Posts tagged with ‘evolution’

Jawbone found in 1957 could be the first known remains of a Neanderthal/human hybrid

Scientists now know that mating and offspring did occur between humans in Neanderthals, but it looks like we now have tangible proof. Actually, we’ve had the proof in our possession since 1957, but we didn’t have the techniques and the genetic knowledge for someone to test the jawbone until now. And it looks like this old jawbone likely did come from a Neanderthal/human hybrid.

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Fossilized arthropod reveals an ancient horror of feeding limbs and mouth parts

The problem with trying to study the evolution of arthropods is that there isn’t much to leave behind. The best thing scientists could find were bits of carapace, which doesn’t give you much idea of how a creature works. Above however is the fossilized imprint of a 520 million year old arthropod that shows a head and a long string of mouth part feeding tubes, that the thing would use to rake hapless victims into its gut.

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Are humans dumber now than ever? Take the quiz.

While we now have access to tremendous amounts of information at our fingertips, and IQ points have been rising slowly but steadily, some argue that human intelligence peaked in the hunter-gatherer age before the dawn of urban life.

Test yourself here

Via

On the ways in which men and women really do see the world differently

There has been research for decades, and presumptions for even longer than that, that men and women actually see the world differently, based on the ways in which men and women’s gender roles developed in very early hunter/gatherer societies. Recent research supports these claims, including women’s abilities to discern color better, whereas men are better at picking out detail in motion or at a distance.

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Louisiana private school teaches the Loch Ness monster is real to disprove evolution

Continuing the trend of encouraging a love of stupidity, a private Christian school in Louisiana has begun including the Loch Ness monster in its biology curriculum. The inclusion of the monster is all about trying to somehow disprove evolution by talking about fake monsters. Because that makes as much logical sense as proving existence with an invisible being.

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Why hasn’t baldness been selected out of the human gene pool?

Many men, at some point in their adult lives, have to deal with losing their hair, but if it’s such an undesirable trait, why has it been part of the human genome for a hundred thousand years? Why have we not self-selected against it by now?

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Could the Paleo diet be the way of the future?

Someone asked about diets the other day, so I thought this was relevant. As diets come and go, and as we learn more about nutrition and how what we eat interacts with our bodies, we’ve found that the staples we think are healthy can actually be toxic. But one thing that hasn’t changed much in 120,000 years is our genome, and a body that evolved to eat meat and a few nuts and grains. And so proponents of the Paleo diet swear that this is how we should still be eating— no sugar, no bread, just meat, a few vegetables and a few grains.

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