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POPSWhy Are Humans Different From All Other Apes? It’s the Cooking, Stupid This is a fascinating and quite fresh view on a possibly groundbreaking view on the evolution of the human specie. “Cooked food does many familiar things,” he observes. “It makes our food safer, creates rich and delicious tastes and reduces spoilage. Heating can allow us to open, cut or mash tough foods. But none of these advantages is as important as a little-appreciated aspect: cooking increases the amount of energy our bodies obtain from food.” (emphasis mine)
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POPSThe power structure of Bronze Age societies was based on social networks I actually find this demonstration highly important and pertinent to our modern day situation on the web. It appears that evolution of civilization favors a society organized around the tribal concept (our modern day equivalent being the loosely knitted, groups or indeed tribes on the social networks). It seems that the future heralds a return to tribalism on a global scale via the web.
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POPSA Cultural Law of Gravity "Human culture seems to have gone way beyond what such a law of gravity might allow" a fascinating post, worthwhile your time of reading
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POPSRobot Programmed to Love Goes too Far Admittedly over the board, however given enough iterations this may be a necessary step in the evolution of robots/humans interaction, leading to full fledged co-habitation.. ;-)
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POPSSynthetic biology yields clues to evolution and the origin of life The first forms of life did not evolve in the usual sense, he said, but simply grew. "Evolution began when large populations of cells had variations that led to different metabolic efficiencies," Deamer said. "If the populations were in a confined environment, at some point they would begin to compete for limited resources."
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POPSThe Future of Man--How Will Evolution Change Humans? "Contrary to popular belief, humans continue to evolve. Our bodies and brains are not the same as our ancestors' were—or as our descendants' will be Not only has Homo sapiens been doing some major genetic reshuffling since our species formed, but the rate of human evolution may, if anything, have increased"
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POPSWho Are We? You might be surprised by what's in charge of your body! a must read
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POPSInternet use could improve brain function and speed up decision-making Previous studies have warned that too much computer use could be responsible for increasing levels of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Dr Gary Small, director of the memory and ageing research centre at the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "Young people are growing up immersed in this technology and their brains are more malleable, more plastic and changing than with older brains," he said.
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POPSTowards a neuropsychology of religion: 'Doctrinal' rituals help create semantic memories of key concepts and emotional response through associative learning, while 'imagistic' rituals help create episodic memories of specific situations that may involve altered states of consciousness and the experience of other realities.
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POPSE.O. Wilson Returns to the Hive With Superorganism Tome Group evolution meant that altruism and self-sacrifice — i.e., morality — might be as much a part of our genetic heritage as hair and eye color.Many prominent biologists, led by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, said no, there was no such thing as a superorganism: Evolution worked on the genes of self-serving individuals only, not groups.
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POPSFuture Human: The Evolution of Immediate Emotion Humans, apparently, are still in the early stages of evolving extended response mechanisms. But it seems likely that by the time we portion more of our brain to long-term dangers, there will be few grizzly bears around to worry about, and a whole lotta global warming.
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POPS“What is Life?” Evolution of Robots is Causing Scientists to Question “Robots are not human, but humans aren’t the only things that have emotions,” she said. “The question for robots is not, Will they ever have human emotions? Dogs don’t have human emotions, either, but we all agree they have genuine emotions. The question is, what are the emotions that are genuine for the robot?”
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POPSCULTURAL EVOLUTION We are finally starting to understand the patterns of culture change and the role of natural selection in shaping them. And since everything from weapons of mass destruction to global heating are the results of changes in human culture over time, acquiring a fundamental understanding of cultural evolution just might be the key to saving civilization from itself.
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