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The asteroid that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago probably came from the outer solar system.

Although I’m staying away from most of the news, i do follow the election news, and am aware of how Harris has befuddled Trump as Democrats, enthusiastic for a candidate who’s mediocre at best, have taken Harris above the Orange Man in the polls.

As always, I emphasize that I’m a never-Trumper, but I’m probably a not-Harriser, either, as I may vote for a third candidate, or not vote at all, since my state will go Democratic anyway. I also note that Harris is completely avoiding press conferences and interviews, since she’s not at all good on thinking on her feet or speaking intelligibly on the issues. I am baffled for the tremendous Democratic enthusiasm for Harris, but I guess I can understand it as it gives us a way to avoid Trump, who looked as if he was going to win.

But I argue that Harris, despite her promise, did not earn the nomination but simply inherited it, and I’m sad that the person likely to be chosen leader of our country is someone without the smarts and savvy of someone like Gretchen Whitmer, my previous favorite. (n.b. please do not tell me that I MUST vote as doing so won’t help the Democrats, and I will look askance at claims that Kamala Harris is the greatest thing since sliced bread.)

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, here are three items I’ve stolen from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary at The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: the RayGun goes off.”

→ Kamala is up big: Another week in which Kamala Harris does some high-energy rallies. . . and not much else. The Democratic nominee has so far given no interviews, no press conferences, and is just generally keeping it light on details like, say, how she plans to run the country. And it’s working. The voters are warming to Kamala—or at least the loosely reality-based version of Kamala Harris being put forward by a pliant press. According to The Cook Political Report, Harris now leads or ties Trump in all but one of the seven battleground states. The latest national Emerson poll puts Harris four points ahead on 50 percent to Trump’s 46 percent. Nate Silver’s magic election machine also has Harris ahead, as do the betting markets. Remember how a few months ago every expert and political insider insisted that an obviously over-the-hill Joe Biden was a better candidate than Harris? Or that Biden alone could beat Trump? Me neither.

I am but a passenger in the vibes election. And I am dangerously close to putting in a bet on Kamala.

I’d bet on her winning, at least at this stage of the election. But et’s wait until the candidates debate each other and give interviews and press conferences.

→ Oi, mate, be nice or else! I have some British colleagues and they’re all really nice. Polite, considerate, good manners, hard workers, never cry in public, only slightly concerning drinking habits. Anyway recent headlines out of Blighty have me wondering: Is that just because it’s actually illegal to be a dick over there? After some ugly anti-immigrant riots in the UK, in which real-life people tried to do real-life harm to other real-life people, the big takeaway from the powers that be is that people who are mean on the internet should be put in jail. “Think before you post,” warned prosecutors. Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson told Brits: “You may be committing a crime if you repost, repeat or amplify a message which is false, threatening, or stirs up racial / religious hatred.” And one of Britain’s police chiefs even threatened to extradite U.S. citizens who break Britain’s censorship laws—to which the only reasonable response is a big, fat, American middle finger. I can think of no more just war than refighting the American War of Independence, only this time over busybody speech codes and our right to say crazy shit online rather than a tax on tea. Hand me my musket, and fire up Facebook. We’re taking no prisoners.

→ Goodbye, weird kid sports: The Algerian boxer Imane Khelif’s gold medal win highlighted how the IOC is rather squirrely about how they separate the sexes in sports. Is it by what’s listed on your passport? Your testosterone level? What’s coded into your DNA? Whether or not you’re good at math? Who knows! But let’s get real: The Olympics have been playing fast and loose with their standards for quite a while. Skateboarding, speed climbing, BMX racing, and—the newest, dumbest addition—breakdancing all featured as Olympic sports in Paris. I’m not saying these activities don’t require athletic prowess; I’m just saying if the uniform is cargo pants and a sideways hat then maybe it should be part of a different competition than the one Simone Biles participates in. This year, the Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn, a.k.a. RayGun, participated in the competition, earning herself exactly zero points for her wild display on the break floor. She has a PhD in cultural studies and her thesis was on “Deterritorializing gender in Sydney’s breakdancing scene: A B-girl’s experience of B-boying,” and oh, it showed. After being roundly ridiculed online for her performance Gunn shared the quote, “Don’t be afraid to be different, go out there and represent yourself, you never know where that’s gonna take you.” But sometimes you know exactly where you’re going, like if you sign up for the Olympics as a breakdancer. I commend Raygun for participating and answering the question we all ask ourselves when we watch the Olympics, which is, “I wonder how I would stack up.” Now we know. Breakdancing, and the modern pentathlon that apparently involved laser pistols, will mercifully not be a part of L.A.’s 2028 program.

Okay, one more from Nellie (see also this link from reader Ginger K.):

→ I love my quaint hometown: A referendum in Pittsburgh that would cut all ties with Israel is moving through the legislative process. If it makes it to the ballot, voters will get to choose whether the city charter will be amended to bar “investment or allocation of public funds, including tax exemptions, to entities that conduct business operations with or in the state of Israel.” This is like BDS on crack. If it were to pass, the lights in the city would go out (since we couldn’t do business with Duquesne Light because they do business with Israel) and there would be no more Narcan, a drug manufactured by an Israeli company. Also: There would be no fuel for the city vehicles like patrol cars, nor any vehicles at all, since oil and gas companies and car companies do business with the Jewish state. This sounds like a really promising initiative that will make life in Pittsburgh—a key stakeholder in the war in Gaza—better for all. Also, shout-out to the brave highway blockers in L.A.! If they adopted the Pittsburgh measure, though, they could just take the ambulances away instead of blocking them.

.  .  . and that’s the way it is.

The dramatic dimming of a light source ~ 870 million light years away from Earth confirms the accuracy of a detailed model.

