When we think of Neanderthals, we usually picture a crude, boorish, big boned, uncivilized man weilding a giant club. When humans who co-existed with Neanderthals came across one of them, they saw something else: a thirst trap. Come on. The receding hairline. The thick unibrow. The aggressive table manners. You know you want this! OK, this is starting to sound a little too much like my Tinder profile. And I am writing this from a room my family calls a Man Cave. Maybe I'm part Neanderthal. Plenty of humans still have faint traces of Neanderthal DNA. Our more advanced ability to analyze the human (etc) genome has made it clear why. "A pair of new studies sheds light on a pivotal but mysterious chapter of the human origin story, revealing that modern humans and Neanderthals had babies together for an extended period, peaking 47,000 years ago — leaving genetic fingerprints in modern-day people." WaPo: (Gift Article): Scientists pinpoint when humans had babies with Neanderthals. An anthropologist explains: "It paints a different story than this rare encounter. Whenever you ran into a Neanderthal, it was okay to have a baby with a Neanderthal." (Compare that to now when most people won't even make out with a person from a different political party.) 2Drone Be or Not to BeMultiple' drones have reportedly entered the airspace of a New Jersey naval station. Apparently, such drone invasions are not rare, especially in the Garden State. Some of the mysterious drone sightings have been later identified as small aircraft. But, as we've seen around the world, we are deep into the age of drone surveillance and warfare. And as Jared Keller explains in Wired, we don't exactly have a system to deal with it. Why the US Military Can't Just Shoot Down the Mystery Drones. "US military officials also indicated to reporters that the types of counter-drone capabilities the Pentagon may be able to bring to bear for domestic defense may be limited to non-kinetic 'soft kill' means like RF and GPS signal jamming and other relatively low-tech interception techniques like nets and 'string streamers' due to legal constraints on the US military’s ability to engage with drones over American soil." 3Fast Download Times at Ridgemont HighTwo things stand out in the latest Pew report on how (and how much) teens use technology these days. First, YouTube is huge. Really huge. And second, teens are online pretty much all the time. Here's an interesting look at Teens, Social Media and Technology in 2024. It will be interesting to see how much AI skews these numbers over the next few years. 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Watch: I'm going to assign you a couple of feel good shows. First, the second season of Shrinking on AppleTV is out. The show really has nothing to do with actual psychotherapy and there's a little quality hiccup at the start of season two, but overall, it's a really fun show with a stellar cast that includes Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams. It's sort of Ted Lasso meets therapy. And second, Somebody Somewhere on Max is the story of group of outsiders who find friendship and meaning (and humor) in Kansas. 5Extra, ExtraMake Iron Lungs Great Again? You might want to mask up before reading this next lede from the NYT (Gift Article): "The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine." Related: Six Childhood Scourges We’ve Forgotten About, Thanks to Vaccines. Let's not appoint health officials who are nostalgic for the old scourges. While were on the appointee topic: Trump’s Middle East Adviser Pick Is a Small-Time Truck Salesman. I guess it's refreshing that Boulos is not a billionaire (even though he's claimed to be). He's also Tiffany Trump's father-in-law. 6Feel Good Friday"The time on the clock: 10.04 seconds, faster than any other 16-year-old in history. No wonder the video of this track meet for Australian teenagers went instantly viral. It was impossible to watch him and not be reminded of Usain Bolt—even according to Usain Bolt. 'He looks like young me.'" Australian sprinter Gout Gout—it rhymes with ‘Bout Bout’—is breaking records and drawing comparisons to the eight-time Olympic champion.
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