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You Can Learn a Lot About Someone’s Mind From the Way They Talk
Scientists are uncovering how the hidden effort of talking affects everything from everyday conversations to spotting deception and fake...
The Left Chapter
Oct 3, 202515 min read
Between Life and Death: What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Consciousness
Near-death experiences blend science, spirituality, and the unknown, raising profound questions about what it means to be alive, what it...
The Left Chapter
Oct 1, 202515 min read
Rules vs. Reality: How Competing Views Shape the Way We Use Language
From grammar rules to everyday slang, debates over descriptivism and prescriptivism reveal how we balance authority with the way people...
The Left Chapter
Sep 8, 20259 min read
Why Food and Nutrition Deserves Its Own Public School Curriculum in the US
A national human ecology curriculum that begins with food education could help address our most pressing crises—from climate change to...
The Left Chapter
Sep 3, 20258 min read
How Much of the Past Should We Bring Back to Life?
Mammuthus primigenius -- Smithsonian Institution, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Brenna R. Hassett There is an incredible amount of...
The Left Chapter
Jun 21, 20254 min read
What Motivates People to Move Megaliths?
Stonehenge from a distance -- Noushin Nabavi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Andrew Califf How humans moved large rocks to...
The Left Chapter
Jun 14, 20258 min read
Archeologists Join Geologists in the Quest to Define the Age of Humans
A new archeology is being developed based on evidence of human activity in the Earth’s sedimentary record, and archeologists are helping...
The Left Chapter
May 10, 20257 min read
How Decision-Making Is Affected by Social Conformity
By Marjorie Hecht The rapid growth of digital technologies in the last quarter-century has multiplied the number and types of possible...
The Left Chapter
May 4, 20256 min read
Archaeology Can Now Tell Us How People Have Muffled and Challenged Economic Inequality Across History
By Gary M. Feinman Without archaeology, there is no way to truly examine economic inequality, its causes, and its consequences over very...
The Left Chapter
Apr 19, 20254 min read
Lustrous Surfaces: Easy on the Eyes, Easy on the Nervous System
The attraction to luster is rooted in our evolutionary history and has persisted among prehistoric artifacts, ancient civilizations, and...
The Left Chapter
Apr 11, 20259 min read
Investigating a Bronze Age Mystery: A Cemetery Full of Princes, but No Palaces in Sight
Başur Höyük in Türkiye By Brenna R. Hassett Perched on the edge of a river near the city of Siirt, Türkiye, is an archaeological site...
The Left Chapter
Mar 29, 20255 min read
Can We Exit from a World of Debt?
By Vijay Prashad In the past two decades, the external debt of developing countries has quadrupled to $11.4 trillion (2023). It is...
The Left Chapter
Mar 26, 20255 min read
What Was It Like for Our Sapiens Ancestors to Meet and Mix With Cousin Species?
Between 50,000 and 35,000 years ago in Eurasia, the disappearance of hominin species or their biocultural assimilation with anatomically...
Michael Laxer
Mar 16, 20257 min read
What Are the Origins of the Money We Use Today? Revisiting Heinrich Schurtz’s Groundbreaking Research
The pioneering research by one of the founders of economic anthropology is essential for understanding the social and institutional...
Michael Laxer
Mar 9, 202518 min read
How Mesopotamia’s Urban and Industrial Revolution Started Politics as We Know It Today
Giorgio Buccellati’s At the Origins of Politics takes readers to the early stages of a process that became the structure of modern life....
Michael Laxer
Mar 6, 202512 min read
Exploring Ancient Understandings of Meteorites in Archaic Societies
By KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Sparks (NSF’s NOIRLab) - Geminids Over Kitt Peak National Observatory, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.o...
Michael Laxer
Feb 25, 202511 min read
Our Ability to Think in Terms of Numbers Is Universal, Abstract, and Independent From Language
Frederick L. Coolidge explains the link between numerosity and language. morebyless, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons By Marjorie Hecht...
Michael Laxer
Jan 24, 20255 min read
The Controversy Over Cannibalism
A panoramic view of Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, UK - Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 By Brenna R. Hassett A recent...
Michael Laxer
Dec 26, 20245 min read
Not as Simple as 1, 2, 3: Humanity Has a Surprisingly Diverse Understanding of Numbers
Language plays an important role in understanding the concept of numbers. Image via Jeuwre, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons By...
Michael Laxer
Dec 10, 20246 min read
Digging Up the Roots of Human Culture
Display of prehistoric stone tools at Melka Kunture Prehistoric Site -- Richard Mortel, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Deborah...
Michael Laxer
Dec 1, 20247 min read
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