Beware of turtles’ career plans

Greetings.

Jewish date:  15 Ṭeveth 5770 (Parashath Wayḥi).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Day 7 of Kwanzaa.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Free passage in Shechem (The Shomron Liaison Office)”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat”:  Submitted by Barry.
  
• “What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us?” and “Human evolution appears to be associated with a trend toward greater intelligence. Is there a discernible trend toward greater intelligence in other species as well? And if cognitive ability confers an evolutionary advantage, why are humans (apparently) so unique in this trait?”:  There is a major question of how Homo sapiens evolved.  The first article discusses near-humans who lived 10,000 years ago in South Africa (Boskops) who had brains 125% the size of ours and may have tended to be smarter than us, too; their ultimate fate is unknown.  Be humble; just because we are the smartest creatures on the planet now does not mean we will automatically survive in the long-term.  The second article deals with increases in brain size in general over time.
  
• “What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2010?”:  Yes, copyright extension sucks.
  
• “Extinction Countdown: Genetic analysis reveals parasitic origin of contagious cancer devastating Tasmanian devils”:  I cannot make this up.  Why am I wondering if there are any human contagious cancers?…
  
• “Tweets, sexting "unfriended" in U.S. banned word list”

Today’s weird things are “All I’m saying is, going to” and “Teenage? Check. Mutant? Check.”




Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron