The Familiar Strange · Ep#104 We let ChatGPT write this title: ""ChatGPT: The Future of AI-Assisted Conversations" It’s been a while… We’re back, this time with Familiar Strange…
An archaeologist explains what a 500-year-old horn container found in South Africa illuminates about precolonial Khoisan medical and spiritual knowledges. This article was originally published at The…
Every January, government officials, urban dwellers, and rural families across the state of Ceará, Northeast Brazil anxiously await the rainy season forecasts from Funceme, the Research Institute for …
An anthropologist is digitizing gravestones at Burial Hill, a historic cemetery in Plymouth, Massachusetts, that holds the remains of some of the first Pilgrims. Documenting these unique records…
Some cochlear implant users can’t afford to keep up with compulsory technology upgrades. After becoming dependent on the devices, they’re losing their hearing and feel abandoned by manufacturers.…
This is a work of hypertext-ethnography. It is based on my research of a small genetics laboratory in Tokyo, Japan where I am studying the impact of the…
Inspired by pop culture depictions of cavepeople, an archaeologist searches for elusive evidence of ancient wooden clubs. ✽ Growing up in the 1990s, I first encountered the ancient…
When I talked with Jia, who works for an e-commerce company in Shanghai, China, she was trying to finish a “Perfect Month Challenge” on her Apple Watch. That…
The James Webb Space Telescope’s stunning photos require extensive image processing—revealing as much about humanity as about the universe. In July 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled “Webb’s…
Over the past two decades, the subway system has reshaped social relations in India’s densely populated capital—especially for women, who continue to face everyday violence in public spaces.…
There is a global push towards making AI more ethical and transparent. As critical contributions on the topic of AI have pointed out: even when computational applications are…
Two anthropologists explain how humans managed to not just survive but dominate northern climates despite evolutionary origins in—and hence, biological predispositions to—warmer environments. This ar…
In the film Doctor Dolittle (1967), the title character yearns to “Talk to the Animals,” as the song goes, to understand their mysterious and often vexing ways. It…
The 2020 discovery of an ancient villa in Britain uncovered the most important Roman mosaic found in the last century. An archaeologist explains how the mosaic offers an…
An anthropologist considers how different the world might be if Neanderthals—and hence, their ways of navigating relationships with the environment and one another—had survived the gauntlet of evoluti…
An anthropologist explores whether Lebanese turning to solar power is a story of resilience, environmental triumph, or something else. ✽ I recently returned to Lebanon, where I have…
In the Caucasus, researchers are using aerospace technology to expose the clandestine obliteration of Armenian cultural heritage. These new methods of archaeology will prove necessary in the global…
Researchers in artificial intelligence have made extraordinary strides in mimicking human language—but they still can’t capture the parts that truly make language human. ✽ The story begins with…
Trust exposes and discloses the social. But the heterogeneity and even excessiveness of meaning in the concept—its overdetermination, its multifariousness and multiformity, its downright fuzziness—sug…
“Less Trust, More Truth” said the black nylon drawstring bag in the cardboard box. I had to have one. No other item of swag at this crypto-conference articulated…
“We bet on mining,” peasant leaders (dirigentes) say of the decision to permit one of the world’s largest open-pit copper mining projects on lands occupied by Quechua-speaking communities…
How do globalised health regimes create and shape landscapes of medical regulation and patient safety? This essay asks about the many ways in which patients, consumers, health advocates,…
From WiFi-enabled sleep trackers to wearable brain-altering apps, sleep technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated. But is the antidote to insomnia far more ancient? ✽ You will likely spend…