I’m going with a different organization this week, but the result is still lots of great neuroanthropology stuff, broadly conceived. Happy Holidays!

Mind Hacks

Vaughan Bell has really been on a roll recently, both on site and off.

Vaughan Bell, Understanding Witchcraft
E.E. Evans-Pritchard and his work on witchcraft among the Azande, now a documentary you can sample at YouTube

Vaughan Bell, The Addiction Habit
Over at Slate, Vaughan asks, “Do we really need rehab centers for people who spend too much time shopping or using the Internet?”

Vaughan Bell, The Ancient Mind Was Planning Earlier Than Thought
The pattern of artifacts in the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site, which dates back to almost 800,000 years ago – people were creating social spaces already (the Times also covers the same research below)

Vaughan Bell, The Stress of Ancient Peru
Cortisol and stress – using hair samples to get at ancient patterns of stress

Vaughan Bell, Dealing with Data of the Damned
When bad data becomes good theory – scientific progress, reasoning and our brain

The New York Times

Benedict Carey, Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them
Children can grasp concepts earlier than we had ever imagined

Jascha Hoffman, Taking Mental Snapshots to Plumb Our Inner Selves
Studying inner experience – the psychologist Russell Hurlburt at work

Katie Hafner, To Deal With Obsession, Some Defriend Facebook
Addicted to the Internet? Some people are trying to get that under control

Rob Walker, Stuffed
The reality show “Hoarders” and what it says about television and ourselves

Sarah Kershaw, Using Menu Psychology To Entice Dinners
My grandmother’s smoke-infused whatever – want to eat it?

John Noble Wilford, Excavation Sites Show Distinct Living Areas Early in Stone Age
Encampments 700,000 years ago – already with dedicated areas for different activities

Benedict Carey, Building a Search Engine of the Brain, Slice by Slice
The amnesiac Henry Molaison’s brain – soon you’ll be able to examine it virtually

Abby Goodnough, Massachusetts Antismoking Plan Gets Attention
Targeting poor residents through free treatment, and getting a very positive response

Nicholas Confessore, New York Finds Extreme Crisis in Youth Prisons
Prison is not a good place for young people battling mental illness or addiction, yet it’s where these kids often end up

Harvard

Mary Masson, Obesity Trends Will Snuff Out Health Gains from Decline in Smoking
I guess that adage about eating too much once you quit is true even at a social level…

Iris Monica Vargas, Finding the Seat of Language?
Looking at Broca’s area using intracranial electrophysiology to gain unprecedented views of human language processing

Corydon Ireland, Learning’s Online Fate
A trillion pages on the Internet – Harvard scholars discuss online learning in a real-life panel

Jonathan Shaw, Tools and Tests
Advances in stem-cell research for regenerative medicine and drug discovery

Alvin Powell, Want to Live Well?
“Harvard experts offer pragmatic pointers on getting healthy and staying there”

Steve Bradt, Light Maps Neurons’ Effects
Looking at how activity propagates using all-optical techniques

Corydon Ireland, Ecologies of Value
The anthropologist Heather Paxson examines how we can have both profitable and moral enterprise, with a focus on artisanal production and terroir (or place, both as perceived and valued)