Origin Story: SKAMpede

East side story: the origin of humankind.

Humans are creatures whose roots lie in the animals. Accordingly, we find ourselves at the tip of one of the branches of an immense tree of life, a tree that has been developing and growing ever more diverse over a period of four billion years. From an evolutionary standpoint, it is important to locate the place and the time that our branch separated from the rest of the tree. It is these quest...

An origin story: ribozyme catalysis by the ribosome.

The answer to the question “What does your lab do?” from non-scientist friends, strangers, or family members often requires some explanation. For me (as with many in the RNA field), the answer to this question typically requires an immediate simplification, often starting with “Well, you have heard of DNA? We study RNA, which is similar...”. Contemporary science outreach and education seems to ...

COOL Story: Country of Origin Labeling and the First Amendment.

some remarks on bahmanname: the origin of the story, date and place of its composition

the last chapter in the saga of rustam and his family, the fall of the house of sistanian heroes, and ravage of this territory by bahman, son of isfandiar, is an episode, which relates the mythic and heroic parts of iranian national saga to its historical part. this article has addressed the issue of origin, date and place of versification of bahmannameh, one of its variations which is the long...

Stories of Lemurs and Robots - The Social Origin of Story-Telling

This chapter discusses narrative intelligence in the context of the origins of primate (social) intelligence. The relationship between social intelligence and narrative intelligence is outlined, with a particular emphasis on 1) the phylogenetic origins of primate (narrative) intelligence, and 2) the ontogenetic origin of autobiographical stories. The chapter is based on the assumption that in o...