moment, zookeepers were able to examine the newest panda, which now weighs 2.8 pounds.
Well, as we all know, no panda insemination can go unreported. Here's a report from the LA Times:
We'll be the first to admit it: We didn't find Lin Ping, the giant panda cub born in late May at Thailand's Chiang Mai Zoo, terribly cute at first.... But the cub recently hit a milestone -- 100 days of age -- and now, we're happy to say, she is so adorable it's almost painful to look at her.
Another giant baby panda (er...baby giant panda) was born in China:
"The recent baby boom indicates we have made some progress in pandas' semen collection and freezing as well as prenatal care," said Jin [Xuelin].
Oh, sure, they're cute and cuddly when they're tiny. But then they grow up to become drug lords:
What neighbors didn't know, but what federal authorities now allege, is that this family -- husband, wife and young son -- was hired in Mexico, given a car and directions to Joliet and paid to live there as part of an elaborate ploy to disguise the two-story home's true purpose. It was to serve as a stash house for a drug ring that allegedly raked in about $10 million a year selling cocaine, most recently under the leadership of a man named "Panda."
Even so, their role in international relations may be getting out of control:
China Caucus Welcomes ‘Panda Slayers’ and Boosters in Congress
Nothing can beat the British penchant for constant government surveillance, now enhanced with panda power:
London-based artist Jason Bruges created an army of 100 collection-pot pandas, with thermal cameras causing the models to rotate to face passers-by.
"They look cute at first, but the movement and having them following you is quite unnerving. It forces you to think about climate change," he said.
OK, well maybe one thing can beat that -- Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas tweeting about the coming panda apocalypse:
what if panda bears take over and say that from now on, the international currency is hugs.
maybe something horrible happens to the earth, we all die, and find out that life on earth isn’t the big deal, but the new place is.
i like the panda theory, myself.
And you thought I was messed up.
From the New York Times story about Caster Semenya, "Gender Test After a Gold-Medal Finish":
Weiss said that the two-pronged investigation was being conducted in South Africa and in Berlin in hospitals that specialize in sex-testing issues.
Ewwww!
