It is generally assumed that if a woman breast feeds, she will experience enhanced or more rapid than normal breast ptosis (that’s science for breast “sagging”). Phear of Ptosis is often cited as a possible reason to either not breast feed, or a reason to stop breast feeding sooner than otherwise ideal. (I quickly […]

Please go here to read this post on my new blog at Scienceblogs.com

One day, about six thousand years ago (or more like 15 thousand … the timing of this is disputed) a volcano in the vicinity of Mwea, Uganda blasted a huge volume of stuff into the air, covering the surrounding landscape and choking off […]

The Ebola Virus
It has been confirmed that Ebola is behind the recent outbreak in the Congo. More than 160 people so far have died so far. This is happening in an area of south or southwestern Congo, an area that is rural but also with some diamond mining. Since most of the […]

Color is funny. Anthropologists have long known that different cultures have different relationships, linguistically and in day to day practice, to the color spectrum. For example, the Efe Pygmy Hunter-Gatherers of the Ituri Forest describe things as white, black, or red, and that’s it. They live in a world of green. […]

I had been thinking that by now, Gorilla gorilla grauerii, the so called “Eastern Lowland Gorilla,” was extinct. There were to my knowledge only a few tiny populations of the gorillas, and they have been surrounded by warfare, rebel activity, illegal logging operations, and poaching for over a decade.
There are two major […]