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let the bears pay the bear tax

Pinchy!

A whisper to a scream Antoine Balzeau and colleagues (2026) have just published a large analysis and open-access dataset comparing 75 human brains and endocasts.

Brains and endocasts, a whisper to a scream lawnchairanthropology.com/2026/04/15/a...

impressive pump and dump

Another from the Special Issue - @drjzp.bsky.social and colleagues showcase a new methodology for gaining accurate dimensions of soft tissues during #dissection. Many methods overlook the laxity of soft tissue when describing dimensions and use a 'point-to-point- approach.

The origins and development of mobile containers: Biocultural perspectives on Pleistocene containment Containers are ubiquitous and universal across all present-day societies. The substantial increase in the quantity and diversity of containers in the …

Awhile back I meet the brilliant Jenni French & and now been lucky to collab on a project w/ her for the last ~3 yrs. Along with Somaye Khaksar & @anthrofuentes.bsky.social our 1st project paper is out, on origins & development of mobile containers (1/n) 🧪 🧺
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's 'Blizzard Week' in Colorado More blizzards hit Colorado between March 12 and March 18 than any other week, and there have been some big ones in recent years.

Snowy and 30F here in Denver today but looking to hit 70-80s (21-27C) by the time of #AABA2026. All the same, Colorado says "pack layers."

A custom skateboard deck designed by Caley Orr ("Orrigins Skateboards") with a 3D rendered image (from a CT scan) of a chimpanzee hand raised in the punk rock defiance of our troubled times (and in palmar view). The featured primate's common name is printed at the nose of the board and the Linnean binomen is printed at the tail in a font reminiscent of the lettering of the band's name on The Cramps classic 1980 debut psychobilly album "Songs the Lord Taught Us." "ORRIGINS" and "AABA Denver 2026" are printed in the posterior truck-mount square to commemorate the big bioanth party. The board is football shaped (similar to skateboards popular in the early to mid-1990s). It measures 32 inches in rostrocaudal length, 8.87 inches in maximum mediolateral width, with a 7 inch nose, 7 inch tail, and 14 inch wheelbase. The tail tapers slightly to its apex and the deck has a shallow dorsal concavity. I apologize to my colleagues that the dimensions aren't in metric. It goes against my scientific sensibilities, but American skateboarders are still hooked on the Imperial system. Thrash on.

Custom-designed #AABA2026 skate deck by "Orrigins": my contribution to the Art/Culture/SciComm Expo & Silent Auction benefit for @bioanth.org meetings in Denver next week. Looking forward to seeing my bioanth friends & colleagues soon here in the Queen City of the Plains!

yo @marckissel.bsky.social check this radness out

My favorite neuroanatomy topic to teach is chemosensation - olfaction, gustation, chemesthesis. At our One Health-oriented medical school, I get to talk about mammalian olfactory genetics and the evolutionary ecology of hot peppers. Also, I bring lab to the classroom!

SoS 258: Maggots on the Menu: Rethinking Hominin Diet with Melanie Beasley In this fun and “soupy” episode, hosts Cara and Chris chat with Dr. Melanie Beasley about putrefied meat, maggots, stable isotopes, and media attention at the most inconvenient times. Dr. Beasley dire

Putrefied meat, maggots, and stable isotopes, oh my! 🧪💀 Cara and Chris chat with Dr. Melanie Beasley about forensic isotopes, media chaos, and the anthropology of tomorrow. 🎧 soundcloud.com/sausageofsci...

Decorative Image Array of the Bracket Guide, the Combatant Logo and the 2026 Bracket. Screen-reader materials available at the LibGuide.

BRACKET DROP DAY!!!!
Get yours now at the LibGuide! libguides.asu.edu/MarchMammalM...
Pick your portal: Players, Learners, or Educator!
#2026MMM

One of the many formative early 90s albums my cool older cousin dubbed for me onto cassette tape!

my cool older cousin dubbed that onto cassette for me

Need help finding the pterion? Look no further! #MemeMonday

The study shows how individual fingerprint ridges deform when we touch different textures, revealing how subtle stretching and shifting along the ridge flanks may drive our remarkably fine tactile sensitivity.
buff.ly/4z67Vf1

Oldest known evidence of the controlled ignition of fire A 400,000-year-old site excavated in England reveals signs of deliberate fires made using the mineral iron pyrite to produce sparks.

This sheds so much light on a really hot topic and will ignite a lot of discussion debate :)

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I thought parking at Colorado State was expensive! Big yikes, sorry Jamie, that's BS.

years and years ago a colleague sent a draft exam to the wrong printer, and found out when a student brought it to her.

in a remarkable display of teamwork, we re-wrote the exam in 90 minutes. its psychometrics were not great, but acceptable.

H(e)BD Robin! I will have a drink in your honor. Cheers!

(e = early)

the photos are hilariously low-res as they seem to have been taken with a potato-grade digital camera

Never ceases to amaze me how our ancient relatives stuck with the same technology for hundreds of thousands to millions of years, while in my lifetime, we've gone from dial-up internet and Microsoft Encarta on a CD-ROM to wirelessly accessing Wikipedia on a slightly subsonic airliner.

En route to #AABA2025 and this plane's display has a feature that shows locations' Wikipedia entries as you fly over them. What a time to be alive!

Is a bone a viable weapon when combating a Rancor? Estimating the bite force of an intergalactic mega-predator Stephan Lautenschlager1,2 & Thomas Clements3 1School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. 2The Lapworth Museum of Geology, Birmingham, UK. 3…

Just discovered Journal of Geek Studies (not peer reviewed), and it is pure joy.

jgeekstudies.org/2025/03/08/i...

Bighorn sheep in the Big Thompson Canyon.

Tibia, femur, and partial hip bone of SWT1/HR-2 fossil Paranthropus robustus. Photo: Pickering and coworkers 2025

Exciting new discovery of fossil leg and partial pelvis from Swartkrans, South Africa, by Travis Pickering and coworkers.

Attributed to Paranthropus robustus, this individual may have been the shortest fossil human relative known, just over a meter tall.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Systematic bone tool production at 1.5 million years ago - Nature Bone tools shaped by knapping found within Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania precede any other evidence of systematic bone tool production by more than 1 million years.

"Systematic bone tool production at 1.5 million years ago"
really interesting stuff here:
"early Acheulean toolmakers unravelled technological repertoires that were previously thought to have appeared routinely more than 1 million years later."

Target display with a bag labeled “PARTY TIME BOAS” containing boas with yellow, green, and purple feathers.

Happy Mardi Gras, fellow anthropologists! IYKYK

(From a Target display I saw years ago that confused me for a hot minute.)

Long legs and small joints: The locomotor capabilities of Homo naledi The 3D reconstruction of the lower limb of Homo naledi and comparative analyses of the knee reveal remarkably small joint sizes for its body size, a hyper-elongated tibia (and fibula), and a high cru...

"While the small joint sizes [of H. naledi] are not well-suited to repeated high impact loads, the long legs and particularly long tibia would have been useful for walking substantial distances without such high loads." #paleoanthropology 🧪🏺