“When it comes to brain size, bigger doesn’t always mean better. As humans continue to evolve, scientists say our brains are actually getting smaller. The downsizing of human brains is an evolutionary fact that took science writer Kathleen McAuliffe by surprise. “I said, ‘What?  I thought it was getting bigger!’” she tells NPR’s Jacki Lyden. That was the story up to 20,000 years ago, she learned. Then, the brains of our ancestors reversed course and started getting smaller — and they’ve been shrinking ever since. Cro-Magnon man, who lived in Europe 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, had the biggest brains of any human species. In comparison, today’s human brain is about 10 percent smaller. It’s a chunk of brain matter “roughly equivalent to a tennis ball in size,” McAuliffe says. The experts aren’t sure about the implications of this evolutionary trend.  Some think it might be a dumbing-down process. One cognitive scientist, David Geary, argues that as human society grows increasingly complex, individuals don’t need to be as intelligent in order to survive and reproduce. But not all researchers are so pessimistic. Brian Hare, an anthropologist at the Duke University Institute for Brain Sciences, thinks the decrease in brain size is actually an evolutionary advantage.” w/ photo + audio

“It’s the size of a barn door, weighs more than an elephant, and is one of the most famous and coveted paintings in the world. It’s the Ghent Altarpiece — also called Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, after a central panel showing hordes of pilgrims gathered to pay homage to the Lamb of God. Other panels depict the Annunciation, Adam and Eve, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and a crowned Christ in detail so exacting that you can pick out individual hairs in a beard, or dirt on a pilgrim’s foot. Artist Jan van Eyck completed the Ghent Altarpiece around 1432. Author Noah Charney tells NPR’s Guy Raz that it’s arguably the single most important painting ever made. “It’s the first great oil painting — it influenced oil painting for centuries to come,” Charney says. “It’s the first great panel painting of the Renaissance, a forerunner to artistic realism. The monumentality of it and the complexity of it fascinated people from the moment it was painted… But the painting was saved, and you can see it today at the St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent. “Each time I see it, I notice something new,” Charney says. “For instance, I think it may be the first work of the pre-modern period to show someone laughing.” w/ photos

“The world’s food crisis could be eased if Westerners included insects in their diet to make up some of their protein needs, according to a Dutch scientist. Arnold Van Huis, Professor of Entomology at Wageningen University, says bugs are nutritious and full of goodness and if people in the West could override their culturally indoctrinated sense of disgust, the environment would benefit. He believes a population explosion and rising living standards have caused a ‘meat crisis’. “Twenty years ago people ate just 20kg of meat, now it is 50kg. In 20 years from now it will be even more and we will soon run out of planet.” To prove his point Professor Van Huis gobbles up a couple of freeze-dried crickets. He says they taste good and are packed full of vitamins. Insects are often eaten to bulk out the diet in Asia, where a hot climate means they are a bountiful foodstuff. But if they were farmed on an industrial scale they would be an environmentally friendly alternative to meat. Insects are cold blooded so they do not need to convert food energy into heat; consequently you get more bug for your buck.” w/ photos

“According to Poplawski’s calculations, the collapse of a giant star in another universe could have created a wormhole, a space-time conduit to another universe. Between these two openings, conditions could have developed that were similar to those we associate with the big bang, and therefore our universe could have formed within the wormhole. Such a scenario could address the quandaries about gravity and the expanding universe. If another universe existed before our own, gravity could be traced back to a point where it did unite with the nuclear forces and electromagnetism. And if our universe is now expanding toward the other end of the wormhole, this movement — rather than the elusive dark energy — could account for our expanding universe.” w/ photo

