LINKS - June 12th, 2024
Welcome to LINKS — my attempt to provide Rhapsody readers with five interesting stories that tell us something about what it means to be human . LINKS is published every Wednesday. Have a link you want to share? Drop it in the comments.
When Kids Talk to Machines
By Julie Sedivy, Nautilus
“When there’s no obvious communicative intent—if a disembodied voice intones a word over a speaker while a child is gazing at an object—the child is disinclined to map the word onto the object. Mere correlation is not sufficient; the child wants positive evidence of a desire to align minds. In this regard, intelligent machines may be ambiguous even when they are embodied. One study reported that while children could follow the gaze of a robot, they failed to learn the name the robot offered for the object it was ‘looking’ at.”
Ancient Genomes Reveal Which Children the Maya Selected for Sacrifice
By Freda Kreier, The New York Times
“Nearly 60 years later, ancient DNA extracted from 64 of the children is offering new insights into the religious rituals of the ancient Maya and their ties to modern descendants. In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, an international cohort of researchers revealed that the children — sacrificial victims killed between 500 and 900 A.D. — were all local Maya boys that may have been specifically selected to be killed in sibling pairs.”
Long COVID finally gets a universal definition
By Tina Hesman Saey, Science News
“According to the National Academies’ definition, long COVID is a medical condition that persists for at least three months after an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Long COVID can affect any organ or system in the body. People may have any of more than 200 symptoms, which may include difficulty breathing, brain fog, blood clots, dizziness, extreme fatigue after exercising, loss of taste or smell, fast heart rate, diarrhea, constipation, diabetes and autoimmune diseases such as lupus. Those symptoms can appear alone or in multiple combinations, can be continuous, get progressively worse or have bouts in which the patient gets better and then worse again.”
Most Life on Earth is Dormant, After Pulling an ‘Emergency Brake’
By Dan Samorodnitsky, Quanta Magazine
“Sitting around in a dormant state is actually the norm for the majority of life on Earth: By some estimates, 60% of all microbial cells are hibernating at any given time. Even in organisms whose entire bodies do not go dormant, like most mammals, some cellular populations within them rest and wait for the best time to activate.
“‘We live on a dormant planet,’ said Sergey Melnikov, an evolutionary molecular biologist at Newcastle University. ‘Life is mainly about being asleep.’”
Morrie Markoff, Listed as Oldest Man in the U.S., Dies at 110
By Alex Williams, The New York Times
“He was notable not only for his longevity but also for his unusual lucidity for his age. Up to his final months, he pored over The Los Angeles Times every morning, discussed the war in Ukraine and other world events and posted dispatches about his life on his blog.”