John Hawks Anthropology Weblog

Synopsis: A call for nominations for excellent open science researchers and advocatesThe White House is looking to recognize people who are leading in open science efforts, either by providing free access to data or by using data that is already publicly available. I imagine that public education efforts using open data would also qualify for this recognition: "Seeking Outstanding 'Open Science' Champions of Change". The reward is a trip to a White House event June 20. We are asking for […]

Synopsis: A talk on new ancient DNA results at the Biology of Genomes conferenceElizabeth Pennisi reports from the Biology of Genomes conference at Cold Spring Harbor, New York: "More Genomes From Denisova Cave Show Mixing of Early Human Groups". The article describes a talk by Svante Pääbo about new results from Neandertal DNA, as well as new analyses of the Denisovan genome. It has lots of details for those interested in these topics, but the article is paywalled, so I can only share a […]

I was doing research on another topic, and ran across an obituary of Phillip Tobias that I hadn't seen: "Phillip Tobias, SA's great scientist and human being, has gone back to earth". I thought this direct quote from Tobias worth sharing: In a society in which the question of race has come to loom as largely as it does in South Africa, there is, I believe, a positive duty on a scientist who has made a special study of race to make known the facts and the most highly confirmed hypotheses about […]

Mindy Pitre forwarded me a video done by her undergraduate students at St. Lawrence University, and I just had to share it. It is about as adorable as caveman lovin' can be! "I Believe in Gene Flow" She writes: "It was for my Intro to Human Origins at St. Lawrence University. I made them do group raps/songs. They were super creative!" Tags: humorintrogressionteaching

The American Anthropological Association blog (on the Huffington Post) included a post last week by AAA President Leith Mullings, commenting on President Obama's address to the National Academy of Sciences: "President Obama Supports Scientific Integrity of Anthropology". Mullings quotes from President Obama's remarks: And it's not just resources. I mean, one of the things that I've tried to do over these last four years and will continue to do over the next four years is to make sure that we […]