CharonY

Yeah, he was (never seen in him in person, just interviews) and certainly one of the greatest voice actors.

Not sure why but this little tidbit stuck with me: in "What's opera, doc" Arthur Bryan was Elmer's voice ( "Ritt der Walkueren" is forever linked to "Kill the Wabbit" in my brain) . Two years after release Bryan died and was buried in Valhalla Memorial Cemetery.

Yeah, I lost my nerd license to my wife, so I know how it feels.

I think you'll have to return your nerd license and re-apply.

So, what's up, doc?

Well, there will be folks voting for mayonnaise, because it is more relatable. Spoiled or not.

I have not seen any of the publications of that institute in mainstream journals. Most references I found where in more obscure psychology journals. That does not necessarily mean that they are not doing research, but they do not seem to be huge contributors. The titles I have seen appear to be make claims that are quite outside of what current science is able to tell us.

So that is an interesting claim that I have not hear before. I am aware that chimpanzees are predators of other animals and that they are also prey to some large predators (there quite a few studies out there describing e.g. defensive strategies against leopards). . There are also observational studies that, as you implied, deadly intergroup violence has been reported, often the actions of small groups of male chimpanzees. However, while persistent, the occurrence is very low , even when their territories are very small due to human actions and in cases of limited resources. I am not sure whether leopard predation rates are higher (considering that they are also getting extinct). However, considering the overall rarity it does not make it terribly likely that it is a significant selective pressure. Considering the constraints on chimpanzee habitats, it is not unlikely that their population density was lower than early hominids and probably also hominins. I stand corrected. However, considering the lack of usage in our cousins it does seem to imply that weapon use may have developed relatively late in hominid evolution, though. So if we move away from innerspecies violence, there is apparent evidence for predation ca. 1.9 million years ago. That, IIRC has been associated with access to more proteins and improved brain development (or at least it has been speculated as such). Bipedalism on the other hand most likely evolved ca. 6-7 million years ago. Predating the increase in skull size by a fair bit. I do not believe we do have tools older than ~4 million years ago, so these various developments (bipedalism, tool use for feeding, tool use for hunting, skull size increase) seem to have occured in waves. Though certain aspects are likely to have affected subsequent developments. I.e. bipedalism could have freed up hands for tool use.

That is an interesting hypothesis, however to my knowledge there is not a lot of evidence of weapon use. The oldest identified tools were pounding tools, mostly associated with food acquisition and preparation. I doubt that there is sufficient evidence to properly assess selective pressure due to predation or competition for that time frame. The oldest artifact that could be considered a weapon of sorts was found ca. 280,000 years ago, a spear tip which was presumed to be used for hunting. But this is of course way later than when bipedalism occured. That at least make a direct co-evolution of these factors not very likely (or at least there is little evidence for it),

And yet I think that just assuming things to be right, even if they are not, is what prevents us from getting anywhere. Most projections assume that the population is likely going to stabilize beteen 9,6- 12.5 billion. Meanwhile you are assuming impossible numbers, use conspiracy theories to support your point. That, however, is not helpful in developing strategies. If you plan for a population that may never arrive, you are not planning for the right thing. Also, since you do not understand the connection between fertility and education (especially women's education), it means that you are missing out that in high-fertility countries increasing the standard of living and increasing women's education may be stabilize the world population at the lower end of the prediction. In other words, if one wants to make a proper risk assessment and develop appropriate strategies, the most important bit is getting familiar with the actual situation and look at mechanisms that are relevant to them. Bold assumptions without any evidence is helping no one.

That is because you do not understand the relationship between standard of living and children choice. First, try observation. Look at family sizes in industrialized countries. Then look at families with high educational standards. What is more common there. a family with 9 children or family with 2? Then take a look at less developed countries and look at family size there. This is a well-known phenomenon because in areas where children are important as labour and to secure generational stability (e.g. as labour and to care for parents) and with high infant mortality a higher birth rate is expected. Once other opportunities arises (social welfare system, broader job market etc.), and medicine improves (reduced infant mortality, availability of contraceptives) , folks start making decisions whether they want offspring or not. Especially when women become more educated and want to have careers, they decide to have fewer or no children. In other words, your model of population growth is too simplistic and takes only survival into account, but does not reflect reality.

That does not make sense. How do you harvest more than you should? Do you mean it would be beneficial to leave crop out? If you mention that intensive agriculture could make problems with water and other resource use, that would more sense. Sell by dates are arbitrary to some degree and have no bearing whatsoever with the rest. And give it a rest with the UN, they are not involved in that.

