Book Review: Carnivores Of The World

I have been meaning to review this book for quite some time now. Carnivores Of The World is a field guide that covers all 245 species of terrestrial carnivores (the Pinnipedia are not covered). It is publish by Princeton University Press as part of their field guide series. The book is written by Luke Hunter [...]

Mini Book Review: Daniel Lieberman The Evolution of the Human Head

I just bought a copy of Daniel Lieberman’s The Evolution of the Human Head the other day. I’m only on chapter three (hence a mini review), which gives an overview of the embryological development of the head. However, based on what I have read so far I would highly recommend it. The central premise is [...]

Do Chimpanzees Mourn For Their Dead?

Note: The next addition of the Four Stone hearth will at This is Serious Monkey Business on February 2nd. Pleas get your submissions in! That seems to be the way the press is portraying the video below. The video was released in conjunction with an article published in the American Journal of Primatology (the article [...]

Interesting Science Picture: Part XV

The picture below comes from an interesting article on a case of mutalism between pitcher plants and bats. Service benefit provided by N. r. elongata to K. h. hardwickii. (a) Aerial pitcher of N. rafflesiana var. elongata. (b) The same pitcher with the front tissue removed to reveal a roosting Hardwick’s woolly bat. (c) The [...]

Cave of Forgotten Dreams: A Film By Werner Herzog

Apparently Werner Herzog has made a 3-D movie about Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc. A trailer for the film is below the fold.

Interesting Science Picture: Part XIV

A bug with bifocals: Figure 1. Illustration of the Third-Instar Larvae of Thermonectus marmoratus and Its Principal Eyes (A) Picture of the entire animal. (B) Scanning electron micrograph of the larval head, showing the two large lenses of the principal eyes (E1 and E2) on each side of the head. (C) The gross optical and [...]

Interesting Science Pictures: Part XIII

Picture Source: Concealed Neuroanatomy in Michelangelo’s Separation of Light From Darkness in the Sistine Chapel Suk, Ian BSc, BMC; Tamargo, Rafael J. MD, FACS Neurosurgery: May 2010 – Volume 66 – Issue 5 – p 851–861 doi: 10.1227/01.NEU.0000368101.34523.E1

Interesting Science Pictures: Part XII

This is from an article in PaleoAnthropology. The map, of the find locations for the Ngangdong specimens, hasn’t been seen in 75 years. Picture source: Huffman et al (2010) Provenience Reassessment of the 1931–1933 Ngandong Homo erectus (Java), Confirmation of the Bone-Bed Origin Reported by the Discoverers. PaleoAnthropology 2010:1-60 doi:10.4207/PA.2010.ART34

Interesting Science Pictures: Part XI

Figure 3. Comparison of the femur (a, anterior view; b, posterior view) and ulna (c, lateral; d, medial) of Antillothrix bernensis (top) and a male Cebus apella with unfused epiphyses (bottom). Scale bar, 1 cm. See electronic supplementary material, figures S5 and S6. From: Rosenberger et al (2010) First skull of Antillothrix bernensis, an extinct [...]

Songs From My (Misspent) Youth

Haven’t done any music videos in awhile so I thought I would regale you with some of the music I listened to as a teenager…

That Makes Me Like Him More!

Via Abnormal Interests comes news that Mark Twain’s autobiography is finally being published in full. I’m stoked, nay, I am chuffed about it. From the Independent: “He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He’s also critical of [Theodore] [...]

Interesting Science Picture: Part VIII

Fig. S3. (A) Detector count maps for all elements of the feather region clipped so that white corresponds to the 95th percentile of the overall count distribution. Two calcium maps are shown, one measured in low-Z configuration and one in high-Z configuration as discussed in the text. (B) Full set of elemental images corresponding to [...]

Illinois Archaeology Video

This video from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency is pretty cool! Here is the description: This short, narrated video shows the discovery and investigation of a one-thousand-year-old Native American village in what is now East St. Louis, Illinois. The video graphically demonstrates why archaeological investigations are performed and what we can learn from these investigations [...]

Interesting Science Picture: Part VII

While we wait for the Science article with the South African hominins, I thought I would mention that other interesting finds have come from Sterkfontein.

Book Review: Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend

Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into the water and got her mast and sails into her; we also put the sheep on board and took our places, weeping and in great distress of mind. Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us a fair wind that [...]