'Sailing away from the safe harbour' thoughts...

Well the end of the term is approaching… and what are my anthropological thoughts at this time of the academic year? Firstly, going to university is the most exciting activity you can ever imagine. The main reason for this is of course anthropological! You get to meet people from all over the world, which gives you possibilities of getting to know other cultures and customs, languages and behaviours. There is one thing I particularly love observing in my seminars. Apart from following the topic and listening to people’s interesting comments and discussions, I have been observing the human differences arising from various cultural backgrounds. I feel like I really need to mention the difference of the American and British style of leading seminars by lecturers. And I am definitely not generalising or judging here, just noting my observations! I have/had these two lecturers. One is American and the other one British. Their seminars are held in such different ways, it feels amazing. Also all students with various backgrounds seem to express themselves in different ways to others and vice versa. I am so happy I get to study anthropology. It is making me see the world in a way I’ve never seen it before. I notice things that are indeed very important and unbelievably beautiful!

xx

Just a few funny pics on human evolution It's hilarious what people can come up with...

http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/humor/evolution-of-programmer.jpg

http://www.indiana.edu/~jah/teaching/2001_03/images/fs_cake_eater.gif

http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_apr2006/EvolutionOfMan.jpg

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/march.gif

http://www.miqel.com/images_1/navpics/trans_human_evolution.jpg

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/_/e/1/romney_evolution.jpg

http://www.jayspeaks.com/images/the_evolution_of_man.jpg

I wish I was good at drawing...

I cannot believe how many things our brain is responsible for. The most amazing capability that I admire so much is our ability to learn and fluently speak languages. I went to London the other day and apart from English I of course heard million different languages. Listening to those various sounds made me stop for a few seconds and think what an unbelievable phenomena this is. For example, I am myself of a different origin to English and able to speak three languages. Polish and English I have been exposed to since I was a child, but German I have been learning for ages and can speak it. I know a lot of other people that are able to speak different languages, and I find it so fascinating that we can communicate through the use of various words and sentences.

This was definitely one of the most enjoyable lectures I have ever attended! Yes dear readers, Prof David Bellamy himself gave an amazing lecture at my uni! How exciting is this? It was this Annual Darwin lecture, all important people came and it felt really nice to be there Prof Bellamy talked about natural history in general, the title itself was: "Natural History: It had to happen". He emphasised the importance of natural selection and showed how humankind smoothly fits into biodiversity. I loved how sceptical he was about global warming and have to admit that I was quite fascinated by this particular view. Namely, he does not believe in all those statements claimed by all sorts of scientists or environmentalists! Polar bear populations were said to be actually bigger than some years ago, not smaller and endangered, which I found pretty interesting, because most of the papers I've read so far claim that global warming is particularly threatening for the polar bears... which probably would be if it was happening! On top of his broad knowledge and experience, I was impressed by his cheerful personality. His jokes made me laugh my head off! It was such a very good lecture!!! you ought to wish you were there!

xx

Language is generally perceived as unique to human beings. Furthermore, communicating in sentences is quite complicated and requires big brains. Nearly all animals make certain noises, which are ways of communicating, but some of our amazing close relatives have been found to use a similar way of communicating to ours... Yes, "Researchers have found that monkeys combine calls to make them meaningful in the same way that humans do" (Highfield, R. 2008). Now, this can be a step in understanding evolution of human language! This study was carried out among wild putty-nosed monkeys of West Africa , the most impressive outcome is "mixing different alarm calls to communicate new meanings to fellow members of a troop" by these creatures! Scientists have noted that the monkeys make two specific noises: "pyows", that mainly warn about approaching predators such as leopards; and "hacks" used in the same way but with regards to eagles. Even though, the two sounds have particular purposes, they also get combined in order to mean something different - such as "let's go".

This does sound very convincing!

ref:
- Highfield, R. (2008) Monkeys communicate in sentences available electronically at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/10/scimonk110.xml, accessed 16/03/2008 11:25 am

Unfortunately, some of my lecturers and other members of the department of anthropology will be leaving at the end of this academic year... I know, this is what happens everywhere, people come and go, but these lecturers are the ones I like in particular! This is very sad... It's quite funny how much I get used to people around me and find change quite hard to accept. Hmm...

x

Some researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa have found biological reasons for girls' better language abilities than boys'. Overall, girls tend to have more abstract and boys sensory language processing. Biologically speaking, "both areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks." (Leopold 2008). Brain activity, in this particular research, was measured by the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both gender groups were given visual and auditory tasks: "When visually presented, the children read certain words without hearing them. Presented in an auditory mode, they heard words aloud but did not see them." (Leopold 2008). In conclusion, language activation areas of the brain, were working more effectively in girls than in boys. This study might be quite helpful in teaching techniques in classroom. "Given boys’ sensory approach, boys might be more effectively evaluated on knowledge gained from lectures via oral tests and on knowledge gained by reading via written tests. For girls, whose language processing appears more abstract in approach, these different testing methods would appear unnecessary." (Leopold 2008)

ref:
- Leopold, W .(2008) Gender differences in language appear biological, available electronically at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/nu-gdi030308.php, accessed 8/03/2008 12:05 pm

This is something I have been thinking about since I started attending secondary school. Namely, following principles we all believe in/promote. I'm about to explain this in more detail...

Some beginnings of my "following principles" contemplating can be found in my early childhood, when I would always listen to my knowledgeable parents talking about the awful disadvantages of alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking and even staying up late. I remember it like it was yesterday: if you stay up late, you'll be very tired and your brain will not be able to help you think efficiently... etc. So there I was, being all good and following the adults' instructions, always in bed by 8 pm (up to about 10 yrs old of course). Having woken up in the middle of the night once, I marched through the living room, where... my parents were still watching TV. I sort of looked at them and repeated: if you stay up late, you'll be very tired and your brain will not be able to help you think efficiently.... They of course would always reply: oh, we're older and wiser, you're a child and you need a lot of sleep... Which of course was fair enough, but as kids start approaching puberty, most tend to get a bit rebellious, and I remember getting sooo annoyed with my parents doing all these forbidden things! Anyway... The massive question mark first appeared in my head when I tried smoking a cigarette. Being in love with biology and having some medical knowledge (actually even reading labels on cigarette packs), I always knew how "naughty" it is to smoke them. Yet, I still tried... at the age of 18... when I considered myself quite aware of stuff in general, you know what I mean, not a silly teenager anymore, but someone more grown up. I have no idea what it was that pushed my to try, but I guess the majority of us did at some point. Unfortunately I need to admit that I have smoked cigarettes for a few month later on in my early twenties... and until today I just cannot figure out W H Y. Now - lots of my teachers/lecturers/doctors, specialised in certain things, who so passionately promote some principles... did/do not follow them! Such as cardiologist smoking cigarettes or biologist talking about high blood pressure and then admitting he "stuffs" himself with cholesterol (and smokes on top of that as well!)... I find it quite interesting, that people passionately encourage others to do things, but themselves do not really follow these principles they so much believe in. I am sure there are particular reasons for this, maybe... addictive personalities. Very often I heard someone say: yes it is bad, but I've done it for 20 years and got heavily addicted, no you should not do it... Or is it something to do with laziness? Or just simply excitement (adrenaline in some harsh cases)? I am for example well concerned about globalisation, but find it to expensive to buy fair-trade products only and... yes I do drink coke... but I will work on this, because want to follow principles I stand for!!!

xx

ref:
-http://www.cartoonweb.com/images/globalization/globalization1.gif