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Around 4 billion years ago, an asteroid hit the Jupiter moon Ganymede. Now, a researcher realized that the Solar System's biggest moon's axis has shifted as a result of the impact, which confirmed that the asteroid was around 20 times larger than the one that ended the age of the dinosaurs on Earth, and caused one of the biggest impacts with clear traces in the Solar System.

A sweat-powered wearable has the potential to make continuous, personalized health monitoring as effortless as wearing a Band-Aid. Engineers have developed an electronic finger wrap that monitors vital chemical levels -- such as glucose, vitamins, and even drugs -- present in the same fingertip sweat from which it derives its energy.

A sweat-powered wearable has the potential to make continuous, personalized health monitoring as effortless as wearing a Band-Aid. Engineers have developed an electronic finger wrap that monitors vital chemical levels -- such as glucose, vitamins, and even drugs -- present in the same fingertip sweat from which it derives its energy.

A model developed by evolutionary mathematicians shows that as conditions for cooperation improve between two species, mutually beneficial behavior can unexpectedly become unbalanced. Cooperative behavior pools in one species, the other consumes the spoils.

Over billions of years, the universe's stars and galaxies shined their light into space, leaving behind an imperceptibly faint night light known as the cosmic optical background. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has traveled to the edge of Earth's solar system and captured the most accurate measurement of this glow to date.

New research shows consumers use 'happier' words to search for products when they are in a good mood. Researchers have connected those positive search terms with an increased likelihood of clicking on search engine ads.

Heart failure during pregnancy is a dangerous and often under-detected condition because common symptoms -- shortness of breath, extreme fatigue and trouble breathing while lying down -- are easily mistaken for typical pregnancy discomforts. A new study showed an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled digital stethoscope helped doctors identify twice as many cases of heart failure compared to a control group that received usual obstetric care and screening.

Additive manufacturing, precision robotics and architected design markedly increase crack resistance in concrete.

Despite what we've been led to believe, the timing of evening screen use, rather than the activity itself, negatively impacts youth sleep, a new study has found.

In the coming years, AI is poised to transform the writing of scientific manuscripts, assist in reviewing them, and help editors select the most impactful papers.

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In his new book Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species, Will Gervais, PhD., a global leader in the psychological study of atheism, shows that the ubiquity of religious belief and the peculiarities of atheism are connected pieces in the puzzle of human nature. Does God exist? This straightforward question has spawned endless debate, ranging from apologists’ supposed proofs of God’s existence to New Atheist manifestos declaring belief in God a harmful delusion.

It’s undeniable that religion is a core tenet of human nature. It is also true that our overwhelmingly religious species is also as atheistic as it’s ever been. Yet, no scientific understanding of religion is complete without accounting for those who actively do not believe. In this refreshing and revelatory book, Gervais argues that religion is not an evolutionary puzzle so much as two evolutionary puzzles that can only be solved together. First is the Puzzle of Faith: the puzzle of how Homo sapiens – and Homo sapiens alone – came to be a religious species. Second is the Puzzle of Atheism: how disbelief in gods can exist within our uniquely religious species. The result is a radically cohesive theory of both faith and atheism, showing how we became a uniquely religious species, and why many are now abandoning their belief.

Through a firsthand account of breakthroughs in the scientific study of atheism, including key findings from cognitive science, cultural evolution, and evolutionary psychology, Disbelief forces a rethinking of the prevailing theories of religion and reminds both believers and atheists of the shared psychologies that set them on their distinct religious trajectories. In casual prose and with compelling examples, Gervais explains how we became religious, why we’re leaving faith behind, and how we can get along with others across the religious divides we’ve culturally evolved.

Will Gervais, PhD, is a cultural evolutionary psychologist and has been a global leader in the scientific study of atheism for over a decade. Dr. Gervais’s research has been featured in media such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Der Speigel, Psychology Today, Vox, and Scientific American. His interdisciplinary work, lying at the intersection of cultural evolution, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science, has garnered international scientific recognition. He was named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science and is the recipient of the Margaret Gorman Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association and the SAGE Young Scholar Award from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology.

