Category Archives: Biological Anthropology
What about a Lentil is Less Creative?
Catching up again on articles sent to me over the past few years, a 2010 Science summary by Ann Gibbons of a Current Biology piece by Philipp Gunz & colleagues (“Brain development after birth differs between Neanderthals and modern humans”) indicates … Continue reading
Of Epigenetic Aggression & Silver Foxes
Originally posted on the “Biology, Culture, & Evolution” blog of the UA Anthropology Blog Network at http://anthropology.ua.edu/blogs/ant475/2013/09/24/of-epigenetic-aggression-silver-foxes/ . Epigenetic Mechanisms, Quick & Dirty Jablonka & Raz (2009) show us this elegant illustration of broad and narrow epigenetic transmission. Epigenetic inheritance in … Continue reading
University Greek Systems are Natural Experiments for Multi-Level Selection Theory (Waiting to be Investigated)
I was talking with a UA EvoS student & member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority the other day about the current controversy here in Tuscaloosa. Last week, a municipal school board election was essentially bought by greek-backed candidates. This student … Continue reading
The Wrong Holy Ghost
Out this week in Ethos is a paper I wrote called “‘The Wrong Holy Ghost’” Discerning the Apostolic Gift of Discernment using a Signaling and Systems Theoretical Approach.” It’s about an incident I call “the wrong Holy Ghost” because that … Continue reading
Milking Gorillas
I will do a more thorough summary from the Human Biology Association & American Association of Physical Anthropology annual joint conferences in the near future based on my rabid tweeting from sessions, but a few posters & talks are just … Continue reading
Fireside Trance drives Selection for Enhanced Attention & Working Memory via Baldwin Effect
Fireside hypnotizability Following up on a previous post tracking down the original sources for the December Smithsonian piece about hearth fires & cognitive evolution, evolutionary psychologist Matt Rossano’s “Did Meditating Make Us Human?” spins out a model similar to & … Continue reading
2012’s Cheap Thrills thru Evolution in Review
I sit in Highland, NY at my in-laws’ watching crappy bowl games (Rutgers v. Va Tech, can either of you find an offense?), reading a cool manuscript draft about psychoneuroimmunological disparity in monastic cemetery remains for my friend Sharon DeWitte, & … Continue reading
Are Hearth Fires Analogous to Television?
I haven’t found any studies on the psychophysiological effects of fire, but I think they are analogous to those of some forms of media, especially television. At base, they both involve flickering light & sudden sound phenomena. I speculate that natural selection … Continue reading
Hominid Use of Fire is at Least 1MYO
The antiquity of the purposive hominid use of fire continues to be pushed back according to a study released earlier this year by Berna et al. in PNAS. Analyses of material at the Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa … Continue reading
Notes on Improving a Graduate-Level Course in the Principles of Physical Anthropology
This semester I redesigned the graduate-level physical anthropology course I teach. Last time around (which was the first time teaching a full-on grad course for me), I taught it as a seminar, based largely around my predecessor Professor Emeritus Jim Bindon‘s … Continue reading
