Science: American Association

Some 5000 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science spent the week in Manhattan, at their annual winter convention. Some data:

Preserved Sloth. Perhaps 1,000,000 years ago, certainly 500,000, a dumpy, pale yellow ground sloth, 8 feet long from its small head to its thick tail, lumbered terrorized near what is now El Paso, Texas. Some predatory beast was chasing it, perhaps a sabre-toothed tiger. The sloth was a plant-eating animal with soft teeth and did not know how to fight. So it could only lope towards a hole it knew. It reached the hole, scrambled over the ledge,...

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