Aliens Before we can understand an alien civilization, it might be useful to understand our own. To help in this task, anthropologist Kathryn Denning of York University in Toronto, Canada studies the very human way that scientists, engineers and…
An Anthropologist to Head the World Bank? The White House named Jim Yong Kim as its nominee to head to World Bank. Jim Yong Kim is the president of Dartmouth College, an anthropologist, a physician and a global health expert. This nomination forms a radical break from the traditional…
Family Life in the USA Elinor Ochs’ latest research on child-rearing practices among middle class US families receives wide spread media attention: Anthropologist Elinor Ochs and her colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles have studied family life as far…
Catastrophe and its Ghosts A year after whole neighborhoods were killed by the Japanese tsunami, rumors of ghosts swirl in Ishinomaki as the city struggles to come to terms with the tragedy. One reconstruction project appears stalled because of fears the undead spirits of…
Parody as Scientific Theory Nate Greenslit writes for From the Fields, a Wired Science op-ed series: As an anthropologist of science, I am fascinated with how people create their own meaning from scientific content, which in turn shapes public understanding of science and,…
Cyborg Anthropology Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist. The TED Website explains: Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on “external brains” (cell phones and computers) to…
FGM Speaking to Voice of America, Medical Anthropologist Elise Johansen joins the widespread call to end Female Genital Mutilation: …FGM, a practice which dates back thousands of years, persists despite widespread recognition of its harmful physical…
Border Crossing Fox News Latino reports: Shoes, backpacks and other objects discarded in the desert by undocumented immigrants have been collected by a team of anthropologists to document the difficult journey they make to get into the United States. “For me,…
Margaret Mead: This I Believe The Hindu newspaper published a piece commemorating the recording of Margaret Mead’s “This I Believe” essay for Edward R. Murrow’s radio series: I believe that to understand human beings it is necessary to think of them as part of the whole…
Weather Control This interesting anthropology-related news bite appeared at ESPN: BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s top prosecutor is questioning why a shaman, or medicine man, was paid $2,000 to keep rain away from the closing ceremony of the Under-20 World…