Soil erosion reduces the productivity of ecosystems, it changes nutrient cycles and it thus directly impacts climate and society. An international team of researchers, recorded temporal changes of soil erosion by analyzing sediment deposits in more than 600 lakes worldwide. They found that the accumulation of lake sediments increased significantly on a global scale around 4,000 years ago.  Is that one way to measure when humans began significantly to alter the environment?  Hmm.

Psychologists undertook "an exhaustive study of goal-related words used by English speakers." The researchers say human goals can be broadly categorized in terms of four goals: 'prominence,' 'inclusiveness,' 'negativity prevention' and 'tradition.'  "Our findings suggest that the broadest aspects of human motivation are overwhelmingly social in nature," one of them said.

Why should we protect privacy on the interwebs?  Because we're protecting other peoples' privacy, not only our own.

This piece about dolphin social nroms and how they interact in groups, reminded me of this wonderful piece from a few years ago, about the complications of intelligence when routed through a quite different evolutionary process.  (Imagine what this means about what it could possibly mean to encounter "alien intelligence").

Finally, libraries as spaces of quiet in an increasingly noisy and distractive world:

I’ve often reflected on how pleasant it is to be at work in the stacks. I usually attributed it to the presence of books, to their representation of the patient and enduring majesty of knowledge, but it’s not just that – it’s also the contemplative quiet that settles even if my laptop and phone are with me, bringing all the emails and tweets and calendar notifications with them. It feels as if time slows down, my heart rate calms, and all the frantic busyness of life falls away for just a while. There’s contemplation in the quiet. We could all use some of that.

Amen, sister.

Happy Wednesday!