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Gossip is generally seen as malicious, something that destroys relationships and reputations alike with a deadly mix of garbled half-truths and outright lies. But did you ever stop to consider all the good that gossip does? More »
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Our capacity for complex social interactions is a defining feature of humanity, but how did it evolve? It seems like it would have been a slow, gradual process, but a new statistical model suggests something very unusual happened 52 million years ago. More »
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Why are so many societies based on hierarchy rather than egalitarian values, despite the fact that evidence suggests ancient human communities were often fairly egalitarian? Stanford researchers wanted to find out. So they designed a computer simulation that compared two basic types of societies: egalitarian ones, in which all resources are shared equally, and hierarchical societies, in which some groups have greater access to resources than others. More »
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Randall Lee Church didn't believe his fellow inmates when they warned him about culture shock after he got out of prison — he thought they were just jealous. But then Church, who'd been locked up since 1983, emerged into a world that made no sense. More »
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Çatalhöyük is one of the world's most ancient settlements, founded in what is now Turkey around 7,500 BCE. New analysis of the village's dead reveals something strange about this ancient village: nobody cared very much about family ties. More »
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Humans are the only animals who display loyalty to individuals we don't personally know. Scientists had assumed this was a new development made possible by the rise of centralized governments. But it might actually be part of how we evolved. More »
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Just like humans, chimpanzees yawn when they're bored or sleepy, and they also yawn contagiously when they see another chimp do it. That discovery could help unlock the secrets of human empathy. More »
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Risk compensation is irony encapsulated; the more measures that are taken to ensure people's safety, the more dangerously people will act to make up for it. Perhaps people are just designed to seek a certain level of risk. More »
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What lies ahead in the next decade? According to one British newspaper, our next ten years will be filled with medical advances, the collapse of culture and post-internet politics. We're not even sure what that last one means... More »
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In this scene from the movie Decoys 2, an evil alien transforms into a sassy dominatrix so she can mate with a young guy. It's just one of the most embarrassing alien mating scenes ever. More »
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What will the future of humanity look like? We know it probably won’t turn us into a being of pure energy, and it won’t necessarily find us more intelligent or prescient. In fact, according to a leading genetics researcher, humans of the future won’t look much different from the humans of today, as modern life has brought our evolution to a standstill. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5061124&view=rss&microfeed=true Poor Bill. He's just found out that his rich Beverly Hills family is actually a bunch of incestuous, polymorphous aliens who have raised him for food. Now his parents and their rich alien friends have kidnapped him and his friend David, and are going to eat them in a giant orgy. That just one tiny part of the fun in Brian Yuzna's 1987 flick Society, a tale where rich aliens literally eat the poor. It was deemed so shocking that it never showed in US theaters, which is sad because that means most people Stateside missed seeing Screaming Mad George's gooey effects in full-screen glory. Luckly, now you can see the alien orgy where David is eaten, up close and personal, thanks to your pals at io9. More »
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