Portside

As we celebrate Darwin’s birthday on February 12, there is some positive news about Americans’ views

Fossil footprints show that five diminutive humans walked on a beach in northern Europe nearly a million years ago. Just what kind of humans were they?

Those who think scientists keep silent on global warming presumably because they fear the barbs of the world demonstrate a peculiar kind of paranoia, especially since what they fear largely does not exist.

This statistics stuff is important. The correct analysis and interpretation of statistics are sometimes a matter of life and death.

Mandatory labels for genetically modified foods are a bad idea

Students today “hook up” no more than their parents did in college. It seems college students are talking more than acting—at least when it comes to sex.

“War is very, very old. “But we can still see its beginnings, and there is no basis for concluding that a) humans have always fought because we are innately inclined to it, or b) that war could act as a selection mechanism over evolutionary time.”

In evolutionary theory, we have this thing we tend to look for, called parsimony. What fits the data best? Fertility into old age is part of our ancestral history if menopause is to eventually evolve, yes? Then probably our closest living relatives, like say chimpanzees, don’t have menopause, unless it independently evolved more than once of course. Right.

From ancient times until the advent of antibiotics, physicians used maggots to help clean injuries and prevent infection. Because the maggots feed solely on dead flesh, doctors did not have to worry about bugs feasting on healthy tissue. The arrival of antibiotics relegated medical maggots to an ancient artifact. Widespread antibiotic resistance, however, rekindled interest in the use of medical maggots, and in 2004 the FDA approved them as a valid “medical device."

At a U.S. Senate hearing, scientists warned that New Orleans, Florida and other places will be radically transformed if global warming is allowed to continue unabated.