Barbara J King

It's time to move beyond models of human behavior centered in genes and natural selection, says anthropologist Barbara J. King, who takes a look at a new paper on the topic.

Termites and crickets may be delicious, but does eating them help change our food system in positive ways? Anthropologist Barbara J. King takes a look at the new film Bugs.

When snorkelers in Thailand rescued a porcupinefish earlier this month, their film captured the fish's loyal companion, too. Barbara J. King takes a look at what appears to be a chummy relationship.

Anthropologist Barbara J. King checks out a new project that will offer fetal-position, tree-topped burials in underground pods.

Has the slicing-meat hypothesis overturned the idea that cooking made us human? Anthropologist Barbara J. King says a comparison of the two explanations makes for some exciting science.

Life close to the land is filmed with love in The Seer: A Portrait of Wendell Berry, a documentary about the writer and activist premiering today at SXSW. Anthropologist Barbara J. King takes a look.

On Monday, a team of 80 people led by Hjalmar S. Kuhl and Ammie K. Kalan published an open-access paper in Nature's "Scientific Reports" that describes never-before-seen stone-throwing behavior among wild chimpanzees in four West African populations.

The chimpanzees throw the stones at trees or right into ...

Last Friday, I noticed this posting on Facebook by Lawrence Carter-Long:

"If you 'see the person not the disability' you're only getting half the picture. Broaden your perspective. You might be surprised by everything you've missed. DISABLED. ‪#‎SayTheWord"

I understood intuitively the thought that many people with ...

Imagine this: Right next to the lab where blood is drawn and blood pressure is taken stands a fully stocked kitchen — in your doctor's office.

It's not meant for the staff's lunch break, either.

During your checkup, your physician invites you into the kitchen, demonstrates some healthy-cooking tips she ...

Fans of author Yann Martel's immensely popular Life of Pi, or of the film adapted from the novel 11 years later, will understand my eager anticipation of his new novel, The High Mountains of Portugal, released last week.

Martel's storytelling is fabulous, both literally — he blurs real ...

Editor's Note: Some may find the graphic descriptions in this post disturbing.

When I walked into my first virtual reality experience last week at Sundance Film Festival, there was no movie theater or screening room to enter. It consisted only of a single, rotating desk chair and a virtual ...

How much does it matter that filmmakers accurately portray the scientific details — of cosmology or physics for instance, or evolutionary theory or genomics — on the big screen?

My initial response — "It matters a lot, of course!" — has changed after attending a Sundance panel presentation called "The ...

The Eagle Huntress, a documentary film set in Mongolia directed by Otto Bell and starring teenager Aisholpan Nurgaiv, debuted Sunday at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. With its focus on a charismatic girl who has accomplished something other women have not in 2,000 years — she hunts ...

In his new book, The Big Question: Why We Can't Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God, Alister McGrath argues that "we need more than science to satisfy our deep yearnings and intuitions." That something more for McGrath is God, specifically, the Christian God.

As he develops this argument, ...

For babies carried to full term, birth weight is considered "normal" between about 6 pounds, 2 ounces and 9 pounds, 2 ounces. Given sustained concern about childhood obesity, I have wondered how early in life children may be at risk for extra weight.

Can babies be obese?

It ...

In her January Scientific American piece titled "What Animals Know about Where Babies Come From," anthropologist Holly Dunsworth makes a convincing case that despite popular assumptions to the contrary, animals generally — and our closest living relatives, the great apes, specifically — don't understand that sexual intercourse produces ...

Elephants' ability to hear what is called infrasound — sound waves with frequencies too low for humans to hear — has been known about for years.

But recently, a new twist in elephants' infrasound detection was discovered — and now it has been caught on film.

In a ...

The Magdala Stone, a stunning archaeological find from an excavated synagogue in Israel that dates back to the time of Jesus, sits at the intersection of Jewish and Christian history.

Since its 2009 discovery, the stone — a carved block decorated with symbols including a seven-branch menorah (rare for the ...

A video made available online last week shows the famous gorilla Koko communicating through the use of American Sign Language in what is billed as an address to world leaders attending the Paris climate change conference.

According to the Gorilla Foundation, Koko was invited to carry out this project ...

Many media began to report on Sunday that former president Jimmy Carter had informed his church in Plains, Georgia, that his cancer is now gone.

Immediately, I felt joy and dismay in equal parts.

The joy is easy to explain. Carter is undergoing radiation and immune-based drug treatment for ...