Every song the Beatles recorded layered on top of one another and played at the same time. Messy and fascinating.

(Via Kottke)

Mesmerizing project. One of my favorite images:

Intriguing look at how Byliner, The Atavist and others are creating a market for long-form nonfiction writing. Writes Emily Witt:

Once electronic readers become ubiquitous, the purchase of long-form articles might become as regular as a cup of coffee.

Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker story about Svante Paabo’s quest to sequence the Neanderthal genome contains a theory about why humans travel and seek the unknown. Kolbert notes that the archeological record shows Neanderthals’ migration stopped “when they reached water or some other significant obstacle,” while “archaic humans” pushed past those barriers, across open water and beyond. Paabo, writes Kolbert, seeks to “identify the basis for this ‘madness’ by comparing Neanderthal and human DNA.”

Paabo explains:

It’s only modern humans who start this thing of venturing out on the ocean where you don’t see land. Part of that is technology, of course; you have to have ships to do it. But there is also, I like to think or say, some madness there. You know? How many people must have sailed out and vanished on the Pacific before you found Easter Island? I mean, it’s ridiculous. And why do you do that? Is it for the glory? For immortality? For curiosity? And now we go to Mars. We never stop.

He adds:

If we one day will know that some freak mutation made the human insanity and exploration thing possible, it will be amazing to think that it was this little inversion on this chromosome that made all this happen and changed the whole ecosystem of the planet and made us dominate everything.

He also tells Kolbert:

We are crazy in some way. What drives it? That I would really like to understand. That would be really, really cool to know.

Fascinating.

Unfortunately, only an abstract of the story is online. There is, however, a Q&A with Kolbert.

(Cross-posted at World Hum)

This Sound Opinions episode, with Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot playing their favorite musical duets, reminded me of Joshua Wolf Shenk’s terrific Slate story about the magic of creative partnerships, particularly the Lennon-McCartney combo.

Kot puts Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Only Living Boy in New York” high on his list of great duets. Solid pick.

We posted a roundup of all the great things our contributors accomplished beyond World Hum while we had our quiet time. Inspiring. Congrats, everyone!

We’ve been a little quiet the last few months over at World Hum. We’re back today with a new story and a rundown of what’s been going on.