Anthropology
A new study following the evolution of lice discovered something interesting - modern humans started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago, and that was a key factor in successfully migrating out of Africa.
Principal investigator David Reed, associate curator of mammals at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, studies lice in modern humans to better understand human evolution and migration patterns. His latest five-year study used DNA sequencing to calculate when clothing lice first began to diverge genetically from human head lice.
"We wanted to find another method…
2000 years from now, if future researchers find our Science 2.0 mug, what would it tell them?
Quite a bit, it turns out - at least regarding the social structure of the period in which we live. Coffee is big in society. But America is a young country compared to an ancient empire like Greece. Studying drinks in ancient Greece over a long period can help researchers piece together what the social structure may have been like beyond select older writings.
Kathleen Lynch, University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, held a talk on her work during the…
In preparing my series on Ancient Astronauts, I encountered a few problems I hadn’t anticipated, though maybe I should have looking back now. Mainly the problem is a lack of understanding of the terms being and ideas being used.
Things like why a myth is a myth, or why Archaeologists except certain views over others. If you’re not well versed in these reasons, it can seem a little biased and possibly lead to confusion, like in what the term “quantum” means. So, when I saw Von Daniken and his ilk using the term “Cargo Cult” to describe the Nazca lines, I realized many people may…
Ah, the good old days, where everyone in the neighborhood had kids named John and Mary (or Juan and Maria, or Jean and Marie, etc). But all of the warm fuzzy melting pot of same-name-ness started to disintegrate in the 1960s, when diversification of baby names started in the US, "at the same time that Americans started placing more emphasis on individuality and less on collectivity and fitting in," according to the Live Science article.1
Enter the Social Security Administration, Shannon entropy, and kids ending up with names like Apple and Pilot Inspektor.2 Recently the SSA started…
Hank |
It's common belief that Vikings visited Newfoundland, therefore reaching the New World from Europe before Christopher Columbus, but a new genetic analysis claims not only did Vikings visit North America, they brought natives back to Europe with them. And had babies.
The report in the latest edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology says researchers sequenced the complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome of 11 people with haplogroup C1, a lineage that was involved in the settlement of North America over 12,000 years ago, from four different families. No problem,…
KenCog |
I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.
- Flannery O'Connor
Stories and Memes
The world began without the human race and will certainly end without it.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955
The Pleistocene Ice Boundary
During the Pleistocene the glaciers processed far south, and recessed, 17 times. This glaciation continued cyclically, at times covering as much as 30% of the Earth's surface, from around 1.8 million years ago until the present Holocene epoch began some 10,000 years ago with…
KenCog |
I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.
- Flannery O'Connor
Stories and Memes
The world began without the human race and will certainly end without it.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955
The Pleistocene Ice Boundary
During the Pleistocene the glaciers processed far south, and recessed, 17 times. This glaciation continued cyclically, at times covering as much as 30% of the Earth's surface, from around 1.8 million years ago until the present Holocene epoch began some 10,000 years ago with…
KenCog |
From Neuroanthropology blog
Review article Tunnel vision
Pinker, Steven. 2002. The blank slate: the modern denial of human nature.
London: Penguin. 509 pp.
The gap between sociocultural anthropology and biological/physical anthropology is deep, but fairly recent. In the 1870s, Tylor enjoyed a fruitful relationship with the Darwinists; he was inspired by, and in turn inspired, Darwin himself. Later generations also engaged in respectful dialogue until, roughly, the end of the Second World War.
After the war, biological approaches to human nature and culture were discredited in public life,…
KenCog |
The dividing line partitioning protestant congregations which sponsor these receiving textbook classification as Cult organizations is narrow and drawn with a palsy: missing, or at least not present as a rule, is the charismatic personality at it's helm, and further as an icon. A retrospective of tragic sectarian delusion will surely include more grizzled and eerie personal portraits than stately edifice or messianic totem. Despite this distinction, Fundamental Christianity achieves the same metastatic influence by directing laud and obedience to a wax-work authority whom they totally…
KenCog |
One of a three part series on epigenetics, transhumanism, and future human evolution.
Dr. Bruce Lipton: The Biology of Belief
Epigenetics is a relative infant field of scientific study, but has lately led to some very bold declarations about the future of biomedical research and therapy. The discovery of specific links between extra-genetic components puts new talking points in the hands of transhumanists and champions of “conscious evolution” like Dr. Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief and Spontaneous Evolution, for their claims that we are on the brink of a “New Biology” in…