MachineMachine /stream - tagged with lascaux http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com Did Stone Age cavemen talk to each other in symbols? http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/11/cave-painting-symbols-language-evolution/did-stone-age-cavemen-talk-to-each-other-in-symbols-science-the-observer Did Stone Age cavemen talk to each other in symbols? http://t.co/vD1ILeZa #evolution ]]> Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:35:44 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/11/cave-painting-symbols-language-evolution/did-stone-age-cavemen-talk-to-each-other-in-symbols-science-the-observer The Origin of Our Species http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/15/chris-stringer-origin-our-species-review "If there has been no spiritual change of kind / Within our species since Cro-Magnon Man . . ." The poet Louis MacNeice was voicing a commonplace that was accepted by most experts on human evolution until very recently – in fact still is by some. The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould put it like this: "There's been no biological change in humans in 40,000 or 50,000 years. Everything we call culture and civilisation we've built with the same body and brain."

The Cro-Magnons were the creators of the cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira – the… ]]> Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:18:36 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/15/chris-stringer-origin-our-species-review I discovered the ants http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/06/i-discovered-the-ants.html

by Daniel Rourke

I discovered the ants

I discovered the ants trailing like gunpowder across my kitchen floor. Before I had time to think I had vacuumed up a thousand. Yet they kept coming, tending to resurge where last I had punished them; coursing like a rainless cloud on the exact same trajectory each time.

Somewhere unseen to me a billowing sack of protoplasm with the head of a Queen was giving birth to its hundredth clone of the day. But unlike its brethren… ]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:22:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/06/i-discovered-the-ants.html