Brights News Feed

From the Guardian:

The discovery of a new species of great ape that roamed Africa 10m years ago has forced scientists to rethink the earliest steps of human evolution.

Fossil hunters working along the Afar rift in central Ethiopia unearthed remnants of teeth they claim belonged to the primitive ape, a previously unknown species of gorilla they named Chororapithecus abyssinicus.

The finding, if confirmed, will redraw the evolutionary tree of primates, suggesting that humans and chimpanzees must have split from their gorilla-like ancestors 3m years earlier than thought. Geneticists have previously put the date at which the human and chimpanzee lineage split from gorillas at around 7m years ago, with humans and chimps diverging more recently, at 5m years ago.

Two amazing stories today testify both to the grandeur of nature, and to the power of humanity in understanding its intricacy and appreciating its power.

New Scientist reports on the discovery that particles of dust immersed in ionized gas can behave as information-transmitting replicators, essentially meaning that they could support “genetic” inheritance, and perhaps even support a full, living, evolutionary process.

Also, widely linked across the internet an on television news, the world has watched amateur nature video. A pride of lions attack a herd of water buffalo, but events take two unexpected twists leaving the spectators aghast and amazed. The video is on YouTube here.

The Anglican Bishop of Carlisle, recently maligned in the media for comments to the effect that the UK’s current bout of flooding was God’s punishment for society tolerating homosexuality, attempted to deny that he had said any such thing today.

But judge for yourself…

He [Bishop of Carlisle, Graham Dow] said: “I did not say that the Yorkshire floods were God’s action or because of recent legislation.

“Sadly, that was what was written. The way I see it is that all through Scripture - from Genesis 3, through Noah’s flood, the period of Old Testament kingship, right through to Revelation - God views life as a whole; that is, our morality and the health of the land are all one piece.

“The land is not neutral to us; it is God’s, and for us to steward. If we want to enjoy its fruits then we must live God’s way. That is the message all through Scripture.”

The Bishop said: “Of course we know that disasters have physical causes; but I believe that at such times we also do well to ask questions about our morality, as the book of Revelation does.”

(From the Bishop’s local newspaper.)

Echoing comments made by “conservative” US figures in the aftermath of the New Orleans flooding, several Church of England bishops have made extraordinary comments (for a relatively sane and liberal denomination) blaming the swathe of localized flash flooding across the UK on modern lifestyle, modern power structures, and of course, the modern “witch” (i.e. gay people).

The Telegraph article is worth reading in full — although it’s not clear where, or why these (obviously very recent) comments have been made, perhaps they were solicited individually? — but here are some choice quotes.

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News broke this morning that the world-famous historic tea clipper ship, the Cutty Sark — housed in Greenwich on the banks of London’s Thames River — has suffered major damage in a blaze which is being treated as suspicious. (See Guardian: “Fire devastates Cutty Sark“)

On the same day in the same township, known as the “centre of the world” on account of being the meridian according to which all international date limes refer, the Greenwich villagers had been celebrating a new addition to their rich scientific heritage: a new planetarium with a conical design which geometrically links it to the shape of the world. (See Guardian: “Keep Watching the Skies“. Sadly, this article, also published this morning but pre-written, refers to the Cutty Sark restoration project and the plan to re-house the ship in a giant glass structure, unknowing of this morning’s fire.)

Dogs learn from each other in a manner that is more closely related to human learning than even some of our closely related primate cousins.

Being able to imitate other members of the same species has long been recognised as a key to higher intelligence and a defining feature of “cultural” transmission. But not all imitation is equal. Human infants practice “selective imitation”, putting the actions of others’ into context — such as the goal intended by the action — before deciding whether or not to copy it. Researchers at the University of Vienna have now established similar intelligently selective imitation in dogs.

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A central pillar of the naturalistic worldview is under threat.

A cluster of concepts tends to accrue around philosophically stated versions of the “naturalistic worldview”. As well as excluding supernaturalistic explanations (because they are either meaningless or unknowable), the cluster of naturalistic concepts may include scientific rational empiricism (that the world is in particular ways amenable to investigation), physicalism (that all causes must be part of a causally closed system of nature which can be described in physical terms), and realism (that the world exists and persists outside of conscious experience).

But what happens if two of these concepts collide? What if the results of scientific rational empiricism start to clash with “certain intuitive features of realism”? Such a question has always been posed by the weird conclusions drawn from quantum mechanics. But an article in the current issue of Nature (abstract only, without subscription) presents experimental results which, the authors argue, deepens the shadow that the quantum world casts over realism itself.

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An anthropological team in Senegal has reported new observations (Current Biology: Savanna Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes verus, Hunt with Tools), published yesterday, of chimps they have been studying and earning the trust of since 2001. The chimps were repeatedly observed stripping the branches from straight sticks about a meter long, and sharpening the ends to form point-tipped spears. The Senegalese chimps then used the spears to stab the hollows of trees, where bush babies sleep during the day. A successfully skewered bush baby could then be eaten.

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British Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, Professor Richard Dawkins, has had a relatively large media footprint since the release of The God Delusion, globe-trotting his way from interview to interview. But yesterday’s CNN slot with Paula Zahn deserves a special mention, because it seems to have taken place after pressure from complaints generated by RDF site members.

Last week a lengthy panel discussion was aired on the subject of atheism, in which no atheists were invited to take part. The anchor opens the new interview with Dawkins by saying “Well after we first brought this topic out in the open, most of the emails that we received were from people who thought that we should have included an atheist in our discussion.” See Richard Dawkins interview with Paula Zahn.

The PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) laboratory (New Jersey, US) is to close after 28 years, having depleted private donations in the region of $10 million, according to its founder and lead scientist, Robert G. Jahn.

Princeton has always been somewhat muted about the underground center, which attracted little professional interest from other scientists at the university. The lab has conducted many experiments in telekenetics and ESP, famously including the attempted manipulation of random number generators by subjects instructed to “think high” or “think low”.

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