January 2011
71 posts
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new and startling anthropological discovery... →
December 2010
47 posts
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exporting u.s. neuroses, is the u.s making the... →
“Journalist Ethan Watters argues that American models of disorders like anorexia and depression are being embraced in other countries. We revisit our conversation with Watters, who also says mental health professionals who come in to provide counseling after a disaster need to consider local practices and beliefs.” interview by robin young for the show, here and now, on npr. this is...
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david and solomon, kings of controversy. →
“Most Israeli archaeologists would prefer that their work not be used as a political wedge. This, nonetheless, is the way of young nations. As Bar-Ilan University archaeology professor Avraham Faust observes, “The Norwegians relied on Viking sites to create a separate identity from their Swedish and Danish rulers. Zimbabwe is named after an archaeological site. Archaeology is a very...
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finger bone points to new branch of humanity. →
“A finger bone from Siberia now reveals a previously unknown group of ancient humans once existed there, one neither like us nor Neanderthals. Bizarrely, the DNA from these extinct Siberians seems unusually similar to that of Pacific Islanders from tropical Melanesia. The 30,000-year-old fossil was found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia in 2008, a bone fragment that likely came from a...
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bones give peek into lives of neanderthals. →
“No animal bones washed into the Tunnel of Bones along with the Neanderthals’. In fact, the only other things scientists have found there are fragments of Neanderthal stone blades. And when the scientists closely examined the Neanderthal bones, they found cut marks — signs that the blades had been used to slice muscle from bone. The long bones had been snapped open. From these clues, the...
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the neanderthal romeo and human juliet hypothesis. →
“Could it be that Homo neanderthalensis males were able to mate with Homo sapiens females but that the reciprocal cross was unsuccessful? Alternatively, were male H.sapiens disastrously incapable of wooing the physically more powerful H.neanderthalensis females? Or were H.neanderthalensis females simply unable to give birth to hybrid offspring? Perhaps maleH.neanderthalensis outcompeted...
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family acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and... →
“For the first time, researchers have established a clear link between accepting family attitudes and behaviors towards their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children and significantly decreased risk and better overall health in adulthood. The study shows that specific parental and caregiver behaviors — such as advocating for their children when they are mistreated...
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mapping ethnicity, an interactive map based upon... →
“With the simple entry of a zip code, you have access to maps on race, income, education and other household characteristics on your desktop for any census tract in the country. In addition to maps displaying these common mapping variables, the tool provides census tract maps on changes in median income, elementary school children attending private school, households with same-sex couples...
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but science doesn't work that way: miller and... →
“In this post, our heroine — spurred on by her godly pursuit of science and a bevy of caffeinated drinks — compares the standard approach to language to intelligent design. It might get noodly. Does language “emerge” full-blown in children, guided by a hierarchy ofinbuilt grammatical rules for sentence formation and comprehension? Or is language better described as a learned system of...
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the correlation between income and s.a.t. scores →
“In any case, this correlation should give us pause; it calls into question, quite profoundly, the extent to which the SAT is functioning as a fair measure. Perhaps it measures preparedness for college, but whether it measures potential is up for debate.” posted in the sociology pages.
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economics status, genetics together influence... →
“In two separate studies, Verona, Sadeh and their colleagues found that pubescent and prepubescent children with the longer alleles for the transporter gene scored higher than other children on psychopathic traits if they also had low socioeconomic status. These children reportedly exhibited less empathy, they were more prone to arrogance and deceitfulness and were less emotionally...
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twelve theses on wikileaks. →
“Vindictive, politicized, conspiratorial, reckless: one need not agree with WikiLeaks’ modus operandi to acknowledge its service to democracy. Geert Lovink and Patrice Riemens see in WikiLeaks indications of a new culture of exposure beyond the traditional politics of openness and transparency.” posted in eurozine.
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wikileaks and the hacktivist culture. →
“It’s also a bit difficult to “disable the system,” since WikiLeaks did not need to create a new network; the group simply relied on existing electronic communications networks (e.g., the Internet) and the fact that there are tens of thousands of like-minded people all over the world. Where did all those like-minded people come from? Are they all under the spell of...
