NYTimes Science Times: Potlatch as social therapy, cheap and EZ-fix incubators,
The best thing about John Tierney‘s Science Times lead piece – a pretty good spot for what is in essence a column – is its embedded social anthropology. The topic is gift-giving, a good seasonal angle of course. But the prime sources are members of the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe, or “first nation” in Canadian usage, on the coast of British Columbia. They still do potlatches, the ritual orgies of gift giving in which wealthier members of the community show both generosity and show off their ability to be almost insanely generous. Sometimes they just burn extra stuff, to show how heedless they are of mere material possession (and also to indicate much stuff they have). It’s great to know they’re still at it, and that they think such enforced public generosity is good for people.
The Tracker got so embroiled in assessing other news, esp. from the AGU meeting posted next one down, there’s little time to say much more about the exception. But other headlines to note include:
- Madeline Drexler: Looking Under the Hood and Seeing an Incubator (or, a fine example of appropriate technology, and common sense, in the service of newborn babies) ;
- Claudia Dreifus (Q&A): Using Embryos to Put Fertility First ;
- Bina Venkataraman : Specializing in Problems That Only Seem Impossible to Solve ; How an engineer, perhaps a bit obsessed, worked and worked on Rubik’s cube algorithms until she became the world’s fastest at lining them up.
As usual, lots more. Whole section here (including the day’s NYTimes science news not in the section) ;
Pic source (finery for an Alaska potlatch) ;
