David Pogue, Neanderthal

On the Wednesday edition of NOVA scienceNOW, David Pogue walks the streets of San Francisco in Neanderthal drag. Above, a actual clip from the upcoming hour, "What Makes Us Human?," in which the tech writer turned PBS host explores our relationship with Neanderthals, after being made up like a Neanderthal based on instructions from Daniel Lieberman, a paleoanthropologist from Harvard. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during that shoot!

What Makes Us Human? premieres Wednesday, October 10 at 10PM/9c on PBS. (Thanks, Paula Apsell)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Antinous / Moderator

Oh, is that what Mickey Rourke is going for?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness

Hey! It’s Zathrus from Babylon 5.
Frank Diekman

A distant ancestor of Louis C. K.?
Philboyd Studge

Neander-Tall, not thall.
- chenille
  
  When these were found, they were named after the Neander valley. In German at the time, they generally wrote stops with th – thal for valley, thier for animal, and so on. So they were called Neanderthals, and that is how the word was brough into English.
  
  Around the end of the 19th century, German dropped the h, and so today the words are tal, tier, and Neandertal. Should English follow them in making the change? Maybe, but I wouldn’t fault people who stick with the original spelling.
  
  Either way, anything with two Ls is right out.
  - Philboyd Studge
    
    Indeed, I was correcting the program’s pronunciation, not spelling. It’s like hearing about the golfer “Chy Chy Rodrugweez”.
scottsiegling

Come on, Neanderthals didn’t do Showtunes. Pogue does.
Culturedropout

I resemble that remake…
Preston Sturges

NO!!! I don’t want to buy car insurance! Now go away!
Preston Sturges

One thing they can’t do is show that Neanderthals had much larger eye sockets than modern humans.

Also, only in humans are the “whites” of the eyes prominent and we don’t know when that mutation occurred.

It would have been really creepy if Neanderthals had large eyes with no visible white areas.
Preston Sturges

One time I saw a girl who had Steven Hawking levels of disabilities, but she had huge brow ridges. I don’t know if her affliction had a specific name, but it’s possible for modern people to have those brow ridges.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Except for having a high forehead, I have a pretty Neandertal head. Long with heavy brow ridges. Nose with notable saddle and weak chin until the plastic surgeon took care of those traits back in the 1980s.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    Betcha failed Clovis Points 101, eh?
GawainLavers

Everyone just thought it was Larry Ellison wandering around for the America’s Cup.
http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

I find David Pogue insufferable.
http://barak.a.pearlmutter.myopenid.com/ Barak A. Pearlmutter

So neanderthals had big wrinkles and bad haircuts? This was not really fair, they should have made him up to look like a neanderthal dressed and groomed for modernity. You could give anyone on the street mutton chops and long scraggly hair and big funny wrinkles and he’ll look nearly as odd.
http://www.facebook.com/phillsmiff Phill Smith

This fun excursion was rather spoiled by the fact that the makeup itself didn’t seem to be up to much. It is very obviously a prosthetic mask, so no-one really reacts in a “OMG what is that!?” way, just a “oh a guy in a mask, just carry on.” way.
Kludgegrrl

The other thing that would have been striking about seeing a Neanderthal walking amongst Homo Sapiens was the robustness of their physique. Their bones were bigger, thicker — which suggests (to me at least) that their musculature was also probably bulkier (if only to manage the weight of the bones!).
- singingdragon
  
  They were definitely more muscular. There’s not actually much of an inherent difference there, though, it’s mostly about lifestyle. Other Pleistocene humans were also much more robust and muscular than humans of today.
Philboyd Studge

While the hair-plugs look great, I’m still worried about this new season of Arrested Development’s narration.
http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai

MORDICAI! YOU MUST MUST MUST REMEMBER TO DVR THIS!