The Book of Barely Imagined Beings

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65079710718959996022012-02-01T11:53:07.923ZThe Book of Barely Imagined Beings<b>An Anthropocene Bestiary</b>Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.comBlogger8541100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-15913491970681989472012-01-26T06:55:00.000Z2012-01-30T14:22:55.636ZWho's there?

[With the claim that the self is like a waterfall, Julian] Baggini is trying to save the self from neuroscience, which is admirable considering that neuroscience continues to show how convoluted our brains are. I am not sure if he is successful – argument by metaphor can only go so far, empirical data wins at the end of the day. -- so writes Sam McNerney. But Baggini's point may be sounder

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-87956897446837515312012-01-25T06:58:00.000Z2012-01-25T17:19:23.727ZThe eyes of Anomalocaris

...this magnificent animal, probably the first in the line of apex predators of these shallow seas, had a compound eye that, in many ways, resembled the eye of today’s dragonfly. Anomalocaris had perhaps as many as 16,000 hexagonal facets (individual units of the eye called ommatidia) in each eye and probably good vision. --Ivan R Schwab

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-10985841253764365932012-01-15T14:50:00.000Z2012-01-21T11:11:15.214ZOn being and not being astonished

...Studying patients has taught us where memories might be stored, but not what physically constitutes a memory. The answer lies in the multitude of tiny modifiable connections between neuronal cells, the information-processing units of the brain. These cells, with their wispy tree-like protrusions, hang like stars in miniature galaxies and pulse with electrical charge. Thus, your memories are

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-22303468819710032732012-01-11T15:38:00.000Z2012-01-11T15:38:01.864Z'We have become, in a painful, unwished-for way, nature itself.'

The text of my book went to the copy editors a little while ago so it is basically done and dusted (bibliography, permissions for quotation and images, minor corrections notwithstanding). It will be published in October. Looking over the final chapter yet one more time (and promped in part by an interview with Emma Marris at Chinadialogue), I turned thence to 'Natural Man' by Lewis Thomas, first

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-17492457796516449152012-01-09T06:33:00.000Z2012-01-09T07:33:41.244ZSoap, fertilizer, glycerin for blowing up soldiers, margarine

A. Remington Kellogg...was among the first to commission “vivisections” on porpoises even though, in his own words, “a live porpoise can be handled about as readily as a satchel of dynamite.” This did not deter the intrepid scientists who “fell to the unlovely task of restraining the furiously squealing animal in order first to expose the skull and then to saw into it to expose the brain.”

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-11866511336751869372012-01-08T21:10:00.006Z2012-01-08T21:12:24.793Z'Plankton chronicles'

A series of two minute films in high def. Good images and commentary.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-42984131378769153752012-01-08T07:23:00.000Z2012-01-08T16:29:40.447ZBooks

Each species is like a book, the product of literally billions of years of editing and re-editing through the process of evolution, and each species has its own unique story to tell. These stories are all nonfiction, and more important, stories of survival, of navigating billions of years of persistence. These stories include the cures to many (if not all) human diseases. They include

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-82235768943152511342012-01-07T06:31:00.000Z2012-01-07T09:32:40.015ZEaten

The consumption of animals such as whales, dolphins and manatees is on the rise in poor nations. Declines in coastal fish catches have led people to look for other sources of meat... Cetaceans are making their way to dinner plates as other protein sources are dwindling in coastal areas of west Africa, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-19340354526215799302012-01-01T06:16:00.000Z2012-01-07T08:21:07.708ZYou, robot

2012 is the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the second world war code-breaker who dreamed up the test in 1950 while pondering the notion of a thinking machine, so expect a flurry of competitions in his honour. Bear in mind, though, that the Turing test is a poor gauge for today's AIs. For one thing, the test's demand that a program capture the nuances of human speech makes it too hard.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-40754445158943371292011-12-29T06:38:00.000Z2012-01-30T08:46:09.781Z'the infinite succession of soft and radiant forms'

If anyone goes down to those shores now, if man or boy seeks to follow in our traces, let him realize at once, before he takes the trouble to roll up his sleeves, that his zeal will end in labour lost. There is nothing, now, where in our days there was so much. Then the rocks between tide and tide were submarine gardens of a beauty that seemed often to be fabulous, and was positively delusive,

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-34882698552214799422011-12-28T21:33:00.000Z2011-12-29T21:38:38.273ZBlack iron snail

A scaly foot sea snail from the Dragon Vent. The scales are covered with layers of pure pyrite and iron sulphide.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-55546554657015329012011-12-27T06:29:00.000Z2011-12-29T20:47:39.430ZPotbelly hill

Nearly all the women were wearing head scarves, even burkas. I saw one woman so pious that her burka didn't even have an opening for her eyes. She was leaving a cell-phone store, accompanied by a teen-age boy wearing a T-shirt that said "RELAX, MAN," over a picture of an ice-cream cone playing en electric guitar. You wouldn't think an ice cream could play a electric guitar, or would want to. I

