Daily Archives: June 15, 2017

Remember the movie Quest For Fire?

It's an iconic Hollywood moment: Ancient humans discover how to make fire. It happens pretty quickly, and there's a chase scene starring a saber-toothed tiger to heighten the suspense.

Off the big screen, though, evolutionary changes, including cognitive-behavioral changes that would underpin our species' control of fire, often happen in fits and starts over lengthy periods.

In papers just published in a supplement to the journal Current Anthropology devoted to human evolution and fire, we see just how lengthy that process may have been.

In his contribution, "Identifying and describing pattern and process in the evolution of hominin use of fire," Dennis Sandgathe of Simon Fraser University notes that it's quite challenging to distinguish between the archaeological signature of fire use by our early ancestors and that of naturally-occurring fires:

"The probability seems vanishingly small that the location of any open-air Early Stone Age-Lower Paleolithic site would not have natural fires pass over it at least once (and probably many times) in the period of time since its deposition. If the site is not too deeply buried, artifacts and bones can be altered by the heat of a passing natural fire, and charcoal and ash from natural fires can be introduced into the site sequence."

In other words, what looks like evidence for human use of fire may actual be evidence of a natural process.

Sandgathe continues:

"Even in cases where it seems very clear that the fires were the result of hominin behavior, there still remains the possibility that they acquired the fire from natural sources and did not create it themselves. This possibility seems to be consistently overlooked, underappreciated, or simply dismissed out of hand."

While acknowledging the possibility that the site of Gesher Benot Ya'akov in Israel indicates the first repeated fire use by our ancestors at around 800,000 years ago, Sandgathe concludes that "the earliest unquestionable examples" of continuous, long-term fire use come later, between 350,000 and 200,000 at the cave sites of Hayonim, Qesem, and Tabun, also in Israel. There, hearths and burned lithics occur in such abundance as to reasonably preclude other explanations. Sandgathe notes, however, that "continuous" doesn't necessarily mean "habitual," that is, "there may still be decades, centuries, or in some cases even millennia between fire-use events."

We can, Sandgathe says, take the date of 400,000 years ago as a kind of milestone in our ancestors' use of fire. But even then, fire use wasn't anything like a key behavioral adaptation for a long while, as he explained to me via email:

"The current evidence does suggest that, while there may have been rare, isolated fire-use events prior to 400,000 years ago, no hominins were regularly using fire prior to this and, in fact, it seems pretty clear from my (and colleague's) research that at least some Neanderthal populations in Europe were not regularly using fire as recently as 50,000 years ago and perhaps even later...[Fire use] continued to be intermittent, opportunistic, involve the exploitation of natural fire sources, and was not an integral part of any hominin adaptations until sometime after 50,000 years ago."

A non-human primate model may help us understand the evolution of fire behavior, too. Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University and Nicole Herzog of the University of Utah in their paper Savanna Chimpanzees at Fongoli, Senegal, Navigate a Fire Landscape explain why Fongoli is an unusual site for wild chimpanzees: There, in a savanna-woodland setting with environmental pressures quite similar to those our early ancestors may have faced, chimpanzees encounter wildfires quite regularly, some extensive in size. This situation sets the Fongoli chimpanzees apart from all other habituated chimpanzees who live in forested environments where fire is rare.

The Fongoli fires are mostly anthropogenic, set by people in order to clear land for cultivation or to make hunting, or even just walking through the grassland, easier. But those fires impact the chimpanzees' daily lives, too.

The data collection that Pruetz and Herzog carried out shows, first, that the Fongoli chimpanzees spent more time foraging and traveling in burned areas compared to unburned areas. That's smart thinking on the apes' part, because it's an efficient use of their energy. Second, the primatologists conclude that the apes "can accurately predict the leading edges of fire and assess other aspects of fire behavior" such that they seem to be quite unconcerned with smoldering fires or even early flaming fires, but avoid more serious fires.

Pruetz, via Messenger app, described for me a memorable experience she had a few years ago at Fongoli that highlights chimpanzees' fire knowledge:

"I almost violated my own rule of 'follow the chimps' when we're in close proximity to a wildfire. The three adult males I was following first skirted the fire but then watched it for some minutes and went down into the ravine it was moving through. I thought we'd all be burned up and almost turned around but found that they'd crossed a spot in the ravine where there was still some green vegetation at the bottom, and the fire died out there and moved around while we quickly crossed. Note to self: Don't doubt the chimps!"

