Eric Michael Johnson has a Bachelors degree in Anthropology and a Masters in Evolutionary Anthropology. He pursued his PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke before joining the University of British Columbia to complete a doctorate in the History and Philosophy of Science.
Journal of Human Evolution
Sociality, ecology and relative brain size in lemurs. JHE 2009 56(5):471-478.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Career or Family?: Maternal style and status-seeking behavior in captive bonobos (Pan paniscus). AJPA 2008 135(S46):126
American Journal of Physical Anthropology Lack of inbreeding avoidance and reduction of alliance formation in matrilineally- housed bonobos (Pan paniscus). AJPA 2007 132(S44):137
Haiti-born hip hop artist Wyclef Jean has been one of the leading artists promoting Haitian relief since the earthquake. In this Creole version of his song "24 Heures a Vivre" (24 Hours to Live) on his 2004 album Welcome to Haiti: Creole 101 he asks the following:
Et si t'avais 24 heures à vivre
Aurais-tu chanté? Aurais-tu dansé? Aurais-tu pleuré?
Ou dit : oh non j'veux m'en aller!
And if you had 24 hours to live
Would you sing? Would you dance? Would you cry?
Or would you say: I don't want to go away!
(Note: this is my rough translation of the French)
Jean lost fifteen family members and friends in the earthquake and the resulting devastation. On February 25 Jean received an Image award from the NAACP and on February 27 he was honored at Harvard University as "Artist of the Year."
In light of the Oscars this Sunday I thought those of you who missed it would enjoy my review of District 9 (which is up for four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay).
Inexplicably, a UFO appears over one of Earth's remote cities. Hovering a few hundred meters above the terrified citizens, a government mission to board the craft is executed only to find the strange beings living in disease and desperation. A decision is made to save their lives and relocate the aliens to the city's outskirts. In that moment, what seemed to be a compassionate action develops into an outdoor prison reminiscent of the worst crimes of colonialism. Imprisoned, literally in the shanty town that is created for them and figuratively within a society that shuns them, the aliens are forced to accept a life of dependency where every action to better their conditions is treated as dangerous and subversive. Eventually, given no other choice, violent conflicts become inevitable. The city may be Johannesburg, South Africa, and the slum dwellers may look like a cross between a grasshopper and a lobster, but this is a story that has been played out in countless regions from the North American frontier, to Australia to Palestine and Johannesburg itself at various periods in human history. Colonialism knows no nationality and, as District 9 suggests, the desire for dignity and freedom is truly universal.
Human beings around the world honor their dead and the memories of their relatives. We have enacted special rituals related to the handling of human remains from the sacred funeral pyres of India to the professionalized aseptic embalming practices of the United States. Even more so, the treatment of the dead by outsiders is something that can generate outrage. Consider the media controversy when Al-Jazeera aired footage of coalition soldiers who had been killed by Iraqi militants or the hanging of the burned corpses of Blackwater mercenaries in Fallujah. Such treatment of "our" people by "their" people led to impassioned condemnations and outrage.
That was the sentiment expressed last night by Jisgung (Nika Collison) from the Ts'aahl Eagle Clan of the Haida Gwaii Nation of British Columbia. Jisgung presented a letter dated October 26, 1897 from anthropologist George Dorsey to his colleague Charles Newcomb (who was working for the American anthropologist Frans Boas):
Will you kindly send me more information about the totem pole you wish to dispose of -- also about any duplicate specimens you may be willing to sell. Have you any skulls or skeletons that you will sell or exchange?
Think you know Nature Network? Wait till you see what they're up to now. The members of my former parish have now unveiled their long awaited MT4 platform and you can re-experience all of their wonderful science blogginess updated afresh for your viewing pleasure.
The administrators announced the news yesterday at Schemes and Memes:
Nature Network turned three last month. During our early years, we've enjoyed thousands of illuminating, entertaining and sometimes controversial posts from our diverse pool of bloggers. Now, exciting new changes are afoot.
