john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Driven by curiosity

Wed, 2010-01-13 07:30 -- John Hawks

Brit academics ready to emigrate en masse?

More than a third of academics said they could move abroad if the Government pressed ahead with reforms to cut “curiosity-driven” research.

Considering that far more than two thirds of grant applications have no evidence of being "curiosity-driven", I wonder if they realize that they're probably net beneficiaries....

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.