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-27737510194411527022011-12-26T06:48:00.000Z2012-01-12T09:44:23.369Z'Bears, dolphins and the animal stories we tell'

We don’t have to understand animals in order to care about them or in order to feel obliged to treat them in a certain fashion. -- from a review Christopher Beha of four books about animals

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-62851305166556359162011-12-19T07:11:00.000Z2011-12-29T20:44:44.521ZMind in life

Am also late off the block on this from Alva Noë: Plants are living beings, even the simplest ones, even the cell, are already engaged in an autonomous struggle to maintain themselves and survive. Living beings, even the simplest ones, already have something like rudimentary minds — motivated sensitivities and useful interests — and so they are way beyond [the IBM robot] Watson.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-26879494140215431502011-12-19T07:09:00.000Z2011-12-19T15:16:46.573ZA wasp smaller than an amoeba

I missed this a few weeks ago. If you did too I recommend a look. Hat tip Ephemeral curios

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-5760403472797547222011-12-18T09:45:00.001Z2011-12-18T21:40:58.379Z'Turtles might deposit eggs in the sand of the beach where now the walrus sleeps'

Then might those genera of animals return, of which the memorials are preserved in the ancient rocks of our continents. The huge iguanodon might reappear in the woods, and the icthyosaur in the sea, while the pterodactyl might flit again through the umbrageous groves of tree ferns. Coral reefs might be prolonged to the arctic circle, where the whale and narwal now abound. Turtles might deposit

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-32997195902304535652011-12-16T16:31:00.000Z2011-12-16T16:31:26.447ZScientific killing

The [method] that is now mostly used is a technique in the Antarctic that uses sonar. Not, however, to look at the whale underneath the water. They use it as a means of scaring [it], because sonar is very loud. They did experiments and chose a frequency which kept whales so panicked, that they were at the surface for breaths more frequently than at other frequencies. So, they drive the whale

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-66925124862177555152011-12-14T07:19:00.000Z2011-12-14T10:25:11.100Z'That beauty exists at all in a damaged world is to be celebrated'

"Linguistic disobedience" might be achieved in many ways: by speaking out of turn, by disrupting syntax and "meaning", and by offering comparisons between disparate things. It might be a case of the poem acting as "witness", a recording of what's normally "unseen", ignored or denied. It can be subtle -- using allusion and slight shifts from convention -- and it can be volatile -- from agitprop

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-35176998067012667602011-12-13T17:24:00.004Z2011-12-14T10:26:36.088ZOctogasm

via Deep Sea News A better soundtrack, in my view, would have been Chopin's Etude op 10 no 1 in C Major

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-83602275051518840112011-12-08T07:30:00.000Z2011-12-08T15:20:54.595ZBeyond the horseless carriage

And now we’re doing something incredible. We’re literally creating potentially an entirely new species. If you believe both the scientists and the science fiction authors out there, that’s what they think we’re doing. But, if we’re being honest about it, the reason that we’re doing all this is just to get better at destroying one another. -- P W Singer

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-67825987158996816012011-12-06T06:37:00.000Z2011-12-08T15:19:33.887ZA sixth sense

We can actually use other physical parameters that mammals do not normally perceive and create other sensory channels ...We create a complete new sense with a physical parameter, a physical energy that mammals never experienced themselves so they are now living in a complete new world that is governed by this physical energy, and they have a detector that allows them to find sources of water (

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-730867261859244182011-12-05T20:16:00.001Z2011-12-08T15:22:08.746Z'Adders have faces intense with hatred; hot with it...'

What had caught my eye in the heather was the zigzag, a pattern too clear to look natural. The shadows cast by bracken leaves have similar shapes. In these shadows, the zigzag evolved, presumably, but somehow the scatter of light and shade on the forest floor became on the snake a regular wavy line. It breaks up the animal’s outline. Hawks and crows see the snake from above. People do too. When

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-63210179378147217262011-12-05T06:39:00.000Z2011-12-17T15:23:22.188Z'You are not your brain'

...we do know...that a healthy brain is necessary for normal mental life, and indeed, for any life at all. But of course much else is necessary for mental life. We need roughly normal bodies and a roughly normal environment. We also need the presence and availability of other people if we are to have anything like the sorts of lives that we know and value. So we really ought to say that it is

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-65466180754436293102011-12-01T07:25:00.000Z2011-12-01T12:40:44.379Z'Mysteries of the Cell'

'Mysteries' include: * Do Lipid Rafts Exist? * How Does a Cell Know Its Size? * How Does the Cell Position Its Proteins? * How Do Hungry Cells Start Eating Themselves? * Does a Gene’s Location in the Nucleus Matter? and others Plus: an overview of 'the new cell anatomy'.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-81670372075650167002011-11-30T07:10:00.000Z2011-12-01T12:24:36.261ZRavens

'... the use of declarative gestures is not restricted to the primate lineage...' -- The use of referential gestures in ravens (Corvus corax) in the wild

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-37875804177041928472011-11-25T14:17:00.000Z2012-01-07T09:34:02.306ZThe earth hath bubbles, as the water has...

