Courtesy of Sheyne Tuffery, whose art I’ve recently discovered (and love), heads-up that the University of Cambridge Museum of Anthropology & Archaeology is holding an exhibition called Pasifika Styles from May, with artists, craftspeople, performing artists, and displays of the Museums collections. I may have to revise my assertion that Oceanic cultural events are few … Read more
The UPenn Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology has a set of online exhibitions at World Cultures: Ancient and Modern. The celebrities choosing a favourite artifact was a bit gimmicky, but I really enjoyed: Sailing the ocean without map or compass: Traditional navigation in the western Pacific. Navigation training and technique in the Caroline Islands. I’d … Read more
(I’m sure there’s a pun in there) Didn’t get a ticket to the Dawkins event next week at LSE (The Selfish Gene: Thirty Years On) as it appears all of London was keen to go also. There’s a video hook-up, so I’ll queue for that if it doesn’t look too arduous. Melvin Bragg (who’s chairing … Read more
I highly recommend Tze Ming Mok‘s Yellow Peril blog, commentating on multicultural life in Auckland, New Zealand. The other Kiwi blogs at the Public Address group are just as good, but hers makes me laugh and think (and realise why I hate and love Aotearoa) all the time.
L’Oceanie: Peuples des eaux, gens des iles is a fabulous presentation of the geography, (pre)history, people and anthropology of the Pacific Ocean. It focuses mainly on the Eastern Pacific (i.e. New Guinea westwards). There are dozens of fabulous images and great animations. It’d be a terrific teaching tool for a first-year course and makes a … Read more
A review in PLoS Biology of Matthew Herbert’s Plat du Jour, an album that takes as inspiration and uses the sounds of modern food production. There are samples available in the downloads section of Herbert’s website.
Two articles about peer reviewing from The Scientist: Is Peer Review Broken: a state-of-the-system report. The table with odds for publication is especially interesting, for a given value of interesting = argh. Truth or Myth: 3 common complaints about the peer review process examined. The discussion regarding signing reviews is thought-provoking: Nature journals let reviewers … Read more
Of interest: 1. A modelling paper demonstrating the effects of the global airline network on the spread of epidemic diseases such as SARS. Colizza et al, abstract here. 2. Population genetics paper demonstrating the clustering of human genetic gradients in ancient centres of agricultural origin, and clustering near to coastlines. Amos & Manica, abstract here.
The leaky pipeline in science, or why 60% of biology undergrads are female yet only 10% of professors are. Science rejected this after long consideration, but it got published by PLoS Biology. I am just linking to the paper by Peter Lawrence: haven’t read it yet, haven’t read this commentary in The Telegraph, but will … Read more
New Scientist reports on research in Biology Letters, demonstrating that, in marmosets and tamarind monkeys at least, dads-to-be put on weight during pregnancy as well as the mothers. The hypothesis is that the extra weight gain (about 10%) provides an energetic reserve for when the infants are born and dad has to cart them about … Read more