Today, many commercial tools claim to be highly successful at detecting machine-generated text, with up to 99% accuracy, but are these claims too good to be true? RAID, the Robust AI Detection benchmark, which shows that most detectors are easily fooled, setting a new bar for AI detection to clear.

A groundbreaking technology has been unveiled that improves the efficiency of thermoelectric materials, which are key in converting waste heat into electricity, by altering their geometry to resemble an hourglass. Unlike previous research that solely depended on the material properties of thermoelectric substances, this new approach is expected to have widespread applications in thermoelectric power generation.

A new study assessed the feasibility of recovering phosphorus from municipal wastewater as an alternative sustainable source of this non-renewable mineral.

Microscope images could be obtained much more quickly -- rather than one pixel at a time -- thanks to a new imaging method for neutral atomic beam microscopes. It could ultimately lead to engineers and scientists getting faster results when they are scanning samples.

Microscope images could be obtained much more quickly -- rather than one pixel at a time -- thanks to a new imaging method for neutral atomic beam microscopes. It could ultimately lead to engineers and scientists getting faster results when they are scanning samples.

New research using a decommissioned section of the beam pipe from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN has bought scientists closer than ever before to test whether magnetic monopoles exist. Scientists have revealed the most stringent constraints yet on the existence of magnetic monopoles, pushing the boundaries of what is known about these elusive particles.

Researchers have found a better method to recycle polyurethane foam from items like mattresses: They are not only able to break down PUR and separate the two main components -- they can do it in one go. This is great news for the budding industry that aims to chemically recover the original components of the material -- making their products cheaper and better.

On May 11, a gorgeous aurora surprised stargazers across the southern United States. That same weekend, a tractor guided by GPS missed its mark. What do the visibility of the northern lights have in common with compromised farming equipment in the Midwest? A uniquely powerful geomagnetic storm, according to new research.

Society relies heavily on diverse fluidic technologies. The ability to precisely capture and release various chemical and biological fluids plays a fundamental role in many fields. A long-standing challenge is to design a platform that enables the switchable capture and release of liquids with precise spatial and temporal control and accurate volumes of the fluid. Recently, researchers have invented a new method to effectively overcome this challenge.

A zinc-air microbattery could enable the deployment of cell-sized, autonomous robots for drug delivery within in the human body, as well as other applications such as locating leaks in gas pipelines.

A zinc-air microbattery could enable the deployment of cell-sized, autonomous robots for drug delivery within in the human body, as well as other applications such as locating leaks in gas pipelines.

An experiment to test distant particles’ ability to correlate their behaviour is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that classical ideas about reality are incorrect

Well-placed observers have a rare opportunity to see an interplanetary spacecraft early next week.

If skies are clear, dedicated observers and imagers have a shot early next week at seeing a spacecraft headed to Jupiter.

The Mission is JUICE, the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. Launched atop an Ariane-5 rocket from Kourou Space Center in French Guiana on April 14th, 2023, JUICE is due to arrive at Jupiter in 2031. But first, the spacecraft will perform several planetary flybys to pick up speed, hurdling it towards the outer solar system.

Firsts for ESA

JUICE marks several firsts for space exploration and ESA. JUICE is the first non-NASA solo mission to the outer solar system, as well as the first ESA mission to Jupiter. The mission also follows in the footsteps of NASA’s Juno mission, utilizing enormous solar panels instead of a nuclear-powered MMRTG for power.

In another first, JUICE will perform the first-ever twin Earth-Moon flyby for this upcoming boost. This is a challenging ‘thread the needle,’ sort of maneuver, as the Moon flyby sets up the spacecraft for the Earth flyby. The maneuver is termed a ‘LEGA,’ or Lunar-Earth Gravitational Assist. JUICE fired its engines for 43 minutes last year to set it up for this month’s Earth-Moon flyby. A series of four smaller course correction burns were recently carried out, starting with a 31-second maneuver on July 22nd.

The big test for the spacecraft will come in 2031, when JUICE fires up its main engines for orbital insertion around Jupiter. The trick during any engine burn for the spacecraft is to not induce any unwanted wobbles in the enormous cruciform-shaped solar panels.

The double flyby is the fortuitous result of the launch window back in 2023. The first Moon flyby gives engineers a chance to tweak the Earth pass shortly before closest approach if needed. The total delta-V maximum for the spacecraft is 2,700 meters per second or 6,000 miles per hour.

JUICE was even briefly mistaken for an incoming Potentially Hazardous Asteroid early this month. The spacecraft poses no hazard to the Earth-Moon system.

The ATLAS sky survey nabs JUICE. Credit: ATLAS. Previewing the Flyby

Here are the specifics for the encounter:

The closest Moon approach occurs on Monday, August 19th at 21:16 Universal Time (UT), 700 kilometers from the lunar surface.

A diagram of the Moon encounter. Credit: ESA.

Closest Earth approach occurs about 24 hours later on Tuesday, August 20th at 21:57 UT. At its closest, JUICE will pass 6,807 kilometers from the surface of Earth over northeastern Asia and the Pacific. This encounter happens in the daytime. Australia and southeast Asia have the best shot at seeing JUICE inbound just before closest approach in the pre-dawn sky.

…and a diagram of the Earth encounter. Credit: ESA.

For Europe and North America, the circumstances are less favorable. These locales will see the spacecraft farther out when it’s highest in the sky. For example, Paris will see the spacecraft at around 23:20 UT at a range of 220,000 miles/354,000 kilometers out. Boston will see JUICE at a range of 150,000 miles/241,000 kilometers away around 6:20 UT in the predawn sky.

