Important scientific advances are changing what we know about the technological, social, and cognitive traits of our ancient human ancestors.

The invention of the first stone tools was a hugely significant milestone along the human evolutionary highway, one that would change our lifeways and, ultimately, distinguish our genus Homo from all other living beings on the planet.

Many very significant discoveries have been brought to light only over the last 25 years or so, deepening our knowledge about where, why, and how the first primitive technologies occurred.

Meanwhile, a state of angst resulting from our growing alienation from Nature is sharpening our need to understand how the evolution of technology has brought us to this point.

In order to understand this phenomenon, it is vital that we turn our gaze toward the distant past.

read more: https://rozenbergquarterly.com/was-the-sphere-the-first-geometrical-form-made-by-humans/

archive link: https://archive.ph/4cFbk

Why can you buy lasagne flavour snacks in Thailand but not in Italy? Which country can cope with the hottest chilli? And why do Germans like paprika so much?

Reuben and Peggy’s jobs are not top secret in the way top secret jobs usually are. They don’t have guns, for example – and the grey conference table they sit at is much the same as you’d find in any office in the UK. They even have LinkedIn profiles that tell you their job titles. But this is where things get odd: search the name of the company they work for – a name I have agreed not to print – and you’ll find little information about the work Reuben and Peggy do. You could click through every page on their company’s website and leave with no idea that it creates the most beloved crisp flavours in the world.

Reuben and Peggy are not their real names. Reuben is a snacks development manager and Peggy is a marketer, and they work for a “seasoning house”, a company that manufactures flavourings for crisps.

I meet the pair on Zoom, hoping they can answer a question that has consumed me for years. In January 2019, I was visiting Thailand when I came across a pink packet of Walkers with layered pasta, tomato sauce and cheese pictured on the front. Lasagne flavour, the pack said. You can’t get lasagne Walkers – or Lay’s, as they are known in most of the world – in Italy. Relatively speaking, Italians have a small selection of Lay’s – paprika, bacon, barbecue, salted and Ricetta Campagnola, a “country recipe” flavour featuring tomato, paprika, parsley and onion. I’ve sampled Hawaii-style Poké Bowl crisps in Hungary and chocolate-coated potato snacks in Finland; I have turned away from Sweet Mayo Cheese Pringles in South Korea. So why can you get lasagne flavour Lay’s in Thailand but not in Italy, home of the dish? Who figures out which country gets which crisps? Walkers began manufacturing in Britain in 1948; it was acquired by the US crisp company Frito-Lay in 1989, and today Lay’s are available in more than 200 countries, from Argentina to Vietnam. Some varieties require little explanation – Poutine Lay’s are available only in Canada because the gravy-soaked chips are not Brazil’s national dish. Yet the crisp aisles of the world are stacked with mysteries. Why are Salt & Pepper Pringles favoured by Norwegians, and Oven-Roasted Chicken Doritos only available in Korea? Why does Europe love paprika so much? Pringles, like Lay’s, is not even a century old, yet its tubes are available in 80 countries. Both brands have conquered the world. With billions behind them, surely they know untold secrets about our national tastes and temperaments? Peggy says that to understand why, for example, paprika crisps proliferate on German shelves, you have to understand immigration history. But I don’t hear her secrets until the end of my journey. First, I go to Leicester.

read more: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/dec/02/the-weird-secretive-world-of-crisp-flavours

archive link: https://archive.ph/LS2Uc#selection-1224.0-1224.1

It seems animal rescue is all part of the job for firefighters in Russia too but in Smolensk it was a bit more serious than a cat up a tree.

Short story

The "No Thanks" app calls on people not to buy products from companies that "support" Israel. Is it a legitimate form of protest — or even antisemitism?

Jayda has lost desire in the past, but is loving the “vanilla-plus” sex she has with Syd – who has motor neurone disease

Book claims it is ‘hard to find another currently existing society’ better than that in Skerries, near Dublin

Macaulay Culkin, who played the eight-year-old Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, has unveiled his Walk of Fame star on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The ‘anthrobots’ were able to repair a scratch in a layer of neurons in the lab.

