Daniel Rourke /stream

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Human evolution was messy, with multiple human species living and interbreeding at the same time, in a convoluted process that eventually led to us. Such is the emerging narrative in anthropology,…

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You encounter so many people every day, online and off-, that it is almost impossible to be alone. Now, thanks to computers, those people might not even be real.

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Gaia Vince discovers that analyzing the genetics of ancient humans means changing ideas about our evolution. The Rock of Gibraltar appears out of the plane window as an immense limestone monolith…

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Levels of inequality have changed dramatically during the course of human evolution: from the social hierarchies of our great ape ancestors to egalitarian small-scale societies of hunter-gatherers, and then to large-scale…

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When humans started to tame dogs, cats, sheep, and cattle, they may have continued a tradition that started with a completely different animal: us.

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In 2007, Kenneth Stanley, a computer scientist at the University of Central Florida, was playing with Picbreeder, a website he and his students had created, when an alien became a race…

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“I don’t care what people say,” asserts Avi Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department and author of one of the most controversial articles in the realm of science last year…

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After we clambered down from the trees ourselves, people have kept (and sometimes bred) parrots as pets, for ceremonial purposes and to advertize their personal wealth or power to their fellow…

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Much of what archaeologists do is study how humans adapt to the environment. After Gordon Willey’s (1953) groundbreaking investigation into the entire history of occupation of a small valley in Peru,…

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On geological timescales, human civilization is an event, not an epoch. Humans are now living in a new geological epoch of our own making: the Anthropocene. Or so we’re told.

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‘Fuck Earth!’ Elon Musk said to me, laughing. ‘Who cares about Earth?’ We were sitting in his cubicle, in the front corner of a large open-plan office at SpaceX headquarters in…

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As I was being wheeled out of the post-anesthesia care unit at Mount Sinai, three incisions across my abdomen freshly glued shut and fentanyl warm in my veins, a nurse bustled…

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A QUARTER-CENTURY has passed since the first global climate-change treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Humanity’s record of following through on its climate promises is dismal. The concentration of…

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My father’s family came to the US in the 1930s, a Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany. My life has gone well, and I suppose I should be grateful for the way…

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In 2011, a loose group of “grumpy futurists” wrote up an extensive list of “Alternatives to the Singularity” in a collaborative Google Document. “The Singularity”, in popular culture and para-religious belief,…

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It only took five minutes for Gavin Schmidt to out-speculate me. Schmidt is the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (a.k.a. GISS) a world-class climate-science facility. One day last…

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Human evolution was messy, with multiple human species living and interbreeding at the same time, in a convoluted process that eventually led to us. Such is the emerging narrative in anthropology,…

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What does it take to think beyond the human? Can we imagine our human selves in other lives? And should we? While contemporary answers to these questions have highlighted the desirability…

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Gaia Vince discovers that analyzing the genetics of ancient humans means changing ideas about our evolution. The Rock of Gibraltar appears out of the plane window as an immense limestone monolith…

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When humans started to tame dogs, cats, sheep, and cattle, they may have continued a tradition that started with a completely different animal: us.

Bookmark

“I don’t care what people say,” asserts Avi Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department and author of one of the most controversial articles in the realm of science last year…

Bookmark

After we clambered down from the trees ourselves, people have kept (and sometimes bred) parrots as pets, for ceremonial purposes and to advertize their personal wealth or power to their fellow…

Bookmark

Much of what archaeologists do is study how humans adapt to the environment. After Gordon Willey’s (1953) groundbreaking investigation into the entire history of occupation of a small valley in Peru,…

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The humans use Arecibo to look for extraterrestrial intelligence. Their desire to make a connection is so strong that they’ve created an ear capable of hearing across the universe. But I…

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There's no denying that keeping livestock has deeply benefited humanity over the millennia. But, while sheep and cows may have adapted well to farm life, there's one animal humans like to…

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A QUARTER-CENTURY has passed since the first global climate-change treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Humanity’s record of following through on its climate promises is dismal. The concentration of…

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My father’s family came to the US in the 1930s, a Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany. My life has gone well, and I suppose I should be grateful for the way…

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Tens of thousands of Londoners died of cholera from the 1830s to the 1860s. The causes were simple: mass quantities of human waste and industrial contaminants were pouring into the Thames,…

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Our species possesses inherent value, but we are devastating the earth and causing unimaginable animal suffering. There are stirrings of discussion these days in philosophical circles about the prospect of human…