Learning From Handy Primates
A researcher who studies animal behavior looks at tool use in nonhuman primates to better illuminate tool use in humans. Many of our primate relatives use tools. How…
Tag: Technology
Cultivating Modern Farms Using Ancient Lessons
An anthropologist examines what past farmers can teach us about adapting to climate change amid—and sometimes against—powerful political influences. This article was originally published at The Conve…
Untangling the World’s First-Known String
Neanderthals made the oldest string ever found, providing new insights into the technology and culture of our hominin cousins. At the Abri du Maras site in southern France,…
In Search of the First Cyborg
A Paleolithic archaeologist sets out on a journey in search of the first cyborg, making discoveries that end up very close to home. These days, a mention of…
Black Influencers Beyond the Screens
Meet Anuli Akanegbu, the host of the BLK IRL podcast and a doctoral candidate researching Black creatives who are contract workers in Atlanta, Georgia. Anuli Akanegbu is the…
Cultures of Technology
In the seventh season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of stories about how technology—in a variety of configurations—shapes humanity. Since the dawn of our…
Love and Technology: An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin – review
Fabian Broeker‘s Love and Technology: An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin explores how dating apps mediate intimacy among young Berliners. Presenting an immersive ethnography of app usa…
Lonely Planet Looking for Connection: Citizen Science SETI Research at NASA
NASA’s homepage is as glitzy as you would expect of the U.S. Government’s sexiest administration. Glossy pictures of nebulas, astronauts, and asteroids float across the top of the…
Intravenous ideological global apparatus – IISAs
I am holding out for the new intravenous culture industry critique. Cannot get students to leave their screen devices alone even if they are banned in the classroom.…
Why Shoes Do Not Make the Runner
East African runners wearing “super shoes” have outpaced global marathon records. But the shoe fervor—alongside older stereotypes about African runners’ “natural” abilities—means athletes’ hard work o…
On Algorithmic Divination
Scientist operating an algorithmic divination machine as imagined by Midjourney’s AI (image by Author & Midjourney). Algorithms are tools of divination.[1] Like cowry shells, scapular bones,…
Restoring Faces and Dignity to Skeletal Remains
An anthropologist explains how a South African university used community-driven research to honor human remains acquired unethically. This article was originally published at The Conversation and has…
How to Imagine the Unknown: Choosing an Arm Prosthesis
When amputation happens, it is an un-ignorable event. After the surgery, the person learns how to be an amputee, they learn to conceptualize their altered body. This work…
Arc of Interference: Medical Anthropology for Worlds on Edge – review
In Arc of Interference: Medical Anthropology for Worlds on Edge, João Biehl and Vincanne Adams assemble reflections on the role of anthropology in understanding healthcare in today’s world of…
Making Companion Species at a Robotics Lab
I spent many a warm summer day holed up inside a robotics laboratory, analyzing various datasets for my Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research project. The room was often dark…
Inside Mexico City’s Surveillance State
An anthropologist investigates how one city’s rapidly expanding video surveillance system is transforming criminal investigation—sometimes in deeply flawed ways. ✽ In September 2022, a criminal prose…
Embracing Formal Rituals For Stronger Ideas and Connections
Punting on the Cam: A punter sharing Cambridge history with a couple under the Bridge of Sighs on the Cambridge University campus. I just spent a summer studying…
The Hidden Ancestry Extracted From an Ancient Pendant
An anthropologist explains how new forensics tools offer unprecedented answers to questions about who likely held or wore Stone Age objects. This article was originally published at The Conversation …
AI as a Feminist Issue
By choosing to look at the funding from the American Government on this field, I aim to tell a different story about AI. A quick search for the…
Forensic Methods Unveil Clues About Megafauna Extinctions
An archaeologist explains how novel applications of forensic methods—namely, blood residue analyses—have yielded evidence that Paleoindians hunted mastodons, mammoths, and other megafauna in eastern N…
Sit, Siri! Designing Our Tech to Have Good Etiquette
Sometimes we need to tell our devices what to do. Illustration by the author. If you’re lucky, you awake in the morning to an overeager puppy who bounds onto…
The Persistence of Fukushima’s Fisherfolk
In a new book, an anthropologist with long-term ties to northeastern Japan shares stories of how fishing communities have continued making a living in uncertain waters after the…
On the Quandaries of Aquatic Forensics
A team of scientists, including an anthropologist, explains the challenges and methods for locating, identifying, and retrieving human remains from underwater. This article was originally published a…
What It Means to Design Technology That’s “Pass-Through”
Windows are the ultimate pass-through technologies. The best example of a technology interface is one you rarely notice — even if it’s powerfully enhancing your reading experience of these words…