Dr. Paabo has estimated the age of the human version of FOXP2 as being less than 120,000 years.

Dr. Paabo says this date fits with the theory advanced by Dr. Klein to account for the sudden appearance of novel behaviors 50,000 years ago, including art, ornamentation and long distance trade. Human remains from this period are physically indistinguishable from those of 100,000 years ago, leading Dr. Klein to propose that some genetically based cognitive change must have prompted the new behaviors. The only change of sufficient magnitude, in his view, is acquisition of language.

Alcatel owns US employee's thoughts

Evan Brown has been working on an idea to convert old computer code so that it can be run on modern machine since 1975.

When Brown mentioned the idea to his employers while he worked for DSC Communications of Plano, Texas (subsequently bought by Alcatel) DSC decided it owned the rights to Brown's insight and demanded that he revealed his idea. Brown refused and he was fired. DSC then launched legal action against him to gain possession of his thoughts.

Almost six years later and Brown has finally been told by a judge that DSC is entitled to his idea. He's also been told to stump up $332,000 in legal costs.

Brown's website: Who Owns Evan Brown's Brain?

Painted and Silkscreened Poems by Kenneth Patchen via wood s lot

Hormone replacement: Public meeting in Md. (NYT, reg. req.):

The National Institutes of Health said this week that it would hold a public meeting on Oct. 23 and 24 in Bethesda, Md., to discuss questions about the therapy. The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the labeling of hormones...

The meeting was announced discreetly on Tuesday on the Web site of the Food and Drug Administration (www.fda.gov/cder/drug/safety/WHI_statement.htm), tucked into the end of a statement on the need to reassess the risks and benefits of hormone therapy. Yesterday, after The Washington Post published an article about the meeting, the health institutes put a notice on its Web site (www4.od.nih.gov/orwh) saying the meeting would take place but providing no details.

Have you ever tried to sell a diamond? (Atlantic Online)

The diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognized tokens of wealth, power, and romance. To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones but as an inseparable part of courtship and married life. To stabilize the market, De Beers had to endow these stones with a sentiment that would inhibit the public from ever reselling them. The illusion had to be created that diamonds were forever -- "forever" in the sense that they should never be resold.

Slashdot reacts to Blogcritics' interview with RIAA chief Cary Sherman. Scroll down to read the posts.

Blogcritics.org is turning out to be one monster metablog. Props to Eric Olsen and friends.

Afterfest:

• Today, there's an editorial in the Middletown (N.Y.) Herald Record, the closest daily to the rural Catskill town (pop. 4,300) of Bethel:

About time we got to Woodstock
Americans can use a lovefest in this summer of angst

If there were ever a summer that cried out for a little peace, love and rock 'n' roll, this is it....

The author goes on to list our current woes and concludes,

So welcome, Woodstockers. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Your annual visit to the field and the farm in Bethel where more than 400,000 of you gathered in 1969 to share your lives for three muddy, love-filled days has never been more timely.

It may not be as splashy as other Woodstock anniversaries, but that's good, too. We need to quiet our heads a little. We need to reflect and relax, listen to some good music, have a veggie burger and catch up on each others' lives. We need to remember and re-energize the spirit of unity, pride and caring that brought us together as a nation following Sept. 11, 2001. Seeing some of the Woodstock nation return for a few days should help.

So enjoy the visit, hippies. Be cool. And, neighbors, cut 'em a little slack.

They sound so gosh darn cute, don't they?

• Eric Hanson, who bills his blog Tyro as "A poli-tech-journo-geek-rock sort of thing," and I have e-mailed a bit, and I was interested to learn his reaction to yesterday's resurrection of the Woodstock stories.

Tactfully noting that he hadn't yet made it through them all, Eric writes,

"Woodstock ... continues to exist as a cultural memory, even to those of us whose parents were old enough to attend. ... The idealism and good feelings talked about at Woodstock in many ways seem very foreign to my world. I'm starting to think I can only really relate to the '60s as a myth."

"If you want your children to be brilliant, teach them myths." Einstein said that.

I understand what Eric is saying. Idealism and good feelings aren't rampant these days, and few voices speak for the high road.

But the flame doesn't die. Idealism is simply a triumph of imagination over fear. We each choose, constantly.

"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."

Einstein said that, too.