The Quirks Blog

Comparative thanatology confronts the Grim Reaper “Man is the only animal that has to be encouraged to live”  – Friedrich Nietzsche When did humans begin to understand that life was finite, that death was an essential fact of life? And what does death mean for creatures other than humans? I think there are two aspects: the awareness that death is real and comes to us all, and the processing of it. For you and I this process amounts to acceptance, and grieving. The understandi

Why Moving People Don't Fall Over Humans are bipeds. One of the unique features of our species setting us apart from virtually all other sentient organisms. Like other mammals, we have four limbs but only two are dedicated to getting us from here to there and back again. Some other creatures – witness the kangaroo or the ostrich – also walk on two limbs exclusively, but in very different manners. A number of animals, including many primates among them our closest relatives th