Gervais and Shermer discuss:

• What is religion?
• Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Pantheism, etc. defined
• How many atheists and agnostics and religious skeptics are there really?
• Atheism and morality, trust, politics, etc.
• Why are atheists so unpopular?
• Metaphysical atheism vs. epistemological atheism (or agnosticism)
• Popular nonanswers for religion and belief in God(s) (the Puzzle of Faith)
• Role(s) of religion in history and society today
• Is religion and belief in God(s) adaptive or a byproduct?
• What cognitive features of the brain are engaged in faith, religion, & belief in God?
• Patternicity, Agenticity, Sensed presence effect, essentialism, dualism, theory of mind, teleology
• Big Gods vs. animism, polytheism, supernaturalism
• Folk physics (pre-Newtonian) and biology (creationism)
• Why some religions are so much more successful than others
• Group selection vs. cultural selection
• Is religion good for society?
• Is religion good for personal health and happiness?
• When we colonize Mars will far future humans on other planets believe in God?
• Does religion need to be replaced with something?
• Enlightenment Humanism, Secular Humanism, and other alternatives.

If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.

As a harbinger of the day after tomorrow’s post, here’s a “spot the” photo.  Our guide Isaac saw a leucistic (white mutant) lion while driving down the road, and this is what he saw. I tell you, the guy’s good.

Can you spot the leucistic lion in this photo? I’d say it’s “medium hard”. I won’t give a reveal, but please don’t tell in the comments where the animal is. You can say “I have found it,” or “that wasn’t too hard,” or other such stuff.

Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it.

September offers a number of fascinating lunar occultation events worldwide.

Chances are, there’s one near you this month. The Moon is certainly busy in September, as its passage covers up (occults) multiple celestial objects worldwide. If skies are clear, you may just get a chance to see one of these events listed below, as the Moon blocks out a star, planet or star cluster.

You may well have seen images from last month’s lunar occultation of Saturn from observers across the United Kingdom and western Europe. The Moon occults Saturn 10 times in 2024—once for every lunation pass. The slowest moving of the naked eye planets, Saturn makes a good repeated target for the Moon. The rings are headed towards edge-on in 2025, making for an appealing view as it peeks out from behind the lunar limb.

Why Occultations

Occultations occur in cycles, as the Moon journeys on its monthly trek five degrees above and below the ecliptic plane. In the current epoch, the Moon can occult four +1st magnitude stars: Aldebaran, Regulus, and (as is ongoing in 2024) Antares and Spica. The Moon moves its own diameter (30’ or half a degree) once every hour, and the dark limb leads the way when it’s waxing, and trails when it’s waning. Dark limb ingresses can be especially dramatic.

The Moon is also riding high in the sky in 2024, as we head towards a bi-decadal Major Lunar Standstill next year in 2025.

An Occultation, Transit… or Eclipse?

Like eclipses, successive occultations in a cycle move westward by about 120 degrees of longitude. Lots of observational astronomy is no more than watching one thing pass in front of another, and seeing what happens: occultations, transits and eclipses are similar ways to express the what is essentially the same thing. Double star companions, profiles of asteroids, and diameters of tiny stellar sources have revealed themselves during occultations.

Occultations in September

All exciting stuff, to be sure. Here’s our rundown on what’s in store for lunar occultations in September worldwide:

First up, the 5% illuminated waxing crescent Moon occults Venus on September 5th, centered on 10:16 Universal Time (UT). Perhaps, only a few penguins and a few windswept remote research stations in Antarctica will witness to this daytime event. The rest of us will be treated to a very close pairing of the two at dusk.

Looking westward at dusk on September 5th. Credit: Stellarium.

Next, the 10% illuminated, waxing crescent occults the +1st magnitude star Spica (Alpha Virginis) for central Africa on the evening of September 6th centered on 17:04 UT. Fun fact: located 250 light-years distant, Spica is a close candidate (along with Betelgeuse) for a nearby galactic supernova.

The visibility footprint for the Spica occultation on September 6th. Credit: Occult 4.1.

Four days later on September 10th, the 43% illuminated, waxing crescent Moon occults the +1st magnitude star Antares (Alpha Scorpii) for western Australia centered on 13:09 UT. We caught a similar event back in 2009.

