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Mystery of bee flight finally solved
So, there’s this 2-million-year-old fossilized ancestor of modern humans known as the Taung Child. For years, scientists had speculated that he’d been killed by a saber-toothed tiger or something like that. But ten years ago, Lee Berger, a paleo-anthropologist at University of Witwatersrand, came up with another idea: Maybe the Taung Child was killed by a predatory bird. The thing is, Berger was never able to make a good argument for the theory …
… until five months ago, when he read a study of the hunting habits of modern West African eagles, which are apparently very similar to those of predatory birds that existed during the Child’s time. These eagles kill monkeys in a particularly gruesome fashion: They swoop down, pierce the backs of the monkey-skulls with their hind talons, and hover around until they die. Then, to eat their prey, they pierce the skull, producing a distinctive set of “ragged cuts in the shallow bones behind the eye sockets,” as a story in Yahoo News reports.
So Berger checked the records of the Taung Child, and saw that he had suffered from precisely the same type of eye-socket injuries. Presto: Some strong evidence suggesting his pecked-to-death-by-ducks theory is correct. What a wonderfully Hitchcockian idea: Early man was totally owned by enormous birds. As Berger puts it:
“These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the world they lived in and the things they feared.”
(Thanks to Slashdot for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
» visit the Collision Detection archives
January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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