The JUICE mission from @esa returns to Earth this month for a gravitational assist from both the Moon & Earth. It’s destination is Jupiter, where it will study its moons and even orbit Ganymede before crashing into it. @ESA_JUICE pic.twitter.com/5C3OUkkJ0J

— Tony Dunn (@tony873004) August 4, 2024

The southeastern U.S. gets another shot around 1:00 UT on August 21st (9:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time August 20th). This low to the horizon opportunity occurs at dusk, as the spacecraft is then about 30,000 miles distant.

ESA’s ESOC (European Space Operations Centre) and the worldwide Estrack network will track JUICE throughout the flyby. This will also give mission controllers a chance to test key instruments, which will be switched on during the pass. Of special concern is the RIME (Radar for Icy Moons Exploration) instrument. RIME seems to be getting interference from other spacecraft instruments. Controllers will operate it in both solo and tandem mode along with other onboard instruments during the lunar flyby, in an effort to troubleshoot RIME. RIME is crucial to probing the interior of Jupiter’s icy moons.

Spotting JUICE

The key to spotting JUICE is knowing just where and when to look. JUICE is 27 meters across from the tip of one solar panel to another, and will pass Earth within range of the ring of geostationary satellites. A good specular glint of the Sun off of one of the large solar panels could temporarily raise JUICE in range of naked eye brightness.

Getting a precise position on JUICE is tricky, as most planetarium programs won’t include the deflection of the spacecraft due to the gravity of the Earth and the Moon. Generating ephemerides with JPL Horizons is your best bet, as it’ll give you a precise position in the sky in Right Ascension (RA) and Declination to point and conduct a search. Simply watch at the appointed time, and attempt to ‘ambush’ JUICE as it glides past. Much like a satellite, JUICE will look like a moving ‘star’ drifting across the field of fixed background stars.

JUICE is spacecraft ID -28 in the JPL Horizons System.

Astronomer Gianluca Masi caught sight of JUICE during a Virtual Telescope session on August 9th:

JUICE from August 9th, at 3.3 million kilometers out. Credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project.

Heavens-Above may post tracking maps for JUICE. They’ve done so in the past… we’ll note these here this weekend if they turn up.

Next up, JUICE will flyby Venus next August. It will then make two more Earth flybys, one in 2026 and a final one in 2029.

Good luck and clear skies, on your quest to nab JUICE on this historic Earth-Moon flyby.

The post See JUICE Next Week During Its Earth-Moon Flyby appeared first on Universe Today.

Russia's attacks and occupation of Ukraine's nuclear power plants have shocked observers, bringing a new and dangerous dimension to warfare. What should Ukraine do as it gains the chance to turn the tables?

Yesterday Rosemary kindly drove me the 45 minutes from Hoedspruit to the gate of Manyaleti Game Reserve, a spiffy facility that’s right next to Kruger. There are no fences, so they share wildlife. I’m staying in a tented camp for the next five nights, and it’s quite luxurious, including electric blankets to take the chill off the very cold nights (see the link for an idea of the facilities). More important, the place is teeming with birds and mammals, and includes what people call the “big five“: lions, rhinos, leopards, elephants, and African buffalo. This seems unfair to me, as surely the list should include giraffe, hippos, and, of course, warthogs.

More “game” below, but firat a few more pictures from Hoedspruit.

An unknown lizard on the fence in Hoedspruit (perhaps Greg or an African herper can help):

A mother warthog and her two babies in the yard:

On to the game reserve. This is what I saw beside the swimming pool when I checked in at the main center. And thus I knew I was in for something special. (Elephants drink from the swimming pools regularly, and we’re told to step aside when we pass them. They are quite used to humans, but are still wild animal and you must stay far away from a mother and its baby.)

More came to drink:

We began the drive after lunch (there are two 3½-hour drives a day, at 6:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.) by seeing a hippo skeleton. I suppose it died of old age, as I doubt they have natural predators here:

A proud male impala (Aepyceros melampus):

Some kind of ground-dwelling bird. I ask readers here to help me identify it:

African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus)! Colorful, social, and predatory, we were told these carry rabies, and, ranging widely, spread the disease throughout the parks:

From Wikipedia:

The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), also known as the painted dog or Cape hunting dog, is a wild canine native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is the largest wild canine in Africa, and the only extant member of the genus Lycaon, which is distinguished from Canis by dentition highly specialised for a hypercarnivorous diet and by a lack of dewclaws.

It is estimated that there are around 6,600 adults (including 1,400 mature individuals) living in 39 subpopulations, all threatened by habitat fragmentation, human persecution and outbreaks of disease. As the largest subpopulation probably consists of fewer than 250 individuals, the African wild dog has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1990.

The species is a specialised diurnal hunter of terrestrial ungulates, which it captures by using its stamina and cooperative hunting to exhaust them. Its natural competitors are lions and spotted hyenas: the former will kill the dogs where possible whilst the latter are frequent kleptoparasites. Like other canids, the African wild dog regurgitates food for its young but also extends this action to adults as a central part of the pack’s social unit. The young have the privilege of feeding first on carcasses.

We were lucky to see this rare species of d*g!

Another male impala. The landscape, you see, comprises low brush with occasional trees, and is exceptionally dry this year:

Another rare sighting: a black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornia). From Wikipedia:

The species overall is classified as critically endangered (even though the south-western black rhinoceros is classified as near threatened) and is threatened by multiple factors including poaching and habitat reduction. Three subspecies have been declared extinct, including the western black rhinoceros, which was declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2011. The IUCN estimates that 3,142 mature individuals remain in the wild.

These magnificent (and HUGE) creatures are poached purely to procure their horns, which are used, among other things, as powdered additions to Chinese herbal medicine.

