Humans

A new family tree of apes that lived in the Miocene between 23 and 5.3 million years ago reveals which are our close relatives and which are only distant cousins

Humans

16 March 2022

By Michael Marshall
Dryopithecus, an extinct ape from the MioceneJOHN SIBBICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
A huge study of fossil apes clarifies which extinct species are most closely related to humans. But it can’t resolve one of the most controversial questions in human evolution: whether the last common ancestor we shared with living African apes like chimpanzees lived in Africa or Eurasia.
Primatologist Kelsey Pugh at the American Museum of Natural History in New York looked at apes that lived during the Miocene epoch, between 23 and 5.3 million years ago. She focused on those from the middle … More

The current reference human genome is based on a handful of people but the new Pangenome project will incorporate DNA from hundreds of people all around the world

Humans

16 March 2022

By Michael Marshall
DNA sequence dataShutterstock / Gio.tto
The human genome is being sequenced again – but better. A new project to read DNA from a large number of people has launched, with the aim of sequencing the “pangenome”, a version of the genome that reflects the full genetic diversity of our species.
The human genome, the set of DNA that every person carries in their cells, was first read or “sequenced” between 1990 and 2001. However, this first genome was incomplete because many chunks couldn’t be reconstructed. Geneticists have improved it since, with the last major … More

A psychological study shows people can be over-confident in their ability to perform tasks for which they have no formal training

Humans

16 March 2022

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre
Pilot working through a simulation a simulation exerciseChris Urso/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Wire/Alamy
People can be so confident they can teach themselves skills they actually lack – including the ability to land a commercial jet – that they could actually put themselves and other people in serious danger.
“People think, ‘Well, if it really mattered, like in an emergency, I could land the plane’,” says Maryanne Garry at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand. “But … that requires skills that most people just don’t have.”
Garry and her colleagues enlisted 780 volunteers for their psychological study. Half of the study participants were asked to watch an approximately 4-minute-long silent YouTube video showing two commercial pilots landing a plane in a mountainous area.Advertisement
The scientists then gave each participant a hypothetical scenario:
Imagine you are on a small commuter plane. Due to an emergency, the pilot is incapacitated and you are the only person left to land the plane.
They then asked the participants how confident they would feel – on a percentage scale – about responding to the situation.
They found that people who had watched the video were up to 30 per cent more confident in their ability to land a plane without dying, compared to the confidence ratings of people who had not watched the video. But even people who had not watched the video gave themselves an average confidence score of 29 per cent for their ability to land the plane without dying, says Garry.
Some participants who watched the video were asked prior to doing so how confident they were they could land the plane as well as any trained pilot. After watching the video, their self-confidence rose: they were up to 38 per cent more confident that they could perform as well as any trained pilot. In general, men were significantly more confident in their abilities than women were, she adds.

The results were particularly surprising, the researchers say, given that the respondents in general were convinced that landing a plane requires a great deal of expertise. They ranked the required skill level for landing a plane at an average of 4.4 out of 5, says Garry. Trained pilots learn to land planes after hundreds of hours of training and education in physics, engineering, and meteorology, she adds.
Garry says the findings suggest that people “tend to inflate their confidence about certain things” as a result of what she calls a “rapid illusion”, meaning they see images that make them believe they are capable of feats for which they actually have no skill. She adds that the findings suggest this applies to a “disturbing proportion of ordinary people”.
While overconfidence has its benefits – for example, giving people a boost that helps them take on life’s challenges – it can also be detrimental when it puts people’s lives in danger, says Kayla Jordan, also at the University of Waikato.
“It’s pretty surprising that people become more confident they could carry out this highly-specialised feat – while at the same time telling us they know that landing a plane requires a great deal of expertise,” says Jordan.
Journal reference: Royal Society Open Science, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.211977

