#5 on the Early Human Intelligence list doesn't even make much sense to me, why/how were we eating cooked meat prior to the intelligence boost?

It is an interesting point you bring up though. I hadn't thought about the relationship between gravity and brain size/intelligence before. It's incredible how many factors and variables there are, and how they affect each other. Not that I'd expect it to be simple, of course.

And maybe I don't know enough of the "normal" solutions to the Fermi Paradox, but the last one on the 11 Weirdest Solutions article didn't seem all that far-fetched.

Anyway, interesting articles and ideas, thanks for the links.