Peer-review: an endangered ‘species’?
by Bernard Wood. In the old days one of the “perks” of being medically-qualified in the UK was that if you or your family were sick, colleagues would bend-over-backwards to make sure you or your family were seen as soon as possible. They would see you in their office “out-of-hours,” or they would add you … Read more
Neuroscience for middle schoolers
by Serena Bianchi. Whatever your profession, you may have felt at some point that you were running on automatic pilot. Caught between deadlines and meetings, you run faster and faster in the hope of beating that to-do list that keeps re-writing itself everyday. I often think that, compared to other professions, scientists are lucky in … Read more
Cope with the Creepy
by Kes Schroer. My certificate in zombie special effects makeup has come in handier in graduate school than I ever could have imagined. As my office mates can tell you, I’m easily startled and even the most benign of horror films (i.e., Shaun of the Dead) can keep me awake for three nights. A semester … Read more
What’s it like to meet your adviser’s adviser
by Jennifer Baker and Chrisandra Kufeldt. Two weekends ago CASHP hosted a symposium on the ‘Function and Evolution of the Human Foot.’ While the symposium was successful in its own right, it also provided us with the opportunity to meet Dr. Michael Day, the paleoanthropologist who described the OH 8 foot, and incidentally, our own … Read more
Whither the peer-review system?
by Bernard Wood. My first real non-clinical job was as a very junior lecturer in the Anatomy Department of The Middlesex Hospital Medical School. I used to get in to work early and would walk up the stairs to the fourth floor. One day, in the early 1970s, I was walking up the stairs when … Read more
An unrepentant prescriptivist
by Bernard Wood. The New Yorker is a constant source of delight. If a person finds nothing of interest to read or look at in an issue you should check their vital signs. The book reviews in the back are the best sort of book review in the sense that they are essays that use … Read more
Aldo Leopold and Elandsfontein
by David Patterson. The word “naturalist” is defined as, “a student of natural history: especially a field biologist”. These days, traditional naturalists are few and far between. However, paleoecologists (researchers interested in the habits and interactions of fossil animals and plants) could learn a lot from them. Trained in the art of observing, recording and … Read more
Fruits of browsing: No. 4. ‘A feisty spat’
by Bernard Wood. I bought a copy of Wilfrid Le Gros Clark’s autobiography, Chant of Pleasant Exploration, when I was a junior doctor, but I was pleased to see a very clean copy in a secondhand bookstore in La Jolla in southern California. It was priced higher than I was willing to pay, and the … Read more
Bleating hearts: if sheep (and goats) could talk
by Laura Reyes. As members of the subfamily Caprinae, goats and sheep don’t often get attention on a human evolution based blog site like this one. But it seems like I can’t ignore them any longer, especially not after my e-mail inbox has been inundated with videos of these animals yelling. Much to my astonishment … Read more
Give credit where credit is due
by Bernard Wood. Consider this thought experiment. You spend many years of your life preparing to be the first person to reach the top of the world’s highest mountain. You reach the summit only to see clear evidence that someone has evidently been to the top before you, but presumably they perished on the descent. … Read more
CASHP firsts
A week filled with prospective student visits undoubtedly brings back memories of our own application processes. When speaking with each new, excited face we remember our own excitement and recount events from our time at CASHP thus far. From “lacerating” personal discoveries to wind blown wine bonding we each have our unique favorite moments. As … Read more
With new data come new responsibilities
by Kevin Hatala. The nature of paleoanthropology is changing in many ways. Leafing through recent issues of the Journal of Human Evolution or AJPA, it’s amazing how many research projects are using three-dimensional models, GIS, and countless other technologies to collect and analyze digital paleontological data in ways that were never before possible. Yet the … Read more
Teaching Resources Now Available on the CASHP Website
by Liz Renner and Kes Schroer. Students in the introductory biological anthropology course at George Washington University attend semiweekly lectures covering a broad spectrum of the topics in the field. One of the strengths of our academic program is that in addition to lectures, students participate in weekly laboratory sections: smaller classes designed to give … Read more
Pounding Tools and Particle Colliders
by Kathryn Ranhorn. What does particle physics have in common with paleoanthropology? A lot, actually. I recently attended a public lecture on the Higgs boson by a theoretical astrophysicist named Dr. Lawrence Krauss at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Dr. Krauss’s talk was entitled, “The Higgs Boson Particle: Why it Matters.” Get it? … Read more
Guide to academic life
by Bernard Wood. Never pass down an opportunity to visit the UC Irvine campus. It does not have history on its side, but it beats Oxford and Cambridge hands down for climate. As well as being an excellent university in its own right, UC Irvine is also the home of the western headquarters of the … Read more
Seeing the past in the future
by Amelia Villaseñor. As I approach the New Year, I have been inundated with thoughts of change: personal, political, social, and, always at the top of my mind, climate change. To explain, I’m a paleoecologist, which means that I study the interactions between animals and the environment thousands to millions of years ago. Since I’m … Read more
All in
by Bernard Wood. 12/28/12 I was sworn-in as a US citizen today in Portland, Oregon. There were 37 of us from 19 countries. Ukraine seemed to be the biggest net contributor to my cohort; there were three of us from the UK taking part in the ceremony. We were dealt with efficiently at the Portland … Read more
Asking Big Questions for Primatology
by Liz Renner. In a program dedicated to interdisciplinary (or, according to paleoanthropologist and recent invited speaker Curtis Marean, “transdisciplinary”) research, CASHP scientists and students have plentiful opportunities to review the results of current research in biological anthropology via classes or our weekly Journal Club. This year, we also have the opportunity to help experts … Read more
The Ghosts in the Collection
by Andrew Zipkin. In my previous entries for this blog I have mostly focused on the fieldwork aspects of archaeology, particularly my and my peers’ travels in Africa during the summer field season. For archaeologists studying human origins, Old World fieldwork is an integral part of our jobs, but today I am recently returned from … Read more
Durability
by Bernard Wood. The composer Elliot Carter died on November 6th. It would be dishonest to pretend that I listened much to his music, but I know musicians consider him an important composer. What caught my attention was his age, 103, and that he was actively composing until just before his death. An obituary used … Read more
