The Scientific American has an intriguing article about the origin of cats, when they first arrived at the human hearth, and why they show such a small amount of genetic diversity.
Without windows and doors, early humans were unable to keep their domestic cats from interbreeding as they chose. And in so doing, the cat was [...]

Straight from a Crooked Timber comment: the horror show that is the British economy, with wit and clarity.
John Lanchester.
And the equivalent piece on the Australian economy is…. where?
(blatant copyright theft here: the image comes from a lovely photostream of The Labours of the Months, a fresco cycle in the Swiss village of Ronco [...]

The Chagossians are one of those multicultural communities that accrete from enterprising survivors of colonial labour, which swept up indigenous people, convicts, slaves, traders, travellers, pirates, fugitives and mercenaries. They have a romantic story, since they ended up in a remote paradise – the Chagos Islands, ribs of land between lagoon and sea which barely [...]

Here is a technology problem. I have been using a Palm Tungsten, bluetoothed to a 3G Nokia, to run my work phone stuff. All hotsynched to my computer, where I use the Palm desktop to track my contacts. A bit clumsy, because the Palm stylus system tends to be iffy as my little friend ages. [...]

(click on image for better version)
Now that Howard’s cultural agenda no longer has the force of government, what is happening to Anzac Day? The government broadcasters take some trouble over it – SBS ran Paper Dolls: Australian Pin-ups of World War 2 on the eve of the day at 7.30 for maximum family impact. Written [...]

The view from Elsewhere is in town this weekend too. Anybody want to do something around the city or South Melbourne or Dantes or so, on Friday night?
Some will have to be a touch genteel because they are having a heavy weekend.

Posted on Flickr by Adam Baker, late 2008; a timelapse of Big Bend National Park in Texas
I love tents. I’ve had many nights beside a track, cosily inside a fabric cocoon with a torch and book, as the wind moaned outside and the ache slowly left my pummelled feet.
I’ve had my food stolen by [...]

Let us enter a parallel universe for a moment. Imagine a place, call it Privutopia, in which the judges are elected.
Consider the possibility that a batch of elected judges are greedy, lying shits with the morals of tapeworms. Now let one of the judges control Privutopia’s prison budget, and imagine that he has many [...]

Here is an interesting photo-moment. I found another image of that landing on Brunei in the photo below. If you look closely at it, you will discover a dark object at the extreme right of frame. What do you think it is?

The Scientific American is not given to hysteria, though it has taken up a more crusading edge as the mainstream media fail so spectacularly to understand some important stories.
So when this lede turns up, I am gripped, then floored, then reduced to rage.
Over the past 12 years, anesthesiologist Scott Reuben revolutionized the way [...]