More from Wikipedia abut their size (I suspect I’ll see more of these as I have four more nights here):

An adult black rhinoceros stands 132–180 cm (52–71 in) high at the shoulder and is 2.8–3.75 m (9.2–12.3 ft) in length. An adult typically weighs from 800 to 1,400 kg (1,760 to 3,090 lb), however unusually large male specimens have been reported at up to 2,896 kg (6,385 lb). The cows are smaller than the bulls. Two horns on the skull are made of keratin with the larger front horn typically 50 cm (20 in) long, exceptionally up to 135.9 cm (53.5 in)

Our first lion (Panthera leo), a female:

A female and a young male (yes, lions, like all animals have only two sexes). They are remarkably inured to the presence of the safari vehicles (we aren’t allowed to get out), and we can often drive within about ten feet of them. Other animals, like antelopes, are far more easily spooked, perhaps because they evolved to fear predators.

A closeup of the female:

And the male, whose mane is only beginning to grow out:

A cub! Not a tiny one, to be sure, but not nearly of adult size:

Below: the largest eagle in the area, the Martial Eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus). Sadly, according to Wikipedia, it’s also endangered:

. . . it has feathers over its tarsus. One of the largest and most powerful species of booted eagle, it is a fairly opportunistic predator that varies its prey selection between mammals, birds and reptiles. It is one of few eagle species known to hunt primarily from a high soar, by stooping on its quarry. This species, an inhabitant of wooded belts of otherwise open savanna, has shown a precipitous decline in the last few centuries due to a variety of factors. The martial eagle is one of the most persecuted bird species in the world. Due to its habit of taking livestock and regionally valuable game, local farmers and game wardens frequently seek to eliminate martial eagles, although the effect of eagles on this prey is almost certainly considerably exaggerated. Currently, the martial eagle is classified with the status of Endangered by the IUCN.

Our guide told us that it can take small antelopes:

The guides communicate with each other by radio to each party know where the animals are, and they sometimes drive off the road to afford us a better view.

Our guide, Dan, said he was going to take us to a “lion wedding party”, which I thought would be a pride of lions. It was instead a pair of lions about to copulate. How Dan knew this I have no idea, but a mating pair of lions copulates every 20 to 30 minutes, doing the deed up to 50 times per day! I don’t know why copulation is so frequent. Perhaps it’s a bonding mechanism, or perhaps the male is trying to displace the sperm of a previously-mating male.  I’m sure one reader will know the answer

The nuptial pair of lions resting on the ground:

. . . . they then arose and repaired to a nearby tree. “Why don’t we do it in the shade?”

THE DEED.  The female lay down and the male was instantly on her. Copulation lasted only a minute, punctuated by a squealy roar that I presume accompanied ejaculation.

As soon as the deed was done, the male lion rolled over on his back and smoked a cigarette. Then both lions rested:

A happy male lion who has satisfied the imperative of all the genes that go to make up all lions: reproducing more genes that give the recipe for lions.

NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act)1 is a federal law that requires skeletal remains and certain artifacts (such as grave goods and sacred objects) from past populations to be turned over to culturally affiliated present-day Native American tribes. The cultural affiliations can be determined through a variety of means including scientific, historic, and oral traditions, but the determination of affiliation should be by a preponderance of evidence, which means that half or more of the evidence should support the link between the past and the present peoples. All federally funded institutions in the U.S., such as universities and museums (even private ones that accept federal funding) are required to follow NAGPRA. This includes the requirement that they create inventory lists so that Native American tribes can request repatriation of previously discovered and curated items.

In 2017, I decided to reach out to now-retired attorney James W. Springer to see if he’d like to co-author a book on the topic of repatriation that took a critical perspective on the law and the ideology behind repatriation. Jim and I, though never having met face-to-face, had corresponded over the years based on our mutual concern that NAGPRA and similar laws would seriously hinder our ability to accurately understand the past—including the intriguing and ongoing mystery of how the Americas were first peopled.

Jim started his career as an anthropologist after receiving his PhD at Yale University, teaching, excavating, and researching for ten years prior to beginning his law career; throughout the years, he remained interested in anthropology, and continued to read and write about anthropological issues. I’m an anthropology professor at San José State University (SJSU); my focus is on studying skeletal remains and radiographic images (such as X-rays and CT scans). I’ve investigated diseases, such as leprosy in a Byzantine collection, and osteoarthritis patterns from Native Americans. I’ve also tried to reconstruct past people’s activities, looking at stress fractures2 and bone strength in skeletal remains from 18th century European Canadians3 to Paleoindians,4 whose skeletal remains in the Americas are 7,500 years old or older.

Jim and I wrote our book proposal and received a contract, after which I submitted a leave request to my department chair Roberto Gonzalez and my dean Walt Jacobs. Roberto provided an exceedingly supportive statement that also demonstrated that he understood the controversial nature of my position. “Dr. Weiss’s proposed project is likely to benefit the anthropology department in multiple ways,” he wrote. “Finally, since Dr. Weiss holds a controversial position on NAGPRA— focusing upon the ways in which the interpretation and implementation of repatriation and reburial laws may impede intellectual inquiry—her new project is likely to spark lively discussions among various stakeholders.”

My leave was approved, and Jim and I set out to write our book, Repatriation and Erasing the Past.5 It’s organized into three parts. The first focuses on debunking myths taught in K-12 and at universities, especially the conventional dogma that pre-Columbian populations in the Americas were peaceful. Examination of the skeletal remains throughout the Americas revealed clear evidence of violence, particularly the embedded arrowheads and severed limbs that were taken as war trophies. A chapter on biological relatedness discussed the frequent inability to tie past peoples to modern tribes. For example, the DNA of the 11,500-year-old Paleo-Indian Sunrise Girl could not be matched to that of any modern population, suggesting that she came from a group of lost or replaced Beringinians—those who walked across the Bering land bridge while it was in existence.