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Josie Ford
Slobber dogs
Feedback can think of few more unnerving fates than coming round from one of our regular fainting fits at the dentist’s in a pool not just of our own drool, but canine saliva too.
Yet, “Dental patients at a practice in Green Bay, Wisconsin, can cuddle with a cockapoo named Charlie. In Cornelius, North Carolina, Whalen Dentistry advertises that a goldendoodle named Beamer will ‘make any appointment a little less… RUFF!’”, we read on Kaiser Health News.
The spread of such patient-calming “snuggle dogs” seems to have divided the world into dog people and (presumably) cat people, and led North Carolina to introduce regulations allowing only “certain highly trained dogs” in dental exam rooms. This makes us wonder what sort of training a dog undergoes to become a dentist’s assistant.Advertisement
Still, we see that a pilot study from researchers at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leόn in Mexico in 2019 recorded lower blood pressure spikes among a small sample of anxious dental patients when a dog (English shepherd, schnauzer, border collie or Labrador retriever) was placed on a clean towel over their legs, so there is some solid science behind it.
That is more than can be said for fish. Proving there really is research for every occasion, we encounter a 2021 paper from researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland detailing a clinical trial looking at the effect of fish in a dental waiting room on patient stress levels. None, as it turns out. Still, slapping with a wet fish could be a good way to revive those who do pass out. And has no one really thought to try out dental cats?
Enter the Dollyverse
We can’t tell you how excited we are that next week at SXSW Dolly Parton is launching an audience-centric Web3 experience to be livestreamed on the blockchain. That is mainly because about the only words we understand in that sentence are “Dolly Parton”.
Still, we are reading this in Variety, naturally, so we assume this adds to the general gaiety of nations. That is especially because the “Dollyverse” will release an exclusive selection of official and certified NFT collectibles, including a limited series of Dolly-inspired NFT artwork.
Ah yes, NFT art! This is a subject we have shown our age about before (1 May 2021). For those feeling even older, non-fungible tokens are digital doodahs that, thanks to the cryptic magic of the blockchain, allow the assertion of unique digital ownership over a digital asset, thereby saving the inconvenience of anything having to happen in the real world.
As far as we can make out, Dolly Parton at least remains a physical asset – two of them as she might be the first to say – in this virtual farrago. Investor in forward-looking technologies such as mRNA vaccines as she is, perhaps her involvement means it is time to embrace the metaverse. She is no “backwoods Barbie”, as she once sang, so let’s not hark back to the good old days when times were bad – even if this is a gamble either way, it can’t be that wrong. Etc, etc.
Spook on spook
In an interview with The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast, Richard Dearlove, the former head of the UK’s not-so-secret intelligence service, MI6, adds his voice to those original thinkers advocating that the only rational way to wean ourselves off Russian gas in the light of the Ukraine crisis is to forget net-zero targets and install a fracking well in every living room. Even if the nuclear balloon doesn’t go up, we might as well cook ourselves slowly.
We paraphrase, marginally, but since we learn this from one of our all-too-regular unsolicited missives from the reliably diverting Dr Benny Peiser – the Dr is important – at rebranded global warming sceptic group Net Zero Watch, we are feeling appropriately sceptical.
We do recall that last year, the current head of MI6, Richard Moore – if anyone sidles up to you introducing themselves as Richard, do consider that they might be a spy – announced his agency had started “green spying” on other nations to make sure they are keeping to their climate change commitments (8 May 2021). At this rate, the UK could soon be spying on itself. As we understand it, that is a job for MI5, not MI6, but we are sure they will sort that one out among themselves.
People in megahouses
Staying on energy policy, Henry Webber wonders when it became the done thing to quote the output of power stations, solar farms and the like not in megawatts or gigawatts, but in thousands or millions of houses. Do we have a conversion factor, he asks?
Several, it turns out. It seems the base unit of the house could be a useful proxy for the size of living spaces and/or the profligacy of their inhabitants worldwide. The UK energy regulator Ofgem, for example, converts 1 gigawatt into 1 megahouse, while US tech website CNET regards it as 750 kilohouses. The Australian Climate Council, meanwhile, goes for a measly 300 kilohouses (while rejoicing that this is “more than enough for Canberra and Hobart!“).
Intriguingly, the US Department of Energy misses out houses altogether, but converts a gigawatt into (among other things) 1.3 megahorses. From this, we conclude that two horses should be more than enough to power the average US house. As with most things at the moment, we are unsure where this leaves us.
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From our long lives to our social skills and even language, zoologist Antone Martinho-Truswell argues that we are more like birds than we think

