Although I somehow completely missed this latest Four Stone Hearth in that I didn’t even remember it was happening this week, the 80th edition is nevertheless now online at Middle Savagery, so be sure to check it out.
The first few entries look at tool use, Ardipithecus ramidus and of course, Neanderthals, without whom no occasion [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Blog’
November 19, 2009
Four Stone Hearth #80 @ Middle Savagery
November 19, 2009
Into the Uncanny Valley – Seed Magazine
This via Mind Hacks – Seed Magazine have published a piece by Joe Kloc, in which he looks at the relationship between humans and life-like robots, with regard to the so-called ‘uncanny valley’ effect, described here at Wikipedia:
(Masahiro) Mori’s hypothesis states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the [...]
November 18, 2009
The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples – by Alun Salt, PLoS ONE
Alun Salt will doubtless be known to many readers here, not least for his interest in archaeo-astronomy, research which looks into the ways in which ancient peoples regarded the sky from the perspective of its solar, lunar and planetary components. I just got word that he has published the linked paper, for which this is [...]
November 16, 2009
The FOXP2 Molecular Network Begins Taking Shape – Babel’s Dawn
Here’s a link to a brief article by Edmund Blair Bolles regarding the current research into FOXP2, from which this is the introduction:
A letter to the current issue of Nature has caused a stir among those interested in the evolution of language. It looks at the FOXP2 gene in more detail than any paper has [...]
November 16, 2009
Michael Gazzaniga: Split brains and other heady tales – ‘All in the Mind’
I’m still mostly offline, hence the brevity of posting in recent weeks, but nevertheless I still have time today to point readers in the direction of this week’s podcast from ‘All in the Mind’, from ABC Radio National, in which cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga’s chat on left-brain/right brain research is reprised. I’d recommend this to [...]
November 15, 2009
Open Access – ‘Learning to Share’
The Times Higher Education supplement, as mentioned by PLoS, has an interesting and informative article on the current state of play regarding open access, peer review, copyright and funding, amongst other items for consideration. As will be apparent, there are deep divides between the publishing companies, universities, academics and libraries as to what degree of [...]
November 13, 2009
Online Papers by Wolpoff, Hawks and Caspari
Thanks to Carl at A Hot Cup of Joe for passing this along – if you navigate to the CV page of Milford H. Wolpoff, you’ll find a number of freely accessible (PDF) papers, many or indeed all of which should be of interest to readers here. They span a time frame of more than [...]
November 11, 2009
LightSail: A Near-Term Space Sail @ Centauri Dreams
As the previous posts of today have looked variously at the recent and distant past, here’s a link to an article at Centauri Dreams, from which this is an excerpt:
What we now know is that we cannot, in economic times like these, count on government agencies to proceed with the next step. The Planetary Society [...]
November 11, 2009
Second Annual National Expedition Week @ National Geographic Channel
Airing this Sunday, November 15th at 9pm ET/PT in the US, on the National Geographic Channel is a documentary called ‘Search for the Amazon Headshrinkers’, for which this is the description:
Terrifying legends from the Amazon tell of Indian headshrinkers who would shrink an enemy’s head to render the vengeful soul powerless. Now, NGC has exclusive [...]
November 11, 2009
Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs – PLoS ONE
Although the linked paper doesn’t specifically address issues of anthropology, it’s nevertheless worth checking this to see how the researchers reached the conclusion that the amount of energy required for running meant that the two-legged dinosaurs studied would have required far more than a cold-blooded organism would have been able to cope with. Here’s the [...]
