john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

LeGuin interview

Mon, 2010-03-01 12:17 -- John Hawks

Claire Evans interviews author Ursula K. LeGuin. It's mostly about LeGuin's outspoken opposition to the Google copyright grab:

Universe: What do you want to happen to your books after you die?

UKL: I want them to be available, I want cheap paper editions of them, I want them to be continuously downloaded in forty different languages, I want them to be read, I want them to be argued about, I want people to cry over them, I want unreadable dissertations written about them, I want people to get angry with them, I want people to love them.

I suppose I have a few readers who don't know that the "K" is for Kroeber, Ursula LeGuin being one of the most accomplished offspring of a famous anthropologist, whose books carry the imprint of that pedigree.

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.