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The Conversation

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Deputy Head, Communications Team

Stephanie Hood

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shood@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

The Conversation is an independent platform of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public. Additional to our Feature Stories series, scholars at the MPIWG have been contributing to The Conversation since 2017.

No 18
Tatou à trois bandes du Sud (Tolypeutes matacus)

Les voyages du tatou dans les sciences et par les mers

Dans les réserves du muséum d’histoire naturelle du Mans (musée Vert) se trouve un étrange animal venu du passé. Il porte une étiquette ancienne et figure parmi les objets les plus anciennement...

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No 17
Dony Wardhana/Unsplash, FAL

Doctors only started measuring body temperature 200 years ago – here’s why

Over the past year, fever thermometers have become omnipresent. Body temperature is taken in front of shops, at airports, even before visiting a museum – often with ultra-modern devices. So-cal...

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No 16
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Terrorism: A Very Brief History

What is it that allows someone to be labelled as a terrorist? Recent acts of spectacular violence, such as the mail bombs sent to American anti-Trump critics, or the mass killings by Canadian “...

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No 15
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Poland's Wild Boar Targeted in Pointless Cull That Could Actually Spread Swine Fever

Most of Poland’s wild boars are being culled to stop the spread of African swine fever, a deadly viral disease that endangers farm pigs. The Polish Hunting Association was mandated to organize ...

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No 14
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Circular Economy: Ancient Populations Pioneered the Idea of Recycling Waste

The circular economy is typically seen as the progressive alternative to our wasteful linear economy, where raw materials are used to make the products that feed today’s rampant consumerist hun...

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No 13
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Dealing with Devil Has Long Been a Part of Medicine

Thirty children in Amsterdam began to show signs of a disturbing affliction in the winter of 1566. The symptoms would strike without warning: the children would at first be seized by a violent ...

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No 12
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A Brief History of Black Holes

Late in 2018, the gravitational wave observatory, LIGO, announced that they had detected the most distant and massive source of ripples of spacetime ever monitored: waves triggered by pairs of ...

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No 11
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From Jaguar Teeth to the Nail of the Great Beast: The Evolution of Animal Medicines

In February 2018, the Bolivian authorities captured two Chinese citizens in a poultry store in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. They were apprehended in possession of 185 jaguar fangs, thre...

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No 10
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Captive Breeding Has a Dark Side—as Disturbing Czech Discovery of Trafficked Tiger Body Parts Highlights

The rotting remains of a number of tigers, lions and cougars were recently discovered in a raid on a house in Prague. This disturbing find was the culmination of a five-year investigation that ...

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No 9
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Why Genes Don't Hold All the Answers for Biologists

It is still widely believed that the gene is the foundation of life—that its discovery has provided information about how all living beings are controlled by the genetic factors they inherit fr...

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No 8
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Maths is Revolutionising the Study of History—Here's How

The study of history traditionally brings to mind images of dark, winding archives, and the smell of dust; visions of academics poring through piles of documents to uncover secrets and find the...

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No 7
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Taking Poo Samples to School was an Essential Part of South Korea's Modernization

A North Korean soldier recently escaped across the demilitarised zone, the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, and a remnant of the July 1953 ceasefire to the Korean conflict. On h...

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No 6
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Flying Chariots and Exotic Birds: How Seventeeth Century Dreamers Planned to Reach the Moon

People have been dreaming about space travel for hundreds of years, long before the arrival of the spectacular technologies behind space exploration today—mighty engines roaring fire and thunde...

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No 5
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How the Catalan Economy Benefited under Franco—and What This Means for the Ongoing Stalemate

Any long-term solution requires a deep understanding of the issues at stake, but the each day the situation is more puzzling to observers at home and around the world. Spaniards living abroad, ...

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No 4
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What Yemen Can Learn from the Historical Experience of Cholera

War has overcome the near eradication of cholera that modern advances in medicine and international public health organisations have allowed. So how did these advances come to pass and what can...

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No 2
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"Sound of a Dog Barking": History Reveals the Significance of this North Korean Insult to Trump

This may sound like a fairly standard put down, but in fact Ri’s language was carefully selected. In the Korean context, a comparison with a dog is deeply insulting, and this likely explains Ki...

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No 1
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How to Live with Bears

Bears have been on Europeans’ minds lately, as violent encounters with these powerful mammals make international headlines. The state must be able to guarantee local communities personal and ec...

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