At first sight...a simple [autogenic] molecular system doesn't appear to have much to do with the emergence of function, or value, much less consciousness. But upon closer examination, these teleological-like properties turn out to ultimately depend on some variant of the self-referential circularity of this sort of formative process. This is because the causal circularity between these

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-57340870495033868022011-11-24T06:22:00.000Z2011-11-25T08:01:08.234ZHyperwarming

Studies suggest that long-term climate models up to the year 2300 are missing key positive feedbacks that could send global temperatures towards levels high enough to melt the ice, if not over the entire Gamburtsevs, then at least large parts of even Antarctica for the first time in over 30 million years: In particular, the release of methane from melting Arctic permafrost has not yet been

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-89176695943941342572011-11-22T17:05:00.001Z2011-11-22T17:06:07.179ZThe Gentle Ape

Sara Blaffer Hrdy’s gracefully written, expert account of human behavior focuses on the positive, and its most important contribution is to give cooperation its rightful place in child care. Through a lifetime of pathbreaking work, she has repeatedly undermined our complacent, solipsistic, masculine notions of what women were meant “by nature” to be. Here as elsewhere she urges caution and

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-22434729164199649342011-11-16T07:05:00.000Z2011-11-16T14:25:04.872ZKilling orangutans

Researchers estimate that between 750 and 1,800 orang-utans were killed in the year leading up to April 2008. In previous years, however, things were even worse: the researchers calculate that between 1,950 and 3,100 were killed each year. These killing rates are higher than previously thought and are high enough to pose a serious threat to the continued existence of orangutans in Kalimantan. -

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-53438180127597794032011-11-15T07:22:00.000Z2011-12-01T12:42:26.610Z'To find or follow a track'

photo: Guy Moreton 'It seems to me,' [Wittgenstein] will recall years later of these months, 'that I had given birth to new paths of thought within me': 'Es kommt mir so vor, als hätte ich damals in mir neue Denkbewegungen geboren.' The word he uses for 'paths of thought', Denkbewegungen, is a coinage that draws attention to itself. It might be translated as 'thought-movements', or '

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-58322627088013038562011-11-10T07:02:00.000Z2011-11-15T22:04:53.635ZHappy feet

As The Browser asks, how long before one of these gets weaponised? But, writes Justin Mullins (Squishybots...), the chances are that something with a squishy body and tentacles is likely to be closer to the real future of robotics. 'For many tasks that we actually want robots to do, a hard body or humanoid shape just isn't cutting it. So researchers are rethinking

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-517831504223424182011-11-09T20:04:00.003Z2011-11-09T22:18:31.772Z'The restaurants are all full'

...said Silvio Berlusconi a few days ago, alluding to the robust health of the Italian economy. One could laugh, were it not for the knowledge that such prosperity as many Italians have recently enjoyed has depended on eating the future -- stealing from children by loading them with debt. A footnote to this farce: it appears Italian restaurants really are full...of dead song birds. Traffic, the

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-513954457956183682011-11-09T10:46:00.000Z2011-12-19T12:21:41.276ZMonstrorum historia

Some footnotes to the my recent piece for Granta online: In On Monsters: An Unnatural History of our Worst Fears, Stephen Asma identifies ‘slitherers’, or snake-like monsters as one of the principal types of monsters. Eels can be put in this category (along with, for example, hagfish). Others include: ‘crawlers’ (spider-type monsters), ‘collosals’ (giant creatures), ‘hybrids’ (mixed-species

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-23198581307140053422011-11-06T07:04:00.000Z2011-11-09T22:18:53.066ZEl mussol i la gateta

via Grrlscientist:

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-83409463882758127292011-11-04T18:06:00.001Z2011-11-07T13:57:53.214Z'Libertine bubbles'

Ain't nobody here but us Scyllarides latus larvae Stranger and more plausible than the theory (attributed to Aristophanes in the Symposium) that sex has its origins in people chasing around trying to find the other half from which they were once severed is the libertine bubble theory of Thierry Lodé, which argues that rather than providing reproductive advantages: it might be better to see

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-89684317701140274242011-10-27T07:00:00.000Z2011-11-07T13:59:30.610ZAn octopus enrichment handbook

Athena’s suckers felt like an alien’s kiss—at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom. -- Sy Montgomery

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-19754075450401247302011-10-25T07:54:00.000Z2011-10-25T12:55:21.964ZRhino gone

Poaching has driven the Javan rhinoceros to extinction in Vietnam, leaving the critically endangered species' only remaining population numbering less than 50 on the Indonesian island that gave it its name, the WWF and International Rhino Foundation said on Tuesday. "The last Javan rhino in Vietnam has gone," said Tran Thi Minh Hien, WWF-Vietnam country director. "It is painful that despite