Seeking Saturn

Just past mid-month on September 17th, the 99.2% illuminated, waxing gibbous Moon occults Saturn for western North America, centered on 10:22 UT in the early morning hours. Northeastern Australia and the nearby Pacific island region sees the event transpire in the evening. This is just nine days after Saturn will reach opposition for 2024 on the 8th. The occultation occurs 16 hours prior to Full Moon and the partial lunar eclipse on the 17th-18th. This eclipse favors the Americas, Africa and Europe. Saturn spans 19” during the event, and will take about 40 seconds to disappear and reappear from behind the Moon.

The visibility footprint for the September 17th occultation footprint. Credit Occult 4.1.

Just five hours after the eclipse on the 18th, the Moon occults Neptune, also for North America. A tough catch, as faint +8th magnitude Neptune only spans 2.4”, but a challenge none the less. Neptune reaches opposition just 3 days later for 2024 on September 21st.

Finally, the 75% illuminated, waning gibbous Moon occults the well-known open star cluster Messier 45 (also known as the Seven Sisters or the Pleiades) for North America on September 22nd. The Moon visits the cluster once every lunation for the remainder of this current decade.

The International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) maintains pages for stellar and planetary lunar occultations in 2024. These include ingress/egress times for select sites.

Observing Occultations

Observing an occultation of a bright star or planet by the Moon is as easy as watching at the appointed time. Binoculars or a small telescope will certainly improve the view. Imaging or recording can, however, be a tricky affair—especially if the dazzling Moon is near Full.

“Here in London we were lucky enough to catch an occultation of Mars by the Moon a few years ago, so I was excited to see that there would be a reasonably favorable occultation of Saturn visible towards the end of August this year,” astrophotographer Roger Hutchinson told Universe Today. “Imaging events like this where the main subjects have such a huge difference in brightness requires the capture of multiple shots at different exposures, these then being composited to record the event more or less as the eye sees it. Transits, occultations and eclipses bring home the constant motion of our solar system and are always amazing events to witness and capture. Can’t wait ‘til the next one!”

Ingress for this month’s occultation of Saturn by the Moon… be sure to keep an eye out for nearby Titan! Credit: Occult 4.1

Don’t miss one of these spectacular celestial events, coming to a sky near you.

The post Catch a Fall Feast of Lunar Occultations in September appeared first on Universe Today.

The government of New Zealand continues to throw away money by funding ludicrous projects involved indigenous “ways of knowing” (in this case Mātauranga Māori, or “MM”).

One government initiative, while admitting that MM differs in some ways from modern science, not only maintains that MM remains a “knowledge base”, but insists that the practice must remain under Māori control. Science, however, is not under the control of any ethnic group, so this is an attempt to not only sacralize indigenous knowledge, but to prevent others from investigating its claims:

Mātauranga Māori is a knowledge base in its own right. It is Māori knowledge, including values and culture. It is different from modern science. Mātauranga Māori belongs to iwi and should remain under Māori control. Mātauranga Maori is taonga (a treasure) and as such should be protected.

Here’s an example of money thrown down the drain to the end given above. It was, as always, sent to me by a NZ scientist who wishes to remain anonymous, for even sending me stuff like this could endanger someone’s job. Click on the site to see one of the projects underwritten by Kiwi taxpayers:

One of the projects involves trying to stem the death of kauri trees (Agathis australis), the iconic tree of New Zealand.  Kauri deforestation, due to logging by Europeans and also burning buy Māori, is now exacerbated by “Kauri dieback,” the death of trees after infection by a funguslike organism. This has resulted in the closure of forests (the infection may be spread by humans carrying soil on their feet), but so far nothing has really been effective in curing the disease or stopping its spread.

But a new government-funded project based on Māori traditions involves trying to stop the disease by, yes, playing whale songs to the trees and dousing them with whale oil.  Here’s an excerpt from the project description at the link above (bolding is mine):

“Led by the Pawarenga community, Dr. Valance Smith and his team collaborated with kaitiaki and leaders from Pawarenga to delve into the realm of ‘ihirangaranga’—vibrations and frequencies—as healing sounds, to construct a sonic tapestry of rejuvenation and well-being.