The second part of the book reviews NAGPRA, the history of Indian Laws and other conservation laws, and explores the complex issues in determining modern tribal affiliation to past peoples. One example is the Kennewick Man case, in which a claimed link between the over 8,000-year-old discovery and one of the modern tribes led to President Obama signing a congressional order to have Kennewick Man repatriated and reburied, preventing all future study. A closer look at the DNA evidence shows that Kennewick Man is, in fact, more closely related to South American Native Americans than the North American tribe who destroyed the discovery through reburial.

The third part of Repatriation and Erasing the Past delves into the problem with repatriation laws and repatriation ideology. It stems from the post-modern movement in which there is no such thing as truth and all conclusions are considered equally subjective. Repatriation ideology places importance on who is providing the information and whether that individual can claim a victim status; thus, information from Native Americans is considered to have greater validity than information coming from a European American, regardless of the latter’s scientific qualifications or demonstrable truthfulness of the information. We also explored NAGPRA’s violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment with regard to the separation of church and state in requiring each review committee to have at least two traditional Indian religious leaders and thereby promoting a specific religion—traditional Indian religion—as a required component of the law.

Further violation of the First Amendment includes NAGPRA’s acceptance of creation myths, in the form of oral tradition, as evidence for cultural affiliation (i.e., the connection between a present tribe and past peoples) to support repatriation events. We also looked at how NAGPRA and repatriation ideology encourage censorship. Due to the default acceptance that the Native American culture should be held in deference, repatriation ideology also allows for discrimination; anthropologists eager to continue collaboration with tribes must, for instance, observe menstrual taboos that prohibit women who are menstruating from engaging in research and fieldwork. In short, we called for a return to the primacy of demonstrable, objective knowledge and the abandonment of anti-scientific values.

When I returned to campus after my writing leave, I received SJSU’s College of Social Sciences highest scholarly prize for my research on and curation of the Ryan Mound collection. My university had always been happy to celebrate my achievements. In 2008, I was chosen by then Provost Gerry Selter to speak about my scientific research and my work criticizing repatriation and reburial of skeletal remains. Even earlier than that, when I was hired in 2004, I spoke out against the loss of scientific data through repatriation of remains. I point all this out because shortly after Repatriation and Erasing the Past was published, administrators, including my department chair and the university president, started to take a different view—rather than praising my accomplishments and wowing at the imagery highlighting the importance of studying skeletal remains, they started to condemn my scholarship by taking retaliatory actions to derail my career.

The first sign of trouble was in mid-December 2020 upon receiving a panicked email from my publisher, followed by a phone call, in which they lamented that they were “in crisis mode” because of an open letter6 calling for the banning of Repatriation and Erasing the Past crafted by Siân Halcrow (University of Otago, New Zealand), Amber Aranui (Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand), Stephanie Halmhofer (University of Alberta, Canada), Annalisa Heppner (Brown University, USA), Kristina Killgrove (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA), and Gwen Robbins Schug (University of North Carolina at Greensboro/Appalachian State University, USA).

The open letter, which was signed by nearly 900 academics, called the book racist and wanted it to be retracted, or at least removed from open access to universities and libraries—in other words, they didn’t want to give people the opportunity to read it. Through several phone calls with the publisher, Jim and I were able to convince them not to pull the book, but the publishers nevertheless issued an apology for its publication, written by Director Romi Gutierrez:

I write to address the current discussion surrounding a book the University of Florida Press published several months ago: Repatriation and Erasing the Past, by Elizabeth Weiss and James W. Springer. (…) Because the gears of the publication process do move gradually, a flawed editorial decision made in the past has consequences today.

Those consequences, in this case, include harm to voices we sincerely value, the potential to undo important progress, and injury to relationships we have long worked to foster. I apologize for the pain this publication has caused. It was not our intent to publish a book that uses arguments and terminology associated with scientific racism. I assure you that, months ago, changes to our editorial program had already started to take place, including greater focus to inclusivity and sensitivity, and we will continue and redouble these efforts.7

Jim and I stood up for what we had written; we wrote articles on our perspective, and fought back in the public press and on social media.8, 9, 10 Our book remains available and can be found in nearly 1,000 libraries.

When this crisis was brought to my attention, I reached out to my chair Roberto Gonzalez and my dean Walt Jacobs. Gonzalez informed me that he had already known about the cancellation attempt. What I didn’t know was that Gonzalez and Jacobs would become my biggest foes in what turned out to be the start of a campaign to cancel me.

At this time, there were two other incidents involving my university that would play into their efforts to retaliate against me. One faculty member, A.J. Faas, wrote in an email to the anthropology department:

I would like to share an important resource that just went live a few weeks ago. Cite Black Authors, a searchable database of Black scholarly journal articles, books, and expert listings, will launch to the public on November 16, 2020, at CiteBlackAuthors.com. The website is an interdisciplinary effort to enhance and recognize Black academic voices for better representation in scholarship. Sparked by the death of George Floyd and ongoing racial conflicts in the United States, a team of nine people, including researchers, developers, and graduate students, curated citations and designed a searchable website for researchers, educators, and the general public. We are overwhelmingly grateful for the support of contributors and the team behind the initiative. Please share the attached release with your friends and groups—and help us to spread the word and the WORK of Black, academic professionals.

I responded in writing that:

Although the intent of Cite Black Authors may be well-meaning, as a scholar in search of objective knowledge, I encourage researchers to look for the best source material and realize that an author’s ethnicity, race, or color of their skin has no actual bearing on the validity of their contribution.