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-65189337676787493602011-10-23T08:01:00.000Z2011-10-23T14:13:02.516ZOncos

Cancer stem cells have acquired the behavior of normal stem cells by activating the same genes and pathways that make normal stem cells immortal -- except, unlike normal stem cells, they can not be lulled back into physiological sleep. Cancer, then, is quite literally, trying to emulate a regenerating organ -- or, perhaps, more disturbingly, the regenerating organism. Its quest for immortality

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-90008975076736737252011-10-22T14:02:00.000Z2011-10-24T07:59:33.972ZC.S.I.: Dog Dump

‘Globally endangered Egyptian vulture!’ shouted Çağan, slamming on the brakes. Glancing skyward, I caught a glimpse of something brown flapping away. The body of the Egyptian vulture is brown and off-white, but its face is bright yellow. ‘They get that colour from eating shit, which is full of yellow carotenoid pigments,’ Çağan explained. In males, the bright-yellow face is an indicator of

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-17101184374800595692011-10-17T15:39:00.000Z2011-10-17T15:39:09.208ZThe waltzing kludge of eukaryotic life

At its heart, [the idea] is deceptively simple: we have two genomes that need to work together, and you can tell how well they’re doing this by the strength of the free radical leak. From that simple concept, you can logically derive how fitness, fertility and lifespan are linked in different species. You can also predict the process of ageing and the onset of age-related diseases within

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-83642956388412488412011-10-11T20:06:00.000Z2011-10-12T08:23:16.406ZMegavirus

Its genome is 1.259 million base pairs long, which is 6.5 percent longer than the previous record holder among giant viruses. In that abundance of DNA are 1120 genes. That’s hundreds more genes than found in a lot of bacteria. -- Carl Zimmer on a the world's most ginormous virus. Some have even argued that they represent a new domain of life, although others aren’t so sure, Zimmer notes.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-67612981166724235402011-10-10T17:55:00.000Z2011-10-10T17:55:13.792ZFuture fish

The construct also contains a stretch of DNA from the promoter region of an ocean pout, an eel-like creature that lives in extremely cold environments (the promoter is a switch that controls the expression of a downstream gene). Normally, the eel uses this promoter to keep an antifreeze gene turned on constantly so it does not freeze. The promoter is therefore “constitutive,” meaning it is

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-19979810025562222122011-10-10T12:42:00.000Z2011-10-11T20:11:12.359ZGiant killer squid of the Triassic?

We hypothesize that the shonisaurs were killed and carried to the site by an enormous Triassic cephalopod, a 'kraken,' with estimated length of approximately 30 m, twice that of the modern Colossal Squid -- from here. P Z Myers is sceptical : This 'Triassic kraken' has not been found; no fossils, no remains at all, no evidence of its existence. It is postulated to have been large enough to

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-38278270216564110832011-10-10T06:40:00.001Z2011-10-10T12:57:52.695ZWeed world

What I’m really proposing is a shift in our value system. What we value and don’t value can change. "Weedy" is an interesting cultural concept -- in reality, weeds are successful plants. We should celebrate them, because they’re the plants we don’t have to worry about it. They’re gong to be fine. They’re the resilient part of nature. -- Emma Marris. In Solar, Ian McEwan's anti-hero Michael

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-8911680270726187812011-10-09T06:45:00.000Z2011-10-09T21:11:58.622ZCultural transmission in chimpanzees

Trasmisión cultural entre primates from Proyecto Gran Simio on Vimeo. In Tai National Part, Ivory Coast, a young chimp observes and learns from its mother how to use tools to break open nuts. The film was taken by Serge Soiret of the Great Ape Project.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-9035512496482377292011-10-08T05:05:00.000Z2011-10-10T12:51:50.633ZJelly world

Hyperbole? a future 'gelatinous' ocean reminiscent of the early Ediacaran if fishing and other anthropogenic stressors remain unchanged -- from Faking Giants... Some jellyfish are increasing the amount of water in their bodies in order to increase their size and so collide with more prey.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-52780518823362982212011-09-30T13:56:00.001Z2011-09-30T15:17:12.072ZLife entangled

A useful overview article of developments in quantum biology here summarizes recent research into possible roles in smell, photosynthesis and vision. Humans have 400 differently shaped smell receptors but can recognize 100,000 smells. Whether a quantum effect (electron tunneling) plays a role remains a matter of speculation.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-2179221309300181322011-09-26T06:37:00.014Z2011-09-26T15:32:33.128ZMetamorphosis: bifurcated being

The larva of Luidia sarsi is a semi-transparent diaphanous sprite that feeds on algae and grows to a remarkable 4 centimetres. Then something extraordinary happens. Instead of changing shape to become an adult, a cluster of cells lining the larva's internal cavity grows, like an alien invader, and out of these a starfish is born. Floating free from its other self, the adult form settles on the

