Link to Chase's Index: Chase's Index.
20 August, 2023: I recently came across an article Here which truly intrigued me as it relates to our discussion about the future of humanity. The article mentions the recent recovery of one of Pink Floyd's songs from the brain activity of patients that listened to it. Artificial intelligence was used to learn how to decode brain activity in certain known auditory regions of the brain and then to encode those signals into reproducible sounds and words. Suppose the resolution of such reproductions improves along with the capability of deciphering imagery. At that stage, it would almost be the equivalent of truly mind reading. As our species continues to advance technology, we enter into uncharted waters ethically and it is our responsibilty to use such powers justly.
27 August, 2023: I recently came across a Video describing how the temperature of a given area can be dependent on the topography and environment so much so that the temperature difference can actually be as much as 70 degrees fahrenheit as is seen in a basin in Utah called Peter Sinks. As the sun sets and the land beings to radiate away heat, the surface of air in contact with the ground is cooled along with it as the temperature gradient begins to invert. Then the cooler, denser air behaves like a dense fluid as it flows downhill under the influence of gravity to low points in the topography. This opened my eyes to the truly remarkable world of microclimates and I have begun to explore this realm further.
30 August, 2023: I recently came across a video that mentioned how monkeys used to inhabit Europe, even as far north as England. After some further research, I was able to find an academic paper describing how the monkeys were essentially the same species as the Barbary macaques and that the last remaining fossil record of their existence in Europe was found in Bavaria, dating to between 85 kya and 40 kya from this paper. This led me to ponder the origin of primates in general and the origins of their current biogeographic spread. As such, I learned that some of the oldest early primates actually originated in North America with one fossil species, Purgatorius, actually being found in Montana. The flow of flora and fauna between Eurasia and North America was relatively consistent across Beringia until around 55.8 mya, but Africa was unconnected, meaning a possible rafting event took place for primates to colonize Africa. This also is hypothesized to have occured around 34-37 mya across the entire Atlantic with primates colonizing South and Central America. Very intriguing stuff! Here are a few more links to explore: African Rafting? African Rafting_2? Beringia Primate Evolution video about monkey biogeography Atlantic Rafting