2 Our cousins: Bonobos. Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are known for their empathy, matriarchal society, relative peacefulness, and rampant sexual activity across a range of relations (e.g., de Waal 2013, 2019). Bonobo mothers frequently permit other group members to handle their infants; 96% of these interactions were positive in one study (Klaree et al. 2018). (Illustrated by Daphné Damoiseau-Malraux. © 2020 Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther)

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... we have a few answers, many more remain: The history of Homo cannot but raise questions about how to untangle our DNA, "whose" DNA it is, and why Neanderthals went extinct approximately 40,000 years ago. 28 Taking a wider view, we can ask which species-and places-gave rise to our nearest contemporary cousins: bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas ( Fig. 2.2). Such questions bring us closer to our ancestors, inviting a sense of connection and belonging across the branches of the tree of life. Our best genomics blurs all kinds of putative boundaries, showing the deep and broad connection of all life. 23 E.g., Enard and Petrov (2018). The divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans, ...

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... the R 2 is 0.27, and the P-value is an impressive P = 1.5 × 10 −44 . Conventionally, any P less than 0.05 would be considered a statistically significant relationship. However, when we take the same data and use the bird phylogeny to calculate the body mass contrasts and C-value contrasts, the regression of contrasts against each other ( Fig. 3.2, right) has a slope indistinguishable from 0, with a nonsignificant P-value of ...

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... Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in an aircraft they built that instigated a technological revolution. It is astonishing that only 24 years later, Charles Lindbergh made his landmark solo non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis (1927), and eight years after that in 1935, Amelia Earhart flew 2,408 miles from Honolulu to Oakland, CA (Fig. 4.2a). In 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yager completed the first non-stop flight around the world without refueling in the custom-made Rutan Model 76 Voyager (Fig. ...

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... his landmark solo non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis (1927), and eight years after that in 1935, Amelia Earhart flew 2,408 miles from Honolulu to Oakland, CA (Fig. 4.2a). In 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yager completed the first non-stop flight around the world without refueling in the custom-made Rutan Model 76 Voyager (Fig. ...

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... advances in aviation quickly altered the fabric of human society, it did not take long for a human-made object to be propelled into space. In 1949, the Germans Fig. 4.2 Time slice chart of different transport technologies developed by humans over the last 500 years to colonize or reach different environments and some of the associated significant achievements. Note how distances increase (y axis) over shorter time spans commensurate with the development of more advanced technologies (adapted and ...

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... the moon, with astronaut William Anders taking the first 'Earthrise' photo. A short time later, the United States accomplished the extraordinary feat of traveling 385,000 km and landing on the Moon where Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the lunar surface as part of the American Apollo 11 space mission on July 20, 1969 ( Fig. 4.2b). Subsequent attempts by NASA eventually led to six more Apollo moon missions between 1969 and 1972 where a total of 12 astronauts eventually walked on its surface, with another (Apollo 13) having to abandon their attempt due to a series of mechanical failures. And how could we forget the Voyager 1 and 2 missions, launched in 1977 with ...

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... forget the Voyager 1 and 2 missions, launched in 1977 with the primary goal of exploring Jupiter and Saturn but continuing on to reach interstellar space on August 2012 and November 2018, respectively? They are now between 11 and 14 billion miles from Earth and still sending back important data on the history and composition of our solar system (Fig. 4.2c). What these events demonstrate is that humans have developed increasingly more sophisticated transport technologies over shorter periods of time, allowing us and our machines to go farther and faster in the last 100 years than in the millions before ...

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... recognize its presence and hue, like the Greeks and Romans who attributed Mars to their gods of war. As a testament to the Red Planet's interest to those of us on Earth, NASA has sent a series of orbiters, landers, and rovers there since 1964, with the Pathfinder mission landing the first rover named Sojourner which touched down on July 4, 1997 (Fig. 4.2c). Four other rovers from the United States have successfully landed there and explored the planet's surface, including Spirit and Opportunity in 2003, Curiosity in 2011, and Perseverance in 2021 that carried with it the first rotorcraft named Ingenuity. Notably, China landed its first rover on Mars named Zhurong in May 2021. Europe's ...

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... many regions of the US and globally, federally-and state-listed species are widely distributed (Fig. 8.1). If we plot the distributions of all of the species of concern, almost every potential development, from housing to roads would contain a likely distribution point ( Fig. 8.2). The RAND corporation ( Dixon et al. 2008) estimated that for the 173,371 acres that are not under protection by other agencies (450,000 acres), the cost to protect them would be $5055 million. Allen estimated in 2003 that purchasing the parcels with known occupancy for Federally or State-listed species would be $5699 M. Moreover, ...