Three cool stories
Three very cool stories caught my eye today.
1) Researchers have managed to decipher and play back a recording made nearly two decades before Edison's phonograph. The phonautogram was made in France in 1860 and represents the earliest known recording of any sound. Although the recording (and others like it) have been known for a long time, only now has anyone developed a way to decode the recording and play it back. Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory helped decipher the recording.
2) For the first time, someone has figured out a way to place a monetary value on preserving the rain forests. A million acres of pristine rain forest in Guyana has been designated as a "utility," recognizing its crucial role in carbon sequestration. The government of Guyana has agreed to place its rain forest under international, private ownership, in exchange for development aid. This negates any temptation to conduct destructive clear-cutting, as is the norm in Brazil and Indonesia. Instead of destroying its forests, Guyana is being rewarded for not doing so.
3) Neanderthals apparently wore makeup and probably had the ability to speak.