Anthropology

Internet Searches Reflect Increase In E-Cigarette Popularity

The Oxford Dictionaries selected "vape"--as in, to smoke from an electronic cigarette or inhalation device--as word of the year in 2014. Internet users' search behavior tells a similar story.  ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 11 2016 - 9:12am

Warfare? Climate Change? Another Easter Island Belief Overturned

Analysis of artifacts found on the shores of Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) declares that the spear points were likely general purpose tools and not weapons of war, disputing one popular belief as to why people left or died off. ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 16 2016 - 11:03am

Early Human Habitat In Tanzania Recreated, Shows Life Was No 'Harmony With Nature' Picnic

Scientists have pieced together an early human habitat for the first time, and life was no organic picnic 1.8 million years ago. Nature was out to kill us and the struggle our ancestors face, as all creatures do, is survival. Rather than the myth of ecolo ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 14 2016 - 5:44pm

Discrimination? Smokers Have Harder Time Getting Jobs

Cigarette smoking is a noxious mess of 200 toxic chemicals that are risk factors for all kinds of diseases, and so it is sure to be a burden on a health care system that in the United States is increasingly being funded by the government, and therefore th ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 11 2016 - 12:17pm

Laughter’s Evolutionary Past

Laughter plays a crucial role in every culture across the world. But it’s not clear why laughter exists. While it is evidently an inherently social phenomenon – people are up to 30 times more likely to laugh in a group than when alone – laughter’s function ...

Article - Jordan Raine - Apr 15 2016 - 8:41am

How Women Became So Important In Piano Composition

In the Middle Ages, women became important for the development of piano composition and play. But why?  There have long been rules and conventions regarding what women can and can’t do in the world of music at all times. Straddling the legs around a cello ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2016 - 6:54pm

The Historical Basis For The Red Woman In Game Of Thrones

Every "Game of Thrones" season premiere needs its shock reveal – and season six is no different. As the name of the episode – The Red Woman – hints, this one pertains to red priestess Melisandre, to whom, it turns out, there’s much more than mee ...

Article - The Conversation - Apr 25 2016 - 9:40am

Rice Growers In China Are More Sexually Liberal Than Wheat Growers- Here's Why

Recent years have seen claims that a “national sex revolution” is well underway in China and that it has “has reached a point of no return”. But according to my new research looking at the views of people across China on sex, this is going too far. In 198 ...

Article - The Conversation - May 12 2016 - 9:31am

'What Is Dead May Never Die': The Secrets Of Resurrection

Warning: this article contains spoilers for those not up to date with Game of Thrones season six. Events in HBO’s Game of Thrones TV series have got people talking about what it means to return from the dead. But while resurrection appears to be a very re ...

Article - The Conversation - May 27 2016 - 9:56am

Anthropologist Glenn Stone Again Declares GMO Golden Rice More Hat Than Cattle

Heralded on the cover of Time magazine in 2000 as a genetically modified (GMO) crop with the potential to save millions of lives in the Third World, Golden Rice is still years- and millions of dollars in anti-science activism- away from field introduction ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 4 2016 - 3:34pm