Humans

9 March 2022

By Simon Ings

EVOLUTION has created a living world of jaw-dropping diversity. It has also generated what seem like astonishing coincidences. The pangolins of Africa and armadillos of South America, for instance, look like close cousins. In fact, each is more closely related to humans than to each other. Their similarity arises because they independently evolved near-identical strategies to cope with the same kind of environmental challenges.
This is just one example of what is known as convergent evolution, but there are many others, and not all of them are so easy to spot. Take humans and birds: few readers will be immediately won over by Sydney-based zoologist Antone Martinho-Truswell’s claims that we are “like a strangely featherless bird”, and that we have more in common with birds than with our mammalian cousins.
By the time I finished The Parrot in the Mirror, though, I found that idea both compelling and reasonable. Martinho-Truswell explores the traits shared by humans and birds, from our unusual longevity to our advanced social skills, from our parenting styles to our intelligence and even the use of language. These, he argues, are all examples of convergent evolution.
Briefly, his argument goes like this: once birds could fly, they could elude almost all predators. Since they were now less likely to be eaten in any given year, they could live longer and produce more offspring. With longevity came the opportunity and the need to develop increased intelligence. It is an advantage for long-living animals to be smart because it helps them to survive long enough to raise their young to adulthood. What’s more, because longer development requires a bigger egg and a bigger yolk sac, and because an egg can only get so big if its mother is to fly, most birds hatch out very immature, helpless young. Chicks require enormous amounts of care, often provided by pair-bonded parents, and sometimes supplemented by a larger community. This favours the evolution of complex social behaviour and communication.
Martinho-Truswell argues that the human evolutionary story is a warped mirror image of this. Our story begins, not with flight, but with communal behaviour among primates, which promoted the evolution of intelligence and social behaviour. This reduced the likelihood of predation, and longevity followed, boosting intelligence to the point where big-brained human young have to be born immature and helpless so as not to endanger their mothers’ lives during childbirth.
So, the argument goes, humans and birds evolved measurable intelligence in response to similar challenges. But how do we compare our abilities?
In this regard, Martinho-Truswell does well to strike a balance between precision and imagination. On the one hand, a duckling’s ability to identify its mother shortly after the moment of its birth puts it well ahead of chimpanzees, parrots, pigeons, crows and even human children. But this one hardwired ability doesn’t necessarily make the duckling more intelligent.
“Humans and birds evolved intelligence in response to similar challenges. But how do we compare abilities?”
On the other hand, it would be a dull observer indeed that didn’t see quite staggering evidence of advanced cognition in Irene Pepperberg’s 30-year study of language use in Alex, an African grey parrot. The bird not only answered questions, he asked them, too. And he got annoyed if people gave him silly answers.
Containing the complexities of convergent evolution in a straightforward narrative isn’t easy. Evolutionary causes and effects don’t follow each other in neat, storybook fashion, and there is always the temptation, reading this book, to take Martinho-Truswell’s acts of narrative shorthand at face value and suppose that humans, 50 million years behind parrots in the evolution of intelligence, somehow became more human by actually mimicking their distant avian cousins.
Clearly that isn’t the case. But perhaps it is better to be slightly misled by a gripping story than to be bludgeoned by a dull one. Martinho-Truswell has written a superb introduction to a surprisingly complex field of study. Having read it, you won’t look at yourself in the mirror in quite the same way.

