Orangutan culture

Why does one population of orangutans use tools to get food while others don’t?

Scientific American: Why Are Some Animals So Smart? The unusual behavior of orangutans in a Sumatran swamp suggests a surprising answer.

Tags: orangutans, great apes, Pongidae, mammals, wildlife, tool using, nature

Royal Society statement on evolution, creationism and intelligent design

The Royal Society is the UK’s national academy of science. The Royal Society statement points out that evolution is “recognised as the best explanation for the development of life on Earth from its beginnings and for the diversity of species” and that it is “rightly taught as an essential part of biology and science courses in schools, colleges and universities across the world”.

Follow the link for more.

Dieting doesn’t work

ALAS (a blog) has a detailed and interesting article called, “The Case Against Weight-loss Dieting.”

So what does work? Changing one’s attitude? Exercising more?

I think it’s the latter. Much is made of the fact that dieting causes the body to lower its metabolism and make do with less, making it harder to lose weight and harder still to keep it off. But this review of studies does not mention that exercise pushes the metabolic setpoint back up again, as well as burning off calories directly and using them to rebuild glycogen supplies in the body.

Physics textbook online

Keith Soltys at Core Dump has a link to a 1200-page physics textbook written by Christoph Schiller, Ph.D.