In the Age of AI (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

The find of the Century!

1) From the New York Times:Homo Naledi, New Species in Human Lineage, Is Found in South African Cave

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/science/south-africa-fossils-new-species-human-ancestor-homo-naledi.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0




2) From National Geographic:

This Face Changes the Human Story. But How?http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/

3) NOVA on Lee Berger:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/evolution/lee-berger/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pbsofficial&utm_campaign=nova_next


4) The original paper:
http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e09561


5) A recent article in SCIENCE by Ian Tattersall about defining genus Homo:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6251/931.full#ref-2





6) NOVA made a new human origins documentary just in time to be obsolete, but I'm going to watch it anyway!:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/dawn-of-humanity.html

7) And just for fun, a BBC story about using genetics to trace the origins of the Basque people:

Ancient DNA cracks puzzle of Basque origins

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34175224

Movie Suggestion: Merchants of Doubt

Movie: Merchants of Doubt

From Sony Pictures classics:

http://sonyclassics.com/merchantsofdoubt/

Monetarizing and Commodifying our Attention

From The New York Times:

The Cost of Paying Attention

Homo habilis Fossil Finds, Junk DNA and New Frontiers in Gene Therapy

From the New York Times:

Jawbone Fossil Fills a Gap in Early Human Evolution

Is your "Junk DNA" actually junk?

From PBS NOVA:

Genetically Engineering Almost Anything

The surprising economics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

http://theweek.com/articles/541440/surprising-economics-great-pacific-garbage-patch

How the Rich and Poor Spend Money Today—and 30 Years Ago

From The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/how-the-rich-and-poor-spend-money-today-and-30-years-ago/360103/

Palm Oil, Anyone?

Uses of palm oil:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/which-everyday-products-contain-palm-oil



Sustainable palm oil:

http://greenpalm.org/about-palm-oil/what-is-palm-oil

Palm oil plantation in Borneo:







Deforestation in Borneo:

Hominid jaw dredged up by fisherman near Taiwan! Homo erectus? H. heidelburgensis? Denisovan? or WHAT!?

http://www.livescience.com/49588-ancient-human-fossil-primitive-species.html

Middle-Out Economics vs. "TrickleDown/Reaganomics/"Voodoo" Economics and Class in America

http://theweek.com/articles/535236/conservative-obsession-finding-nextapple-wont-help-economy

http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/04/voodoo-econ/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/paul-krugman-voodoo-economics-the-next-generation.html?_r=0


Class:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/business/economy/middle-class-shrinks-further-as-more-fall-out-instead-of-climbing-up.html?_r=0

http://theweek.com/articles/535832/are-republicans-weirdly-hesitant-talk-about-americas-middle-class

Why Early Humans Reshaped Their Children's Skulls

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141013-why-we-reshape-childrens-skulls

Fossils From Unknown Species Of Human Discovered

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/fossil-teeth-dont-belong-any-extinct-human-species-known

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150122-is-this-a-new-species-of-human

The death of the gold standard

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/01/16/376967946/episode-253-gold-standard-r-i-p

Multimedia fun from The Economist

http://www.economist.com/multimedia

If the world only had 100 people, 7 would have a college degree, and 17 would be illiterate

From the Washington Post:

http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/01/06/if-the-world-only-had-100-people-7-would-have-a-college-degree-and-17-would-be-illiterate/

Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions

From the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/upshot/the-measuring-sticks-of-racial-bias-.html?abt=0002&abg=0

Update on Central American Refugees and an Article About Cuban "Boat People"

Time Magazine puts a human face on the Central American refugee crisis:


http://time.com/3478351/border-crossing-kids-seek-asylum-in-america/?xid=newsletter-brief

As did the New York Times earlier this week:



http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/world/americas/a-smuggled-girls-odyssey-guatemala-migration-abduction.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news#

Update:  This appeared today in the New York Times- This issue is really big this week:

In Rickety Boats, Cuban Migrants Again Flee to U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/us/sharp-rise-in-cuban-migration-stirs-worries-of-a-mass-exodus.html?_r=0

American views of the supernatural

A Lot of Americans Think the Spirit World Exists

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/05/have-you-been-possessed-by-spirits/361680/

Biologists Create Cells With 6 DNA Letters, Instead of Just 4

Very cool!  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/synthetic-dna-cells/

The US-Mexico Border Increasingly Sees Refugees From Other Parts of the World

I was JUST talking about refugees last Thursday, but this has been in the news a while.  Here's the latest:

Hoping for Asylum, Migrants Strain U.S. Border

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/us/poverty-and-violence-push-new-wave-of-migrants-toward-us.html?_r=0







And here is a link to a recent series on the US-Mexico Border from National Public Radio
(I highly recommend the whole series, but especially the story about refugees, found here). 



http://www.npr.org/series/291397809/borderland-dispatches-from-the-u-s-mexico-boundary