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-70663142974353086912011-09-23T06:21:00.002Z2011-09-26T15:29:00.855ZA monster's heartblood

There was once a monster which lived in the valley of the Clearwater River near Kamiah. This beast devoured all the animals that lived in the country for miles around and became such a menace that Coyote...decided it must be killed. Arming himself with a flint knife, he jumped down the animal's throat and stabbed it in the heart. Then he cut the body up into pieces and from them fashioned tribes

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-754881974996068482011-09-21T06:43:00.053Z2011-09-27T09:06:25.426Z'New dances with wolves'

In a talk advocating the reintroduction of wolves to Scotland, Jim Crumley quotes Doug Smith, the head of the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction project since it began in 1995: Clearly this is an animal less likely to offer scientists irrefutable facts than to lure us on a long and crooked journey of learning.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-25142787480163199892011-09-16T08:07:00.006Z2011-09-21T16:06:29.105ZUunartoq Qeqertaq

One here for the Nuvvuagittuq Eidouranion (a phrase to be explained another time): According to the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, Greenland lost around 15% of its ice cover between the 10th edition (1999) (left) and 13th edition (2011) (right). Uunartoq Qeqertaq – translated from Inuit as Warming Island – joins Southern Sudan and nearly 7,000 other countries and places added or

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-73065687139017260882011-09-15T06:30:00.002Z2011-09-15T07:52:57.736ZMan and animal

What birds and animals offer us is not confirmation of our sense of having an exalted place in some sort of cosmic hierarchy. It's admission into a larger scheme of things, where our minds are no longer turned in on themselves.-- John Gray. Irony apart, a better appreciation of birds and animals might help in the era of 'post-whateverism.'

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-42647382743680580232011-09-14T06:31:00.001Z2011-10-23T14:17:09.064ZInvasion of the fungal body stranglers

Imagine if a tree could lasso your body as you run past. That’s pretty much what some nematophagous fungi (and Vampyrellid protists) do in soils—capturing (very) motile nematodes, suspending their motion, and digesting them whole. Some fungi entwine nematodes with their rope-like hyphae and choke the poor worms to death. Other fungi inject their roots into a living worm, sucking out nutrients

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-54163518947311424232011-09-12T12:42:00.002Z2011-09-12T13:08:43.094ZAdventures in rhino stimulation

Following a table of typology, definitions and potential agency of extinction terms as outlined by Richard Ladle and Paul Jepson, the white rhino is, presumably, on the point of crossing from the status of 'Ecological extinction' to 'Phoenix extinction.' Two recent developments may help it from slipping into total extinction: the conversion of its skin cells into pluripotent stem cells, and

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-72437801049170364502011-09-09T11:40:00.000Z2011-09-09T11:40:45.906Z'First there was an island -- then there was a boat'

What draws me to these places is hard to define. The journey is part of the magic. The sea is endlessly, and wonderfully alive; unlike concrete, unlike tarmacadam. No two sea journeys are ever the same. On the trip to North Rona, we met families of dolphin, Risso’s, basking sharks and minke whales. The sea was calm, the swell long and leaden. The night-time journey back was before a

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-33333256190962706152011-09-08T07:49:00.001Z2011-09-08T08:59:08.174ZThe short man

Richard Freeman outlines some evidence for Orang Pendek, an elusive Sumatran great ape that, if it exists, is probably more closely related to the Orangutan than to hominins.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-33296236969758640992011-09-07T15:02:00.001Z2011-09-12T13:09:28.981ZAn eight-branched spiral

Eoandromeda octobrachiata may or may not set the tree of life wobbling but it has certainly been given a beautiful name, inspired by the fact that its body plan resembles the spiral galaxy Andromeda.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-48019363538832102712011-09-05T12:39:00.010Z2011-09-16T09:42:20.734ZA map, and the territory

This poster envisions Marine Protected Areas that would be necessary if we were to start to be serious about protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises: World Map of all Proposed and Existing Marine Mammal Protected Areas, © Lesley Frampton, Calvin Frampton and Erich Hoyt. Click pdf for full size Key points in accompanying press release: · The need for greater protection: “Marine

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-27586882023678595282011-08-30T07:04:00.005Z2011-08-30T09:14:08.213Z'I am not a robot. I am a unicorn'

'Humans,' notes Brian Christian, 'appear to be the only things anxious about what makes them unique.'