Second, I attended a webinar on creating a Native American Studies Center, put on by Provost Vincent Del Casino. The speakers (two of the three stated that they were Native American scholars) expressed what I submit are inherently racist sentiments, including that Native Americans were better than any other people in all topics (the speaker then started to list them: math, biology, literature…) and that only Native Americans should teach and work in the Native American Studies Center because it would be an insult if a Mexican was mistaken for a Native American or vice versa. In the comments bar of the seminar video stream, I wrote that these statements were racist; why would it be an insult to be mistaken for a Mexican, unless you thought that there was something wrong with being Mexican? Would we want to restrict Shakespeare to being taught by Britons and British Americans only? The responses to my criticisms included an email from a professor of Chicano and Chicana Studies that concluded, “I’m exhausted and disgusted by Karen antics that silence BIPOC voices in the academy” and a phone call from chair Gonzalez in which he implored me not to attend such events, stating that my attendance could harm the department’s junior faculty’s chances at tenure.

Calls for the banning of Repatriation and Erasing the Past increased, and Gonzalez wrote a letter to all faculty, staff and graduate students in the department “reminding everyone that the opinions expressed in your new book don’t represent the position of the SJSU anthropology department, and that the principle of academic freedom allows us all to freely pursue our ideas—even if they’re controversial or unpopular.” He stated that because he received “numerous emails and calls from colleagues who are quite concerned and even upset about your book,” he thought that this was the best step to take. He concluded:

On a personal note, I want to let you know that after having carefully read the book, I disagree with both the substance and style of Repatriation and Erasing the Past, including its dismissal of Native American epistemologies and indigenous scholarship, its Victorian-era approach to anthropological inquiry, and its linear, pre-Kuhnian view of scientific progress. Our discipline has long played a signal role in recognizing the insight and benefits that can come from understanding different lifeways and cultural perspectives, and I’m confident that we will continue doing so in the future.

I replied, making sure that all who received his letter also received mine:

Roberto’s use of the term “Victorian-era” is to misunderstand our perspective though I would like to remind everyone Charles Darwin was from the Victorian era—and where would we be without him?! Both Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper (the philosopher James and I cite) had remarkable careers with thought-provoking works that helped shape modern social sciences. They were also contemporaries and, thus, although their approaches to understanding science differed, to portray Repatriation and Erasing the Past as antiquated because we don’t use Kuhn, but rather cite Popper, is an unfair representation. Popper’s view of scientific progress is not a linear view and neither do James and I support a linear view of scientific progress. We even highlight the unpredictability and uncontrollability of knowledge while noting that knowledge is not an unfolding sequence, but rather a messy endeavor that is in constant flux. Science is the search for truth, perhaps never getting to the truth on many topics. New data or old data reanalyzed, we point out, can upturn previous explanations.

The end outcome of this exchange was that Gonzalez decided to put together a webinar series: “Emancipatory Theory & Praxis: Confronting Racism in American Society and American Anthropology.” His chosen speakers included Agustín Fuentes of Princeton University. In his talk, Fuentes focused on White supremacy and violence. I asked about the recent slew of Black on Asian crimes that were occurring and how he would define these acts; he stated that they too were due to White supremacy—if Blacks weren’t discriminated against by Whites, then they wouldn’t be attacking Asians. The other invited speaker was William White from UC Berkeley. White’s talk was actually quite illuminating; he pointed out that students of color were often directed to study populations that they were related to and that this didn’t always match their interests; thus, arguing against students being shoehorned into specific areas of study based on their ethnicity. A Black student may want to study Celts while a White student might wish to learn more about Caribbean archaeology.

In response to this webinar, I asked my chair whether I could put together a similar webinar to focus on academic freedom and diversity of thought. His initial response was that there was no funding and no time to do so; then, when I suggested we move it to the next semester, he dug up some rules on guest speakers that we never used and weren’t used for the equity webinar, and even had us retroactively vote on whether we approved of the topic and speakers of his webinar! Unsurprisingly, I haven’t been able to get department support to hold a webinar or invite a guest speaker.

Over the following months, the controversies simmered down, until Jim and I submitted an abstract to the 2021 Society for American Archaeology (SAA) conference. Our talk, “Has Creationism Crept Back into Archaeology?”, called for a relying on data rather than creation myths to ensure that repatriation can be done as fairly as possible. I compared creation myths of Native Americans to other creation myths while pointing out that the SAA has previously taken a stand against the teaching and use of biblical interpretations, such as intelligent design, to understand the past. The SAA was founded in 1934 and states that it is “dedicated to research about and interpretation and protection of the archaeological heritage of the Americas.” The SAA has about 7,000 members that include professional and avocational archaeologists, archaeology students in colleges and universities, and archaeologists working at Tribal agencies, museums, government agencies, and the private sector.

Although our topic did not seem particularly controversial to me, there was a movement to prevent the talk (which was pre-recorded) from being played.11 It aired anyway, and the comment box quickly filled up with name-calling and accusations of racism. But even though all talks were supposed to stay on the SAA platform for two months, the incoming president apologized for the harm caused, removed the talk from the platform, and formed a committee to ensure that those critical of repatriation ideology would not be allowed on the program again. Two years later, I submitted an abstract that discussed whether X-rays were to be included in repatriation. At SJSU, X-rays are now being labeled as “sacred objects” and upon repatriation of the human remains and artifacts, the tribes plan to burn the X-rays. This abstract was rejected; the California Society for Archaeology rejected it too.