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culturallyneutral-deactivated20 asked: I'm trying to figure out how to sensitively tell my one-year-old son there's no Santa when my entire family INSISTS (against my wishes, mind you!) on telling him that there is a Santa! My sister is even trying to teach him to say "ho, ho, ho!" I HATE living in the Deep South where I'm treated like I'm a Neanderthal for NOT believing in Santa or any of the other...
judgeisonvinyl asked: your blog is a godsend of anthropological amazing-ness.
Anonymous asked: How old are you?
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cure for h.i.v. don't believe the hype. →
the “cure for h.i.v.” has been trending on tumblr recently. this case has been around for a couple of years, here is an article on it from the new york times in 2008, “It’s very nice, and it’s not even surprising,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “But it’s just off the table of practicality.” The patient, a...
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black segregation in u.s. drops to lowest in... →
“It’s taken a Civil Rights movement and several generations to yield noticeable segregation declines for blacks,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who reviewed the census data. “But the still-high levels of black segregation in some areas, coupled with uneven clustering patterns for Hispanics, suggest that the idea of a post-racial America...
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S a b i d u r í a: studying for my anthro... →
okaycion:
Hegemony
Coercion, when you force people to submit to your power. ex. if you speak out against your government you’ll be locked up.
Which is funny because the whole wikileaks thing. Professors are being told to not talk about it in classes or it will jeopardize their job futures.and Students…
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party naked.
went to a dinner party tonight. a friend whispered in my ear, “go check out the library, somebody there you ought to see.” so i did. looking around at six or eight people there, didn’t recognize anyone. then i saw the big naked picture of me on the wall. ”oh… my.” i turn to leave the room and avoid it the rest of the night. fortunately, the pic was done...
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Metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology: 20 Awesomely... →
ariannaaaaaaaaaa:
1. “Toska”
Russian – Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of…
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sexual dimorphism in human breasts: an examination... →
“The conspicuous deposits of fat on the breasts, hips, and buttocks of females are often interpreted as results of sexual selection involving female-female competition to attract and retain provisioning males. Although the female figure is clearly sexually attractive to males, and vice-versa, its erotic value may be secondary to other reasons for their prominence, such as maternal...
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the role of a dominate male within an all male...
so the dude says, “…i’d just put a pillow over her face.” everybody laughs. no, not everybody. not me. eye contact and the dude wonders why i’m not joining in on the joke. because of the type of social setting this is i’m playing by different rules. code switching from academic to punk as fuck. ”you fuck sheep?” i ask. ”what?”...
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a world without words →
“One morning, neurologist Jill Taylor woke up with a headache. A blood vessel then burst inside her left hemisphere, and silenced all the brain chatter in her head. She was left with no language. No memories. Just sensory intake, and an all-encompassing feeling of joy.” presented by radiolab. worth the listen.
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city life boosts bug resistance. →
“People from traditionally urban areas could be genetically better suited to fighting infection, say researchers.” posted by the bbc
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Modern & Im/material things: Wikileaks, Morality... →
modernandmaterialthings:
In the wake of “Cablegate” (a.k.a Wikileaks), there’s been a lot of interesting discussion about the tensions between publics and privates, morality, and online transparency. Out of these conversations emerge two interesting points: the moral right of governments to privacy and the idea…
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perceptions of u.s. spending on foreign aid. →
another example of the gap between public perception and actual numbers. how can this society expect to solve any problems when the u.s. population is living in an alternate reality? ”Abi, a professor of Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, pointed out an interesting graph posted by Ezra Klein at the Washington Post. The graph, using data from a survey of public...
wtf?
overheard at work… “einstein is a jew!? einstein isn’t jewish, wasn’t he australian?”
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like to sleep around? are you a liberal? blame... →
“A particular version of a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4 is linked to people’s tendency toward both infidelity and uncommitted one-night stands, the researchers reported Nov. 30 in the online open-access journal PloS One. The same gene has already been linked to alcoholism and gambling addiction, as well as less destructive thrills like a love of horror films. One study linked...