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Human and Neanderthal brains have a surprising ‘youthful’ quality in common, new research finds

Human and Neanderthal brains have a surprising ‘youthful’ quality in common, new research finds

Neanderthal skull. Petr Student/Shutterstock By Stephen Wroe, University of New England; Gabriele Sansalone, Institute of Marine Sciences, and Pasquale Raia, University of Naples Federico II Many believe our particularly large brain is what makes us human – but is there more to it? The brain’s shape, as well as the shapes of its component parts (lobes) may also be important. Results of a study we published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution show that the way the different parts of…

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Inside the right’s plans to seize power in the new Congress

Inside the right’s plans to seize power in the new Congress

The Grid reports: A week after the midterm elections in November, a small group of far-right GOP lawmakers and activists gathered on K Street in Washington, D.C., to discuss strategies to use their narrow majority to extract power in the House. The next Congress, influential activist Ed Corrigan said, could be a “European-style coalition government” run by three groups: “The Democrats, the Republicans and the Freedom Caucus.” The forum was convened by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and attended by several…

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Enablers, line-straddlers and quiet resisters: How GOP lawmakers contributed to Jan. 6

Enablers, line-straddlers and quiet resisters: How GOP lawmakers contributed to Jan. 6

Politico reports: A handful of Republicans who remained in the Jan. 6 committee’s sights throughout its investigation are now leading the effort to deny Kevin McCarthy the speakership — using their power to bring the House to a standstill. During its last days of existence, the Capitol riot panel unleashed a massive trove of evidence with an unmistakable conclusion: At every stage of former President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results, a phalanx of hardline GOP lawmakers…

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How Trump’s missing call logs could become his Nixon tapes

How Trump’s missing call logs could become his Nixon tapes

The Daily Beast reports: During the nearly nine hours that Congress was under attack on Jan. 6, 2021, the official White House call logs show former President Donald Trump not placing a single phone call. And while historians may consider the missing call logs a crime of inaccurately memorializing history, it may also actually bolster the expected criminal case against Trump. “The first thing one thinks of is the Nixon tapes, the missing 18 minutes. It’s never been resolved,” said…

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Historical perspectives on Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine

Historical perspectives on Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine

Uilleam Blacker writes: In the 2007 film “Katyn,” directed by Poland’s acclaimed Andrzej Wajda, a young woman in wartime Krakow tries to sell her hair to raise money for a headstone for her brother, who has been murdered and buried in an unmarked grave by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. She finds a buyer in a local theater, an actress who survived Auschwitz and lost her own hair. The actress watches as the woman’s long braids are cut off…

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Energy firms’ fossil fuel investments radically conflict with climate change obligations

Energy firms’ fossil fuel investments radically conflict with climate change obligations

Byline Times reports: The world’s largest fossil fuel firms are spending huge sums of money on new projects that will accelerate the likelihood of climate catastrophe, according to a new report released by the financial think tank, Carbon Tracker Initiative. The report examined the future investment plans of major fossil fuel companies, assessing their compatibility with international climate obligations set at the 2015 Paris Agreement – finding that future investments were significantly misaligned with the 1.5°C target. Under the net…

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Scientists report a dramatic drop in the extent of Antarctic sea ice

Scientists report a dramatic drop in the extent of Antarctic sea ice

Inside Climate News reports: The new year started with the familiar refrain of climate extremes, as scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Jan. 3 that the sea ice around Antarctica dropped to its lowest extent on record for early January. “The current low sea ice extent … is extreme, and frankly we are working to understand it,” said Antarctica expert Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist with the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University…

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‘Disruptive’ science has declined — and no one knows why

‘Disruptive’ science has declined — and no one knows why

Nature reports: The number of science and technology research papers published has skyrocketed over the past few decades — but the ‘disruptiveness’ of those papers has dropped, according to an analysis of how radically papers depart from the previous literature. Data from millions of manuscripts show that, compared with the mid-twentieth century, research done in the 2000s was much more likely to incrementally push science forward than to veer off in a new direction and render previous work obsolete. Analysis…

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Imagine if the current speaker impasse were occurring in a presidential inaugural year

Imagine if the current speaker impasse were occurring in a presidential inaugural year

The Bulwark reports: As Kevin McCarthy repeatedly fails to secure enough votes to become speaker and the House of Representatives sits in limbo, Democrats say they are increasingly concerned about the risks to national security involved in a prolonged period without any active members or ability to conduct legislative business. Currently, every elected member of the House has yet to be sworn in to office, leaving committee structures up in the air and creating a backlog of onboarding for freshmen…

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In House speaker fight, Trump struggles to play kingmaker

In House speaker fight, Trump struggles to play kingmaker

The New York Times reports: After Kevin McCarthy failed to win enough votes to become House speaker on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump held a call with Mr. McCarthy and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, one of the key Republican members of Congress blocking Mr. McCarthy’s bid. Mr. Trump’s goal was to break the logjam. But if Mr. Trump had wanted Mr. Perry to quickly flip, it wasn’t to be: The next day, Mr. Perry voted against Mr. McCarthy three…

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Kevin McCarthy is showing other Republicans how much there is to gain from pushing him around

Kevin McCarthy is showing other Republicans how much there is to gain from pushing him around

Michelle Goldberg writes: McCarthy evidently believed that by courting Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, an avatar of hyper-performative politics, he could co-opt her wing of the party. He was set to offer her valuable committee assignments, and, according to Draper, had even offered to create a new leadership position for her. But her elevation would be valuable to other Trumpists only if there were concrete things they hoped to accomplish together. Putting Greene on the Oversight Committee does nothing to help…

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U.S. and Germany agree to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine

U.S. and Germany agree to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Joe Biden and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz have agreed to send infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine fight Russia, a day after France said it would supply its own armoured vehicles to Kyiv in an attempt to create a breakthrough in the 10-month war. The joint announcement followed a phone call between Biden and Scholz and amounts to a step change in western military support for Ukraine, which has asked for up to 700 armoured vehicles…

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Number of populist world leaders at 20-year low

Number of populist world leaders at 20-year low

The Guardian reports: The number of populist leaders around the world has fallen to a 20-year low after a series of victories for progressives and centrists over the past year, according to analysis from the Tony Blair Institute showing the number of people living under populist rule has fallen by 800 million in two years. The research claims 2023 could be an equally decisive year for populism, with critical elections in Turkey and Poland. Those two elections could see two…

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How worried should we be about XBB.1.5?

How worried should we be about XBB.1.5?

Katherine J. Wu writes: After months and months of SARS-CoV-2 subvariant soup, one ingredient has emerged in the United States with a flavor pungent enough to overwhelm the rest: XBB.1.5, an Omicron offshoot that now accounts for an estimated 75 percent of cases in the Northeast. A crafty dodger of antibodies that is able to grip extra tightly onto the surface of our cells, XBB.1.5 is now officially the country’s fastest-spreading coronavirus subvariant. In the last week of December alone,…

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