Former first lady Michelle Obama savors the scent of a Douglas fir tree presented to the first family for Christmas in 2010. Rod Lamkey/Getty Images Vivian,* a Washington, D.C.–based art curator, realized she had COVID-19 in December 2020. “I bought a tree, and I brought it home,” she recalls. “And I thought, This tree has no smell. What did they sell me? Is this a bad tree?” For Vivian, the moment involved more than frustration about a “bad tree.” Her loss of smell left her unable to conjure memories and even affected her sense of self. “That Christmas was really hard,” she says. “That pine ..read more

Ultraprocessed breakfast cereals, sometimes touted as “healthy” thanks to vitamin fortification, are one of the most popular foods targeted toward kids. Education Images/Getty Images In countries such as the U.S. and Canada, the term “children’s food” conjures images of milk, sugary cereals, yogurt tubes, and chicken fingers. Advertisers, restaurants, and media market these items as kid-friendly fare that’s convenient, palatable, fun, and supposedly “healthier” than adult foods. The rationale for feeding children these foods is their need for extra nutrients and because, in some cultures, kid ..read more

Despite myths of “pink” brains and “blue” brains, human brains are mosaics of what have stereotypically been characterized as male and female traits. CSA-Printstock/Getty Images At the recent U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sen. Marsha Blackburn triggered controversy when she asked Jackson to define the word “woman.” After Jackson declined, several Republican congresspeople chimed in with definitions for “woman” that ranged from dubious to shocking, including “the weaker sex,” “someone who has a uterus,” and “X chromosomes, no tallywhacker.” Such notions ha ..read more

The belief that males are aggressive while females are nurturing is a dangerous myth. Evgeny Tchebotarev/Pexels Excerpted from the second edition of Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You. © 2022 by Agustín Fuentes. Published by the University of California Press. All rights reserved. A few decades ago, author and family therapist John Gray published the first edition of his book Men Are From Mars, Women Are from Venus, which argues that to make male-female romantic relationships work, one needs to realize the natural differences in communication, emotion, and behavioral styles betwee ..read more

Research team members excavate a tumulus burial structure. Michele R. Buzon This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished with Creative Commons. Circular mounds of rocks dot the desert landscape at the archaeological site of Tombos in northern Sudan. They reveal tumuli—the underground burial tombs used at least as far back as 2500 B.C. by ancient inhabitants who called this region Kush or Nubia. As a bioarchaeologist who excavates and analyzes human skeletal remains along with their related grave goods, I’ve been working at Tombos for more than 20 years ..read more

Our recent book, Racism, Not Race, tackles a big lie: The idea that human beings have biological races. Biological races do not exist in humans. Why, then, do so many people in the United States and other parts of the world continue to believe in this myth? For one thing, humans vary. That’s obvious to our eyes. We see variation in outward appearances, from hair colors to shoe sizes to skin color. Human variation around the world is wondrous and real. But genetic research over the past 50 years has shown that human variation does not equal racial difference. In the 1970s, evolutionary biologi ..read more

Descriptions of hair have long been knotted with false notions of race, but new research points to empowering ways of viewing this emotionally charged physical trait. D3sign/Getty Images In an undergraduate biological anthropology class in 2011, Tina Lasisi heard a lesson about human skin tones that would change the course of her career. The professor displayed maps comparing the distributions of ultraviolet radiation and degrees of skin pigmentation around the world. Both overlapped almost perfectly. “That was just very much a ‘eureka!’ moment for me,” says Lasisi, now a postdoctoral bi ..read more

Chimps exhibit unique behaviors in different communities, such as these who clasp hands while grooming one another. P. Gagneux/GMERC This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. The chimpanzees of the Rekambo community in Gabon, West Africa, never fail to surprise. For a start, they are known to kill and eat tortoises, which sets them apart from any other community of chimpanzees. Now they have been seen displaying another unique behavior—one which has never been seen before despite many years of painstaking research. In a n ..read more

Deep voices, like singer Barry White’s bass-baritone, are seen as appealing across a variety of cultures and sexual identities. POP-EYE/ullstein bild/Getty Images For many people, Barry White crooning in his thick, honey voice how he “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” is the ultimate sound of desire and sexual attraction. American television host David Letterman once asked the singer to read a list of mundane words, including “gingivitis” and “gubernatorial,” to prove they would sound romantic in White’s bass-baritone voice. They certainly did. Research confirms that deep voices give men ..read more

University of Cape Town archaeologist Simon Hall leads a visit to the farm in Sutherland, South Africa, from which the remains of several individuals were taken a century ago. Je’nine May/University of Cape Town In September 2019, the Stuurman family was getting ready for a burial. It was not going to be a typical service. Nine individuals who had died more than 100 years ago were going to be laid to rest once again. For most of the last century, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa had stored their remains. Two of them had the last names Stuurman and Abraham. Anthony Mietas, a d ..read more