Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Well, thanks to the geniuses at Microsoft who have still managed to create an operating system (i.e., XP) that any random Singaporean grade school student could completely disable with a simple VB script in an afternoon (not to mention knocking off a more secure and robust OS the next morning), we lost an entire post after a complete system crash (that don't occur anymore because, you know, XP is so much better). Please deluge Microsoft with emails requesting that they recreate said post for you.

Heck, maybe even ask a random Singaporean grade school student to write a quick VB script to co-opt thousands of Windows computers worldwide to forward said email. . . .

Picking up where we left off. .. . .

"Evolving to Eat Mush": How Meat Changed Our Bodies

Meat-eating has impacted the evolution of the human body, scientists reported today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Our fondness for a juicy steak triggered a number of adaptations over countless generations. For instance, our jaws have gotten smaller, and we have an improved ability to process cholesterol and fat.

Our taste for meat has also led us into some trouble—our teeth are too big for our downsized jaws and most of us need dental work.


Interesting article, although it doesn't really give any answers to the question of Why We Started Eating Meat. We find the whole chimps/gorillas analogy somewhat dubious, since it assumes modern chimps and gorillas are somehow suitable analogs for , say, Australopithecines and H. habili, but the genetic work sounds interesting.

And now for something completely different. . .

We here at ArchaeolBlog continue to scour the Web for anything of possible interest to our faithful readers. To wit, we were alerted to a new web site called Egyptomania.Org dedicated to "the fascination with ancient Egypt and its myriad manifestations". The site is still under construction, but we urge readers to go check it out and send along any suggestions to the site designers for content.

Also along those lines, we can also suggest Egiptomania.com for our Spanish-speaking denizen. Also of interest is Gavin's Egyptomania Pages with a LOT of cultural items with Egyptian influences from art to advertising (especially the Rameses underwear!) to 1920s cigarette cards.

Also check out George Mason University's American Egyptomania site.

We here at ArchaeoBlog are also quite fond of art deco stuff, which may or may not be a result of its roots in archaeology early in the last century. Explore this connection more at Jackie Craven's Art Deco pages at About.Com.