Writing in Current Anthropology, Pruetz and Herzog conclude that the chimpanzees "appear strategically to use burned landscapes and exhibit cognitive abilities necessary for interacting with wildfires, which tentatively provides support for the early fire-use theory."

Here we have a key insight about our own past: In the periods before the confirmed, repeated fire use that Sandgathe pinpoints, our ancestors may very well have understood fire and incorporated the effects of fire into their normal routines in intelligent ways. The process of fire manufacture and control would then have evolved quite gradually.

Sandgathe himself concludes something that aligns beautifully with the primatologists' perspective. He writes in Current Anthropology:

"In some regions (and time periods) high frequencies of natural fires may have provided some hominin groups with constant, reliable access to fire, limiting any pressure to develop fire-maintenance techniques or fire-manufacture technologies."

Not as sexy, perhaps, as Quest For Fire but good solid science.

As the headline to a recent post of mine here suggests, new evidence in human evolution is being announced at a "dizzying" rate. Just last week the news broke that, based on fossil finds from Morocco, our species Homo sapiens may be over 100,000 years older than we thought.

Often though, the slow-and-steady, behind-the-headlines work such as that discussed in the Current Anthropology issue on fire is where advances in paleoanthropology come.

Barbara J. King is an anthropology professor emerita at the College of William and Mary. She often writes about the cognition, emotion and welfare of animals, and about biological anthropology, human evolution and gender issues. Barbara's new book is Personalities on the Plate: The Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat. You can keep up with what she is thinking on Twitter: @bjkingape

Excerpt from:

What Are Our Best Clues To The Evolution Of Fire-Making? - NPR

Angry Birds Evolution, out today on iOS and Android, is a flick-and-spin style mobile game in which players collect and evolve characters like Dolores, the avian doctor with a penchant for vicious rectal exams.

Something is causing the pigs to flock to Bird Island in droves, and its up to the player to form teams of collectible characters and flick the pigs back to whatever bacon-scented hell they hail from.

Like most non-core Angry Birds games, Evolution is a licensed take on a different popular mobile genre. In this case, its those games where you launch characters Beyblade-style into an arena, bouncing off enemies to do damage.

Players collect and evolve bird characters as they play. Each falls into a color categoryred, yellow, blue, black, white and suchand each category has its own special ability that activates during play. Black birds can become targeted bombs. White birds pass through enemies in a straight line, damaging all.

Its a solid entry in the mobile sub-genre. The game plays well, and theres plenty of strategy and angling involved in taking out the various pigs players are pitted against.

The action is fine, but the tone is a bit off. The Angry Birds franchise is popular with kids. Hell, were just coming off a major animated motion picture. The humor here is definitely adult-leaning. Look at Wade here.

Maybe its just me, and that bird is not talking about his penis. And hey, everybody gets rectal exams, right?

For the most part the new characters created for the game are culled from various pop culture sources, and theyre mostly harmless.

Adult humor aside, Angry Birds Evolution is a nifty little game so far, especially if youre into slamming things against other things and collecting characters. Just known that you might have to explain some grown-up words to your kids should they get their hands on it.

Read the original here:

Angry Birds Evolution Takes The Birds Vs. Pigs Battle To A Weird Place - Kotaku

Like so many post-MTV pop stars who elevate image cultivation to a discrete art form, Lana Del Rey is at her best in music videos. While her songwriting recipe hasnt changed much over the years (sad girls + Americana + string sections + quotes from other famous songs), her artistry has slowly revealed itself in a series of promo clips and short films that registered the evolution of what once appeared to be an absurdly thin persona. Were no closer to knowing the real Lizzy Grant than we were almost six years ago, when Video Games premiered, but the 25 videos she's released since achieving fame as Lana Del Rey have endowed her alter ego with more depth than once seemed possible.

Now, shes preparing to release her fourth album, Lust for Life, next month. Naturally, she's pushing her aesthetic forward with a few new videos, so it seemed time to have a look back at the LDR persona on film.

