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A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media Anthropologist Jason Hickel of the London School of Economics punctures the dream that microfinance will help alleviate poverty. You may have heard that the U.S. military’s HTS (Human Terrain Systems) program is no more. You can read this nice overview at Bloomberg, if you are

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media In case you’re sleeping too well at night, read anthropologist Hugh Gusterson’s piece on the American cultural traits that make us most vulnerable to a nuclear accident. It’s an unsettling laundry list of human weaknesses that includes America’s tendency to have computers do the job

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media Anthropologist Helen Fisher discusses the success of Tinder on StarTalk (Neil deGrasse Tyson’s show). I agree with her that Tinder is only a new interface for what many humans already do when they are looking for a mate, but we cannot say with any authority

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A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has its doubts about the book Primates of Park Avenue, which claims to provide an anthropological view of moms of New York’s wealthy Upper East Side. I understand such a book’s appeal—it talks about our own society while at the same time

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media Anthropologist Scott Atran addressed the United Nations Security Council on ISIS’ success in recruiting. You can read the highlights (and see a link to the video) in this New York Magazine article. Canada’s Metro reports on Ford’s first cultural anthropologist, Michael Thomas. Anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee’s

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media Salon covers Fareed Zakaria’s defense of a liberal arts education on The Daily Show and includes a video clip. Rick Scott is probably sorry he ever said the word “anthropology” at this point. The Edwardsville Intelligencer posted an article spreading the word about anthropology as

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media In the discussion of female circumcision we often hear the perspective of unwilling participants who seek to escape this tradition, and of course the Western perspective is easy to obtain. Recently, The Atlantic talked to anthropologist Bettina Shell-Duncan and got the missing perspective: women who

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media South Africa’s Business Day reports on Ford’s use of social scientists to drive innovation in their product line. This desire is reportedly due in part to globalization: expanding into markets where consumers have different values and needs requires using professionals who can uncover that information.