The curious: for a couple of centuries, about the 11th to the 13th, the shape of European men’s skulls appears to have changed, from long to round. (But not women’s.) Then they changed back again. It just goes to show how little we know about the past – some of my email lists have contained some fascinating speculation – some Y-only gene, perhaps, but how could it have appeared and disappeared so fast? I think I tend towards think there was some sudden change in cultural practice, some extreme swaddling only done to male babies perhaps, but then in the Europe of the time would it have spread that fast? Very curious.
The fearful: More for the times on the competition for land between biofuel and food crops, neatly billed as “war for resources between the world’s 800 million cars and its six billion stomachs”. And the consequences extend far eyond the increased price for beer at Oktoberfest.
The depressing: John Howard does yet more to destroy Aboriginal communities – taking away a broadly successful programme for Aboriginal employment and so treating an unemployed person in a remote community in the Northern Territory just as though their circumstances were exactly the same as their compatriot in Sydney.
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