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-78676396911049751382011-08-20T04:48:00.000Z2011-08-20T04:48:40.920ZEvolving robots

[The] long-term goal is to create robots that can evolve like biological creatures, so EndlessForms is designed to explore what kind of biological body shapes the model can produce. Forget designing your own objects - what about 3D-printed pets? -- from Evolve your own objects for 3D Printing

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-13574020326909390592011-08-03T12:45:00.000Z2011-08-03T12:45:27.526ZCane toad rex

Kakadu was until very recently thought to be immune from the extinctions that have plagued much of Australia’s native fauna. That bite needs to be felt by many more buttocks — not just in Australia but across the globe, where invasive species, ineffective management and wishful thinking imperil the wild places and creatures that still remain. -- Sean B. Carroll

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-1262768595168521382011-07-27T07:37:00.000Z2011-07-27T10:42:26.981Z'From Billions to None'

Here is a promotional video for a proposed documentary on the extermination of the passenger pigeon, and what can be learned from it (via Peter Maas): Here's a niece bit of lore: the phrase stool pigeon originates in the use of a trapped passenger pigeon as bate to entice other birds to land.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-11576470059605247372011-07-25T05:44:00.002Z2011-07-25T14:50:45.205ZVenus, Adonis and the chicken

In a study titled "Chickens prefer beautiful humans", human faces were photographed and digitised, so they could be presented to undergraduates, who then rated them according to attractiveness. The male faces were rated by female students and vice versa. They came up with a gradation of the most and least attractive. Then chickens were presented with the same faces and strikingly, the chickens'

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-67135275265052818312011-07-14T16:19:00.001Z2011-07-14T16:21:16.423ZTechnicolor dream toad

This seems to be wondrous amphibians week. Here is the Bornean rainbow toad Ansonia latidisca

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-1385999620336602682011-07-13T06:51:00.005Z2011-07-14T16:20:12.131ZEye of Fire Belly Newt

[Scientists] removed the lenses of six Japanese newts, Cynops pyrrhogaster, 18 times. After each excision, the lenses regenerated. They did so not from remaining lens tissue, but from pigment epithelial cells in the upper part of the iris.-- from Newts able to regenerate body parts indefinitely. Longer post from Ed Yong here.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-47087514448868757132011-07-11T06:27:00.006Z2011-07-11T07:36:46.272ZNew beasts and angels

Until recently, most robots could be thought of as belonging to one of two phyla. The Widgetophora, equipped with claws, grabs and wheels, stuck to the essentials and did not try too hard to look like anything other than machines (think R2-D2). The Anthropoidea, by contrast, did their best to look like their creators—sporting arms with proper hands, legs with real feet, and faces (think C-3PO).

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-81687402321390752152011-07-10T06:34:00.002Z2011-07-11T07:41:49.606ZHow the whales unbecame

Once, whales fertilized the oceans. Now they are choking on plastic (As Philip Hoare points out, the fate of whales is determined by a lot more than direct slaughter.)

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-69012709971947473212011-07-08T01:18:00.007Z2011-07-08T09:22:57.747ZModern nature

We stayed well away from the water, so toxic, it is fit only for industrial cooling. Yet, somehow, birds still survive, feed and breed here. Nikhil says the river, even in its poisoned state, guides species as they migrate down from the mighty Himalayan mountains, or up from the Deccan Plateau. It is an avian compass, directing some species east, away from the harsh winters of Central Asia and

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-65050433938935985192011-07-02T09:51:00.013Z2011-07-08T09:24:11.400ZBig world

Contrasting observations. This: One need only shut oneself in a closet and begin to think of the fact of one’s being there, of one’s queer bodily shape in the darkness (a thing to make children scream at, as Stevenson says), of one’s fantastic character and all, to have the wonder steal over the detail as much as over the general fact of being, and to see that it is only familiarity that blunts

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-5370813101399288022011-06-26T07:15:00.006Z2011-06-29T23:50:16.756ZA treasure island

The world is full of fantastic and fantastical creatures, of quirky and improbable lifestyles. The more we look, the more we find.-- Mark Wright of WWF on the discovery of over 1,000 new species in PNG.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-54700449622017717992011-06-20T06:18:00.014Z2011-08-14T11:23:15.263ZInfinite possibilities

To attempt to predict anything beyond the relevant horizon is futile -- it is prophecy -- but wondering what is beyond it is not. When wondering leads to conjecture, that constitutes speculation, which is not irrational either. In fact it is vital. Every one of those deeply unforeseeable new ideas that make the future unpredictable will begin as speculation. And every speculation begins with a

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-64351015603507007672011-06-13T10:18:00.022Z2011-06-14T21:47:16.981ZA dragon

A report on a photographic investigation by Keith Martin-Smith of weedy sea dragons sent me back to Gould's wonderful illustration from 1832 click here for full size Richard Flanagan's novel Gould's Book of Fish (2001) begins with the narrator staring in endless fascination at (if I remember correctly) a leafy sea dragon -- an idea borrowed, perhaps, from Cortazar's short story Axolotl (1953

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-76812737929912115682011-06-09T06:15:00.000Z2011-06-09T09:18:23.952ZThe diving bell spider and the aqualung

The bubble made by Argyroneta aquatica act rather like an artificial gill, taking up dissolved oxygen from the water so that the spiders doesn't need to continually refill it with fresh air from the surface-- report, original paper.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-91599184159195053042011-06-08T06:02:00.002Z2011-06-16T07:22:33.298Z'The only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos'

