Taung child: the controversial story of the fossil discovery that proved humanity’s common origins in Africa – podcast: The cast of the Taung child skull found in South Africa in 1924. Didier Descouens/Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA One hundred years ago, a paper was published in the journal Nature that would radically shift our understandings of …
Encyclopedia Britannica once published a catalogue of humanity’s ‘102 Great Ideas’ – and it created more questions than answers: Shutterstock In its January 26 1948 issue, Life magazine published a feature showcasing the “102 Great Ideas” of western civilisation. The project was the brainchild of Mortimer Adler, a professor of philosophy and law at the …
Light pollution has cut humanity’s ancient connection with the stars – but we can restore it: Andrey Prokhorov/Shutterstock Humans are naturally afraid of the dark. We sometimes imagine monsters under the bed and walk faster down unlit streets at night. To conquer our fears, we may leave a night light on to scare away the …
Monkeypox: some countries are protecting contacts with the smallpox vaccine, which uses humanity’s only domesticated virus: The good news about monkeypox is that it doesn’t spread that well between humans. Because of this, the current monkeypox outbreak will probably be kept under control by isolating infected people and their contacts, coupled with selected vaccination. Fortunately, …
A short story by Ghana’s Ama Ata Aidoo offers a view of humanity’s place in the world: Ama Ata Aidoo Wikimedia Commons In recent years, philosophers and other thinkers have been rethinking how we see humanity and its place in the world. One reason for this change in thinking has been climate change: it has …
How a handful of prehistoric geniuses launched humanity’s technological revolution: Clovis spearheads. wikimedia, CC BY-SA For the first few million years of human evolution, technologies changed slowly. Some three million years ago, our ancestors were making chipped stone flakes and crude choppers. Two million years ago, hand-axes. A million years ago, primitive humans sometimes used …
How science fiction can inspire humanity’s response to the climate crisis – podcast: This episode of The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast explores how science fiction’s hopes and fears can inspire humanity’s response to the climate crisis. You can read the text version of this in-depth article here. The audio version is read by …
South Africa in the news: LOOK: Could you live underground? It might be humanity’s saviour given climate change: Underground cities, one alternative for adapting habitats to deal with extreme weather conditions and overcrowding, are already getting attention from global governments and planners.: “South Africa” – BingNews Factors to keep in mind when moving when you …