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POPSUnintelligent Design At this point, 30 years after the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and his late collaborator Amos Tversky started documenting a rash of fallacies in human reasoning, the idea that the human mind would be "perfect in His image" is as outdated (and narcissistic) as the idea that the solar system would revolve around the planet earth. The only theory that can really make sense of these needless imperfections is Darwin's theory of natural selection, which holds that humans (and all other life forms) evolve through a blind process known as descent-with-modification, in which new life forms represent random modifications of earlier life forms -- with no central overseer to guide the process. Such a random process can, over time, lead populations of creatures to become more adapted to their environment, but it is also vulnerable to getting stuck, in the sort of good-enough-but-not-perfect solutions that mathematicians call local maxima.
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POPSDive right in As usual with The Big Picture it's well worth visiting the site to get full res.
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POPSPictures inside the mouths of sharks at feeding time You don't want to be here. 'We tie fish scraps onto fishing lines (no hooks) and bait lemon sharks in as close as possible. 'When one opens its mouth to "snap" at the fish, I take the shot. These snaps literally last a fraction of a second, so timing is critical. 'Recently, the technique has been changed. These days, all surface shots of lemon sharks are done via "polecam", with cameras mounted at the end of long poles. 'This prevents any possible accident.' In October, Eric be travelling to Japan on an expedition to photograph sperm whales (assuming he is still alive).
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POPSunderwater archeology museum - Caesarea "Well, divers in general have the tendency to look for new things, new sites, new interest, new thrills, and if they have the tendency or the feel for archaeology - bingo - they have two in one".
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POPSStunning underwater shots captured by world's top female cave diver and her team
Crawling through underwater caves from Antarctica to Mexico and Florida to Bermuda, it is a good thing that Jill Heinerth is not claustrophobic It also helps that Ms Heinerth, 44, is acknowledged as the world's top female cave diver Holding the world record for distance travelled in underwater caves as well as being the first person to cave dive in an Antarctic iceberg, Ms Heinerth has been at the top of her game for 20 years An expert at crossing pitch-black freezing tunnels, full time cave photographer Ms Heinerth carries up to 300 pounds of equipment with her on each expedition Using technology more advanced than average scuba diving gear, the Florida based adventure cave diver makes use of electric heated wetsuits and unique carbon dioxide recycling aqua-lungs 'The images of me with my team from Antarctica still bring back the excitement of that unique expedition,' says Ms Heinerth, who lives in the much warmer climate of High Springs in Florida.
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POPSThe Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Sea continues: Moken children learn how to swim before they can walk. The Moken can plunge to depths of 75 feet without any life support gear and can also lower their heart rates in order to hold their breaths for twice as long as other humans. And that’s not all: Swedish scientist Anna Gislen also found that Moken children have the power to constrict their pupils to tiny pinpoints when they’re in the water, enabling them to sharpen their sight and see much better underwater than the rest of us. More & video at source
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POPSSacred River of Millennia A small river in Slovenia, has yielded thousands of ancient valuable artifacts, from prehistoric settlers to Romans, Celts and Medieval societies. Apparently, the river had been considered "sacred" by various civilizations for millennia.
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POPSSea surrenders ring 89 years on Mr Hamilton, 61, said: "We've dived the site several times but have never found any significant wreckage. "When we realised Peter had found something of such a personal nature we knew we had to try and return it to the family." Having found the ship's casualty list on the internet and with information from the 1901 census, the divers, with the help of Mr Hamilton's wife Sue, placed Mr Cubiss' parents in Yorkshire. They also discovered that following her husband's death, Florence had remarried. From there, a trawl of the telephone directory revealed a listing for a JM Cubiss in York. Mr Hamilton said it was with "a degree of trepidation" that he decided to call and see if he had any connection with Stanley's family.
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POPSMan-Made Noise in World's Seas Threatens Wildlife It added that sound produced by air guns used for seismic surveys in oil exploration can travel more than 3,000 km (1,864 miles) from their source. Experts say there are also concerns that rising levels of carbon dioxide are pushing water acidity levels up and contributing to noisier oceans, because when acidity rises, water absorbs less noise.