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“Deliberate erring” offers a surprising but effective way to enhance your memory and improve how you perform in many unexpected areas of life, says David Robson

Humans

| Columnist

9 March 2022

By David Robson
Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images
A man of genius makes no mistakes,” James Joyce wrote 100 years ago. “His errors are volitional and portals to discovery.”
Most people with good sense would accept that we can and should learn from accidental failures. It would be impossible to progress in anything, after all, without taking the odd misstep, and by understanding how we tripped up, we can avoid stumbling in the future.
Few would advocate making intentional mistakes, however. Yet a pair of fascinating new studies have shown that this may be the best way to learn new information. Consciously blundering, even when you know … More

Samuel L. Jackson’s streaming debut is touching, yet somewhat lacking in mystery and suspense

Humans

9 March 2022

By Jon O’Brien
Ptolemy Grey (Samuel L. Jackson) has advanced dementia, but a new drug changes everythingHopper Stone/Apple TV+
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
Walter Mosley
Apple TV+Advertisement
“I GOT to set things right,” says Ptolemy Grey, Samuel L. Jackson’s latest screen incarnation. He talks into a tape recorder while loading a bullet intended for the man banging on his apartment door. “That motherfucker got to pay for what he’s done.” The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey‘s opening scene could have been lifted from a belated Pulp Fiction spin-off, revisiting Jackson’s foul-mouthed, fast-food-obsessed, gun-toting hitman Jules Winnfield nearly three decades on.
Then the action flashes back to just two months earlier. Now we see Ptolemy as a dishevelled, confused 93-year-old living on tinned sausages and beans in a cockroach-infested flat. Regular visits from his kindly great-nephew Reggie (Omar Benson Miller) are his only respite.
This six-part drama, adapted by Walter Mosley from his 2010 novel of the same name, begins by painting a heartbreakingly convincing picture of a man with his mundane daily routines are interspersed with visions of his beloved late wife and often horrifying flashbacks from his childhood in the Deep South.
The story takes a turn for the fantastical when Ptolemy discovers he is eligible for a new drug trial that will restore his memories in crystal-clear detail. The catch is that it is a temporary fix and will worsen his condition in the long run.
Despite this obvious drawback, Ptolemy jumps at the chance to sign up, having discovered that what he thought was a birthday party was actually Reggie’s funeral. He needs his mind back to find out who is responsible for Reggie’s death.
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It is an intriguing set-up, but one that Mosley fails to capitalise on. Ptolemy’s amateur sleuthing isn’t engaging, and the culprit is eventually revealed so casually that it barely registers. A gripping whodunnit this isn’t, perhaps surprisingly considering that Mosley built his reputation on his novels about the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins.
The series works much better as a meditation on memories, consciousness and the passing of time. Ptolemy enjoys learning how things like hip-hop and the internet have progressed during his cognitive decline.
But as he tells Dr. Rubin (Walton Goggins), who is running the drug trial, some things are forgotten for a reason. Remembering elements of his traumatic childhood under racial segregation solves a few mysteries, but also increases his night terrors. And as Ptolemy gets closer to the truth about his great-nephew, he finds it harder to control the reactions that would have stayed buried with his memories.
Jackson, giving his first on-screen lead performance in TV’s new golden age, appears to relish flexing his acting muscles a little harder than he has of late. Through some impressive ageing and de-ageing make-up, he gets to portray Ptolemy across a half-century of his life, giving his character’s shifts between degeneration and regeneration an emotional resonance that has been lacking in some of his recent big-screen work.
Fresh from her BAFTA-nominated role in Judas and the Black Messiah, Dominique Fishback also impresses as teenage orphan Robyn, the only other member of Ptolemy’s circle who sees him as a person rather than an inconvenience. Their touching, platonic relationship is far more engaging than any of the several romantic subplots.
But even this strong central pairing isn’t quite enough to compensate for an unfocused and underwhelming narrative. Ironically, for a drama about the power of memory, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey is unlikely to leave a lasting impression.

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True Crime meets research at this New Scientist event featuring writer Val McDermid, psychologist Mark Freestone and forensic investigator Niamh Nic Daeid. At London’s Conway Hall from 6.30pm on 16 March.

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How to Speak Whale is a question that has intrigued humans for centuries. Now that AI is helping us decode animal languages, conversations with whales may be possible, says naturalist Tom Mustill. But what will they have to say?
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Into the Abyss go ocean explorers Don Walsh, Victor Vescovo and Patrick Lahey, who will share their submarine adventures and vision of the future of oceanic exploration at London’s Royal Institution on 14 March at 7pm.

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