Science's rules
John Wilkins has started a "Scientist's Operating Manual" -- a collaborative project with the aim of writing a short text for non-scientists. I'm pointing to the introductory post, mainly because I...
View Article43,000-year-old assemblages from Highland New Guinea
Glenn Summerhayes and colleagues [1] enter a brief report in Science this week, describing radiocarbon dates for several small archaeological assemblages from the Ivane Valley, in eastern Highland New...
View ArticleProbing bones
John Travis gives a conference summary (paywall) of the recent International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology. The focus is new technological approaches to studying archaeological sites, and...
View ArticleAnthropology graduate program rankings
The National Research Council (NRC) released its "rankings" of graduate programs in U.S. universities this week. I say "rankings" because they didn't actually present a single ranking, or anything that...
View ArticleMirror macaques
Carl Zimmer reports on last week's study showing rhesus macaques apparently passing the "Gallup test" for mirror self-recognition. I was talking about this in class Thursday, and Zimmer gives some of...
View ArticleMead off
Does anybody read Margaret Mead anymore? I'm just asking because I read this short entry by Matt at Savage Minds. So perhaps Mead hasn’t aged well. But you know who has? Jane Goodall. Whereas Mead’s...
View ArticleBeware the wiki books
I was browsing on Amazon this morning, and found rather a surprising number of new books about human evolution. The thing is, I didn't recognize any of the authors' names. Now, you might well imagine...
View ArticleNeandercomic
A comic-page exposition of Neandertal DNA is online from Scientific American MIND.
View ArticleSTEM plunk
Natalie Angier, who knows something about how to introduce science to the masses, blows off some steam about STEM in this week's Science Times: A new report from the President’s Council of Advisors on...
View ArticleSaving science writing
Wired editor David Rowan wrote last week about "How to save science journalism". It's a long essay, discussing the problems traditional media outlets have supporting dedicated science reporting, some...
View ArticleNobel dreams
I'm glad to be in a field without a Nobel Prize. I've met many Nobelists, always with great respect and admiration. Many are great thinkers, intellectually curious across a broad range of fields,...
View ArticlePoster Venn
I love the Poster Venn diagram" from Better Posters -- stuff people usually put on academic posters intersected with what viewers care about. So I won't cut and paste the diagram, just go see it. Some...
View ArticleNeandertal headlines
For two weeks I've been reading news feeds about how volcanoes killed the Neandertals. I mean, seriously: USA Today: "Volcanoes wiped out the Neanderthals?" National Geographic: "Volcanoes Killed Off...
View ArticleQuote: Dobzhansky on the tropics
Theodosius Dobzhansky, concluding a paper titled, "Evolution in the Tropics", which considered the role of physical environment versus other factors as evolutionary pressures: The effectiveness of...
View ArticleBook futures
An article about the future bookless libraries, which may already be springing up at a campus near you: Last month, the University of Texas at San Antonio announced it had built the world’s first...
View ArticleNeandertal fashion
I missed this at the time, but when National Geographic had that Neandertal issue a couple of years ago, they commissioned some Project Runway designers to make outfits for their female Neandertal...
View ArticleField primatology
Noah Snyder-Mackler's continuing series in the NY Times' "Scientist at Work" blog has been providing a journal of his fieldwork on gelada baboons. I'll link to his current entry, which is about male...
View ArticleGenomes unzipped, unzipped
Genomes Unzipped, has finally unzipped: From today, we’ll be making all of our raw genetic data and the reports generated from these tests freely available online. As the project proceeds, we aim to...
View ArticleThe Neandertals of Mount Doom
Well, I already snarked on the science headlines that have been claiming volcanoes "wiped out" the Neandertals. Some variation of this story, swapping in a different Neanderkiller, has been circulating...
View ArticleBedbug bitery
USA Today says, "Let the bedbugs bite." As a veteran traveler who's spent many nights in airport hotels, roadside chains and dodgy guesthouses - heck, I even braved the Dirtiest Hotel in America and...
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