Culture News

How rainforest shamans treat disease

Physician Christopher Herndon explores how Amazon shamans diagnose and treat disease. Ethnobotanists, people who study the relationship between plants and people, have long documented the extensive use of medicinal plants…

Language and conservation: why words matter

The words we choose matter. Benjamin Lee Whorf, an influential American linguist theorized that the language one speaks directly impacts our thoughts; he is quoted as saying, "language shapes the…

New theory on the evolution of pygmies

High death rates drove evolution of human pygmies New theory on the evolution of pygmies mongabay.com December 10, 2007 Early childbearing age in the face of high death rates, drove…

Crop domestication originated in compost piles

Crop domestication originated in compost piles Crop domestication originated in compost piles mongabay.com August 19, 2007 New research lends support to the theory that backyard gardens and refuse heaps played…

Does language extinction matter?

Does language extinction matter? Does language extinction matter? mongabay.com February 16, 2007 Most of humanity's 6,000 languages could be extinct within the next two centuries. Does it matter? At the…