Bombardment of Anthro News

July has been busy and I've been storing them up, so here goes:

In 2007, thai police officers had to start wearing Hello Kitty armbands if they were caught doing something against the law. I want to know if they're still forced to do that (my suspicion is no). Anyone with the answer to that gets a brownie (point)!

Mexican mummies were stressed out too; ulcer bacteria found in mummy tummies.

90% of people can sing, really, according to this study.

If there are more male lemurs than female lemurs in a troop, female lemurs have a better chance of being the dominant leader of the whole group.

An interesting study of normal, middle-class people who live frugally, including by dumpster diving.

Archaeologists in Jerusalem and Korea have both found sites that have the tuberculosis bacterium and hope to use this ancient specimen (thousands of years old, we're talking) to help fight modern TB.

And finally, just for kicks, a study has found that guys' fertility drops off at a certain age, not just in women, so men too could be susceptible to a biological clock.

Dancing Matt videos: a positive critique

I honestly had never heard of this guy until a few months ago (apparently he’s been a viral internet celebrity for almost two years now), but watching this interview of Matt made some really good points. Having been trained as an anthropologist, I find the connection of people from completely different cultures through the Internet and through (silly) dance fascinating and wonderful. There are many reasons, such as:

1. There are definitely downsides to globalization, but when I see things like this it reminds me that there are some good parts to it too. People are connected in very different ways than they used to be, and community is no longer determined exclusively by geography.

2. The fact that dance is being used so successfully to bring everyone out is great, and it shows just how universal dancing really is.

3. There is also the point that the dance is silly, and lots of people (granted mostly young adults and kids) are willing to go on film, and all over the world, dancing and being silly and playing. Play is something that has been totally disregarded as important in the last 60 years my humble opinion (or IMHO for those of you who knew about this guy before now), when in fact play and creativity have been shown to be so important for brain development and just coming up with new solutions to problems. It is time that “play” returned to everyone’s positive vernacular, and just as everyone knows they need to brush their teeth and exercise, they also need to play. And watching Dancing Matt doesn’t count; dancing like Dancing Matt does.

Noisy Caves

Man, I am on an archaeological roll! Again, also posted in my other blog:

Another article today that discusses Upper Paleolithic peoples’ understanding of acoustics, and how cave art is often placed at the exact locations where acoustics are best in a cave. Archaeologists have also found flutes in the caves and are trying to determine if the flutes were connected to the cave paintings and their placement in any way.
Iegor Reznikoff, a specialist in ancient music at the University of Paris X in Nanterre featured in the article, also points out the sound-painting connection at certain sites in Finland and France near lakes and other outdoor locations. There has also been correlation shown between Native American pictographs in California deserts and seismic fault lines (I’ll add a link as soon as I can find it again).

George Washington's boyhood home found

I didn't even know it was missing, but apparently they found it ("they" being a collection of archaeologists and historians). The biggest let down: no cherry tree. They were also [for some bizarre reason] surprised that the house wasn't more rustic; from what they can deduce, it had up to 8 rooms including separate bed/storage rooms upstairs, rather quite nice for that time's standards and much more appropriate for a gentryman [again, duh!].

Archaeology News

This was also posted in my other blog, The Art of Science:

First news item: the cave paintings at Lascaux (France) are currently being threatened by mold. One of the possible causes: bright lights. The caves have a history of threats, all directly or indirectly caused by humans. This case exemplifies the hard challenges faced with old artifacts - or just limited natural resources in general - and weighing the benefits of preservation/isolation, scientific intervention and study, and public access to knowledge and such resources.

Next up: The re-creation of musical instruments from Central America. The story discusses Roberto Velazquez, a musical historian/archaeologist/mechanical engineer who studies ancient musical instruments found in archaeological sites all over Central America and recreates them and experiments with their sounds. What is not mentioned but inferred is the spectral analysis done on these instruments in order to determine what they are made out of - clay mostly, but also feathers, reeds, frog bones? - and how to recreate them. Velazquez will also experiment with making sounds with the flutes and whistles, and some of them are really eery; there is a sound clip with samples of all the different sounds, and I was not prepared for the first sounds that they played. It was from the appropriately-named Whistle of Death, and it is creepy to put it mildly.

*Edit*: exclusive only to Complex Interplay and MSNBC: Archaeologists have determined when Odysseus finally made it home.

Apes acting more like humans than humans

Macaques have figured out how to fish. Studies have also shown that chimps have the ability to plan ahead. It has also been found that chimps need hugs and kisses or other forms of affection.

And the latest landmark of humans? The Japanese have developed a robot girlfriend.