An essay with interactive animated diagrams

This is a guest post written by Anton Howes and animated by Matt Brown of Extraordinary Facility. This project was sponsored by The Roots of Progress, with funding generously provided by The Institute.

Cause of mass stranding of 34 pilot whales on Freycinet Peninsula unclear as authorities say they are unable to remove carcasses

Defensive weapon called a sasumata gains popular appeal after jewellery store owner uses one to fend off attackers

They were promised the world. But cruise company Life at Sea recently told customers who bought passage on a three-year voyage that rather than visiting 140 countries, their trip was called off.

Those customers are now scrambling to make new plans for where they will live for the next three years — and to extract refunds from the cruise line. The intense fallout is drawing comparisons to infamous debacles such as the Fyre Festival — the "luxury" music festival that was more like a "disaster relief area."

Here's what to know about the cruise around the world that was called off

What was promised? The world.

The original itinerary mapped 1,095 days of travel, heading from Istanbul to Europe and then to South America and the Caribbean. Passengers would then pass through the Panama Canal before seeing the U.S. West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska and then head west across the Pacific.

"We are going to be following summer the entire time that we go around the world," then-Life at Sea CEO Kendra Holmes told prospective passengers in a Zoom webinar in September.

Voyagers were to see seven continents, visiting 140 countries. They would spend roughly 300 days at sea, 795 days at port and have 413 overnight port stays, Chief Operating Officer Ethem Bayramoglu of Miray Cruises, the Turkish parent company of Life at Sea, said in that online session.

Along the way, they would explore wonders of the world, visit UNESCO World Heritage sites and have plentiful chances to go diving and snorkeling, the company said.

The three-year voyage was to begin on Nov. 1, departing from Istanbul. Some passengers reportedly only learned of the cancellation after arriving in Turkey.

read more: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/29/1215569569/life-at-sea-3-year-cruise-around-the-world-called-off

archive link: https://archive.ph/g75qt

Without engaging with natural environments, our brains cease to work well. As the new field of environmental neuroscience proves, exposure to nature isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity

London venue’s online collection of performances dating back to 1956 will be free to use for writers, directors and the public

A fitting Word of the Year from Merriam-Webster, which reflects one of 2023's main issues: distinguishing between "real" and "fake"...

Patients often come into clinics on a grocery list of medications. Common prescriptions include lisinopril 20 mg, amlodipine 2.5 mg, metformin 500 mg, and aspirin 81 mg. One dosage stands out from the others. While most medications come in dosages of round numbers or common decimals, low-dose aspirin has a standard dose of 81 mg.

In the far north of India, a cold mountain desert is the stunning backdrop to an unprecedented icy structure. This is a land of extremes, where rainfall is scarce and temperatures range wildly from torrid to far below freezing. The locals say it’s the only place in the world where a man, sitting in the sun with his feet in the shade, can suffer sunstroke and frostbite at the same time.

Aerial refuelling is an increasingly vital capability for military force projection, and Airbus-developed technology to automate the in-flight “topping off” of aircraft will revolutionise this process – with wider applications for both the defence and civil aviation sectors.

Rulers and rice paper became tools of war for a young cartographer whose work is mapped out in a new collection donated to Queensland State Library

Just like everyone else, High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) traveled less than usual during the pandemic, and as a result their migration numbers trended downwards. But millionaires and billionaires are on the move again and it is anticipated that 122,000 HNWIs will move to a new country by the end of the year.

Henley & Partners’ Private Wealth Migration Report has tracked the countries HNWIs have moved from and to over the last 10 years; this map showcases the 2023 forecasts.

In this context, HNWIs are defined as individuals with a net worth of at least $1 million USD.

Videoconference participants in a small study reported feeling tired, drowsy and ‘fed up,’ and testing revealed brain wave data backing that up

An algorithm that can analyse hundreds of millions of genetic sequences has identified DNA-cutting genes and enzymes that are extremely rare in nature.

Amaterasu particle, one of highest-energy cosmic rays ever detected, is coming from an apparently empty region of space

Thin flakes of graphite can be tuned to exhibit three important properties.