It is not suspicious at all, if you understand population dynamics a little bit. Roughly speaking, higher standard of living, health (especially reduction of infant mortality) and education reduces fertility rates. This is most visible in industrialized nations many of which are close to zero growth (and in some cases below). Likewise, countries who moved out of poverty have seen drastic reduction in growth rates and a trend to (much) smaller families. It is an observation that you yourself can easily make.

So in other words you think the UN and virtually everyone working on population growth is wrong and you are right, despite it being biologically impossible? You do know that humans do not replicate via budding, right? Just for to illustrate the silliness (assuming this is not obvious), currently we are at 7.7 billion. Roughly, there are 2 billion women of child-bearing age. Even if every woman in the world gets one child per year, every year, it will increase the population by 10 billion, which is still insufficient to reach your number. So to re-iterate, please operate on facts not on conspiracy theories.

Well, here is the thing, chimpanzees are also hominids and they also have developed tool use with rudimentary development of culture. And the split between our ancestors are as close as 4 million years ago, due to ongoing hybridization. While the current outcome in humans seems to be fairly unique for humans, it is not quite clear how much of a biological difference it really took . And with respect to uniqueness, I could argue that the development of photosynthesis is something that took evolution to a completely new level on Earth. Or perhaps the development of organelles as a means to partition cellular function. Or perhaps the rise of multicellularity as that opened quite a few doors. Perhaps the difference viewpoint we have is outcome vs mechanism? To OP, however, it is clear that tool use has developed independently from bipedal movement. So there is no obvious connection between those two developments. The focus of research in that area (to my limited knowledge) tend to focus on changing environmental conditions (including transition from arboeral lifestyle to ground-based) and the question that is more commonly asked is whether foot evolution shaped our tool use (rather than vice versa). There is interesting evidence out there highlighting that bipedal development could have coincided with adaptation to rough terrain as a transitional phase (i believe Winder et al. called it the topography hypothesis in their papers).

I think I am unsure whether "unique" really applies. Of course if we use the term hominids in the strictest sense and include chimpanzees it may be true, but then there is quite a divergence in the development of humans are other extant hominids, despite that all have developed various degrees of tool use. So in the end I do think it is more matter of degree rather than uniqueness per se.

Even the development of tool use is not necessarily unique. Rather the cognitive abilities to make more elaborate ones are. Also tools use by hominids predates that of Homo sapiens. A few years ago (in Nature, I believe) folks reported stone tool findings that are dated 3.3 million years ago.

Note that there are a lot of complexes that qualify as molecular motors.

First, it is dangerous to presume that all traits are under selection of sorts. It invites speculations that do not hold well under scrutiny (the areas of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are evidence to that). Second, plasticity cannot simply be ignored. OP describes a situation of strong selection of the genetic aspect, which again is very unlikely arising from a variable trait.

! Moderator Note There have been a lot of assertions that the phenomenon described in this thread is somewhat unusual. As they all have been very speculative the thread is moved. Going forward I request that folks put a bit more thought and reading into it and contrast it with related effects, e.g. due to meditation/yoga/exercise/whatnot before claiming strange superpowers. See the sticky in the thread for general guidelines.

No, it is about connecting people and their friends. And then their data without asking.

Same here (minus Sopranos, have not watched that). In both cases the slow start meticulously paints a picture of the world that was vaguely familiar but had interesting undertones. I was more interested in the view of the society than the underlying mystery, at first. I think one of the first things that got me interested in the Expanse was the use of the Belter dialect, hinting that it would go deeper beyond the typical good society/ bad society tropes. In many ways the main protagonists are not that interesting, compared to the world building that is present in the series. Though it may actually feel more interesting because there is mostly explained indirectly.

I wonder about the lack of normalization. In some cases (e.g. sliding doors, perhaps tank design?) there may be simple mechanical reasons. Or perhaps different sides optimize the use of filling stations, which can be easier be used from the opposite sides? I wonder whether there are statistics on which cars have the tank on either side, or perhaps trucks vs sedans and so on...?

! Moderator Note Discussion about the geometry of graphene has been split here.

The interesting bit is that even in a trait that arguably shows the highest sexual dimorphism, there is still a huge overlap over the middle range. Thus MigL's point largely stands. However, if the difference in this particular trait is already not hugely categorical already (assuming the data is correct), how much smaller do you think are differences in behaviour that are even more subtle (say, withstanding insults).