The Origin of The Chipmunks. "Ross Bagdasarian Sr. (who went by the stage name "David Seville") was an actor who appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and on Broadway in William Saroyan's Time of Your Life. He wrote novelty dialect songs, including Rosemary Clooney's huge hit "Come On-A My House", and released a few records but his successes never seemed to result in very much money in his pocket. He bought a tape recorder with his last $200 and played around with shifting the speeds, coming up with a novelty song titled "Witch Doctor". He got the single released and two weeks later, he found himself appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show performing the song. The success of "Witch Doctor" gave him the idea of creating characters with sped up voices, so he quickly knocked out a Christmas demo titled "The Chipmunk Song" and took it to record executives Simon "Sy" Waronker, Theodore "Ted" Keep and Alvin "Al" Bennett at Liberty Records." [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on Oct 11, 2009 - 39 comments

For most of us, science arrives in our lives packaged neatly as fact. But how did it get that way? Science is an active process of observation and investigation. Evidence: How Do We Know What We Know? [HTML version, Flash version also available] examines that process, revealing the ways in which ideas and information become knowledge and understanding. In this case study in human origins, the folks from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology explore how scientific evidence is being used to shape our current understanding of ourselves: What makes us human—and how did we get this way?
posted by netbros on Mar 25, 2009 - 15 comments

In 1953 a student named Stanley Miller did an experiment showing that the simple chemicals present on the early Earth could give rise to the basic building blocks of life. Miller filled a flask with water, methane, hydrogen and ammonia—the main ingredients in the primordial soup. Then he zapped the brew with electricity to simulate lightning, and, voila, he created amino acids, crucial for life. Now, scientists have reanalyzed this classic experiment, and found that the results were even more remarkable than Miller had realized.
posted by Mr_Zero on Oct 17, 2008 - 49 comments

The Genius of Charles Darwin [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Aug 8, 2008 - 66 comments

Some interesting papers by Shamsiddin Kamoliddin:
To the Question of Origin of the Name Hashimgird
To the Question of the Origin of the Samanids
NEW DATA ON THE BAZRS OF MEDIEVAL SAMARQAND
On the Origin of the place-Name Buxārā I found these mostly on Transoxiana.org
posted by Taksi Putra on Mar 22, 2008 - 14 comments

First post!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jan 5, 2007 - 58 comments

The origins and evolution of human intelligence: parasitic insects? viruses? mushrooms? neural darwinism? foraging? machiavellian competition? emergence? or something else?
posted by MetaMonkey on Jul 24, 2006 - 26 comments

Evolution: A Web Companion. 'The expanding universe is both awesome and humbling. When looking closely at nature—whether through a telescope, microscope, or computer visualization of collected data—one cannot help being struck by the intricacies and complexities observed. The magnitude of the cosmos, the power of natural forces, and the extent of deep time, however, alert us to how small and transient we are...'
Related :- The Writings of Charles Darwin (previous thread); Talk Origins; Understanding Evolution.
posted by plep on Apr 19, 2006 - 10 comments

Farming origins gain 10,000 years. Humans made their first tentative steps towards farming 23,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. Stone Age people in Israel collected the seeds of wild grasses some 10,000 years earlier than previously recognised, say experts.
posted by stbalbach on Jun 27, 2004 - 8 comments

As American As Apple Pie What Exactly? What food is truly American? Professor Louis Grivetti, of the University of California at Davis, provides a set of excellent, discussion-settling answers, packed with reliable and curious facts. (Be sure to click on the fascinating "Did You Know?" links at the bottom of each of the 10 classic American food groups.) How many Europeans know, for instance, that tomatoes, potatoes, corn, peppers, artichokes and lima beans all came from America? Not much supposedly ancestral Mediterranean cooking could get by without tomatoes, potatoes and peppers...
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jan 28, 2003 - 44 comments

Oh sure, once again, this "theory" proves nothing. Nothing more than another failed attempt to dismiss God's work. When are these morons, with such an imagination, ever going to admit it, that their theory is nothing more than that. I could ramble on and on like these suppose "scientists" about nothing, and make all these supposed "patterns", milarky, lies, and made up falsehoods on how the universe was just made from some wild explosion. Oh sure, that is how it was made.....just some big bang, then the next thing you know, man walked out of the swamp, got in his Mercedes, and drove away....haha Just keep on believing such crap about this big bang "theory". But just like before, this will fail again and prove that God did create the world, and he has been, is, and always will be the creator, not the "big banger". And that is a FACT, not a "theory".....
posted by tiaka on Apr 30, 2001 - 62 comments