Science Tidbits #4

[Lupine]

Well the search isn't done yet, so there's still hope. It's just that the chances are diminishing and that people are a little too willing to take its existence as a given.

[RJDiogenes]

It did seem like a sure thing for a while....

[Lupine]

And it might yet be... time will tell.

Meanwhile, with the real Planet 9, the debate rages on.

[RJDiogenes]

We shall overcome.

Somebody posted a great reply to that article.

[Lupine]

This article has been making the rounds today. Did humans make it to North America 130,000 years ago?
Personally I'm not sure. Critics are right that it's odd that there's no cutting tools present, just the hammer stones. The author of the Discover article here does point out what I have been thinking most of the day: other animals other than humans use tools. She proposes monkeys though the stones in question seem a little large for even the largest of new world monkeys. Birds immediately leapt to my mind. Some African vultures use stones to crack bone, so perhaps something like teratornis could be responsible. However the bones are said to be laid out oddly and I can't see a bird doing that.

[RJDiogenes]

Maybe it was the giant intelligent sloths with the underground maze burrows.

And birds are pretty intelligent. Who's to say there hasn't been an especially sapient, tool-using species at some point?

But I think the most likely answer is an ancestral species, like the Neanderthals. Whoever it was, it must have been a failed migration, because no other evidence has been found of a human presence that far back. It's certainly not unlikely that there have been many instances of human or near-human migrations to the Americas that didn't quite take.

[Orpheus]

I want to travel the cosmos on WFRB, Classic Rock.

WFRB? Isn't that a country station? It sure was back in my days at Fort George G. Meade, MD (er... forget you ever heard of Ft GGM... for your own good)

I confess that when the weather warms up, I still listen to the Boston stations of my youth like WVBF (some of the others, like WBCN have changed format)

But I must admit its ads are painfully off-target "WVBF, there the hits haven't changed since you were a teen, and we assume your credit rating hasn't either"

[Lupine]

And birds are pretty intelligent. Who's to say there hasn't been an especially sapient, tool-using species at some point?

Case in point.
[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWr3iyOOI1I[/BBvideo]

[RJDiogenes]

WFRB? Isn't that a country station? It sure was back in my days at Fort George G. Meade, MD (er... forget you ever heard of Ft GGM... for your own good)

Well, in this case it's a Fast Radio Burst station.

I confess that when the weather warms up, I still listen to the Boston stations of my youth like WVBF (some of the others, like WBCN have changed format)

I haven't listened to much local radio since the radio in my car died, but VBF used to be one of them. When last I listened, BCN was off the air, though, and ZLX was still Classic Rock, but playing stuff from the 90s (kind of an oxymoron there). I'll have to check to see what BCN is up to. I imagine it will become like MEX, appearing and disappearing at random intervals.

Case in point.

That's wonderful. There have been some amazing animal intelligence studies done on birds. They can recognize a large vocabulary, shapes, objects, colors, use deductive reasoning. And between their beaks and their claws, they're very dexterous (I once designed an odd alien species derived from birds). It's by no means far fetched that there may have been a "civilization" of birds more advanced than average.

[scottydog]

^^ Well, after seeing that vulture use tools, there's no way I can ever insult someone again by calling them a birdbrain.

[RJDiogenes]

You could try using it as a compliment.

[Lupine]

Some new information on Homo naledi. Most importantly we now have a date of 236,000 and 335,000 ya. Far too late for naledi to have played any role in our evolution (it had been played up as a possible ancestor at one point), but surprisingly recent. Recent enough to likely have interacted with beings like Homo heidelbergensis.
Still this site is very strange and I'm still of the opinion that something isn't right with the narrative we're being given.

[RJDiogenes]

Definitely anomalous, although it's quite fascinating that there are at least two caves giving evidence of identical cultural behaviors. The Naledi could certainly have evolved a million years earlier and we just happened to find an isolated surviving population first-- or it could be an example of parallel evolution. There are multiple existing primates with varied characteristics, so it was likely the same then.

But an alternative explanation for the subterranean burial pits occurs to me. If there were other competing, but more advanced, hominids in the region, those caves could be evidence of not culture, but genocide.

[Lupine]

And Homo heidelberginsis did have fire at the time, so it would have been easier for them to go into the cave. It's also possible it might have been a ritual sacrifice on their part.

[RJDiogenes]

Whatever it was, it was a lot of trouble to do it, so it was something somebody really wanted to do. Unless the deepest parts of the cave were somehow more accessible a few hundred thousand years ago.