Earth has not always looked like this. Suppose you can rewind time, slowly at first—you see the field of lights on the night side of Earth extinguished, these having been lit by industrially inclined humans only in the last few decades. Rewind at a million years a minute, and you can watch ice sheets regularly advancing and retreating across the Northern Hemisphere, every six seconds or so,

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-24134254121257300992011-06-05T06:18:00.006Z2011-10-10T13:00:26.937ZNext to nature

Two points from Peter Kahn: Eventually there might be a new ontological category of beings, that are both alive and not alive at the same time. I've had many discussions with people who say that, yes, things are getting worse for us environmentally, but we're an adaptive species so we'll simply adapt. I argue, however, that just because we do adapt, it doesn't mean we're going to adapt well.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-32266639661078654622011-05-27T06:33:00.003Z2011-05-27T08:39:19.404ZTreebot

Tree climbing robot: report

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-73573041446583934792011-05-25T06:55:00.003Z2011-05-25T10:45:22.138Zthe Louisiana Pancake Batfish...

...and other animals in the International Institute for Species Exploration's top ten new species of 2010 Image courtesy Prosanta Chakrabarty, Lousiana State University

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-4581564302669242002011-05-20T06:01:00.004Z2011-05-27T08:45:11.280ZTales from the Crysophere

For literally centuries, polar explorers have been aware that in the springtime the bottom of seasonal sea ice becomes visible discolored. Today we know that what they were seeing is a photosynthesis-based biofilm of grand proportions. By March, when the sun spends enough time above the horizon to initiate the ice-algal bloom, the sea ice cover over the Arctic Ocean alone (sea ice also surrounds

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-57169931034075050522011-05-19T22:01:00.000Z2011-05-19T22:01:12.476ZThe art of memory

During the Middle Ages they understood that words accompanied by imagery are much more memorable. By making the margins of a book colorful and beautiful, illuminations help make the text unforgettable. It’s unfortunate that we’ve lost the art of illumination. The fact that books today are mostly a string of words makes it easier to forget the text. With the impact of the iPad and the future of

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-46425320109606536612011-05-04T06:28:00.222Z2011-05-06T14:20:52.468ZA virus bestiary

There are more viruses on Earth than there are stars in the universe. If you stacked every virus end to end they would stretch 100,000 light years. 10 percent of all the photosynthesis on the Earth is carried out with virus genes. Life as we know it may owe its existence to viruses.Astonishing facts such as these pepper Carl Zimmer's A Planet of Viruses, a book whose ten short and clear

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-65840733854325023152011-05-03T06:53:00.006Z2011-05-03T12:58:49.365ZFinding out

Two observations by Richard Feynman: Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves. Our imagination is stretched to the utmost not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. Photo: Ian Parker The quotes appear in, respectively, an article by David Deutsch, and an article about Deutsch and

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-4708627804466997582011-05-01T06:59:00.002Z2011-05-01T08:01:10.614ZJustin

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-45406629161404567682011-04-30T06:01:00.003Z2011-05-03T11:28:58.930ZGaia's body

A newish detail from the deep: huge currents hundreds of kilometres wide... picks up material from the vents and transports it long distances. In this way, large swaths of the ocean that would otherwise be bereft of life-giving nutrients - like those emanating from this black-smoker chimney - get fertilised. -- report, paper

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-73592128729371573472011-04-28T16:10:00.002Z2011-04-29T08:44:48.212ZBrainless wonder sails by the trees

Navigation by mangrove for the box jellyfish: 'a specialized type of eye is constantly peering through the water surface.' (paper) A related post here.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-47231240666883980222011-04-27T06:05:00.002Z2011-04-28T06:56:26.023ZAkachochin

A shooting star The ocean floor too far below to drop anchorA haiku about the Red Paper Lantern Jellyfish by Dughal Lindsay podcast in the series One Species at a Time.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-64195725771645740182011-04-19T19:55:00.021Z2011-08-04T08:48:29.376ZSomewhere towards the end

There is no shortage of fantastical ways in which people imagine the end of humanity. Some of them lead to harmful behaviour. Putting aside cults, scare-mongering and general foolishness, however, the ultimate end of our species is a matter with which we need to engage seriously. And that is one of the reasons I think Kathleen Jamie’s On Rona is a small masterpiece: intentionally or otherwise,

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-67008709924217310162011-04-14T07:09:00.002Z2011-04-15T15:09:03.555ZIsland life

Daily, our sense of time slowed, days expanded like a wing. The days were long in the best, high-summer sense; at night we put up storm shutters on the bothy to make to dark enough to sleep. Time was clouds passing, a sudden squall, a shift in the wind. Often we wondered what it would do to your mind if you were born here, and lived your whole life within this small compass. To be named for the

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-89998455458138184462011-04-08T10:19:00.001Z2011-04-08T11:39:56.926ZClimbing in 190 dimensions

Those who have looked at the night sky—not the dim remnant visible in cities, but the bright complexity seen in high, dark places—can appreciate the task assumed by Wochner et al [who] describe the construction of an RNA enzyme (a template-dependent primed RNA polymerase) that emulates an ancient molecule that would have been crucial in the “RNA world,” believed to have predated DNA- and

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-90314049006802573092011-04-07T15:10:00.002Z2011-04-08T11:31:44.149ZA sea of stories

Frank Rose's thesis that new technologies enhance our immersion in stories looks worth serious attention, but my guess is that the San and the Homeric Greeks (not to mention Don Quixote) were no less deeply immersed in their stories. A recent report from India even suggested traditional story telling is making a comeback there.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-27590321784002964132011-04-07T15:04:00.000Z2011-04-07T15:04:45.435Z'...not as we know it...'

