A brief hiatus....

I will be leaving the country on Monday for about two weeks and I don't anticipate posting while I'm gone. I'm presenting a poster on Fetoplacental growth dynamics in the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops) at the International Federation of Placenta Associations meeting in Santiago, Chile. This will be the second time I've attended this super fun (and very specific) meeting and I'm really looking forward to seeing old placenta friends and making new ones. After the meeting I'm taking advantage of the location and hiking up Cerro La Campana, the same mountain Darwin did back in 1834. Will there be Chilean malbecs in my future? Have you met me?

Biological Anthropology Section of AAA

Lots of cool biological anthropology business happening at the upcoming American Anthropological Association meeting. Note that today - October 15 - is the last day to preregister!

Yours truly will be presenting a paper in the Biocultural Acts, Biocultural Survival session, along with Robin Nelson of the University of California at Riverside, Laurie Kauffman of the University of Florida and DePaul University, and Jada Benn Torres of the University of Notre Dame. I know Robin and Laurie well and have heard wonderful things about Jada and her work so I'm jazzed up about this session. My paper - Biological Waste or Talisman of Childbirth: Shifting Concepts of the Placenta in the Philippines - is a departure from my usual work and I'm really excited to be presenting it at AAA. I'll be sharing and exploring some of my observations from my recent research trip to the Philippines during which I spent a lot of time at hospitals and talked to people from a variety of perspectives about how the placenta is handled as both powerful spiritual object and as waste material.

Looking forward to seeing fellow BANDITs at AAA!