Links 19/10/13

'We live in an odd place and an odd time, amid things that know that they exist and that can reflect upon that, even in the dimmest, most birdlike way. And this needs more explaining than we are at present willing to give it. The question of how the brain produces the feeling of subjective experience, the so-called "hard problem", is a conundrum so intractable that one scientist I know refuses even to discuss it at the dinner table.'

A new law of biology: All mammals pee for about 21 seconds.

Skull 5: 'The spectacular fossilised skull of an ancient human ancestor that died nearly two million years ago has forced scientists to rethink the story of early human evolution.'

Great example of the extended phenotype: 'Bats that nest inside curled-up leaves may be getting an extra benefit from their homes: the tubular roosts act as acoustic horns, amplifying the social calls that the mammals use to keep their close-knit family groups together.'

A newly discovered giant virus 'definitively bridges the gap between viruses and cells - a gap that was proclaimed as dogma at the very outset of modern virology back in the 1950s.'

Space-born jellyfish hate life on Earth.

The Beautiful Mars tumblr (hat tip to Christina Scholz).