Comments for Essay Web Blog

Comment on How to Cook Indian Style Lentils by Steven

Steven — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:35:05 +0000

Thanks! This is one of the best recipes I’ve found for Dal because it covers a lot of minor details that the others don’t. I’m cooking some Sag Dal as I type, so we’ll see how it tastes.

Comment on The Neanderthal Predation Theory by Gold

Gold — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:29:31 +0000

Interesting read and comp art.
However it’s highly unlikely Neanderthals looked liked those renderings, especially the eyes and nose.

Comment on The Neanderthal Predation Theory by Sagat

Sagat — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:48:33 +0000

Some of his suggestions are very interesting and some of his points about Neanderthal reconstructions are valid. There’s been a trend over the past few years to make Neanderthals look more and more human like, and specifically more European in appearance. Now we do have some evidence from their genome that suggests that they had pale skin and maybe reddish hair. This has led to reconstructions that make Neanderthals out to look like ugly Irishman. These types of biased interpretations fly in the face of basic evolutionary biology. Considering that Neanderthals and humans split from each other 500 thousand years ago and both groups faced divergent evolution in two very different geographic areas, it’s highly unlikely that Neanderthals looked simply like squat Europeans.

We don’t know when humans lost our body hair and we certainly don’t know when we acquired certain human traits that distinguish us from other apes, such as having the whites of our eyes visible. Many of these adaptations could’ve been very recent and given that Neanderthals were evolving in the frigid north for hundreds of thousands of years while we remained in tropical Africa, it’s more likely that our appearances where very different.

Now that they’ve sequenced the Neanderthal genome we can better compare our differences on the genetic level. The problem still remains in trying to figure out what different areas of our genome code for. If we find that humans carry a mutation for hairlessness that Neanderthals don’t, then we might decide that Neanderthals did in fact look like hairy beasts. We are still many years away from understanding our DNA and as we begin to unlock some of these mysteries, we’ll be able to understand what our last known closest relative may have looked like. And I doubt he was just an ugly Irishman.

Comment on The Neanderthal Predation Theory by What are the Implications of the Sequencing of the Neanderthal Genome? « The Amazing World of Psychiatry: A Psychiatry Blog

Sun, 16 May 2010 23:36:11 +0000

[...] Critique of Neanderthal predator theory. [...]

Comment on Australopithecus sediba – a new human ancestor? by fghzu

fghzu — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:05:02 +0000

ohhh shit to much infromation

Comment on Fixing the Start Menu in Windows 7 by Tanner Euell

Tanner Euell — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:48:07 +0000

Hey, i came across your page on yahoo and i think it’s awesome!

Comment on Changing the cache location in Chrome by JB

JB — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:07:06 +0000

The last method doesn’t work anymore with last releases of chromium or chrome beta.

I have an error when i use this method

Comment on 10,000 BC by Shirogin

Shirogin — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:59:49 +0000

Interesting post. I agree that the History Channel has degenerated mostly into fluff, though some of their productions (Modern Marvels) are still pretty good.

I found it funny that the Columbian mammoth was hairless in many of the scenes. Wonder if adding hair would have broken the CG budget.

It looks like this show was quickly thrown together to co-incide with public interest in the 10,000 BC movie.