Andrew Curry

Do chronically late people know that about themselves? Does it make them feel self-conscious? Like, you're constantly walking into rooms where everyone else is already there & there's a current of frustration buzzing around. Maybe you'd notice eventually? (Maybe this is a super German question.)

Happy 54th anniversary of the day Roger Moore recorded this in his Live and Let Die filming diary www.google.co.uk/books/editio...

One of my 1st journalism jobs was copy editing intern at the Miami Herald. One night a story came through describing the "burnished hulls" of ships sunk as artificial reefs. "Did you mean tarnished?" I asked the reporter. "I thought it was something like that! I knew the copy desk would catch it."

Archaeologists thought they understood Inca history and chronology based on historical documents. It turns out a 16th century Spanish priest just...made up those dates. So scientists are starting again, this time with radiocarbon www.science.org/content/arti...

It's Schrodinger's Immigrant--the one who simultaneously is stealing your job and also lazing around on benefits: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This always makes me crazy – in Germany it's "immigrants are stealing our jobs" but at the same time "immigrants are lazy and just want welfare handouts." Which is it? (Neither, of course.)

While I was getting my hair cut today a location scout came in looking for a Turkish barber shop to shoot a TV series set in the '90s. (Coiffeur Selim on Oranienstr., they're great.) *Bonus archaeology use wear analysis: Would the worn linoleum look different if the barber was left handed? 🏺✂️

A shadow of a wooden #tool is all what's left - but its and the other traces uncovered at #AbricRomani in #Spain give some spectacular insight into #Neanderthal handicraft and everyday life. 🏺 www.science.org/content/arti... by @andrewcurry.com for @science.org

Thanks for posting about Vilnius & its recent history. I researched & wrote about Vilnius's in my 2017 book 'The Evolution Underground' as an example of human burrowing used for escape tunnels, a heart-wrenching story of WWII concentration-camp prisoners who dug their way out of a mass grave.

My new piece in Science digs into how Andean civilizations built authority through shared drug rituals instead of armies, and what that tension meant for early states. Read more: https://f.mtr.cool/7c7b1adjh3

This is inspiring in the way that kids running a lemonade stand to pay for their friend's chemotherapy is inspiring: the kids are amazing but they should never have to do this. if this inspires you at all, let it inspire you to create a real right to vote so they can just vote on campus.

Jack London was a real one. By 17, he had worked in a cannery, been an oyster pirate, sailed to Japan, and spent time in prison for vagrancy after tramping across America. He went back to high school & got into Berkeley, but had to drop out because he was broke. THEN he joined the Alaska Gold Rush.

Bookmark this and indulge in it over the weekend. "Only radiocarbon dates can distinguish between these possibilities, or reveal others. ... Unlike so many Inca archaeologists before them, they have no idea what the answer will be." What a cliffhanger! www.science.org/content/arti...

incredibly cool

I spent years waiting for the day my kid would be ready to ride solo to school through the middle of Berlin and now it's here and I'm not ready.

This made my day

Check it, nerds. Recent find of late stage Maglemosian (8400 BP) antler axe with preserved wooden handle from Egholm, Northern Jutland. Fantastic to see that we still have conditions in Denmark for such fantastic organic preservation. Because it probably won’t be long before we don’t.

Some of the woodwork is incredible. #Neanderthals

Wooden tools crafted by Neanderthals at hunting sites have been found before. For the first time, there's now evidence from a domestic context too. “We know what was happening in the kitchen, in the sleeping areas,” says @iphes-cerca.bsky.social's M. Gema Chacón. “It’s like a snapshot.” @science.org

This kind of thing is apparently a growing plague, and I'm not sure what can be done besides putting out individual fires. My @science.org colleague @andrewlawlerauthor.bsky.social wrote about his work (and mine) getting ripped off by AI and sold on Amazon a few months ago.

first evidence that neanderthals were able to julienne, chiffonade, and perhaps even brunoise

Wooden tools crafted by Neanderthals at hunting sites have been found before. For the first time, there's now evidence from a domestic context too. “We know what was happening in the kitchen, in the sleeping areas,” says @iphes-cerca.bsky.social's M. Gema Chacón. “It’s like a snapshot.” @science.org

Neanderthals were talented hunters AND home decorators. Evidence from a Spanish rock shelter includes new tool types and evidence for windbreaks and other domestic arrangements. “Now we can start to imagine the spaces they were living in,” says archaeologist @annemiekemilks.bsky.social. @science.org

!!!

It’s either a weft beater or a butter knife 😉

lede = introductory section in journalism bury the lede = hiding the most relevant pieces of a story within other distracting information Allegedly, it’s spelled ‘lede’ to avoid confusion with ‘lead,’ which was the strip of metal that would separate lines of type.

Third time today the kid's gotten me.

Landslides, not rituals *faint sounds of archaeologists sobbing*

Exclusive: A new analysis refutes James Watson’s claim that he was the first to recognize the significance of the famed photograph 51. https://scim.ag/4rTKck8

My @science.org colleague @kakape.bsky.social had a great story on this AI silver lining recently: www.science.org/content/arti...

Almost as soon as Americans started being able to buy automobiles—when they were powered by electricity, steam, or gas—a few industrialists realized that if everyone owned an internal-combustion car, those people would have to rent infrastructure forever from companies that sold gas and built roads.

Work on the assumption that your institutional website will either (a) delete you without trace the day you leave or (b) somehow keep implying you work there forever, give people a non-functional email address to contact you on, and never update your achievements past 2015.

3/ publications where it’s usually a close run thing and a game of inches. It’s completely normal, fair and understandable that publications charge for some of even all of their content. Where do you think the money comes from? You don’t expect to go to a restaurant and expect to eat without …

When the Nobels get it wrong, Physics Edition. (Someone should do this for the Peace Prize but it might be a longer list.)

🧪🏺 #Archaeology is about the past, but it's also about now and what's to come cc @hannahfluck.bsky.social

Orcadian Gothic A Neolithic couple stand before the chambered cairn of Wideford Hill #Orkney Painting by Brian Lee, spotted on the Historic Scotland site interpretation board, in homage to Grant Wood's famous 1930 painting Well played 👏 📷 Aug 2024 #TombTuesday #Archaeology

Sometimes researchers send me unpublished proofs of forthcoming papers so I can report on the findings and prepare stories in advance. When Adobe Reader "helpfully" asks if I want an AI summary I always say no. No one should be using AI to transcribe off-the-record interviews, for the same reasons.

Luxury problems, AKA Northern California weather: "Bay Area weather week ahead awfully similar to previous one," @mercurynews.com push notification informs me.

10,000-year-old #GobekliTepe has it all: Massive stone pillars, elaborate carved reliefs and hundreds of fragmented human bones. Now @dai-weltweit.bsky.social researchers have uncovered burials, too – and they point to a new, natural explanation for the scattered remains at the site. @science.org

Neues aus #GöbekliTepe Diese ätesten Siedlungen der Welt sind absolut faszinierend!