Cultural Anthropology  · 18. July 2017

If nothing else this experiment proves there are some really creative scientists out there. Researchers from the University College London and the University of Warwick created an experiment to test whether a person’s perception of their own body can be manipulated by sounds completely unrelated to bodily movement. To conduct the experiment, participants were asked to place one hand behind a black cloak, rendering the hand invisible to its owner. After the disappearing hand trick,...

Evolution · 12. July 2017

New research indicates that multigenerational communal sleeping spaces may have kept our ancestors from becoming a nighttime snack. Sleeping, according to a team of anthropologists from Duke University, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and University of Dar es Salaam, is essential to life but is fraught with danger because it leaves us exposed to environmental hazards and to attacks from predators and other humans. Due to the acute vulnerabilities created by sleep, researchers have...

History · 26. June 2017

There are two takeaways from this story. One: the National Museum of African Art, Google, and other participants have created a cool thing. Two: Google has a cultural institution?! But let’s backup a moment. More than 180 universities, museums, designers, and fashion houses representing 42 countries collaborated with Google to create “We Wear Culture,” an online immersive historical narrative told through over 3,000 years worth of fashion from all over the world. The site went live June...