Book review: On Deep History and the Brain
On Deep History and the Brain, by Daniel Lord Smail Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008 When did human history begin? Most general histories pick som...
Author: Mary
Boredom and patience
I recently ran across a quote that I saved from a 2003 interview with writer Roger Angell. He was discussing baseball, which he’s covered for the New York...
Living with the might-have-been
In his book Out of Control, Kevin Kelly wrote: To evolve is to surrender choices. To become something new is to accumulate all the things you can no longer be. ...
And the land brought forth humans
I once heard a naturalist and nature photographer who specializes in wildlife and plants explain his interest in geology by saying, “You have to have some...
Humans, animals, and Kipling
Every day in my inbox I get a book review from the independent bookseller Powells.com. Usually they’re reviews of current books, but occasionally theyR...
Human menopause unusual among primates
Some recent research indicates that chimpanzees, our closest genetic relatives, do not go through menopause as humans do. For female chimpanzees, reproductive c...
Perception of time during scary experiences
Time flies when you’re having fun, the saying goes, and it often seems that in emergency situations time slows down. However, a recent experiment indicate...
Imperfect tense
One of the things I remember hearing when I was growing up was the advice: “When a job is once begun, never leave it till it’s done. Be it great or ...
Solving wicked problems
I had never run across the concept of a wicked problem before yesterday, but I’m finding it to be a fascinating concept. A wicked problem has no single so...
E.O. Wilson on science and religion
This essay by biologist E.O. Wilson, published on the New Scientist site, is an excerpt from his afterword to an edition of four books by Darwin that was publis...