Life

Unevenly Distributed: Chrome, the iPad and the Crossroads of Civilization

On October 7th, 1930 � slender and bright; like a string tense and silent in anticipation of the purpose of her note � Beatrice Warde was introduced to the British Typographer's Guild. The speech she gave would change the way people thought about type for the next fifty years... and should be burnt into the flesh of anyone who is making a gadget to this day.

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Giant storks and the hobbits of Flores

On the Indonesian island of Flores, researchers have discovered the remains of a giant bird that might have preyed on the mysterious and controversial Homo floresiensis, an extinct, diminutive close relative of modern humans.

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Pocahontas’ precursor?

Half a millennium before Columbus' calamitous 1492 arrival in the Caribbean, DNA from the Americas may have infiltrated the European genome by way of a woman brought to Iceland by Vikings. Like the semimythical Pocahantas, her impact may have been far-reaching.

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