Anthropology

Wild chimpanzees in the forests of Uganda are increasingly eating clay to supplement the minerals in their diet, according to a long-term study published in PLOS ONE. The paper led by the University of Oxford describes how the researchers observed wild chimpanzees in the Budongo forest eating and drinking from clay pits and termite mounds. The paper concludes that this change in diet may be partly due to the widespread destruction of raffia palm trees that chimps relied on for their minerals in the past. However, the main reason seems to be the chimps have recently started to boost the…

The Battle of Agincourt, a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War, will have its 600th anniversary on October 25th, 2015, but they had actually landed in August. How big was the fleet that carried the army? Henry V’s naval fleet, used to transport troops, was much smaller than previously thought, according to a historian.  Dr. Craig Lambert from the University of Southampton examined the naval preparations which allowed Henry V’s army to travel from England to France, using English exchequer rolls in the National Archives at Kew and other sources. Lambert has concluded Henry had…

Don't expect your social worker to ask you about your religious beliefs, even though licensed clinical social workers, who account for the largest number of clinically trained helping professionals, believe that discussions about clients' religion and spirituality can often lead to improved health and mental health, says Holly Oxhandler, Ph.D., assistant professor in Baylor University's Diana R. Garland School of Social Work. There is a disconnect between views and behavior so practitioners are not integrating these conversations into their counseling sessions. Some of it may be related…

Facebook traffic and news items tell us a lot of Americans of northern European extraction are anxious and even fearful about the prospect that White Americans will soon be a minority. A subset seems further offended by court decisions bestowing civil rights on gay people. Another subset is inflamed over removals of the Confederate battle flag from public spaces. Then there are environmental regulations that seem to snatch job opportunities from an already embattled middle class – and other kinds of federal regulation that have set some Whites on anti-government, secessionist, or survivalist…

Snacking is the new American pastime, acccording to the recent survey by Mintel which found that nearly all Americans (94 percent) report snacking at least once a day and 50 percent of adults snack two to three times per day. 70 percent agreeing that anything can be considered a snack these days and in that context frequent snacking may be replacing standard daily meals, according to Snacking Motivations and Attitudes US 2015, though Americans claim a preference for healthier snacking with 33 percent saying they are snacking on healthier foods this year compared to last year, specifically…

Though drinking alcohol while pregnant is considered a cultural no-no in the United States, that is not the case for other current and former British subjects.  Data of almost 18,000 women in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand finds that 20% all the way up to almost 80% of those questioned drank during pregnancy, and across all social strata. The prevalence of drinking alcohol ranged from 20% to 80% in Ireland, and from 40% to 80% in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Women who smoked were more likely to drink alcohol as well. The surveys used were The Growing up in Ireland…

A milk-and ochre-based paint dates that may have been used by inhabitants to South Africa to adorn themselves or decorate stone or wood slabs has been dated to 49,000 years ago.  While the use of ochre by early humans dates to at least 250,000 years ago in Europe and Africa, this is the first time a paint containing ochre and milk has ever been found in association with early humans in South Africa, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and lead study author. The milk likely was obtained by killing lactating members of the bovid family such…

There is a paradox when it comes to guns in America. In states like California, gun ownership has doubled in the last 15 years while murder rates dropped substantially in that time. Today,almost one in three US adults owns at least one gun, and owners are more likely to be white married men over the age of 55, hardly a high crime demographic. Instead of being for crime, most guns are used for suicide - and even then fewer people commit suicide with guns in the US than do by hanging in Japan. Though Switzerland had always scoffed at the notion that guns cause crime - gun ownership is even…

The words 'yes' and 'no' may seem like two of the easiest expressions to understand in any language, but their actual behavior and interpretation are surprisingly difficult to pin down. In a paper published earlier today in the journal Language, two linguists examine the workings of 'yes' and 'no' and show that understanding them leads to new insights concerning the understanding of questions and statements more generally. Floris Roelofsen of the University of Amsterdam and Donka F. Farkas of the University of California Santa Cruz have written what they call a comprehensive account of '…

Wide-scale population migrations and changes took place in Europe and Asia during the Bronze Age that shaped the demographic structure of present-day Europeans and Asians, as revealed by an analysis of 101 genomes from ancient Eurasian humans. A new study published in this week’s Nature presents one of the largest studies of ancient DNA samples to date.  The research provides insights into the prevalence of certain traits such as skin color or lactose tolerance, as well as data relevant to the understanding the spread of Indo-European languages. The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3,000–5…