February 2, 2012

Editor's Selections: The Eve of Horses, Amusic Pitch Challenges, and Canine Parasites

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Part of my online life includes editorial duties at ResearchBlogging.org, where I serve as the Social Sciences Editor. Each Thursday, I pick notable posts on research in anthropology, philosophy, social science, and research to share on the ResearchBlogging.org News site. To help highlight this writing, I also share my selections here on AiP.

Let's get to it:

You may have heard of Mitochondrial Eve, but have you heard of the Ancestral Mare? At Inkfish, Elizabeth Preston walks readers through the story of a recent common ancestor of horses.

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If you're bad at music, you might also be bad at Chinese. A quick discussion at For the Ears explores why amusic people might have more difficulty with languages with small differences in pitch changes.

Those of you with strong stomachs, an appetite for the gruesome, and a high respect for cultural differences might want to visit Body Horrors, where Rebecca Kreston has a delightfully squirmish post about a canine parasite in Northwest Kenya.

I'll be back next week with more from anthropology, philosophy, and research.

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