From late May to early July, an international team of students, paleoanthropologists, geologists, and faunal experts fly to Drimolen, a chain of caves situated north of Johannesburg in South Africa and inside the “Cradle of Humankind.” Every year, this fossil excavation team, of which I am a member, arrives with revived hope of unearthing intact…
Since we perceive and sense things as people, we realize we are alive. On the other hand, scientists and great philosophers are stumped into what consciousness is and from where it comes. “Consciousness — or, to put it another way, conscious perception — is clearly a part of reality,” said Johannes Kleiner, a mathematician and…
Whose animal has the most genetic diversity? A butterfly with 20 different colours? A bacterium that divides every 20 minutes and accumulates genetic mutations? It turns out that the new record holder is a fungus that grows on decayed wood. On the other hand, the genetic diversity of the lynx is minimal. That’s terrible news…
In 1697, a lawyer in Lille, France, wrote to his cousin in the Netherlands, requesting a death certificate for a relative, presumably to finalize an inheritance. He folded and sealed his mundane massive to be mailed to the Hague without an envelope. It never made it to its intended recipient for whatever reason and is…