Nestled amidst the Te Auwarawara forest, the soundscape is a layered composition, intricately woven with sonic samples of healthy kauri within its untouched habitat, the whale song of its cetacean kin the tohora, inlayed with the healing sounds of taonga puoro, takutaku, and karakia, representing profound layers of ancient wisdom and knowledge, deeply ingrained in the very fabric of the soundscape.”

In addition, the soundscape of ailing kauri trees has been captured and examined to gather vital baseline data, enabling continuous monitoring and tracking of their healing progress.

This project was supported by an array of mātauranga Māori tools, including pūrākau (oral narratives), maramataka (lunar calendar), and ngā kaupeka (phases of summer and winter) unique to the Pawarenga region. These invaluable resources serve as both treatment modalities and management tools, empowering the community to foster the well-being and vitality of their kauri.

Do I need to add anything to that save to say that there is no underlying “wisdom” or scientific data suggesting that sounds played to ailing trees could cure them, much less the sounds of whale songs. And yes, the project was funded by the National Science Challenges, a government initiative.

Here’s a video of the project with these YouTube notes:

Oranga is a suite of kaupapa Māori projects that aim to restore the collective health of trees, forests and people. The team will do this by connecting to, and resourcing, Māori communities and their environmental knowledge holders to explore solutions embedded in mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge).

Click ‘play’ to view what they’ve been up to in the first three years of the programme.

This programme is funded by Ngā Rākau Taketake, which is administered by New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenge | Ngā Koiora Tuku Iho.

Note that the video begins with the statement that there are “forms of knowledge” other than science, and that indigenous knowledge gets no respect because the “colonization process” has “tried to remove our knowledge” and outlawed it.  In my view, this is pure, ludicrous science-dissing.

The whale nonsense begins at about 2:50 with the claim that “the whale once traversed the face of the earth” (yes, on land, too!) and that there is a “sibling relationship” between whales and kauri trees.

This is what happens when “traditional wisdom” is used instead of modern science (which, by the way, discovered the organism causing the tree infection).

Well, who knows—the tattooed Måori man might be right: whale oil and whale bone might cure the trees, as he claimed it has. But I’m not betting on it.  How about a double-blind control test rather than legends and anecdotes?

The brain's microglia fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes they go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for Alzheimer's

I’m delighted to tell you that Quanta Magazine has published an essay I have written on the *real* story of how the Higgs field gives mass to particles — avoiding those famous false analogies. There’s a musical connection, too. I hope you enjoy it! https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-higgs-field-actually-gives-mass-to-elementary-particles-20240903/

If you are curious to learn more about the main points of the essay, feel free to ask me questions about it in the comments below or at Quanta Magazine. (I also go into more detail about these subjects in my book.)

And it’s day three in Kruger, heading to a new place to sleep, but doing so very, very slowly, watching the roadside all day. As always, we got up before sunrise because there’s something ineffably lovely about the sun rising in the bush, with the only sound the chirping of local birds.  And you know that dawn means that all Ceiling Cat’s creatures will be stirring—at least the crepuscular and diurnal ones.

I’m lousy at identifying raptors (except for a mature bald eagle), but Isaac informed us that the one below is a booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus, also classified as Aquila pennata), which is actuallya Palearctic species but overwinters in places in Africa. Perhaps I’ve got the wrong ID, for the booted eagle appears to be very rare in Kruger:

The Booted Eagle is a summer migrant rarely seen in Kruger as it prefers the drier, mountainous habitats of the western Cape where there is a breeding population. The very few Booted Eagles that have been seen in Kruger are most likely northern hemisphere migrants that breed in north Africa and southern Eurasia.

They arrive in southern Africa usually during the course of November and depart in February before the end of the rainy season.

Birders—especially those with African expertise—should weigh in.

There’s no doubt, however, that the bird below is an African Grey Hornbill (Lophoceros nasutus epirhinus). It has an interesting behavior shared by some other hornbills:

The female lays two to four white eggs in a tree hollow, which is blocked off during incubation with a cement made of mud, droppings and fruit pulp. There is only one narrow aperture, just large enough for the male to transfer food to the mother and the chicks. When the chicks and female outgrow the nest, the mother breaks out and rebuilds the wall, after which both parents feed the chicks.

