Sahelanthropus may be the earliest human ancestor that we know about, but it is mired in controversy. In the 1980s, French paleontologist Michel Brunet and his partner David Pilbeam were searching for hominin fossils in Cameroon, in deposits formed along an ancient shoreline when Lake Chad had been much larger than at present and was surrounded … Continue reading A Closer Look at: Sahelanthropus →

Today, the Vatican announced the death of Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church, at age 88. The pope’s death comes just one day after he addressed a crowd of thousands in St. Peter’s Square following Easter Sunday Mass.   “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home […]

Zaha Hadid died in 2016, at the age of 65. She certainly wasn’t old, by the standards of our time, though in most professions, her best working years would already have been behind her. She was, however, an architect, and by age 65, most architects are still very much in their prime. Take Rem Koolhaas, […]

As polls and asking LLMs didn’t give me much insight into which status markers are more adaptive, let me try to think the issue through myself.