Peer review in Castle Wolfenstein
"Peer fortress: The scientific battlefield" uses first-person shooter gaming characters to put a humorous spin on scientific peer review. Six characters that might show up whenever you submit a...
View ArticleDark flies
Carl Zimmer writes today about a long-term Japanese experiment to keep fruit flies in total darkness, to see how they evolve: "Fifty-seven years of darkness". [Syuichi] Mori managed to keep the last...
View ArticleSequencing FTL neutrinos
A well-written blog account of a current controversy in human genetics, by Joe Pickrell: "Questioning the evidence for non-canonical RNA editing in humans". The observation that I personally found most...
View ArticleSarah Blaffer Hrdy interview
Eric Michael Johnson has posted a wonderful and wide-ranging interview with Sarah Blaffer Hrdy: "Raising Darwin’s Consciousness: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy on the Evolutionary Lessons of Motherhood". The...
View ArticleGene doping mice
Andy Coghlan reports on work using viral vectors to amp up mouse muscles, a form of "gene doping", in New Scientist: "Blood tests won't stop gene cheats". Autopsies showed that the extra IGF-1...
View ArticleScience is not a black box
I was looking through my archives for my notes about George R. Price and his debunking of the famous ESP experiments by Soal. I haven't found them yet. But I did find this passage from a couple years...
View ArticleHumans aren't monkeys. We aren't apes, either.
Synopsis: Some biologists say humans are apes. I disagree. Loudly.I don't know why so many people who accept and promote evolution have such a dim view of phylogenetic systematics. How else to explain...
View ArticleI won an award!
The University today announced that I have won a big research award, the H. I. Romnes Fellowship "Romnes Fellowships awarded to 11 recently tenured faculty". It is a great honor! I'm excited that the...
View ArticleNeandertal anti-defamation files, 16
Barbara King joins the Neandertal Anti-Defamation League with her new post at NPR: "Giving Neanderthals Some Respect (Especially In An Election Year)". "Knuckle-dragging Neanderthals!" Every election...
View ArticleReal cave people
The LA Times has an interesting article about modern cave life in Shaanxi: "In China, millions make themselves at home in caves". "It's like living in a villa. Caves in our villages are as comfortable...
View ArticleNew Peking Man report
The South African Journal of Science has a new article by Lee Berger, Wu Liu and Wu Xiujie [1], reporting on the mystery of the "Peking Man" fossils. The remains from Zhoukoudian, China, were lost at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The cultural tool
The Guardian interviews Daniel Everett about his new book, Language: The Cultural Tool. Which I will mention, has one of the worst covers ever. It's like the publisher is trying to keep it on the...
View ArticleReinventing discovery
Sabine Hossenfelder reviews a recent book by Michael Nielsen, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science. Collective intelligence, Michael argues, works by bringing together many people's...
View ArticleAnthropological theory and ethnography summer course
I am going to be offering a summer course this year that is outside my ordinary teaching rotation, Anthropology 300, "Cultural Anthropology: Theory and Ethnography". This is a survey of the history of...
View ArticleUnleash the magicians
The "Amazing" James Randi's essay, "Why Magicians Are a Scientist’s Best Friend", makes the argument that extraordinary claims should be vetted by those more experienced in trickery than the average...
View ArticleBaldness genetics
I've been doing some literature research on the genetics of baldness. Yes, I'm trying to work out what we can say about Neandertal phenotypes, if you're wondering. I share part of my androgen receptor...
View ArticleQuote: Radcliffe-Brown on anthropology as a science
A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, in Structure and Function in Primitive Society, on the role of social anthropology as a science. Radcliffe-Brown has been considered as one of the most prominent exponents of...
View ArticleQuote: Edward Sapir on language and social reality
Edward Sapir [1]: Language is a guide to ‘social reality’. Though language is not ordinarily thought of as of essential interest to the students of social science, it powerfully conditions all our...
View ArticleQuote: Marshall Sahlins on Claude Levi-Strauss
A couple of years ago, the AAA solicited comments about Claude Levi-Strauss from Marshall Sahlins: "On the anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss". Finally, one finds more than one suggestion in...
View ArticleAnthropology 105, lecture 11: Enamel
Synopsis: The teeth preserve a record of ancient diets and lifestyles I've gotten a bit behind in posting lectures -- a few technical problems arose in the fifth week of class, and took a week to sort...
View Article