Another strange discovery is a previously unknown Deinococcus — a group of bacteria known as the world's toughest — capable of tolerating γ-ray exposures 5,000 times greater than those survived by any other known organism, despite living 15 metres beneath the permafrost. These levels of radiation have never existed on Earth, so the source of the bacterium's resistance is a mystery. Theories put

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-91969101249910170972011-04-05T14:17:00.004Z2011-05-06T11:47:57.197ZThe levers of extinction

Carl Zimmer's survey of research and discussion on the matter of the sixth extinction and the role of climate change (Multitude of Species Face Climate Threat) is useful: scientists who study the impact of global warming on biodiversity are pushing back against the pressure for detailed forecasts. While it’s clear that global warming’s impact could potentially be huge, scientists are warning

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-72851460805075573732011-04-02T09:09:00.003Z2011-04-15T13:41:10.942ZSouls and machines

A couple of small exercises in reframing and/or speculation channeled by Adam Gopnik: Perhaps our intelligence is not just ended by our mortality; to a great degree it is our mortality. Perhaps the real truth is this: the Singularity is not on its way -- the Singularity happened long ago. We have been outsourcing our intelligence, and our humanity, to machines for centuries. Martin Heidegger

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-26670906380353529942011-04-02T09:02:00.001Z2011-04-02T09:17:45.506ZCarnival of the Blue

Carnival of the Blue XLVI is here.

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-66596868369236023772011-04-01T22:03:00.004Z2011-04-02T14:56:04.552ZFive elephants

You carry more microbes in you this moment than all the people who ever lived. Those microbes are growing all the time. So try to imagine for a moment producing an elephant’s worth of microbes. I know it’s difficult, but the fact is that actually in your lifetime you will produce five elephants of microbes. You are basically a microbe factory.-- from The Human Lake by Carl Zimmer Gut bacteria

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-12729537434309506632011-04-01T18:07:00.000Z2011-04-01T18:07:51.262ZThe blind switchbacker

The conventional explanation [for evidence of long periods with little or no evolutionary change] has been that evolution is usually slow because selection is weak. But [that apparently slow change] is perfectly consistent with strong selection providing it fluctuates...Rather than going somewhere slowly, [natural selection] usually goes nowhere fast. -- from Evolution in the Fast Lane by Michael

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-73629877142597470892011-03-28T11:21:00.008Z2011-05-25T14:48:27.368ZForgotten Dreams

In Cave of Forgotten Dreams Werner Herzog: presents beautiful and amazing 3 D footage of the Chauvet cave; 'everybody' should see thisencourages the mind to wonder and wanderResponses on the second aspect will vary according to taste. My initial ones include: Well done to the French Ministry of Culture for opening the cave to an untamed mind. They could so easily have opted for a predictable

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-31571234044937795722011-03-21T08:56:00.002Z2011-03-21T16:32:59.185Z'A totally new branch of the tree of life'?

A fourth domain...or even a fifth?--The paper, A news report

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-45744060642020056642011-03-21T03:06:00.003Z2011-03-22T13:46:28.730Z'Just this'

When I think of the patience I have hadback in the dark before I rememberor knew it was night until the light cameall at once at the speed it was born towith all the time in the world to fly throughnot concerned about ever arrivingand then the gathering of the first starsunhurried in their flowering spacesand far into the story of the planetscooling slowly and the ages of rainthen the seas

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-26752979146213485972011-02-27T15:35:00.003Z2011-03-22T13:47:23.533ZHypnagogia

I have put a version of Hypnagogia (which appears in Archipelago 5) online here. Andrew McNellie, the editor, prefaces edition 5 with this from William Blake: But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees.William James wrote: When we take a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is the different pace of

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6507971071895999602.post-79084704372178803012011-02-23T22:36:00.005Z2011-04-30T14:23:21.579Z'Surrounded by ghostly objects'

In Nature Writing, a contribution to Archipelago 5, Tim Dee quotes Vladimir Nabokov (1962): Reality is a very subjective affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of information: and as specialization. If we take a lily, for instance, or any other kind of natural object, a lily is more real to a naturalist than it is to an ordinary person. But it is still more real to a

Caspar Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04667141284390082748noreply@blogger.com0