“Tightening safety regulations, feature bloat and heightened demand for cars that consumers perceive to be safer (i.e., larger ones) have led to the enfattening of automobiles over three decades. These larger, heavier cars have amassed tremendous technical complexity, much of which has gone toward managing the physical stresses of size while retaining a semblance of fuel efficiency. Edmunds.com reports small (i.e., compact) cars now weigh, on average, 549 pounds more, have 61 more horsepower and have a 6.4-inch longer wheelbase than they did in 1990. So, where small cars once were indeed small, they are now larger. But since they’re smaller than larger cars, they are still, by definition, small. (Immanuel Kant, call the front desk.) Actually, car size isn’t quite so relativist as all that. According to the U.S. government, it’s interior size that determines whether a car is classified as big or small, which is how you end up with the Rolls-Royce in the same class as a Honda Civic, and why cars get bigger yet never change their definition.” w/ photos

“Any Star Wars fan can mimic Darth Vader’s voice or Chewbacca’s roar with ease. But how many of them would be able to identify the lion’s roar used in the sound of the Millenium Falcon’s engine? In this aurally astonishing and visually engaging book, New York Times best-selling author J. W. Rinzler reveals the illuminating history of the sounds that make the Star Wars universe so believable, as recounted by their creator, legendary sound designer Ben Burtt. An attached sound module with an exterior speaker and headphone jack lets readers listen to more than 250 unique sound effects, and more than 300 photographs illustrate the epic’s many memorable scenes. From the first films to the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, The Sounds of Star Wars is Star Wars as you’ve never heard it before.”

“If Earth is the Blue Planet, call this the Bling Planet. Astronomers say they have spotted a planet that could contain mountains of diamonds. WASP-12b, a gas giant about 871 light-years from Earth, seems to have an unusually large amount of carbon in its atmosphere. Diamonds form when carbon is compressed at extremely high temperatures. The high amount of carbon in the planet’s atmosphere suggests that its solid core could be full of diamonds, rather than the silicon- and oxygen-rich materials on Earth. “The high carbon-to-oxygen ratio indicates a carbide or diamond interior rather than the silicate geology of the Earth,” said Nikku Madhusudhan, a Princeton astrophysicist, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.” w/ photo

“Babies and young children are immune to ‘catching’ yawns, scientists have discovered in new research that is shedding light on how the human brain develops as we grow up. A new study, however, has revealed that babies and young children are immune to ‘catching’ yawns until they reach the age of five years old. The surprising findings have shed new light on this mysterious phenomenon, which scientists describe as contagious yawning.  It has been known for decades that yawning can be infectious, leaving adults unable to stile a one if they see someone else opening their mouths wide in a yawning action… The exact reason why we yawn is still poorly understood. It is commonly thought to be a reaction to low levels of oxygen in the blood sparking a yawn to fill the lungs with air and so increase oxygen intake. The scientific evidence for this, however, is poor and even breathing in extra oxygen makes no difference to yawning behaviour. Other research has suggested that yawning can help to increase alertness in the brain or helps to cool the brain. Yawning can also help to equalise pressure in the ears.” w/ photos

“One woman’s job is all hand labor, but not the usual kind. Ellen Sirot is a model you would not recognize, but for her famous hands.” — CBS

“A spray solution of a patient’s own stem cells is healing their severe burns. So far, early experiments under a University of Utah pilot project are showing some remarkable results. What was once a serious burn on Kaye Adkins foot is healing nicely now because of a topical spray. With diabetes as a complication, the small but open wound had not healed after weeks of failed treatments. Dr. Amalia Cochran with the university’s Burn Care Center says, “With a wound that is open for several months, as this patient suffered prior to seeing us in our burn clinic, we worry about a pretty heavy bacterial load there.” But enter the evolutionary world of regenerative medicine, using almost a bedside stem cell technique that takes only about 15 minutes. With red cells removed, a concentrate of platelets and progenitor cells is combined with calcium and thrombin. The final mixture looks almost like Jello. “I woke up and saw them with this big thin, looked like a needle, and I said you’re going to put that in my foot? And they said NO, we’re going to spray,” Adkins said. Though her own skin graft had failed before, the topical spray was used during a second graft. It “took” and healed. “I had never heard of anything like that. It was just amazing,” Adkins said. Adkins burn is healing and so is her heart. Coincidentally, stem cells were used during her bypass surgery five weeks ago to hasten healing for that procedure as well.” w/ video