In Papua New Guinea the Umeda village that Alfred Gell studied was a complexly patterned community, really a complex of hamlets in a larger area, that had evolved culture to fit the circumstances. The people themselves were physically evolved to survive, sturdy sun-darkened folks who probably had a lot of inner physiological molecular mutations that allowed them to live...

Cassowaries are close to being the oldest living descendants of dinosaurs — not the big ones like diplodocus, but the fast ones like the velociraptors in “Jurassic Park.” They are rattites, which means they have no keelbone in their breasts — the anchor-point for the broad wings that allow eagles and geese to fly. Cassowaries like emus and ostriches, are...