Of orangutans, craters, Neanderthals, and an ocean-eating planet

I share with you some news from the world of science that’s recently caught my eye:

A pretty dramatic headline:

“The Earth Is Eating Its Own Oceans”

But this one is perhaps even more dramatic.  Nice to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there:

“Naples volcano heading for ‘large volume eruption’: It’s been quiet since 1538 CE, but the Campi Flegrei may be revving up.”

If only all that ice weren’t in the way!

“Huge Impact Crater Found Beneath Greenland’s Ice”

Here’s another take on that story, including a good 2.5-minute video:

“A massive crater hides beneath Greenland’s ice: Whether the impact is related to a period of cooling called the Younger Dryas is unknown”

I’m doing a lot of subterranean and subterranean-like stuff in this entry.  That’s not by design.  But here’s another:

“‘Lost City’ seabed rocks hold clues to Earth’s first amino acids”

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But let’s have a change of pace now:

“Orangutans are the only great apes—besides humans—to ‘talk’ about the past”

If you have a couple of minutes, watch the very interesting video.

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Here are two stories about some recent research that seems to indicate that Neanderthals lived no closer to vicious apologists like myself than did proto-humans:

“Skull damage suggests Neandertals led no more violent lives than humans: Some 200 skulls show similar rates of damage between humans and our evolutionary cousins”

“Skulls reveal Neanderthals, humans had similarly harsh lives”

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And here’s a very big change of pace:

“Male and Female Brain Differences – Must We Keep Doing This?  A recent large population study claims to conclusively prove that male and female brains are different. Of course, it does no such thing.”

I must say that I wasn’t very happy to see the author take a nasty swipe at James Damore, who has already been severely punished for daring to diverge from elite leftist dogma about diversity.  But I was very pleased at the opportunity to learn something about the cousin of Sacha Baron Cohen.

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“Self-flying drones in disaster zones: BYU engineers help design safer structures”

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The study of science is the study of something eternal. If we study astronomy, we study the works of God. If we study chemistry, geology, optics, or any other branch of science, every new truth we come to the understanding of is eternal; it is a part of the great system of universal truth. It is truth that exists throughout universal nature; and God is the dispenser of all truth.  (Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 7:157 [12 February 1860])