If the father dies while the female and chicks are walled in, the family is doomed, for the sealed-in mother undergoes a rapid molt of her flight and tail feathers (and therefore couldn’t fly even if she pecked down the wall) and thus depends on dad to supply the food. If he dies or leaves for some reason, there’s no food for anyone in the nest.

This is the remains of a (gulp) dagga boy, a lonely African buffalo expelled from the herd, making him vulnerable to predation. This one met that fate: he was taken down by lions, and we saw a male and female lion nearby on the next day (pictures tomorrow). They were hanging about saving the rest of the buffalo for a second meal of ribs.

Sightings of the common ostrich—Struthio camelus; there are two ostrich species in Africa—weren’t common in Kruger, but we saw enough to learn that it’s easy to tell the male from the female (as in all animals, ostriches come in only two sexes). Females are brown and males are black. Ergo, here we have a female:

Fun ostrich facts:

• Ostriches are the largest birds in the world, standing up to 9 feet (2.8 meters) tall and weighing as much as 320 pounds (145 kg).
• They are flightless but can run at speeds up to 45 mph (72 km/h), using their powerful legs to escape predators.
• Ostriches lay the largest eggs of any living land animal, with each egg weighing about 3 pounds (1.4 kg).

And from National Geographic:

An ostrich’s powerful, long legs can cover 10 to 16 feet in a single stride. These legs can also be formidable weapons. Ostrich kicks can kill a human or a potential predator like a lion. Each two-toed foot has a long, sharp claw.

Finally, from an article in The Annals of Medicine and Surgery (I had to know):

 In one study of ostrich attacks, it was estimated that two to three attacks that result in serious injury or death occur each year in South Africa, where a large number of ostrich farms abut against both feral and wild ostrich populations.

And their mating behavior is bizarre; here’s an Attenborough video showing how rigorously a female sizes up a potential mate:

A common tsessebe antelope which we’ve seen before, but we didn’t spot many of them.

Termite mounds, which can become huge, abound in the park. Here are two:

The ecology of these mounds is fascinating, involving cultivation of a fungus garden (like leafcutter ants), a complex cooling system, and a queen who can live up to fifty years. You can read more about them here.

Oh, I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn again, and so you get another photo:

I love zebras because they’re gorgeous, and I always remember that their stripes are likely an adaptation to deter biting flies that can carry disease. But because they’re not one of the Big Five, and because they’re common, they are underappreciated. Look at these lovely Burchell’s zebras!

Notice the lazy zebra on the left, who’s resting its head on the butf of the middle one.

Below spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) near some zebra, all seeking access to a water tank (Kruger has built tanks and ponds to provide water, especially in this dry season.

There’s only one species of hyena, and gender activists love them because they think that the female’s “pseudopenis” means that they don’t really have two sexes. Those who make that claim are ideologically deranged. Here are the facts:

The spotted hyena is the largest extant member of the Hyaenidae, and is further physically distinguished from other species by its vaguely bear-like build, rounded ears, less prominent mane, spotted pelt, more dual-purposed dentition. fewer nipples, and pseudo-penis. It is the only placental mammalian species where females have a pseudo-penis and lack an external vaginal opening.

Note well: the FEMALES have a pseudopenis. They are females, not some sort of third sex. (You didn’t think this recounting would be free of ideology, did you?)

A white rhino; the only one we saw in the park.  It’s a rare spot, and do note that this one has had both of its horns sawed off by rangers to prevent poaching. The act, which is necessary to save the species, is a calculated compromise to save the animals’s life while reducing its ability to defend itself:

One of the loveliest places I saw in Kruger. Like the one I showed the other day with a bunch of elephants digging wells, this shot was taken on a bridge over a river (this one has water in it), and it’s in a place where you can get out and take photos. This one has elephants, a hippo, and a heron of unknown identity in it. See them all? This scene will remain in my mind as epitomizing the African bush:

The hippo was out of the water as it wasn’t too hot, and the heron was nearby looking for fish.

