bipedal bears

saw these asiatic black bears in laos, outside luang prabang. they're a few small stone tools away from taking down great apes as the heir apparent to the human dynasty. seriously, when you see these bears start walking around, your inner animal alarm goes berzerk- if they had evolved a few millenia earlier, you know that they would be hunting you down with spears and stone axes. as if the claws and teeth aren't enough.

bipedal bears from kevin smith on Vimeo.
read carl sagan's 'dragons of eden' recently. its about the evolution and the human brain... pretty interesting short book, and lots of good tie ins to 'guns, germs, steel'. given the book's age (it was written in 1976) its held up pretty well. except where carl sagan talks about the future of human intelligence with references to an unreleased video game called pong. then its a little bit dated.