Africa
Category archives for Africa
The Great Human Race: How to survive
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2016 
The Great Human Race is a new production of National Geographic, in three parts. I recently viewed the first episode, “Dawn” which comes with this description: All people can trace their roots to the savanna of East Africa, the home of one of the first members of the human species — Homo habilis. Archaeologist Bill…
On cannibalism and Jameson
Posted by Greg Laden on February 17, 2015 
A recent twitter conversation prompted me to dig up some old posts on cannibalism, and maybe a few memories of my time in Central Africa. The twitter conversation concerned a story in which it is claimed that James Jameson, heir to the Jameson Irish whiskey empire, bought a slave girl (for the price of six…
How I captured the Ghost of the McGregor Museum: A True Story
Posted by Greg Laden on October 27, 2014 
A City of Death and Misery Everything I’m about to tell you in this story is true.1 You might not want to read this story while you are alone or while sitting in the dark.2 Kimberley South Africa is said to be the most haunted city in the world, and it certainly is a city…
Ebola and “the French Disease”
Posted by Greg Laden on October 27, 2014 
Jim Moore and I were both students in the PhD Program in Anthropology at Harvard a few years ago. He graduated about the time I entered the program. To give a rough historical touchstone, I remember the day he needed to get his thesis off to the Registrar, and there was a delay because it…
Ebola in the US Update
Posted by Greg Laden on October 25, 2014 
Of the seven Americans who have contracted Ebola, five overseas and two in Texas, all seven have survived. Comments from President Obama, focusing on how we have to be guided by the science: “Here’s the bottom line. Patients can beat this disease. And we can beat this disease. But we have to stay vigilant. We…
President Obama on Ebola
Posted by Greg Laden on October 18, 2014 
Obama made Ebola the subject of his weekly address. He emphasizes some unique concepts: Science and facts.
Research Suggests Healthcare Workers Could Balk At Treating Ebola Patients
Posted by Greg Laden on October 16, 2014 
Given the current and developing situation in Dallas, where two health workers have become infected with Ebola while caring for a patient, it is reasonable to ask if health workers might decide to call in sick for a few months until this whole highly infectious often fatal disease thing blows over. Daniel Barnett, of the…
Don’t Panic. But, Dallas Patient Two Flew on a Commercial Air Flight
Posted by Greg Laden on October 15, 2014 
It is now known that the second infected health worker who had cared for Dallas Index Patient Duncan took a Monday air flight from Cleveland to Dallas-Forth Worth after she started to have a fever. It was a Frontier airline flight and it arrived in Dallas at 8:16 PM, was put to bet overnight, received…
Good Morning, America. There is another Ebola case. UPDATED
Posted by Greg Laden on October 15, 2014 UPDATE: The first health worker to have been affected with Ebola in Texas may not be moved to Maryland. From NBC: Nina Pham, one of the two nurses who contracted Ebola in Dallas, is expected to be moved to a National Institutes of Health isolation unit in Bethesda, Maryland, a federal official with direct knowledge…
Was the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Prepared for Ebola? Probably not.
Posted by Greg Laden on October 14, 2014 
This is breaking news as of Tuesday PM. According to the nurses at the hospital, no, not initially. Anonymous nurses have claimed via their union: -Patient Zero was left for several hours in a place with up to seven other patients, not in isolation. When a senior nurse attempted to insist he be moved to…