On June 3, 2021, Roberto Gonzalez—hosted by my dean Walt Jacobs—presented a review of my situation at the Council of Colleges of Art and Sciences called “What to Do When a Tenured Colleague is Branded a Racist.” In this presentation, Gonzalez painted me as being manipulative, racist, strange, and professionally incompetent. He stated that my anti-repatriation position, coupled with my reaction to the Cite Black Authors incident, were reasons to withhold resources, and that my next review would state that I am incompetent. He suggested that if I taught my perspective to students or assigned my books in classes, he would consider removing me from the classroom. Although he employed a pseudonym for me, it was clear that this was a personal attack—describing me as odd, not “warm and fuzzy,” and bizarrely suggesting that I might lock myself into the curation facility to prevent a repatriation from occurring. (While I disagree with NAGPRA, I have always followed the law.) Further, he painted my ideas as “scientific racism” and stated that he would have signed the open letter calling for my book to be banned if he wasn’t chair. Perhaps most surreally, Gonzalez painted himself as a victim, claiming that he had no idea of the “skeletons in my closet”—that I am an anti-repatriation anthropologist. Yet, this was clearly a lie, as seen in the approval for my leave to write the book, his support for my award, and the many discussions we held about repatriation over the years. Gonzalez was even on my hiring committee— so he knew that one of my first papers was on Kennewick Man and how repatriation and reburial of Paleo-Indians is an affront to scientific inquiry and hinders our ability to reconstruct the past.

It was clear that my job was on the line. Even a tenured professor can be fired for incompetence, which is what they were accusing me of!

The latest cancellations started up again after I published an op-ed critical of California’s repatriation law called CalNAGPRA.12 The recent changes to CalNAGPRA all but set the stage for repatriation events that would hollow out collections in all of the state’s universities. CalNAGPRA states that Native American knowledge must be deferred to; that is, if there is a disagreement between scientific evidence and the Native American oral tradition, the Native American oral tradition must be given priority. All that is needed for repatriation is for a Native American to say that there is a link between the modern tribe and the past peoples—this would then trump all the DNA and forensic evidence. There must also be continuous consultation with all tribes of the area and their requests for handling, access, and repatriation must be followed.

Shortly after the op-ed, I posted on social media a now infamous photo of me holding a skull (above left), with the caption “So happy to be back with some old friends.” Provost Vincent Del Casino wrote a scathing letter condemning me, stating: “This image has evoked shock and disgust from our Native and Indigenous community on campus and from many people within and outside of SJSU.”13 He went on to criticize me: “in what context is it ever ethically appropriate for an academic to handle remains while smiling with ungloved hands while calling these remains ‘friends’? I doubt many colleagues in the fields of Forensic Science or Physical Anthropology would find this palatable.” I reached out to the provost and suggested that we discuss the issue and address the public together, but he didn’t wish to do this and, thus, I provided him with a letter to send to the same people on his email list, which he did.14 I clarified a variety of misunderstandings; for instance, “handling remains with gloves is only necessary if these remains have always been treated with gloved hands and other sterile conditions.” Use of gloves is actually actively discouraged by the National Park Society because it leads to people dropping materials more often. I ended the letter with:

We have no way of telling what the individuals whose remains we curate would think about this issue, but when one looks at the Egyptian mummies, Ötzi the iceman, or the bog bodies of northern Europe, public display celebrates these individuals, telling their stories in a respectful way that gives them a voice they never had in life. The same is true of our collection, and we should be celebrating the lives of these first occupants of Silicon Valley—not allowing their voices to be silenced by a vociferous campaign orchestrated by woke activists whose strategy is to try to shut down debate, and promote superstition over science. (…) Finally, it’s an attack on a genuine photo that celebrates our collection, my admiration for the collection, and my joy at being able to do my job. After your strong statement regarding academic freedom, I am disappointed that you were not courageous enough—as those reporting on me—to talk to me first, to have a rational discussion about these occurrences.

My response led to many colleagues reaching out to me; finding similar photos (from SJSU and many other institutes, including the Smithsonian); and providing support. One very supportive colleague faced an onslaught of criticism after he was quoted in the Mercury News, which led him to withdraw his support of my freedom of expression. He called to let me know that he was frightened. Others have expressed quiet support—a former student and lecturer let me know that she didn’t think that I was racist at all, but spent all day debating whether to email me from her university account or her private account, ultimately deciding on the latter. This fear of cancellation permeates academia.

On the left, the image that Provost Del Casino said did “not align with the values of SJSU” and “evoked shock and disgust from our Native and Indigenous community on campus and from many people within and outside of SJSU.” On the right, the image that the University used for multiple websites and promotional material. This image was removed from the University website in July 2023.

All of this led the then President Mary Papazian to remove my access to the curation facility. They literally changed the locks! She also stated that no photos were allowed of the Native American skeletal collection (a key aspect to understanding past diseases is sharing and comparing images) or even of the boxes that held the bones.15 I responded by noting that non-Native American remains and other collections were in the facility and not subject to repatriation law. One cultural anthropologist asked whether I had written permission from these individuals to take the photos, knowing full well that they had been dead for centuries! I fought all these restrictions. Tribal liaison Alisha Ragland was perhaps one of the most vitriolic, claiming that I was a eugenicist and shouldn’t get access to any collections. They moved the protocol for access to skeletal collections to the Institute Review Board, which I fought against. The chair held meetings to try to remove me from my duties as curator, although it is part of my job contract.

How did we get to a situation in which opposing the reburial of human remains is automatically deemed racist and can derail an anthropologist’s career?

I decided the time had come to initiate legal action against the SJSU for their various retaliatory actions. While putting together our case, Pacific Legal Foundation (who represented me pro bono) and I contacted senior academic figures in physical anthropology and archaeology to seek expert opinions on protocols for handling skeletal remains.