Most of us got our first glimpse of Lana Del Rey in this self-directed video, which juxtaposes pouty closeups of the singer with nostalgic shots of Hollywood landmarks, American flags, mid-century home movies, and black-and-white footage of skater boys. At first glance, Video Games seems shoddily constructed and a touch juvenile, like a Pinterest board collecting all the images Del Rey hoped to incorporate into her nascent persona. Even her smartest critics found her campy in an unintentional, trying-too-hard way at first.

But if you look closely enough at Video Games, youll see that Del Rey has always been cannier than she let on. Mixed in with all that Instagram-friendly imagery of pretty Lana and idyllic California is a clip of the deeply intoxicated actress Paz de la Huerta falling over in a beaded gown, as paparazzi halfheartedly mumble You OK? and keep snapping photos. Considering were looking at de la Huertaa minor actress whose drunken antics had already made her a cultural punchline by 2011rather than, say, Marilyn Monroe, this isnt a vision of glamorous dissipation. Like the lyric Its you, its you, its all for you repeated in a listless monotone, the de la Huerta nod suggests that even a pre-fame Lana Del Rey understood Hollywood to be just as cruel and humiliating as it is alluring.

Del Rey used to bill herself as a gangster Nancy Sinatra, a phrase that evoked some combination of big hair, vintage dresses, and the frisson of danger inherent in depictions of organized crime, from Scarface to American Gangster. She played that persona to the hilt in her first big-budget video, for the title track of her debut album, Born to Die. Shot at Frances Palace of Fontainebleau and directed by Yoann Lemoine (who recently made Harry Styles fly in Sign of the Times), it intersperses shots of Del Rey on a throne, flanked by tigers, with flashbacks to a date with a tattoo-covered boyfriend that turns deadly. Shes in the afterlife now, is the eventual implication, a martyr to romance in a flowing white dress and flower crown.

The two halves of the video reflect the two simplistic extremes of the Lana Del Rey archetype: the virginal Coachella queen and the sexy bad girl in denim cutoffs and Converse. Its narrative, meanwhile, captures everything that is romantic and clever and problematic about her at once. From a feminist perspective (which supposedly doesnt interest Lana much in comparison with, you know, SpaceX and Tesla), the story of an abused woman who is rewarded for her suffering with a place in heaven is noxious to the core. And yet, the affectlessness with which Del Rey plays her character, especially in those scenes from beyond the grave, can also read as an acknowledgment that the myth shes rehashing in Born to Die is essentially hollow.

The most heated arguments about Lana Del Rey tend to revolve around one question: Is she playing to male fantasies (and female fantasies shaped by patriarchal visions of ideal womanhood), or is she mirroring them in ways that are actually supposed to be disconcerting? She digs her heels into that thin line in the ten-minute short film for Ride, from her Paradise EP. Directed by the frequent Rihanna, Drake, and Taylor Swift collaborator Anthony Mandler and scripted by Del Rey, it pairs the songs lonely-drifter lyrics with classic symbols and characters of the American road: bikers, hookers, seedy motels, an unfortunate and perhaps intentionally outrage-baiting feathered headdress, convenience stores where you buy a 20 oz. of orange soda and drink it against a wall as you inhale gasoline fumes.

In the end credits, Del Rey labels her character in the film an artist. Its a bold title to bestow upon a woman who, as far as we can glean from both the visuals and the monologues that bookend the song, seems to have left a middling music career for life on the road as a prostitute and biker chick. It takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is, she intones before the music starts playing. Again, her relationship to fame is unhinged: How bleak is the entertainment industry when a transient life of rest stops and rough-looking johns is preferable? Judging by how sad Del Rey looks in the scenes where shes singing onstage, the difference between performing and turning tricks is that at least the latter makes you an active participant, rather than a pretty face to be worshipedor perhaps more aptly for LDR, criticizedfrom afar.

More than anything else, Lizzy Grants Lana Del Rey project is a long, slow meditation on the archetypes America holds dear. Some of the most prominent onescowboys, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Jesus, Del Reys own Virgin Mary figureappear in the opening moments of her most ambitious video project, Tropico. From there, she and model/actor Shaun Ross play Eve and Adam, getting down in a pink-hued Garden of Eden. Set to Del Reys Whitman-quoting Body Electric, the first of three Paradise tracks that appear in the 27-minute film, its a sequence that subtly draws out the parallels between all of these gendered ideals.

