by Christine Kenneally BH | Aug 12, 2007 | Ancient genomics, Genes, Ice, Resuscitation
In the Dry Valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains there are pockets of ice up to 8 million years old. Last week, scientists announced that they resuscitated microbes from this ice. If the microbes are as old as the ice, they were around long before humans split from...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Aug 12, 2007 | Africa, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Prehistoric humans, Skeleton
The discovery of a jawbone and skull from two ancient hominids by mother and daughter team Maeve and Louise Leakey suggest that the human family tree may need rewriting. Unearthed in Kenya, the remains of Homo habilis and Homo erectus indicate that the two lived...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Aug 12, 2007 | Dolphins, Extinction
The Yangtze River dolphin, so memorably sought by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine in Last Chance to See, has been declared extinct. A 2000-mile survey of the river in December didn’t sight any of the delicate mammals. Noise and other pollution from...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Aug 12, 2007 | Parsing
Brain imaging reveals a big shift in activity when music plays and then pauses. The brains of subjects listening to symphonies with frequent pauses erupted into a flurry of processing whenever the music stopped. Neuron, San Jose Mercury News.
by Christine Kenneally BH | Aug 6, 2007 | Gesture, Intention, Orangutan
An ingenuous experiment announced last week shows that orangutans communicate with intention. When the orangutans were shown food (delicious items, like bananas and bread, and less appealing food, like celery) that could only be reached with human help, they clearly...
