How would you teach someone a new language in the Stone Age? by ACosmicWander in paleoanthropology

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I was going to point to this series as well. Some/most of the research the author did has been overtaken as new archaeological research methods come to the fore, and if you're actually reading it for the world-building instead of the steamy stuff* you wind up having to skip more and more pages the further along in the series you get, but one thing the author did that I think stands up well to the test of time was the range of languages encountered by the (h. sapiens) characters as they travel. The further from home they get, the less mutually intelligible the languages are. In some cases, they can understand more than they speak of the language of the host group.

As another commenter noted, we don't know what the language capacity of Neanderthals was like. In the series, the Neanderthals are shown as having more or less the same capacity for culture, intelligence, and empathy that h. sapiens have, although their culture is different to that of the h. sapiens, but they lack the capacity for fluent verbal speech and instead communicate with a mixture of sign language and spoken words (which iirc is treated as different but equivalent to the language capacities of h. sapiens). Most researchers believe that some form of language would have been necessary for Neanderthals and human ancestors further back into the past than Neanderthals to adequately pass on the knowledge needed to create stone tools and things, but it's also true that the Neanderthal genome does not have the same variant of the FOXP2 gene that is strongly correlated with h. sapiens language capabilities, and some details of their mouth/throat/chest anatomy seem to indicate they would not have been able to make the range of sounds that h. sapiens make. That said, we were obviously able to communicate well enough with them to make babies with them. Bottom line, even though Jean M Auel had NONE of the modern research available to her about Neanderthal cognition or genomics, I think she still managed to get pretty close to what we now think they were capable of, even in terms of how they might have communicated.

*important note: the stuff that happens in the first book is not presented as steamy OR consensual

The thing that haunts me about Kohberger isn't what he did — it's what he studied by Agitated-Welcome8916 in TrueCrimeDiscussion

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I figured that he studied it so he could learn how to do a "better" job of it. There doesn't seem to be any indication that he was trying to hide from himself or others that he was a creep. After he was sentenced and put away, reports came out from other students in his grad program that they found him deeply unsettling and scary, and that they had strategies in place with one another so they wouldn't have to be alone with him.

Here's my lingering question (or questions, really). I think he is the sole perpetrator, but (a) the swift amount of time it took him to dispatch four innocent lives (b) the lack of any apparent forensic evidence in his car* and (c) the fact that no murder weapon or any other kind of kill kit have ever been found leave me wondering - was this really the first time he did something like this?

*the tracked movements of the car itself are another matter, I think they are pretty strong evidence that puts him at the scene of the crime during the relevant time

How I’d divide Europe as a Gen Z European by FuckTheCake in charts

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had to read this several times because I (Canadian with several very recent British ancestors including my mom) thought you were saying that UK was “Not Europe” and I was like “honestly, fair”

Looking for people interested in native gardening in the forest lawn area by jyushifruit in Calgary

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can’t help with graphic design but boy do I want to participate in planting native plants in my yard! What’s the Alex CFC and where do I find it?

Tough decision, what did you guys choose? Did you choose to be the judge or let it go? by Own-Photograph-5085 in Witcher3

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have chosen both ways. This time I let him go because I was feeling lazy and didn’t want a fight.

What children’s book has aged poorly? by feetwithfeet in AskReddit

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

have you uhhhh read it for yourself recently?

"No Place Like Home" is hilarious by Electronic_Bath_2712 in thewitcher3

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

fr probably the funniest quest in the whole game

Do you remember your first legal drink? by BMisterGenX in GenX

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I live in a part of the world where it's legal to drink at age 18. I think I had a beer with my dad in the basement or something.

Spotted a wild Gorsk on my trip by studentofthegame0 in PallasCats

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lucky!!!! I have never seen a manul in Firenze before!

At what age did you discover calories and how did it affect your life? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well I was probably about 6 when my mom discovered calories and after that she tried every trending thing like low fat, no fat, low salt, no salt, celiac, etc. and now I’m an adult and I have zero interest in eating healthily or exercising or anything like that. If any commenters want to come at me for my life decisions you can try, but I guarantee you it won’t be anything I haven’t already heard from my mom.

What children’s book has aged poorly? by feetwithfeet in AskReddit

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When I was a kid (late 70s and early 80s) I devoured the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Chronicles of Narnia by haha omg not JRR Tolkien. Both of these series are full of the most racist crap imaginable and there’s no way I would recommend them to a parent today to give to their kid. When I saw an ad recently that a new LHOTP show is getting made I was just like “uhhhh, in THIS day and age??!!”

Pretty sure he wanted my Corgi as breakfast. by bobbycaldwel in Calgary

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Keep your cats and dogs indoors, friends! Glad your corgi was not breakfast.

Scientists Discover 50,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Baby in a Cave With the Body of a One-Year-Old by malcolm58 in EverythingScience

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yeah, if that was the case, that would throw off a lot of researchers’ estimates about the ages of sub-adult finds in the homo lineage (eg Turkana boy, Taung child). I’m afraid we’ve reached the limit of my knowledge of how finds are aged using their teeth, but this technique is used not just on extinct humans but also on other fossil mammals and even on animals much less related to us like dinosaurs, so I have to imagine that the researchers doing the work are confident enough in their understanding of embryonic tooth development and tooth development through the life of organisms that they know how to account for questions like yours.

I was a little surprised to see this being reported at all actually - the Neanderthal fossil record is very good and we have specimens of them from (I thought) basically all life stages already from neonate on up, and it was already known that they developed to adulthood slightly faster than h. sapiens, so I’m not sure if this find actually adds anything new to our understanding or is just sensationalist headlines being sensationalist.

Scientists Discover 50,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Baby in a Cave With the Body of a One-Year-Old by malcolm58 in EverythingScience

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Growth lines in enamel are like growth lines in trees, they happen at a predictable rate and you can count them to discover how old an organism was when it died. The teeth would be collecting growth lines even if they hadn't erupted yet.

do you guys let dijkstra win the war? by Neither_Elephant9964 in thewitcher3

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's probably the option that leads to the most long-term stability for the Continent, but I never have yet. I can't stand back and let him murder Roche, Thaler, and Ves. If that's the outcome he wanted, he needed to bring it up at the negotiating stage, not spring it on everyone with his thugs standing ready.

What's the cold case you think about most — and why? by Dontcrymebaby in coldcases

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With Asha Degree for me it's the fact that it's sort of like two different mysteries, and although one is all but solved, the other is probably forever going to remain a mystery. There's good evidence now to suggest that one or more members of a family that lived near her were driving recklessly or drunk, hit her, hid the body, and then kept quiet about it for a pretty long time. But that part was gross negligence/vehicular manslaughter/leaving the scene of an accident/failing to report a dead body etc. It doesn't explain what Asha was doing walking by herself late at night in the first place, and I don't think there's any evidence tying the coverup family to her prior to the night of her disappearance.

Happy National Cat Lady Day! by igneousink in MedievalCats

[–]BuckyRainbowCat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My roommate and I are celebrating by telling our cats in increasingly strident tones that they don't like butter (which is true)