Did a Magnetic Field Reversal Doom Neanderthals?
I remember exactly where I was when I first learned about magnetic field reversals: sitting in a lab as an undergraduate student in a geoarchaeology class. I knew…
Tag: environment
Social Distancing in a Sumatra Rainforest
An Orang Rimba man named Nyeruduk stands in front of a tent on a rubber plantation in Sumatra. Dedi Supriansyah On an otherwise silent night in March 2020,…
The Fire This Time: Black and Indigenous Ecologies
In the past year, the world witnessed devastating fire seasons in Australia and the U.S. West, an Atlantic hurricane season with a record thirty storms, and a global…
Book forum: Julie Livington’s Self-Devouring Growth by Todd Meyers
This book forum brings together seven scholars to discuss Julie Livingston’s Self-Devouring Growth: A Planetary Parable as Told from Southern Africa (Duke 2019), a story of what grows alongside “…
On Wishcycling
Wishcycling is the process of placing discards into the recycling bin even when there’s little to no chance for their recovery. The term entered common use over the…
Must Conservation and Indigenous Rights Clash?
A group of Baiga tribespeople stand together. The Indian government has evicted thousands of Baiga people to make way for a wildlife reserve. Simon Williams/Ekta Parishad/Wikimedia Commons …
How to “Co-Live” With a Natural Hazard
Tungurahua, an active volcano in Ecuador, sits amid farming communities that have dwelled alongside it for generations. A.J. Faas As the Andes mountain range curves through Ecuador, it…
Firsting in Research
Declaring that a research is the “first” to discover, do, or go somewhere is not only rarely correct, given myriad local knowledges since time immemorial, but is also…
The Coastal Edge
New technologies are refortifying our coastlines against anthropogenic climate change, drawing our water edgelands near and making them tangible and perhaps valuable. Edgelands, those ignored yet sym…
Partnering with Nonhumans for Climate Action
Arctic sea ice is breaking up and melting as the world’s atmosphere and waters warm. Julianne Yip Arctic sea ice is dying: Its extent, volume, and thickness have…
Mobilizing Cemeteries, Representing Ancestors: The Infrastructure of Protest and the Anti-Petroleum Complex Movement in Pengerang, Malaysia
Resisting the “Rotterdam Port of the East” In 2011, the prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, and the CEO of the national oil company Petronas, Shamsul Azhar Abbas,…
dear gretas
[no-caption] Javier Zayas Photography/Getty Images In my poem, I call up anarchs. Who are they? Anarchs are us: born leaderless and classless—and born to groove. Our species, Humo…
Did Processed Foods Make Us Human?
Anthropologist Bill Schindler uses techniques developed thousands of years ago to prepare fresh-caught salmon during the filming of National Geographic’s The Great Human Race. Luke Cormack …
What’s Left Unsaid When a Language Dies
“Transition” by Papua New Guinean artist Philemon Yalamu. From Papua New Guinea: A New Dawn by Fondazione Imago Mundi/Luciano Benetton Collection. A Death in the Rainforest: How a Languag…
What Human Hair Reveals About Death’s Seasonality
A lock of hair from Edith Cook, a girl who died in 1876, offers a window into her death. Jelmer Eerkens Each wave of Edith Howard Cook’s reddish-blonde…
Climate Change May Have Been a Major Driver of Ancient Hominin Extinctions
New research suggests some of our species’ closest relatives died out because of significant changes in climate, findings that may offer a warning for humanity today. Aliraza Khatri/Getty…
What If There Is Life on Venus?
In the throes of a pandemic that has underscored the fragility of human life on Earth, news has come of possible life on another planet, with the detection…
The Green Woods of Resilience
Conservationist Madeleine Nyiratuza (center) walks through Rwanda’s Gishwati Forest with three eco-guards, who were charged with protecting the area. Courtesy of Madeleine Nyiratuza For a…
There’s no such thing as “We”
Put simply, evoking the universal “we” is a way to discard differences and maintain business as usual.
#Book Symposium: Landscapes of Power
The cover of Dana Powell’s book, Landscapes of Power, taken from a painting by Diné teacher and muralist James B. Joe titled Bleeding Sky, is our first glimpse…
#Book Symposium: Landscapes of Power
In her monograph Landscapes of Power, Powell takes the proposed – at the time of her initial fieldwork – development project of the coal plant Desert Rock on…
#Book Symposium: Landscapes of Power
In Landscapes of Power, Dana Powell maps a failure: the proposed Desert Rock power plant which never came into being beyond paper thin promises made via PowerPoint presentations.…
Do Black Lives Matter in Outer Space?
Artist Peter Williams explores Afrofuturist themes in this painting titled “He Was a Global Traveler.” (Peter Williams, “He Was a Global Traveler,” 2020, oil on canvas, 72 x 96…
Narratives of dysfunction and success stories in e-waste recycling in India
There is a growing consensus that India is going through a waste crisis, and this awareness unfolds parallel to an increasing awareness of the beyond-human time it takes…