Life

Future rulers of the planet, the crows, unlike cats and other animals, are smart enough to work together. Video after the jump.

Half a millennium before Columbus' calamitous 1492 arrival in the Caribbean, DNA from the Americas may have infiltrated the European genome by way of a woman brought to Iceland by Vikings. Like the semimythical Pocahantas, her impact may have been far-reaching.

A morning on the slow but effective internet of the crows.

A study of the microbes in the guts of our closest relatives gives new meaning to the gut-check, finding that the mix of bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract is determined not solely by diet, but by evolution as well.

University of Newcastle researchers may have come up with a biotechnology answer to the roadway printer I posted about yesterday: bacteria modified to colonize cracks in concrete and fix ruined buildings and crumbling roadways.

Squid may be sending each other secret messages by visual means. Whether they use this talent to spam other squid is another question.

To Kelly, the advance guard of the technium is to be found among the quadrillions of computer chips networked into vast electronic systems. But It may be difficult to discern whether the desires driving that process belong to technology, or are our own.

Electronic musician James Blake covers the Feist song "Limit to Your Love"�I've been haunted by this track for a couple of days, and I've finally figured out why.

For as long as intelligent human life has existed, we’ve wondered about our origins. How did it all begin? Theories have ranged everywhere from waterborne molecules, to comets, to alien colonization, but now scientists are turning their eyes in a new direction – towards the heavens. A new experiment that simulates chemical reactions in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest ...

Ok, so it might not be an actual dragon as it doesn’t blow fire, but it’s a lizard… with wings… which is pretty damn close. Hide your treasure and lock up your princesses! Wait a second, what are we scared of, it’s like two inches long. Oh wait, they have parents don’t they? Link [via]