Anthropology

Opportunity Is Often The Mother Of Invention, Not Necessity

Policy makers and amateur psychology pundits think "necessity is the mother of invention"- and sometimes it is, that is why that became a saying, but plain old opportunity matters a lot. Natural gas had been around for 70 years, for example, and ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 12 2014 - 11:14am

Men Evolved Navigation Skills To Find Mates, Say Anthropologists

An analysis of two African tribes has led anthropologists to suggest that men evolved better navigation ability than women because men with better spatial skills- the ability to mentally manipulate objects- can roam farther and have children with more mat ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 13 2014 - 1:57am

When It Comes To Chimpanzees And Sex, Consent Is Optional

We may talk about a battle of the sexes when it comes to our species, but in the rest of the primate world, it really is a battle. We have the luxury of cultural hand-wringing about the shirt a Rosetta mission engineer wore in a YouTube video, but when it ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 13 2014 - 5:58pm

Is Religion A Consolation Worth Having?

King's College Chapel: beauty, art, profundity – but truth? Tom Thai, CC BY-SA By Simon Blackburn, University of Cambridge ...

Article - The Conversation - Nov 21 2014 - 4:18pm

More Social: Loneliness Among American Teenagers Declines

There has been concern about a lessening of social engagement, mostly created by older people who see young people behaving differently than they did (and do). Last decade it was noted that young people were less likely to join clubs, had fewer close frie ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 24 2014 - 2:00pm

Like Collaboration And Intelligence In Humans? Thank War

Necessity may be the mother of invention, at least if war is a necessity. And perhaps it is. In the early days of humanity, survival was a combination of hardiness, keen engineering and intelligence- and nothing spurred on technological progress and vast ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 26 2014 - 12:03pm

Paleolithic Diets And Unprovable Links To Our Past

This has as much in common with actual paleolithic culture as the paleolithic diet does. Flickr/ George, CC BY-NC-SA By Darren Curnoe ...

Article - The Conversation - Nov 28 2014 - 4:00pm

Equality: Not Just Mean Girls At School, Teenage Boys Can Be Awful Too

Relational aggression, such as malicious rumors, social exclusion and rejection, are considered something that girls do more often. The movie "Mean Girls" epitomized it to hilarious effect. A trio of scholars used surveys to show that boys are b ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 1 2014 - 12:28pm

There Was No 'Paleo Diet'- Ancient People Ate What They Had

The Paleolithic diet, eating like our ancient ancestors, is a diet fad that seeks to emulate the diet of early humans during the Stone Age. But what does that mean? Almost anything people want because ancestral diets differed substantially over time and g ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 16 2014 - 9:27am

Christmas Dinner In Medieval Times Wasn't What You Think

Want something a little different for Christmas this year? Caroline Yeldham, courtesy of the Leeds International Medieval Congress By Iona McCleery, University of Leeds. With Christmas almost upon us, there will be plenty of frenzied present shopping and ...

Article - The Conversation - Dec 16 2014 - 9:44am