Sean Carroll

"Art has never been a popularity contest." -James Levine Sometimes, you might feel like you've heard it all, seen it all, and that nothing's original anymore. But I beg to differ. Just because great things have come before doesn't mean that there aren't great things happening right now. While it might "only" be a cover of a Kanye West song (which itself heavily samples a Ray Charles song, at one time featured here), I encourage you to listen to the Automatic's brilliant version of Gold Digger. And while the stories of the Universe I tell you about here don't tend to be my personal, original…
The 10,000-year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Evolution, of which I've so far read about 1000 words -- but I just got it. Appears to be The Beak of the Finch (faster than expected evolutionary changes) in humans, but with this delicious addtion: the idea that culture can drive evolution, so that the line between "nature" (biology) and "nurture" (culture) finally vanishes. We'll see. Sean Carroll's Remarkable Creatures, which got pre-empted (for work reasons) by the above-named Explosion. Looks quite juicy. The Dangerous River, R.M. Patterson's account of his time exploring the…