Joan Richtsmeier, distinguished professor of anthropology, is the recipient of the American Association of Anatomists' 2019 Henry Gray Scientific Achievement Award.
Penn State anthropologist Nina Jablonski, through her research on skin color, is shifting our understanding of race to prove we're more alike than we are different. "I’m hoping this research gives people the appreciation that their bodies are the products of evolution," said Jablonski.
We inherit our skin color from our ancestors, but what brought about such a diversity of human skin colors? And how can the natural history of skin inform questions surrounding societal notions of skin color and our health? These are questions that form the basis for what Penn State anthropologist Nina Jablonski calls an explanatory framework of the evolution of skin pigmentation.
One thousand years ago, Native Americans in South America used multiple psychotropic plants — possibly simultaneously — to induce hallucinations and altered consciousness, according to an international team of anthropologists.
Humans settled in southwestern Amazonia and even experimented with agriculture much earlier than previously thought, according to an international team of researchers.
An ancient group of people made ritual offerings to supernatural deities near the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, about 500 years earlier than the Incas, according to an international team of researchers. The team's findings suggest that organized religion emerged much earlier in the region than previously thought.
Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world. Resettlement of indigenous communities resulted in the spread of invasive species, the absence of human-set fires, and a general cascade in the interconnected food web that led to the largest mammalian extinction event ever recorded. In this case, the absence of direct human activity on the landscape may be the cause of the extinctions, according to a Penn State anthropologist.
African and Asian rainforest hunter-gatherers share short stature, and now an international team of researchers has shown that this is an example of convergent adaptation that may also be linked to changes in cardiac development pathways.
Santhosh Girirajan, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of anthropology at Penn State, has been honored with the 2018 C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching by the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society.
Analysis of fatty residue in pottery from the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia revealed evidence of fermented dairy products — soft cheeses and yogurts — from about 7,200 years ago, according to an international team of researchers.
How do you put a 13-ton hat on a giant statue? That's what a team of researchers is trying to figure out with their study of Easter Island statues and the red hats that sit atop some of them.
Black and Hispanic U.S. adults are half as likely as whites to drink tap water and more than twice as likely to drink bottled water, according to a recent Penn State analysis. The findings support past research that indicates that minorities and more vulnerable populations have a higher distrust of tap water in America, and that those who instead consume bottled water are at greater risk of health issues and financial burdens.
Researchers from KU Leuven, Belgium, and the universities of Pittsburgh, Stanford and Penn State have identified 15 genes that determine our facial features. The findings were published today (Feb. 19) in Nature Genetics.
Focusing science education on students through genetic and genealogical studies may be the way to increase minorities in the pipeline and engage students who would otherwise deem science too hard or too uninteresting, according to a Penn State anthropologist
Focusing on their personal DNA and genealogies, middle school students appear to have learned as much as their peers who used case studies, according to a Penn State researcher.