Note the two oxpeckers on the hippo below:

Reader Divy and her reptilophilic partner Ivan had a look at this turtle I photographed right under the bridge. Their ID:  “it is most likely a Serrated hinged terrapin (Pelusios sinuatus). Terrapin is mostly a regional term for certain turtles that live in brackish water, such as Diamondback Terrapins, or Red-eared sliders.”  This water is certainly not brackish, but neither is Botany Pond, where red-eared sliders were common.

The water was clear and shallow enough (hippos can’t swim and have to walk on the bottom) that we could get a good view of them while submerged. This one seems to have a baby with it, though the baby is not that small:

Here is a herd of hippos (another word for a grouping is a “thunder of hippos”):

We also visited a fascinating Elephant Hall at the Letaba Rest Camp, devoted entirely to the African bush pachyderm. Here is a group of school kids about to enter it as we were leaving.

Isaac came in with me, and photographed me next to the life-sized skeleton of an elephant. You can see how large they are:

I was fascinated to learn that, as this picture (and the video below) shows, elephants walk on their tiptoes, not on the soles of their feet. But it looks as if they’re walking on their soles because of the thick pads of flesh and fat under their toes:

Not only that, but each foot is planted separately from the others; no two feet hit the ground at the same time, as you can see in the video below (it also says that “the elephant is the only mammal that never lifts all four feet off the ground at the same time”). Note as well that they also walk relatively silently, and there’s doubt whether they can “run”, as opposed to just walking fast:

Elephant males battle for dominance, and they can kill each other with their tusks and heads. This is a skull of a male that was apparently killed by the tusk of another male piercing its head (the tusk shown below is added to show what probably happened):

Here’s Isaac showing the size of the tusks of one “tusker” male named Mafunyane. The tusks are larger than he is, and he isn’t small!

Mafunyane was one of the “Magnificent Seven” big-tusked bulls who lived in Kruger in the 1960’s; their skulls are in this hall and are described at the link just above. (They all died natural deaths; elephants tend to live about fifty to seventy years.)

Facts about this bull:

Mafunyane was the best-known member of the Magnificent Seven. His Tsonga name meant “the irritated one”, based on his temper and impatience with people. He avoided the major tourist routes. Mafunyane’s long, straight tusks dragged on the ground as he moved. He was a small elephant, however (only 327 cm high at the shoulder), and his tusks were shorter than most of the other Magnificent Seven’s. the tusks had an oval circumference, making them look heavier than they really were. The most unique characteristic of Mafunyane was the 10-cm-wide, 40-cm-deep gap in his skull. The hole stretched into his nostril, and he could therefore breathe and consumer rainwater through it. The origin of the gash is unknown, but it is believed to have been sustained during a fight with another bull whose tusk pierced the Mafunyane’s skull. Mafunyane died in 1983 of natural causes, around 57 years old.

And below you’ll see the skull of Shawu, who bore the longest tusks on record in a South African elephant. Shawu lived to be about sixty, dying of natural causes in 1986.

 

It was hot that day, and every beast took advantage of either water or shade. Here are two separate groups of impala, all clustered together in the shade of trees:

But of course I must show several pictures (not that different, to be sure), of my favorite African bird, the lilac-breasted roller.

What a beaut!

And, as the day drew to a close, we finally came upon a goal we failed to meet on an earlier trip to Timbavati with Kyle and Carrie: a sighting of the Southern Ground Hornbill (Bucorvus leadbeateri).  All of a sudden several of these fantastic birds appeared by the roadside, and weren’t the least spooked by our car (Isaac always turned off the engine when we took photos).

You can read all about this bird at either of the two links just above. Our sighting consisted of watching these hornbills pecking vigorously at the ground, trying to scare up a tidbit or two. They’re carnivores, but their habit of foraging on the ground gives them their name. From Wikipedia:

They forage on the ground, where they feed on reptiles, frogs, snails, insects and mammals up to the size of hares.  Southern ground hornbills rarely drink.

So, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, and comrades, I close by giving you seven pictures of Southern ground hornbills in diverse poses:

x

A survey found 66 species of insects making their homes in cobbled pavements on the streets of Berlin, and greater biodiversity near insect-friendly flower gardens

Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has only been identified in a few other species, dolphins, elephants, and some parrots. Interestingly, it has never been documented in our closest relatives, non-human primates – that is, until now. A recent study finds that marmoset monkeys have unique calls, “phee-calls”, that they use to identify specific individual members of their group. The study also found that within a group of marmosets, all members use the same name to refer to the same individual, so they are learning the names from each other. Also interesting, different families of marmosets use different kinds of sounds in their names, as if each family has their own dialect.

In these behaviors we can see the roots of language and culture. It is not surprising that we see these roots in our close relatives. It is perhaps more surprising that we don’t see it more in the very closest relatives, like chimps and gorillas. What this implies is that these sorts of high-level behaviors, learning names for specific individuals in your group, is not merely a consequence of neurological develop. You need something else. There needs to be an evolutionary pressure.

That pressure is likely living in an environment and situation where families members are likely to be out of visual contact of each other. Part of this is the ability to communicate at long enough distance that will put individuals out of visual contact. For example, elephants can communicate over miles. Dolphins often swim in murky water with low visibility. Parrots and marmosets live in dense jungle. Of course, you need to have that evolutionary pressure and the neurological sophistication for the behavior – the potential and the need have to align.

There is also likely another element – the quirkiness of evolution. Not all species will find the same solution to the same problem. Many animals evolve innate calls that they use to communicate to their group – such as warnings that a predator is near, or a summons that they have found food. But very few have hit upon the strategy of adjusting those calls to represent specific individuals.

The researchers hope that this one puzzle piece will help them investigate the evolution of human language. I find this a fascinating topic, but it’s one that is difficult to research. We have information going back preserved in writings, which go back about 5,400 years. We have extant cultural knowledge as well – the languages that people around the world speak today. But that’s it, a window going back about 5 thousand years. We also have information from our closest relatives – the uses of language and the language potential is non-human primates. This can give us a somewhat complicated window into the evolution of human language, but this picks up with our last common ancestor about 8 million years ago (with a wide range of uncertainty).

In between these two time periods, when all the interesting stuff was happening, we have almost no information. We have cave painting going back tens of thousands of years, and these give us some insight into the intellectual world of our ancestors, but not directly into their language. We can study hominid anatomy, to see if their larynxes were optimized for human speech. Only Homo sapiens have a “modern” vocal tract. Neanderthals were close but had some specific differences which likely meant their vocal range was lower than modern humans. But this does not mean that our older ancestors could not communicate vocally. Some researchers argue that primates have had sufficient vocal anatomy for some speech going back 27 million years.

But again, this gives us scant information about the evolution of language itself. Most of what we know comes from examining the direct evidence of actual language, from the last few thousand years. We can still learn a lot from this, from studying what different languages have in common, how they are structured, and their internal logic. We can also investigate the neurological correlates of language, and there are ways to disentangle which components of language are evolved (wired in the brain) and which are cultural and learned.

Once concept I find interesting is that of embodied cognition. We use a lot of words to represent abstract ideas that are metaphors for physical relationships. A boss is “above” their employee, but not literally physically above them. Ideas can be “deep”, and arguments can be “strong” or “weak”. This makes some evolutionary sense. Things evolve generally from simpler but fully functional forms. They do not evolve directly to their modern complexity. The eye evolved from simpler forms, but ones that were fully functional for what they did.

Similarly it is likely language evolved from simpler vocal communication, but ones that functioned. What is especially interesting about language is that language also relates to cognition. The two may have evolved hand-in-hand. First we developed sounds for the concrete things in our world, then for features of those concrete things. At some point there was a cognitive breakthrough – the metaphor. This stone is rough and it hurts to rub it. Your behavior is also “rough” and “hurts”. What’s interesting to think about is which came first, the idea or the word. Or did they crystalize together? Likely there was some back and forth, with ideas pushing language forward, which in turn pushed ideas forward. Language and ideas slowly expanded together. This resulted in a cognitive explosion that separates us from all other animals on Earth.

The elements that lead to this explosion can be found in our ancestors. But only in humans did they all come together.

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Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has signs of an enormous ancient impact that would have redistributed its mass, changing its orientation in relation to Jupiter