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I don't quite understand the commotion about Henshilwood et al. Of course theirs is an impressive find, but quite similar pieces of art had already been found in the same cave and from the same period. So I do not see this artifact as spectacular as it's made out to be.
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In humans cultural evolution dominates biological to an unprecedented degree. But as Festa-Bianchet and Jesmer et al. demonstrate it is already present in other species. A closer look at its mechanisms and inner workings may help us better to understand our own evolution.
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There are quite a few people and objects I dislike to some degree or other but there is just one thing I truly hate and deeply despise: television. Christakis et al. provide me with one more convincing argument.
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In general I am and continue to be skeptical of large models with many parameters and about treating them as the equivalent of data. That does not make them a less valuable tool for the generation of hypotheses, though. The Sahara has long been discussed as the ideal site for placing renewable energy plants and if Li et al.'s prediction can be shown to be right, there will be other and possibly even more beneficial side effects.
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Ananthaswamy again reminds me of a so far unexplained conundrum. If the expansion of the universe started in a big bang and was subsequently slowed down by gravitational pull, then the current speed of expansion should be less than the average speed. Contrary to that the inverse of the Hubble constant exactly equals the accepted age of the universe. Of course we just might happen to live at exactly that singular point of time, when slowing down by gravitation (with or without dark matter) and acceleration by dark energy result in this precise speed. But wouldn't a constant speed yield the more sparse explanation? On top of that this outward speed from the centre just so happens exactly to match the speed of light using the older accepted value of 73 km/Mpc. Isn't that at least one coincidence too many for it not to come out of the correct theory and being purely accidental?
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A good hypothesis or theory has to make testable predictions beyond those observations leading to its formulation. That's the way of thinking I've grown up with and it makes philosophical speculation as in van Eyghen and Launonen quite difficult and hard to follow. The widespread and prevalent belief in supernatural beings can be seen either to point to their existence and reality or as an obvious fallacy, whose genesis is a relevant object for research. While I strongly tend towards the second point of view, van Eyghen and Launonen revive a now unfashionable pursuit. While not quite trying to prove God's existence, they do endeavour to debunk the current theories about the origins of belief. As far as I can tell, all their arguments seem to lead to some circularity or other.
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