New Fossil
Discovery of a "hybrid" skeleton in Portugal has paleontologists speculating that it might be the result of Neanderthal/modern human mating, perhaps challenging the "out of Africa" scenario.
LATEST ADDITIONS
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How Common is Your Surname in America?
Mindless fun—and it's ed-u-ma-cational!
Recommended Components Addendum
<B>FM Antenna</B>
Tiki Tiki Tiki
How sex, rum, and WWII ignited the fad that will not die.
Crypto-Musicology
How Matmos came to use an Enigma machine on <I>For Alan Turing</I>.
Music Training Boosts the Brain
As the US eliminates music education from its curriculum, we begin to see proof that music has "real" benefits. I thought that exposing kids to beauty and greatness was enough, but what do I know?
America Friendly Music or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Elks Lodge
Earlier this week I was invited to Per Se, a sleek restaurant in the Time Warner Center here in NYC for a lavish lunch sponsored by Concord Records. Co-owner Norman Lear was there. So was former SNL and now Letterman band leader Paul Shaffer who served as MC. The occasion was the release of another Ray Charles project which I will be writing about in more detail in an upcoming issue of the magazine. Titled <I>Ray Swings—Basie Swings</I>, it's an elaborate studio creation. Again though, Look for more in December's <I>Stereophile</I>.
Alex Ross on Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
The name of the essay is "Fervor," and that's what Ross writes with. If you can read the last paragraph of this tribute to Ms. Hunt Lieberson without tearing up, you have my condolences.
Freewheeling Outtakes
Holy moly! <I>An Aquarium Drunkard</I> has posted an entire album's worth of outtakes from the 1962 <I>The Freewheeling Bob Dylan</I> sessions. That's 25 tracks—cancel work for today!