Category Archives: Science without worms

Is it a happy accident, or an adaptation? On the one hand we have the Professor of Anthropology and Biology at Rutgers University, who says — or will say, in some future issue of the Guardian — that “If Steve … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Do women with asymmetrical ears lack empathy? Trying to find out what Robert Trivers was up to these days, I discovered this account of his research in Jamaica. The first article based on the research has appeared in the journal … Continue reading → Continue reading →

PZ Myers has the most astonishing film sequence up at Pharyngula, showing a lobster being bamboozled by a sea hare, a creature that might be regarded as God’s first shot at an image consultant: a spineless, brainless, bottom-feeder that looks … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I have been fascinated by placebos ever since the late Pat Wall gave a talk about them at a symposium on consciousness in the early Nineties. It was very small and very select; the report of the procedings costs an … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Armand-Marie Leroi had an op-ed in the NYT last week, plugging his interview on the Brockman website Edge. In general, he argued that scientists ought to recognise race and research it, contra gloomy old obscurantists like Stephen J Gould. I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

An excellent piece by Carl Zimmer on the brain of homo florensis. Short version: it really isn’t a pygmy human. We do have a new, and very strange, species here. Continue reading →

The Times was delighted with this story. “Believers go on rack to prove God relieves pain” said its headline. “People are to be tortured in laboratories at Oxford University in a United States-funded experiment to determine whether belief in God … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This is a reply to Ben Hammersley’s comment on the previous entry. It will probably form part of the review I write. Tallis argues that there are fundamental differences between our experience of the world and animals’; further that these … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I just want to say that the hominid remains discovered in Indonesia, of a wholly unknown species, extinct no more than 12,000 years ago, tool-making and, if it were to get to the island, at least descended from a boat-building … Continue reading → Continue reading →