From tomorrow, Nature Network's blogs will have a high-profile new home on the Nature.com Blogs site, where they'll feature alongside Nature Publishing Group's highly regarded blogs, such as The Great Beyond, Nautilus and The Sceptical Chymist. In other words, all the blogs hosted by Nature will be brought together in one scintillating web site.
Links to new blog posts, recent comments and popular posts will still appear on Nature Network's blogs page as ever, but the real meat - the words, pictures, videos, maps, thoughts and theories of our bloggers - will now appear at blogs.nature.com.
Yesterday the BBC aired an investigative report documenting how American "vultures," such as New York-based Eric Hermann at hedge fund FH International, bought up debt from Liberia for pennies on the dollar and are now forcing Liberia's impoverished government to pay in full. This is at the same time that Western governments have been erasing this odious debt from years past.
The effect of Hermann's financial maneuvers earns few applause in Liberia. In that African democracy, diplomat Winston Tubman tells us what he would say to vulture fund operators, "'Do you know you are causing babies to die all over Liberia?'"
That's strong language, but in Liberia, we see the effects of the threat of losing over $20 million from this desperately poor nation's budget. In the village of Demeh, I meet Howa Murvee. During Liberia's recent civil war, her grandfather was beaten to death in front of her. Every home in the village was destroyed. Now, with money from selling donuts at a rural bus stop, she has raised the $100 need for materials to rebuild her mud-and-thatch home.
Last year's publication of the fossil primate Darwinius masillae claimed it to be the oldest haplorhine primate ever discovered and a multimedia blitz campaign touted the find as the ultimate "missing link" (an erroneous term that should forthwith be forbidden to all science journalists). Brian Switek at Laelaps (who has an excellent review of this paper) made headlines for challenging the way that this fossil primate was rushed to market, and it seems that his concerns were more than justified.
Over the past two years they have worked with Atlantic Productions to launch a media blitz heralding Ida as one of our early relatives. With a scientific description in the journal PLoS One, a book, two documentaries, a website and even a Twitter feed prepared beforehand, Ida burst onto the scene as the "holy grail" of evolution, the "ancestor of us all".
Ida is undoubtedly a spectacular fossil. A nearly complete fossil primate, with a body outline and stomach contents, she is the sort of discovery palaeontologists dream about. It may come as a surprise, then, that Ida does not change everything we thought we knew about human evolution. Indeed, she may tell us more about the origins of lemurs than our own species.
Now, researchers at Duke University, University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Chicago have demonstrated that Ida is in fact more similar to other fossil strepsirrhines, the primate group that includes lemurs and lorises.
In light of the recent discussion on animal testing and animal rights I thought a few additional points would be valuable. It is a fact that animal testing leads to some necessary medical advances that save lives. Anyone who would say differently doesn't have the slightest clue what they're talking about and should be dismissed out of hand. The question is an issue of how many, especially given the ethical concerns. It is also a fact that the vast majority of animal testing serves more peripheral goals, categorized as applied studies that include cosmetic, chemical and pharmaceutical testing, and that there is a strong financial incentive to maintain the status quo.
For example, a few years ago The Independent published some facts and figures concerning vivisection in the UK:
It's wonderful to see that my Open Letter to the Animal Liberation Front has generated discussion on this important topic. The issue as I see it is really quite simple and boils down to two essential issues: the benefits to science versus the ethics of invasive animal experimentation. The British Medical Journal study and BUAV report (pdf) that I cited hold the position that the harm done to animals, particularly primates, is out of proportion to the benefits that come from such research. Furthermore, our current understanding about primate cognition, emotional complexity, and their rich social lives raise significant questions about using these animals for invasive medical research. However, to resolve this conflict we will need both the tools of the scientific method and the moral considerations involved in making ethical policy decisions.
This is an extremely complex and difficult issue and can generate a lot of heated emotions on all sides. Several years ago my mother was diagnosed with cancer and the chemotherapy treatment she received had been developed and tested using primate models. At the same time my work in primatology has revealed to me the joy that a baby monkey or ape clearly experiences when protected in their mother's embrace. So I'm fully aware what a difficult topic this is both for researchers and the general public alike.
