Can an “Invasive Species” Earn the Right to Stay?
Macaques sit near Florida’s Silver River. Rachel Simmons/Flickr Steve Johnson never thought he’d have to worry about death threats, not in his line of work. Johnson is a…
Tag: Biology
Do I Have Microremains in My Teeth?
Southwestern Finland isn’t a great place for archaeologists to find anything other than the sturdiest of remains. The pine needles that fall to the boreal forest floor make…
Venice’s Black Death and the Dawn of Quarantine
The island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, shown here, was one of the isles where the city of Venice quarantined plague-stricken individuals. Archeoclub d’Italia Sede di Venezia Just beyond th…
Why Did Passenger Pigeons Go Extinct?
Nineteenth-century hunters in Louisiana shoot passenger pigeons. Smith Bennett/Wikimedia Commons This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under C…
Coronavirus and Coping With Death
While sheltering in place in California during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my graduation day—but not because it was particularly…
On the ‘Fluid Mosaic’
Introduction The theme of the Fluid mosaic offers an interdisciplinary journey, as Homi Bhabha would say (Bhabha 1994)[1] in-between different domains, such as visual art, dance, poetry, performance,…
Archaeology Is Having a Great Century So Far
Nearly a century ago, the focus of human origins research shifted from Europe to Africa—such as to the Oldupai (Olduvai) Gorge in Tanzania, one of the cradles of…
Humans in 2019—From Discoveries to Disasters
This image shows various views of the pinky bone of a Denisovan-Neanderthal hybrid found in Siberia. Thomas Higham/University of Oxford Denisovan Deluge This year brought a host of…
Does Tattooing Boost Health?
A Samoan schoolteacher receives a full pe’a, the traditional tattoo generally worn by males. Christopher D. Lynn This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been rep…
Neanderthal Legs and Feet—Suited to Sprinting
If you’re like me, you view long-distance running as a somewhat unrealistic aspiration and see those people who do it well as remarkable creatures. The truth, though, is…
“Ain’t no future in your future”: Temporalities of Recovery and Resilience in Flint, Michigan
By Talia Gordon, University of Chicago § A future full of possibilities starts by drinking pure quality water – Nestlé “Pure Life®” Bottled Water In October 2018, Mayor…
Are Colors Universal?
[no-caption] Marcel Hirshegger/SAPIENS Remember the meme #TheDress? Was it white and gold, or blue and black? With the help of Nicola Jones, a freelance science journalist who writes…
How Rituals of Pain Help Heal
During the kavadi attam ritual in Mauritius, devotees are voluntarily pierced, in some cases hundreds of times. Dimitris Xygalatas Inside a stuffy, overcrowded, and overheated room, a gro…
Case Closed: You Can’t Make a Knife Out of Frozen Poop
Researchers tested the cutting potential of knife-shaped frozen human feces. Michelle R. Bebber In what might constitute the year’s strangest salvo against the scourge of “fake news,” ant…
Things That Are Not Alive, but Which May Be Alive in a Certain Way: An Interdisciplinary Essay on a Relational Theory of Life
By Meredith Root-Bernstein, AgroParisTech, INRA § This blog post is adapted from a paper given at “Anthropology Off Earth,” Collège de France and l’Observatoire de Paris, 4-5 June…
Grounds for Climate Change Mitigation in South Korea’s Tidal Mudflats
By Gebby Keny, Rice University § Blue Carbon Muddy boots on the shore of Wah Ohn beach. Photo by author. “The trick is to step with your right…
How Hearts Align in a Muslim Ritual
Devotees gather for the Sufi ritual of dhikr in downtown Istanbul. Dimitris Xygalatas In downtown Istanbul, Turks in religious garb filter into a large, multistory building. Behind the…
Does Your Microbiome Shape Your Friendships?
[no-caption] Sara López Gilabert/SAPIENS It is early morning on a wide plain in Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya. With a small Dixie cup and a wooden tongue…
The Neanderthal Arm—Hints About Handedness
The human body is often visualized as a symmetrical form: Picture the geometric precision of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man’s proportions encased by a circle…
The Neanderthal Arm—Hints About Handedness
The human body is often visualized as a symmetrical form: Picture the geometric precision of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man’s proportions encased by a circle…
New Hominin Shakes the Family Tree—Again
Homo luzonensis’ teeth are unusual in that the premolars (two teeth on the left) are relatively large, while the molars (three on the right) are smaller than other…
Teaching Evolution in the South: Framing Evolutionary Theory for Religious Students
I am a biocultural anthropologist and teach at a university in the southern United States of America. This means that many of my students are religious and haven’t…
A Head-to-Toe Tour of the Neanderthal
In 1856, a scattered collection of bones was found in the Feldhofer Cave of the Neander Valley in Germany. Scientists had never seen anything like it. The skull…
Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains
[no-caption] sodapix/Getty Images Northern Ethiopia was once home to a vast, ancient lake. Saber-toothed cats prowled around it, giant crocodiles swam within. The streams and rivers that …