There's a pivotal scene in the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and a company of dwarves are chased by orcs through a classic New Zealand landscape. For Northwestern University neuroscientist and engineer Malcolm MacIver, the scene is an excellent example of the kind of patchy landscape—dotted with trees, bushes, [...]
Tag: Life
Millennia-Old Rock Art in Israel Offers Window Into Lost Culture | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine
Archaeologists in northern Israel have discovered 4,000-year-old rock art engraved on the walls of three stone burial monuments, or dolmens, reports Ruth Schuster for Haaretz. An analysis of the rock carvings, which depict animals, geometric shapes and what may be a human face, was published last month in the journal Asian Archaeology. — Read on [...]
On Crazyism, Jerkitude, Garden Snails and Other Philosophical Puzzles – Scientific American
Horgan: Why do you write fiction? Doesn't that mean philosophy isn't really that fulfilling for you? Schwitzgebel: Wait, writing fiction can’t be a way of doing philosophy? Sartre, Rousseau, Zhuangzi, Voltaire, Nietzsche and Borges might disagree! Is anyone currently doing better work on the ethics of technology than the TV series Black Mirror? For instance, [...]
Native Americans and Polynesians Met in 1200 AD | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
The Pacific Ocean covers almost one-third of the Earth's surface, yet centuries ago, Polynesian navigators were skilled enough to find and populate most of the habitable islands scattered between Oceana and the Americas. Now a new genetic analysis is revealing more about their incredible journeys—and the people they met along the way. A provocative new [...]
Archaeologists Discover Enormous Ring of Ancient Pits Near Stonehenge | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine
Stonehenge is arguably the most well-known megalith in the United Kingdom. But the structures surrounding this roughly 5,000-year-old monument boast equally fascinating histories. Take, for instance, Durrington Walls, a large Neolithic hedge located just under two miles northeast of its more famous neighbor. Though prehistoric humans likely used Stonehenge as a sacred place for ceremonies [...]
Why time feels so weird in 2020
Some days seem to pass very slowly while some weeks, and even months, fly by. A set of simple perception tests illustrate some factors that can distort our sense of time. — Read on graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/TIME/gjnvwwjegvw/
Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World | IndieBound.org
Award-winning Chickasaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan explores her lifelong love of the living world and all its inhabitants. "We want to live as if there is no other place," Hogan tells us, "as if we will always be here. We want to live with devotion to the world of waters and the universe of [...]
For Henri Bergson, laughter is what keeps us elastic and free | Aeon Essays
In 1999, as he was being carried out of his house on a stretcher after a crazed fan stabbed him, the former Beatle George Harrison asked a newly hired employee: ‘So what do you think of the job so far?’ On his death bed, Voltaire allegedly told a priest who was exhorting him to renounce [...]
Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans | Nature
The origins of the Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean cultures have puzzled archaeologists for more than a century. We have assembled genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals, including Minoans from Crete, Mycenaeans from mainland Greece, and their eastern neighbours from southwestern Anatolia. Here we show that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, having at least [...]
Trawling for secrets in haunting films recovered from the bottom of the sea | Aeon Videos
The British ocean liner RMS Lusitania embarked on its infamous final voyage from New York to Liverpool on 1 May 1915. Six days later, torpedoed by German U-boats off the southern coast of Ireland, the ship sank in less than 20 minutes, killing 1,198 passengers and crew, and setting the US on the path to [...]
