What’s in a kiss? Nothing less than the very essence of what it is to be human

James Dean & Julie Harris – East of Eden (Elia Kazan, 1955)

As new anthropological research shows the different ways we express love, Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of The Science of Kissing, takes a romantic trip through history and around the world

Sheril Kirshenbaum

The Observer, Sunday 19 July 2015

Bruno Latour’s anthropology of the moderns

 

Lemmen, Georges (Belgian, 1865-1916)

 

 

A reply to Maniglier

 

Jan/Feb 2015, Gunnar Skirbekk

 

An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns – published with the motto: si scires donum Dei (for those who do not know the Holy Scripture, this is John 4.10: ‘if you knew God’s gift’) – is said to be the result of Bruno Latour’s research over the last twenty-five years. [1] The book was presented euphorically in three reviews in Le Monde, comparing Latour with the great philosophers of the past, and, most recently, in an article by Patrice Maniglier published in Radical Philosophy (‘A Metaphysical Turn?, Radical Philosophy 187, September/October 2014), which concludes that ‘Latour has produced what will henceforth stand as one of the great philosophical proposals of our time’. In what follows, I will present a rather different view.

Propose Earth’s ‘Anthropocene’ Age of Humans Began With Fallout and Plastics

https://graphicanthropology.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/how2catchanibex001.jpg

 

By ANDREW C. REVKIN JANUARY 15, 2015 7:11 AM January 15, 2015 7:11 am 98 Comments

A research team assessing when a new geological epoch shaped by humans began has settled on the mid 20th century. Two markers are carbon isotopes from nuclear explosions and plastics, here seen in the remains of a dead albatross.Credit Left, U.S. Air Force Photo; right, Chris Jordan, midwayfilm.com

 

Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins

Javier Trueba, Madrid Scientific Films

An artist’s interpretation of the hominins that lived near the Sima de los Huesos cave in Spain.

By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times, December 4, 2013 395 Comments

Toe Fossil Provides Complete Neanderthal Genome

Bence Viola

Excavation in the Denisova cave in Siberia.

By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times Published: December 18, 2013

Scientists have extracted the entire genome of a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal from a single toe bone in a Siberian cave, an accomplishment that far outstrips any previous work on Neanderthal genes

What scientific idea is ready for retirement?

 

 

Each year a forum for the world’s most brilliant minds asks one question. This year’s drew responses from such names as Richard Dawkins, Ian McEwan and Alan Alda. Here, edge.org founder John Brockman explains how the question came into being and we pick some of the best responses

The Observer, Sunday 12 January 2014
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