Gibbon. The modern human foot first appeared about 1.8 million years ago, but our ape-like ancestors probably took to walking several million years earlier, even though their feet were more ‘floppy’ and ape like than ours.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Chanyut Sribua-rawd)

The human foot is a miracle of evolution. We can keep striding for miles on our well-sprung […]

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MOVIES starring the superhero Spiderman may rake in millions at the box office, but the humble spider inspires fear and loathing quite unlike that of other creepy-crawlies.

A third of women and a fifth of men admit to being scared of spiders. And an obvious explanation is that we have evolved a dread of spiders because […]

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In November, when it comes to avoiding deer collisions, it’s not the one you see crossing the road that’s likely to get you, according to a wildlife expert.

"It’s the one that’s chasing her," said Dr. Billy Higginbotham, Texas AgriLife Extension Service fisheries and wildlife specialist.
Throughout the year, there’s always risk from collisions with deer on […]

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A Harvard-based study has found that children who study a musical instrument for at least three years outperform children with no instrumental training—not only in tests of auditory discrimination and finger dexterity (skills honed by the study of a musical instrument), but also on tests measuring verbal ability and visual pattern completion (skills not normally […]

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paul klin

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, the grandfather of modern economic theory, referred to individual self-interest as “the first principle of pure economics.” Until recently, economists routinely equated being rational with being selfish. The assumption was that, because humans are biological creatures, we’d been programmed by Darwinian evolution to put our own interests first—survival, after all, is […]

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Scientists scan the brain in an attempt to explain the hows and whys of being afraid–very afraid

What’s scarier, a deadly snake slithering across your path during a hike or watching a 1,000-point drop in the stock market? Although both may instill fear, researchers disagree over the nature and cause of this very powerful emotion.
"When you […]

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Why so many of us think our minds continue on after we die

Key Concepts

Almost everyone has a tendency to imagine the mind continuing to exist after the death of the body.
Even people who believe the mind ceases to exist at death show this type of psychological-continuity reasoning in studies.
Rather than being a by-product of religion […]

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"Voluntourism" ramps the ecological impulse up a notch, providing ways for vacationers to help save the world’s sustainable resources

Rain forests and tundra, deserts and savannas, mountaintops and undersea reefs. No spot on the planet is too remote for the movement that has changed the face of leisure travel. Ecotourism, in all its various guises—green tourism, […]

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A team of Brigham Young University student engineers designed an innovative and cost-effective apparatus that enables poor East African women to turn abundant coconuts into valuable coconut oil.

Andreah Tedjamulia (middle) and Shara Richards (right) show a Tanzanian woman how to use a coconut press the students designed. (Credit: Image courtesy of Brigham Young University)
While coconut […]

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Knowing the words for numbers is not necessary to be able to count, according to a new study of aboriginal children by UCL (University College London) and the University of Melbourne. The study of the aboriginal children – from two communities which do not have words or gestures for numbers – found that they were […]

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