Dr. Douglas Owsley has worked with many prestigious universities and museums, including the Smithsonian. He is the subject of Jeff Benedict’s book No Bone Unturned: Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America’s Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters.16 Dr. Owsley wrote in his supportive amicus brief: “Based on my experience there was nothing improper about Professor Weiss’s photograph.” He also noted that, “it is not standard protocol to use gloves when examining archeological bones in the laboratory.”17 Professor Della Cook, who managed the North American skeletal collections held by the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University from 1973 to 2021 and has collected data on skeletal remains around the world, wrote “Photographs of researchers measuring or otherwise doing observations on bones, ancient and modern, are routine in our field, and many anthropologists smile in such photographs.” She added that “There are several such photos of me in circulation, and in most of them I am smiling.”18

The department also worked with Native Americans and a retired forensic anthropology lecturer to rewrite protocols that would determine access to collections. The protocol even included a menstruation taboo. They couldn’t bring themselves to state that women who are menstruating are not allowed in the curation facility or to handle remains and artifacts; thus, they used the term “menstruating personnel,” to avoid the implication that only females menstruate! Seriously? Upon seeing this, my lawyers and I decided to mention that this likely constitutes a Title IX violation and that, if it were not removed, we would file a complaint. It was removed.19

This discriminatory action against women is far more common in anthropology now than you may think; Native American tribes believing in menstrual taboos will ban women who are menstruating from engaging in fieldwork, handling remains, and even eating with the rest of the crew. Many institutions, including UC Berkeley, condone this behavior.20

Further complications arose when I requested nonhuman animal bones. These items were quickly declared by Native Americans as being sacred and, thus, out of reach for my research. Previously unaware of possessing any mystical powers, I suddenly realized that whatever I requested magically and instantly became “sacred” and thus off-limits.

When we first went in front of a judge, she ruled that my case was to be dismissed, but I was allowed to amend my complaint.21 In the decision to dismiss the case, she stated that the tribes were an “indispensable” party to the case, but the tribes were considered sovereign and, thus, could not be sued. We filed an amended complaint, excluding the Native American collections, and—to everyone’s surprise—the motion to dismiss was overturned. Unfortunately, I still had no recourse to get access to X-rays and nonhuman animal bones, or even the ability to enter the curation facility.

This article appeared in Skeptic magazine 29.2
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How did we get to a situation in which opposing the reburial of human remains is automatically deemed racist and can derail an anthropologist’s career? It’s about turning anthropology into an ideological battleground weighted in favor of victimhood and (often disproven by evidence) tribal identity—both political and social—rather than a scientific endeavor aimed at better understanding the past for the benefit of all humankind. It doesn’t matter who is correct, it matters who gets to tell the story, with Native American narratives now considered expert testimony that cannot and must not be questioned.

The next proposed revisions to NAGPRA are sure to erase the imperfect compromise that was included in the original NAGPRA law—a compromise that tried to ensure that science would still be conducted by allowing for the retention of most artifacts and the continued curation of culturally unidentifiable skeletal remains. Native American tribes, such as the San Carlos Apache Tribe, want a definition of human remains that includes naturally-shed material (such as hair and skin cells), casts, replicas, and digital data.22 Some have argued that animals imbued with human spirits should be included as human too. Of course, the puma who recently died in Los Angeles was given a traditional Indian burial in order to stop research on its remains.23

Why would a university or museum want to lose their collections? They may think cooperating will enable them to continue their research endeavors, but research purely for the purpose of propping up a political agenda isn’t research. When the tribes can control your conclusions, one is no longer engaged in pursuit of objective knowledge.

For my part, I shall oppose the unconstitutional NAGPRA in order to bring anthropologists, especially the next generation, back to science. And I will promote science which knows no bounds of race, sex, gender, religion, or creed over superstition, regardless of any race, sex, gender, religion, or creed affiliation—real, alleged, or imagined.

About the Author

Elizabeth Weiss is co-author, with James W. Springer, of Repatriation and Erasing the Past. She is also the author of Reading the Bones: Activity, Biology, and Culture and Paleopathology in Perspective: Bone Health and Disease Through Time. She has been a professor of anthropology at San José State University (SJSU) since 2004. Prior to joining SJSU, Elizabeth had a post-doctoral research position at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. She is a faculty fellow at Heterodox Academy’s Center for Academic Pluralism and a National Association of Scholars board member.

References

1. https://bit.ly/3TFSs7G
2. https://bit.ly/3TJt69a
3. https://bit.ly/4chYmmP
4. Weiss, E. (2001). Kennewick Man’s Behavior: A CT-Scan Analysis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 32S, 163–163
5. Weiss, E. & Springer, J. W. (2020). Repatriation and Erasing the Past. University of Florida Press.
6. https://bit.ly/3VoFexw
7. https://bit.ly/3TpiD1f
8. https://bit.ly/4cjUwJS
9. https://bit.ly/43oQ1d5
10. https://bit.ly/4aiNsvm
11. https://bit.ly/4chCpnR
12. https://bit.ly/4chCqbp
13. https://bit.ly/3VmVuyL
14. https://bit.ly/3v714uJ
15. https://bit.ly/4cnYZuY
16. Benedict, J. (2004). No Bone Unturned: Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America’s Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters. Harper Perennial.
17. Owsley, D. (2022). Amicus brief. Case 5:22-cv-00641-BLF Document 50 Filed 03/10/22
18. Cook, D. (2022). Amicus brief. Case 5:22-cv-00641-BLF Document 49 Filed 03/10/22
19. https://bit.ly/4ciffh7
20. https://bit.ly/3TmF2Mr
21. https://bit.ly/3Viu9Oo
22. https://bit.ly/3VFMghB
23. https://bit.ly/3IJ2jDs

This is just a taste of what I’ll be posting in a few hours, along with a “lion wedding” involving copulation, and far closer pictures of the big cats. I’ve been on two game drives already, each 3.5 hours long, and have seen a ton. Join me in a few hours. In the meantime, spot the lion.

(I hope to get a “spot the leopard” photo soon.