ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 679

All Ears! What Human Ancestors’ Hearing Was Like

Rolf Quam

By Laura Geggel

Human ancestors that lived about 2 million years ago had hearing abilities similar to those of chimpanzees, but their ears had some slight differences that made their hearing more humanlike, a new study finds.

The finding — based on virtual models of early hominin (the ancestors of modern humans), modern chimp and human ears — suggests that, unlike chimps, these now-extinct human ancestors had a remarkable sensitivity to high-frequency sounds. These types of sounds are used in modern-day human communication — including the sounds made by the letters “K,” “T,” “Th,” “F” and “S” — and could have helped hominins detect short-range vocal communication during their time, the researchers said.

The authors suggested that the ability to hear short-range communication would have favored the open savanna, adding evidence that early hominins once lived there.

Read the full article by clicking the name of the source below.

What Would Happen If You Shot A Gun In Space?

Space





Photo credit:

Tatiana Shepeleva/Shutterstock

How would a bullet fired from a gun behave in zero or low gravity? And how much water would it take to put out the Sun?

Take a look at Vsauce's video explaining that on the Moon, you could potentially shoot yourself in the head, and that no amount of water will put out the fire burning on the Sun.

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYf6a...]

 

This Week in Science: September 27th, 2015

Compiled every week by Mario Gruber

Ridiculous Kim Davis Fox News Interview

Kim Davis: Kentucky’s Martyr For Bigotry. She continues to refuse marriage licenses to same sex couples despite the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage. Megyn Kelly interviewed her on Fox and Kim revealed how she’s a hero in the eyes of those who love god… -_-

Check out this video by Theoretical Bullshit “Understanding the Kim Davis Fallacy”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NrKUCp7CGM

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Kim Davis and Mike Huckabee made a spectacle of themselves. She’s operating under God’s Authority not to issue marriage licenses, so legally she’s safe right? NO! Kim Davis has a job, and she’s not doing it. The judge sent her to jail and held her in contempt of court. She still managed to give a speech as she returned to work, asking why people won’t accommodate her deeply held religious beliefs. She’s being called a hero and compared to MLK. The Christian persecution complex has a new poster girl, Kim Davis.

These Tiny Swimming Robots Could Remove Carbon Dioxide From The Oceans

Environment





Photo credit:

Iakov Kalinin/Shutterstock.

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have developed tiny robots that could one day remove carbon dioxide from the oceans, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. Their proof of concept study was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

Early Australians Overlapped With Giant, Predatory Lizards

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

A living Komodo dragon and an illustration showing how the osteoderm bone reinforces the scales and acts like body armor. Photo of Komodo dragon by Bryan Fry, inset by Gilbert Price

A tiny fossil discovered in central eastern Australia turned out to be a piece of bone from the natural body armor of a giant monitor lizard – possibly an ancient Komodo dragon. According to researchers who dated the fossil, the apex predator overlapped, at least in time, with the continent’s early human inhabitants. The findings were published in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Greater Sage-Grouse Will Not Be Listed As Endangered. Can A Land-Use Plan Protect Them?

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Greater sage-grouse. Alan Krakauer/UC Davis

The greater sage-grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus, is a hefty, spiky bird best known for its mating rituals. Groups of males sporting yellow throat sacs gather in arenas (called leks) to perform elaborate dances for females. These flashy, charismatic birds once occupied more than 290 million acres of sagebrush in the western United States. But with drilling, mining, ranching, and wildfires, the species lost nearly half its habitat – and their numbers plummeted.

Norwegian Hikers Encouraged To Collect Bear Poop

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

There used to be around 3,000 bears roaming the woods of Norway 150 years ago. Erik Mandre/Shutterstock

If you go down to the woods today, you might be expected to pick up some bear poop. Well, you might if you live in Norway, anyway. Hikers in the Scandinavian country are being encouraged to collect any bear droppings they find while out on their rambles, and to send them in for DNA analysis.

Nano-Silver Has A Golden Side

Chemistry





Photo credit:

Silver atoms at the vertices (green) and faces (purple) of an icosahedron, with sulfur (yellow) and carbon (green) forming ligands around the central superatom, acts almost identically to gold in the same format. Credit: Osman Bakr, KAUST

Alchemists dreamed of turning base metals to gold, but probably wouldn't have been too sad at the modern achievement – turning silver to something with a striking likeness to the element below it on the periodic table. While it's probably not time to sell gold stocks, the discovery may lead to silver's substitution for some current uses of gold.

How Your Body Knows When To Burn Fat

Health and Medicine





Photo credit:

Fat cells in the human body. 3D rendered Illustration. Spectral-Design/Shutterstock

Whenever my nose drags me into a bakery, I could really do with an IV drip of this leptin stuff. Leptin is a hormone that tells your brain you’re full, thus helping to regulate how much you eat. Though I’m not sure any amount would be enough to prize my fingers off a cupcake…