But its the final two sections of the Tropico triptych, another Del Rey-Mandler collaboration, that really bring her worldview into focus. Amid her readings of I Sing the Body Electric and Allen Ginsbergs Howl, she and Ross reappear as a modern L.A. couple embodying exaggerated visions of contemporary masculinity and femininityhes a gangster and shes a stripper (who, it must be acknowledged, is coded as Latina in a way that is just as uncomfortable as the headdress from Ride). They regain the bliss they experienced in Eden by abandoning society and heading for the hills, where they dance in golden fields straight out of a Terrence Malick movie. The visuals are sappy, but they also seem like clues that Del Rey isnt really celebrating the characters she inhabits in Ride and Born to Die. They have to escape from the ancient archetypes that shaped and trapped them before they can be free.

Compared with the ambitious short films that accompanied Paradise, the music videos Del Rey made to accompany her second album, Ultraviolence, seem almost slight. By then shed had time to process her polarizing effect on music fans, so what makes Italian director Francesco Carrozzinis iPhone-shot clip for the records title track worth revisiting is the way it incorporates the audience.

Dressed as a bride, Del Rey wanders a garden path. Theres someone with her, but the only glimpse we get of him is a pair of male hands that feed her cake and stick their fingers in her mouth. The camera follows her, in a point-of-view shot, as she enters an empty church and proceeds to the altar. In the videos final seconds, she turns around to look nervously into the lens. This is a lonely, uneasy wedding, and it forces the viewer into the role of the unseen groom. While her early videos were about communicating Del Reys aesthetic and philosophy, Ultraviolence confronts us with the desires and prejudices that we project on herand on beautiful women in general.

The real Lizzy Grant was born and raised in New York, but Lana Del Rey is a California girl. While her debut riffed on 50s Hollywood glamour, her third album, Honeymoon, embraced the iconography (but not really the sound) of the Golden States psychedelic 60s counterculture. No matter what you think of Father John Misty, theres no denying that he and Del Rey make perfect co-cult leaders in Freak, which she also directed. The video surrounds the pair with a bevy of white-clad women as they take hits of acid and suck down Kool-Aid in a none-too-subtle nod to Jonestown.

Del Rey always has occupied a strange space between the musical mainstream and the indie worldshes less a classic crossover success than a pop artist who uses the signifiers of the underground to lure in savvier listeners (or, more cynically, to brand herself). In that sense, enlisting Misty and scattering her album with drug references might read as a predictable play for authenticity, but theres a bit more than that going on in Freak. Its not clear whether she, FJM, and their followers are tripping or dead in the second half of the 11-minute clip, as the soundtrack switches to Debussys Claire de Lune and they all float blissfully underwater. In true Lana style, the line between fantasy and tragedy isnt blurred so much as nonexistent.

Early in her career, many wondered whether Lana Del Rey was kidding. As became clear with the 2014 release of Ultraviolence cut Brooklyn Baby (sample lyrics: Well, my boyfriend's in the band/He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed/I've got feathers in my hair/I get down to Beat poetry), the better question wouldve been: Is Lana trolling? The rollout for her fourth album, Lust for Life, has felt especially mischievous, from a title lifted wholesale from Iggy Pops greatest solo record to Coachella Woodstock in My Minda single whose title is actually embarrassing to say out loud.

Although shes already released videos for the title track and Love, the most distinctive imagery associated with Lust for Life appears in the trailer. Del Rey has probably always been more self-aware than shes given credit for, but this preview, directed by Clark Jackson, finds her actually having fun with her odd, aloof starlet image. In a black-and-white clip embellished with eerie, sci-fi sound effects, shes a witchy figure living in a secret apartment inside the H of the Hollywood sign, delivering a sort of meta-monologue on her own creative process that makes elliptical reference to our sad current political reality: When Im in the middle of making a record, especially now, when the world is in the middle of such a tumultuous period, I find I really need to take the space for myself far away from real life, to consider what my contribution to the world should be in these dark times.