I'm planning to go cuddle and enjoy a nice fish dinner.

Kenyan study shows possible benefits of ADHD

A study of nomads in Kenya found that nomadic Kenyans with the 7R allele associated with ADHD are overall healthier than their non-ADHD peers. It was also found that men from the same tribe but who are now living sedentary lives are not as healthy as their non-ADHD peers who were sedentary.

Brazil releases photos of "uncontacted" groups to try and discourage contact

This quarter at school has been really full and I haven't been as diligent a reporter as I'd like to be. But, this one was staring me in the face and I couldn't say no.

The Brazilian government has released photos of a few of the estimated 68 "uncontacted" tribes -- although the term should be "bad idea to contact" tribes because they try to kill us if we come too close -- in hopes of making their plight well-known and encourage people to keep their distance.

My first thought was: if you're trying to be respectful and keep them isolated, then what are you doing flying over taking pictures!?

Yelling's not going to change anything (well, maybe)

This article discusses a study that finds oldest siblings really are disciplined the most sternly. Being an older sister, in some ways that makes me feel better, but not entirely.

This article is about a linguist at my university who has found close connections between indigenous languages here in the Pacific Northwest and indigenous languages in Asia. Language is awesome!

NY mom lets kid ride subway, gets socially whipped

I did not know about this until the article in Newsweek came out, but apparently a woman let her 4th grader ride the subway alone to go home early from a shopping trip. I say good for her. Kids today are too protected, coddled, and not trusted to be responsible human beings. She even created her own blog, Free Range Kids. I hope this trend continues, with books like A Nation of Wimps and most modern psychologists promoting independence in children rather than protecting, it's time that America regained its independent, rugged streak and grew up a little bit!

Traveling far away from home is bad

Well, I didn't make it to Victoria, BC, for a number of reasons, the final clincher being that I couldn't find my passport or two other kinds of government-issued ID. I'm sure it was boring anyway; just a bunch of archaeologists talking about cool stuff they found, not to mention historical studies of cultural land use. :(
Since I couldn't get my academic fix this weekend, I'll try to get one here: I'm surprising myself about the whole Texas polygamist raid and the issues that are stemming from it. Usually I am dead set against any form of domestic or child abuse, and treating women unfairly, and am all for taking kids and women out of bad situations. However, I think taking over 400 kids away from their mothers and the only society they've ever known and first locking them up in a sports arena and then separating them into different foster homes borders on child abuse itself, and certainly negligence at the bare minimum. It was really irresponsible of the Feds to handle the situation the way they did, and while there are no easy answers in a situation like this, there had to be a better one than the one they chose. Maybe arrest and remove the men who are dominating these women and children? Argh!
Anyway, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

NWAC 2008

I will be presenting at the 2008 Northwest Anthropological Conference held in (so I've been told) beautiful Victoria, B.C.
My presentation will be on the cultural change of land use in Skagit County over the past 60 years, using photos to analyze what people were up to, as well as what was important to people. For example, in the 1950s only one picture of the cat and because the kid was playing with it; in the 1980s lots of pictures of dogs all by themselves, they are the featured player in the article.
I'm only going for a day, so I don't know how much I'll be able to see, but I hope to get a little bit out of the whole deal.
I'll write an synopsis when I get back.

Filing a complaint

I'm having the worst time getting things through bureaucratic tape and getting my complaints heard, so while these stories are a little dated, I figured I'd post these two about people making blatant statements about a particular culture with their complaints.

The first one is the story about how a 5th grader noticed something wrong on an exhibit at the Smithsonian. The sad thing is people working within the Smithsonian had noticed it too, but it took someone from outside the system to make them fix it. Hooray for bureaucracy!

This story is about two women who are divorcing the same man. They are working within their culture's limitations to assert their rights. Since it technically has to be the man who initiates the divorce, they figured if they teamed up and asked for a divorce it'd be near impossible for him to turn them down. Strength in numbers!

Worshiping what's wrong with us

A baby girl was born in India with two faces, and is not only surprisingly healthy, but is being worshiped as a Hindu deity.
Another little girl from India who had been born with multiple limbs is doing well after surgery to remove the extra limbs and repair internal organs.
And then just because my Professor Joan Stevenson has resparked my interest in this subject, I wanted to post a couple of articles about having a "disorder"
The benefits of ADD
Some good characteristics associated with dyslexia
Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle with depression

Cityscapes

Seattle, the closest big city to me, is one of ten cities that is part of the Solar City plan.
This is anthropological only in the sense of the "How are we supposed to keep ourselves alive for the next 100 years" question.