anthropologist

As It Happens6:24Great apes get a kick out of 'playfully teasing' each other, study findsWhat do you call it when a chimpanzee offers his buddy a delicious piece of fruit only to pull his hand away at the last second? Or when a bonobo repeatedly pokes, prods and pulls on the hair of an older relative not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to be annoying?It's not quite play, argues anthropologist Erica Cartmill, but it's not quite aggression either. It's "playful teasing." And, according to a new study, it's a very…

Anyone who's experienced the heartbreak of a relationship ending knows it can be emotionally devastating. But scientists have found that a breakup also has physical effects on our brains — and our bodies. In Love Hurts: The Science of Heartbreak, a documentary from The Nature of Things, Anthony Morgan speaks with researchers and scientists to discover the biological effects of a broken heart. In the documentary, Morgan meets a team researching Takotsubo syndrome, where the stress of heartbreak or loss can actually change…

Artifacts found at the Chorrillo Grande 1 site include Venetian glass beads (top), horse bones and teeth (middle) and metal artifacts including nails and ornaments (bottom). Credit: Juan Bautista Belardi A new study from a University of Colorado Boulder researcher, conducted with colleagues in Argentina, sheds new light on how the introduction of horses in South America led to rapid economic and social transformation in the…

Credit: Julia Volk from Pexels Aidan Seale-Feldman knows a thing or two about what it's like to witness a disaster. She was working in Nepal in 2015 when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the central region of the country, followed by a 7.3-magnitude aftershock, both of which claimed the lives of more than 9,000 people in total once the ground had ceased heaving and the dust had finally settled. The event changed her life—and…

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research.Have you planned out your holiday gift giving yet? If you’re anything like me, you might be waiting until the last minute. But whether every single present is already wrapped and ready, or you’ll hit the shops on Christmas Eve, giving gifts is a curious but central part of being human.While researching my new book, “So Much Stuff,” on how humanity has come to depend on tools and technology over the…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Have you planned out your holiday gift giving yet? If you're anything like me, you might be waiting until the last minute. But whether every single present is already wrapped and ready, or you'll hit the shops on Christmas Eve, giving gifts is a curious but central part of being human. While researching my new book, "So Much…

Credit: Ron Lach from Pexels We've all experienced dreams that have left us feeling a little anxious—like writing a test we're not prepared for, losing a loved one, or being chased by something threatening. But David R. Samson, an associate professor in the department of anthropology at University of Toronto Mississauga, has…

Credit: University of New Mexico For centuries, nomadic pastoralists have been moving their livestock with the seasons between camps at the headwaters of the Yenisei River in Tuva in Russia and northern Mongolia. In new research, Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico Paul Hooper examines the use and informal ownership of these camps depending on season and how they illustrate evolutionary…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain ChatGPT is a hot topic at my university, where faculty members are deeply concerned about academic integrity, while administrators urge us to "embrace the benefits" of this "new frontier." It's a classic example of what my colleague Punya Mishra calls the "doom-hype cycle" around new technologies. Likewise, media coverage of human-AI interaction—whether paranoid or starry-eyed—tends to…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A pair of anthropologists at Tulane University has solved the mystery of the Mayan 819-day count, a type of ancient Mesoamerican calendar system. In their paper published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, John Linden and Victoria Bricker suggest that the calendar might be representing a much longer timescale than others had considered. …