john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Luxuriant flowing hair

Sat, 2009-11-21 17:04 -- John Hawks

A club I won't be joining, from Improbable Research:

Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™

The first member, chosen by acclamation, was psychologist Steven Pinker, whose hair has long been the object of admiration, and envy, and intense study. From that lone, Pinkerian seed, there has grown a spreading chestnut, black, blond, and red-haired membership tree, which you can see below and on the other LFHCfS web pages.

Maybe my cool red-headed Neandertal can get on board with that.

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.