A Sequence of Lines Consecutively Traced by Five Hundred Individuals is an online drawing tool that lets users do just one thing – trace a line. Each new user only sees the latest line drawn, and can therefore only trace this latest imperfect copy. As the line is reproduced over and over, it changes and [...]
The next time we ran into each other we were both on our way out of the gym. With my testosterone levels raised, I very much wanted to engage in criminal activity, do something else anti-social, or maybe have a heart attack. But I also wanted to have sex. Your own increased testosterone was binding [...]
Today, I published all of my known genetic data as open source and released all my rights to the data. Roughly 1 million of my genetic markers are now in the public domain. I believe that I’m the first person in the world to commit my genetic data into a decentralized source control system. The [...]
I have been sitting here with two Stegosaurus models for 20 minutes now, and I just can’t figure it out. How did these dinosaurs—bristling with spikes and plates—go about making more dinosaurs without skewering each other?
–Everything You Wanted to Know About Dinosaur Sex | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine
Have human societies evolved through a sequence of gradual increases in complexity, like the evolution of life, or have they emerged through larger, non-sequential increases? Some political philosophers, sociologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, and political scientists have argued that there are recurring patterns or processes in the way societies change over time, but others disagree. What is [...]
One Friday evening in the winter of 2009, I ended a 20-year affiliation with a college of the University of London, lugging three boxes of personal possessions and a bucket containing 12 tropical fish from my emptied office. In the face of looming redundancy, brought on by my failure to contribute adequately to my department's [...]
Amid all the psychosocial caterwauling these days over the relative merits of tiger mothers and helicopter dads, allow me to make a pitch for the quietly dogged parenting style of the New Caledonian crow.
–New Caledonian Crows Owe Their Toolmaking Skills to a Nourishing Nest – NYTimes.com
