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Category: Life

Humanity is a tiny fraction of life on Earth but has destroyed over 80% of wild mammals and half of plants

Humanity is a tiny fraction of life on Earth but has destroyed over 80% of wild mammals and half of plants

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The Guardian reports: Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet. The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds. The new work is the first…

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Why do so many people feel their work is completely unnecessary?

Why do so many people feel their work is completely unnecessary?

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David Graeber writes: One day, the wall shelves in my office collapsed. This left books scattered all over the floor and a jagged, half-dislocated metal frame that once held the shelves in place dangling over my desk. I’m a professor of anthropology at a university. A carpenter appeared an hour later to inspect the damage, and announced gravely that, as there were books all over the floor, safety rules prevented him from entering the room or taking further action. I…

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Worldwide catastrophe as shorebirds face extinction

Worldwide catastrophe as shorebirds face extinction

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  John W. Fitzpatrick and Nathan R. Senner write: A worldwide catastrophe is underway among an extraordinary group of birds — the marathon migrants we know as shorebirds. Numbers of some species are falling so quickly that many biologists fear an imminent planet-wide wave of extinctions. These declines represent the No. 1 conservation crisis facing birds in the world today. Climate change, coastal development, the destruction of wetlands and hunting are all culprits. And because these birds depend for their…

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EU agrees total ban on bee-harming pesticides

EU agrees total ban on bee-harming pesticides

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The Guardian reports: The European Union will ban the world’s most widely used insecticides from all fields due to the serious danger they pose to bees. The ban on neonicotinoids, approved by member nations on Friday, is expected to come into force by the end of 2018 and will mean they can only be used in closed greenhouses. Bees and other insects are vital for global food production as they pollinate three-quarters of all crops. The plummeting numbers of pollinators…

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How dying offers us a chance to live the fullest life

How dying offers us a chance to live the fullest life

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Rowan Williams writes: People still sometimes discuss the question of how you could tell that you were talking to some form of artificial intelligence rather than an actual human being. One of the more persuasive suggested answers is: “Ask them how they feel about dying.” Acknowledging that our lifespan is limited and coming to terms with this are near the heart of anything we could recognise as what it means to be human. Once we discovered that Neanderthals buried their…

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A solitary journey across Antarctica

A solitary journey across Antarctica

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David Grann writes: The man felt like a speck in the frozen nothingness. Every direction he turned, he could see ice stretching to the edge of the Earth: white ice and blue ice, glacial-ice tongues and ice wedges. There were no living creatures in sight. Not a bear or even a bird. Nothing but him. It was hard to breathe, and each time he exhaled the moisture froze on his face: a chandelier of crystals hung from his beard; his…

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Nabokov’s experiments with time

Nabokov’s experiments with time

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Michael Wood writes: Language has many forms of quiet kindness, refusals of stark alternatives. “Never” can mean “not always,” and “impossible” may mean “not now.” Insomnia may mean a shortage of sleep rather than its entire absence, and when Gennady Barabtarlo writes that “Nabokov typically remembered having his dreams at dawn, right before awakening after a sleepless night,” or indeed calls his own book Insomniac Dreams, we are looking not so much at a paradox as a touch of logical…

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Who first buried the dead?

Who first buried the dead?

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Paige Madison writes: A mysterious cache of bones, recovered from a deep chamber in a South African cave, is challenging long-held beliefs about how a group of bipedal apes developed into the abstract-thinking creatures that we call “human.” The fossils were discovered in 2013 and were quickly recognized as the remains of a new species unlike anything seen before. Named Homo naledi, it has an unexpected mix of modern features and primitive ones, including a fairly small brain. Arguably the…

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3.5 billion-year-old fossils challenge ideas about early life on Earth

3.5 billion-year-old fossils challenge ideas about early life on Earth

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Rebecca Boyle writes: In the arid, sun-soaked northwest corner of Australia, along the Tropic of Capricorn, the oldest face of Earth is exposed to the sky. Drive through the northern outback for a while, south of Port Hedlund on the coast, and you will come upon hills softened by time. They are part of a region called the Pilbara Craton, which formed about 3.5 billion years ago, when Earth was in its youth. Look closer. From a seam in one…

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‘Shocking’ decline in birds across Europe due to pesticide use, say scientists

‘Shocking’ decline in birds across Europe due to pesticide use, say scientists

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The Independent reports: Bird numbers across France have declined by a third in the past 15 years, according to new figures released by researchers. Linked to changes in agricultural practices such as pesticide use, the dramatic collapse is comparable with trends observed in other parts of Europe, including the UK. Nevertheless, the latest figures have shocked scientists who previously thought France’s bird population was relatively stable. “We had some idea because when you are working in the countryside you find…

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Why Denmark dominates the World Happiness Report rankings year after year

Why Denmark dominates the World Happiness Report rankings year after year

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Okay, we get it, you’re happy – no need to rub it in. Very_Very/Shutterstock.com By Marie Helweg-Larsen, Dickinson College The new World Happiness Report again ranks Denmark among the top three happiest of 155 countries surveyed – a distinction that the country has earned for seven consecutive years. The U.S., on the other hand, ranked 18th in this year’s World Happiness Report, a four-spot drop from last year’s report. Denmark’s place among the world’s happiest countries is consistent with many…

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Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros, dies in Kenya

Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros, dies in Kenya

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The New York Times reports: The last male northern white rhinoceros died on Monday at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya following a series of infections and other health problems. At 45, Sudan was an elderly rhino, and his death was not unexpected. Hunted to near-extinction, just two northern white rhinos now remain: Najin, Sudan’s daughter, and Fatu, his granddaughter, both at the conservancy. The prospect of losing the charismatic animals has prompted an unusual scientific effort to develop new…

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Why Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

Why Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

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James S. Romm writes: Recent experiments have shown that psilocybin, a compound found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, can greatly reduce the fear of death in terminal cancer patients. The drug imparts “an understanding that in the largest frame, everything is fine,” said pharmacologist Richard Griffiths in a 2016 interview. Test subjects reported a sense of “the interconnectedness of all people and things, the awareness that we are all in this together.” Some claimed to have undergone a mock death during their…

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Living in an indifferent universe

Living in an indifferent universe

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Samir Chopra writes: One morning, my father died at home. I awoke to a call for help – my name shouted once, loudly, desperately, fearfully, by my mother – ran into my parents’ bedroom, and found my father convulsing in the throes of a massive heart attack. His body bucked on a deadly trampoline, his chest heaved, spittle flecked his lips and the sides of his mouth as he desperately sought to fill his lungs with air. By the time…

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Are the most successful people mostly just the luckiest people in our society?

Are the most successful people mostly just the luckiest people in our society?

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Scott Barry Kaufman writes: What does it take to succeed? What are the secrets of the most successful people? Judging by the popularity of magazines such as Success, Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur, there is no shortage of interest in these questions. There is a deep underlying assumption, however, that we can learn from them because it’s their personal characteristics–such as talent, skill, mental toughness, hard work, tenacity, optimism, growth mindset, and emotional intelligence– that got them where they are today….

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