The discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus (”Ardi”), an early hominid species that predates Lucy by over 1 million years, is a truly amazing find.
AP: Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found
The story of humankind is reaching back another million years as scientists learn more about “Ardi,” a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in [...]
The Telegraph is reporting that a new movie about Charles Darwin and his family, Creation, has been unable to secure a distributor in the U.S. due to its “controversial” subject matter:
Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin’s “struggle between faith and reason” as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man [...]
Did you know that U.S. patent applicants were once required to submit small, physical models of their inventions (“not more than twelve inches square … neatly made”)? I had no idea. This Wired article provides some fascinating background and a nice gallery of models.
After the patent office stopped requiring models, it spent more than 50 [...]
How utterly stupid are we becoming in the U.S.?
A survey conducted by Harris Interactive (on behalf of the California Academy of Sciences) found that Americans are dumber than a gigantic box of hair. Here are some gems from the survey results (hat tip: kottke):
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did [...]