I wrote one last blog for the CASHP student blogs as a doctor. It was about getting a Ph.D.!
Secret Eaters: Baboon Edition
Having spent all my life in North America, living several months in England this year was very much a culture shock: everything was different, from the accents to food. Slowly but surely, I’ve adjusted, and I’ve even developed a few guilty pleasures like Bakewell tarts and Secret Eaters, an unapologetic reality TV show in which the participants don’t understand why they’re not losing weight because they’re always making healthy choices. Continue reading
Multitasking for the 21st Century Grad Student
Want to manage your grad school work better? Go to the CASHP blog to find out about a few tools that can help.
Time to waste
I was a freshman in one of my first archeology classes when it hit me that archeology isn’t treasure hunting. Yes, archeologists find precious objects from time to time, but more often than not, archeologists study trash! People from the past used or took with them anything that was still good or useful. So what they left behind was either broken, lost or waste. Common archeological remains include table leftovers (fruit pits, charred bones), factory waste (a lot of empty glass bottles for instance), broken pottery, “débitage” (waste from stone tool manufacturing) and, the most glamorous of them all, human and animal waste.
Goats vs Sheep
“If you could compare yourself with any animal, which would it be and why?”
Apparently this is a common odd-ball question at job interviews. I like to think I am goat. Curious, independent, playful and highly adaptable. You would have pictured something entirely different if I had said I was a sheep. Soft and fluffy? A mindless follower? Anxious?
But is there really that much of a difference between a goat and a sheep?
Human Evolutionary Genetics
Lately, I’ve been sharing mini-blogs about interesting developments in genetics with my Human Evolutionary Genetics class. It’s a fascinating, fast-paced field.
- Population movements during the Neolithic revolution
- Genome sequencing of primitive worms
- Antibiotics can alter the microbiota
- Epigenetics and sexual orientation
- Heterogamety and adult sex ratio
- Sedimentary ancient DNA and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition
- Ancient DNA sheds light on rare extinct dog
- Next generation sequencing sheds light on bird phylogeny
- HIV and infectivity: recent developments
- Short and overweight? Blame it on your ancestors
- Is Chipotle really “G-M-Over it”?
- Insights into rare genetic varients
- Native Americans could have originated from two ancestral populations
- Oldest hominin nuclear DNA sheds light on modern human-Neanderthal relationship
Hey Laurence, did you find cool stuff digging in Africa this summer?
Head to my CASHP blog for the answer!
Birds Do It
I wrote about birds and bipedality for CASHP’s student blog: click through to read!
