“How weird?
“Very weird.”
Saturday’s excursion out to the frontiers of science instigated by Sky Element 115 seems have gleaned a few more links to the outer limits of our knowledge.
KILLER BLACK HOLES
Noudela sent us this amazing video clip of a particle beam being projected from a black hole. Which is aces. And this is the news report that goes with it from Some Girl.
ZOMBIES
Jon posted this link on comments to much that you might need to know about Zombies.
"Zombies are hypothetical creatures of the sort that philosophers have been known to cherish. A zombie is physically identical to a normal human being, but completely lacks conscious experience. Zombies look and behave like the conscious beings that we know and love, but "all is dark inside." There is nothing it is like to be a zombie."
AND HOW WE SEEM TO BE EVOLVING AT AN ALARMING SPEED
Ink-Stained Wretch sent us this intriguing report that humanity appears to be evolving faster that we should be.
"Humans have moved into the evolutionary fast lane and are becoming increasingly different, a genetic study suggests. In the past 5,000 years, genetic change has occurred at a rate roughly 100 times higher than any other period, say scientists in the US.
This is in contrast with the widely-held belief that recent human evolution has halted." (Click for the full fascinating story)
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2 comments:
I'm not the world's most PC person but that chart of "human evolution" they always have that shows dark skinned apes evolving into white people bugs the living fuck out of me.
Ahem. What I wanted to say was, there are two parts to evolution - variation *and* selection. If the first one has increased, but all of the variants survive (due to glasses, health care, invention of the lever, imported food etc), then evolution has not taken place. I think that's what that guy Steve Jones (wasn't he in the Sex Pistols?) was trying to say but they cut his words up until you can't tell.
The lack of "natural selection" is why people say that evolution has ceased. So this article is not "in contrast" to the widely held belief that human evolution has halted at all. But you have to sell papers/tv channels, so I suppose a bit of manufactured controversy always comes in handy.
peromyscus,
Right on.... couldn't agree more. And the fact that genetic change has occurred "at a rate 100 times higher than any other period" could easily reflect more mutagenesis due to increased toxins, radiation and the like in our "advanced" culture. As you point out, genetic change in and of itself is not evolution.
The lack of natural selection certainly explains Bush.
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