Why ‘Reka?: Nine times out of 10, when you tell someone you’re going to Eureka (hopefully, you’ll never have to say “I’m going to Eureka” more than 10 times in your life) they figure you’re probably talking Yreka, the humble piss-stop town off of I-5 North on the way to Oregon. But true scions of Northern California know that Eureka with a “eu” is a very, very different place than Yreka. The word Eureka is greek for “I have found it,” but a lot’s changed since the time someone was excited to find Eureka. The gold that gave it it’s name ran out a long time ago, and the other two rape-able natural resources that have kept Eureka from becoming a complete waste of time and space, timber and fish, are both quickly heading that way too. In fact the only things that Eureka seems to have in abundance these days is weed and crazy ass homeless people, and not necessarily in that order. (more…)

The journal Nature is reporting that researchers have found human remains that date back 400,000 years before the previous oldest-known remains, meaning humans roamed Europe a lot longer than previously believed.

A jawbone, teeth and simple tools were uncovered in a cave near the Spanish city of Burgos.

The remains are accurately dated and lay to rest doubts about when early humans first lived in Europe, said Andreu Olle, who has worked at the Atapuerca site since 1990.

“These are the oldest human remains in Europe. With this fossil, we can say it (Europe) was populated earlier than was thought,” he told Reuters.

For more, check out this video courtesy of the Reuters YouTube Channel (believe it or not, you can actually get yourself some learning there).

The journal Nature, is reporting that “scientists have developed a way of ‘decoding’ someone’s brain activity to determine what they are looking at.” From the article:

“The problem is analogous to the classic ‘pick a card, any card’ magic trick,” says Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California in Berkeley, who led the study. But while a magician uses a ploy to pretend to ‘read the mind’ of the subject staring at a card, now researchers can do it for real using brain-scanning instruments. “When the deck of cards, or photographs, has about 120 images, we can do better than 90% correct,” says Gallant.

You ever notice that when someone tries to explain something through an analogy, they end up making it more confusing? Researchers believe that this will open the door to all kinds of sci-fi style shit like being able to watch people’s dreams and whatnot. But that’s a long way away. First, they’re going to have to figure out how dreams work in the first place. According to study team member Kendrick Kay, of the California University, Berkeley:

“Perhaps the contents of our imaginations are not represented in the same way as the contents of our actual real perceptions.”

Perhaps…uh…not? All I know is, being able to watch people’s dreams on cable TV is the next step in reality television. You heard it here.

If you take anything away from this blog, I hope it’s this: When the Beach Master starts showering you with water and dung, maybe you should take that as a hint to back the fuck up. Hippo Beach airs on PBS Sunday, Sept. 16th at 8pm EST. Check local listings.

Recently, the Chinese “goddess of the Yangtze,” the Yangtze or baiji dolphin, was believed to be extinct. But on Aug. 19, a resident of the Anhui province, Zeng Yujiang, spotted one of the rare beasts frolicking in the river of Tongling and recorded video of it on his digital camera. Yujiang told Xinhua news:

“I’ve never seen such a big thing in the water before, so I filmed it. It was about 1,000 meters away and jumped out of water several times.”

A team of 25 international scientists embarked on a 38-day search last year to find the elusive baiji, but were unable to find any. Earlier this month, the animal was declared extinct, but thanks to this footage, another expedition will be conducted in September. However, even though this sheds a glimmer of hope for the seemingly doomed river critter, the scientists who led the last expedition still consider the dolphin “functionally extinct.” Ouch. Godspeed, noble baiji.