Theres a throughline of dark SoCal iconography connecting this Lana with the one we met in Video Games, who looked as if she were nervously auditioning to be an Urban Outfitters model. Regardless of whether that, too, was an act (and it probably was), now that shes established her aesthetic and fan base, the Lust for Life trailer doesnt do anything that could be construed as pandering. Instead of promoting the Lana Del Rey persona, it capitalizes on the humor inherent in this constructed identityand doesnt seem to mind losing anyone who doesnt get the joke. Whether you buy into it or not, Del Reys schtick is so simultaneously simple yet totally immersive that its always threatening to exhaust itself. Four albums into her career, going all-in on self-awareness may be the best choice she couldve possibly made to ensure her longevity.

See more here:

The Evolution of the Lana Del Rey Persona in 7 Videos - Pitchfork

The Microsoft Surface Pro has undeniably carved out a new segment in the PC space. But what was once a powerful, but heavy, thick, and unwieldly tablet when it was first launched, has become a thin, light, and even more powerful tablet in the following years. It was really the launch of the Surface Pro 3 that finally changed Microsofts fortunes in the hardware game. This was the first Surface Pro that was able to bring the weight and thickness into check, and the 3:2 aspect ratio screen was a revelation in this product category where 16:9 or 16:10 displays were really all that was offered in the Windows world.

In October 2015, Microsoft launched the refreshed Surface Pro 4 which was a bigger improvement than you would have guessed. The overall dimensions and look of the tablet were similar to the Pro 3, but the display was a big step forward, offering 267 pixels per inch, and outstanding color reproduction. The new keyboard launched with the Surface Pro 4 was really one of the biggest highlights though, offering an edge to edge keyboard with island keys, and a far more useable trackpad as well.

Now approaching the summer of 2017, its been a while since the Surface Pro 4 launched, but its successor has finally come to market: the Microsoft Surface Pro (2017). Yes, Microsoft has dropped the numbering system and this is probably the the most appropriate time to do it, I feel but far more important than whatever name Microsoft picks is the hardware. Although on the outside it may seem to be a small refresh, Microsoft has over 800 new custom parts inside, improving their flagship 2-in-1 device in several key areas.

The Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book were the first devices launched with Intels Skylake-U series processors, and Microsoft had to work overtime to sort out some power management issues with the then-new Skylake platform and Modern Standby. So its perhaps not that surprising to see them sit out the initial launch of Kaby Lake until they could ensure they had all the bugs worked out.

But with the launch of the Surface Pro this year, theyve now moved onto the latest Intel CPUs, which offer both improved performance and thermals. Microsoft has not made any other dramatic changes for processing though, and the Surface Pro keeps the same CPU lineup as the outgoing model, but with 7th generation replacing 6th generation. That means there is a Core m3-7Y30 4.5 W CPU in the base model, a Core i5-7300U in the mid-range, and a Core i7-7660U in the top end. However Microsoft has also extended the passive cooling configuration to the Core i5 as well. This change comes thanks to some important improvements in the cooling system, which well take a look at in a bit.

Intel Core i5-7300U (2C/4T, 2.6-3.5GHz, 3MB L3, 14nm, 15w)

Intel Core i7-7660U (2C/4T, 2.5-4.0GHz, 4MB L3, 14nm, 15w)

The new Surface Pro is certainly evolution rather than revolution, but considering the success Microsoft has seen with the Pro, its hard to argue with the company's choice. In fact, despite the older generation CPU, it wouldn't be a stretch to state that the Surface Pro 4 wasstill the top of its category, with the best display, good battery life, and great performance. The new Surface Pro makes more subtle improvements, keeping many of the successful attributes of the outgoing model.

One of the features that many will be happy to see is that Microsoft will finally be offering a 4G LTE model as well, although it wont be available for a couple of months. Its one of the requests theyve had from many of their customers, so its great to see it as an option.

Accessories have been one of Microsofts strongest suits, especially with the keyboard and pen that launched with the Surface Pro 4. Both the keyboard and pen have seen continuous improvement, and once again, Microsoft has released new versions as well. The flip side to that however is that the one accessory that was included with previous Surface Pros, the Surface Pen, is no longer included. This is a process that started with the Surface Pro 4 where Microsoft introduced some mid-cycle SKUs that dropped the pen for a lower cost and has now been extended to the entire lineup.

Overall it's tough to make massive changes when you already have one of the most successful products in a category, but well dig into the changes that are here and see how the latest Surface Pro stacks up both against the competition, as well as the outgoing model.

Follow this link:

The Microsoft Surface Pro (2017) Review: Evolution - AnandTech