"A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford ... has challenged previously held views that brain preservation in the archaeological record is extremely rare. The team compiled a new archive of preserved human brains, which highlighted that nervous tissues actually persist in much greater abundances than traditionally thought, assisted by conditions that prevent decay."
@faustosterling Just as a suggestion, but how about we stop all missions to the moon. It would be obscene to mine it. It is absurd to keep sending things to it. Space tourism would be a way to kill a few billionaires, but I cannot think of any other good reason to continue it.
@faustosterling NASA and the Navajo dealt with this fifteen years ago, when the lunar impactor also brought the ashes of a famous Apollo era scientist to the moon. The issue was considered settled, but this round of Artemis contracts with private companies distributes and obscures blame. New corps are paid by NASA as part of this divestment of space exploration to the “cheaper” private sector, but have no relationship with the Navajo. And part of making it “cheaper” is selling one way tickets.
'The return of the ancestral human remains of Australian and other Indigenous peoples held in anthropological collections could be sped up using machine-based deep learning according to a new study led by QUT computer scientists.'
The Navajo nation expressed concerns that human remains would desecrate the Moon. The concerns were ignored. Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lander containing human remains was launched anyway and something has gone wrong. It won’t make it to the Moon.
The #Navajo Nation voices objection to obscenely rich private individuals placing #humanremains on the Moon:
'...the President of the Navajo Nation, Buu Nygren, has filed a formal objection with NASA and the U.S. Department of Transportation over what he calls an act of desecration. "It is crucial to emphasize that the moon holds a sacred position in many Indigenous cultures, including ours," Nygren wrote in a letter dated Dec. 21. "The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space." '
Sending your remains to space is the ultimate manifestation of culture:nature dualism. Imagine wanting to be permanently separated from the rest of the living planet.
@RadicalAnthro ONLY national space agencies should be allowed to go to space. How f*ckd up is it that moneyed interests essentially do whatever they want : “ it’s a commercial mission “ and “ we don’t have the framework “. musk&satellites can mess up observations with impunity. Wait till they can extract from asteroids, polluting with no regulations.What could do wrong? Also billionaires and Co will own the only way out to space, holding us hostage. Ban private interests in space now.
AMERICA’S BIGGEST MUSEUMS FAIL TO RETURN NATIVE AMERICAN HUMAN REMAINS (ProPublica, by Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz and Ash Ngu, 2023).
"As the United States pushed Native Americans from their lands to make way for westward expansion throughout the 1800s, museums and the federal government encouraged the looting of Indigenous remains, funerary objects and cultural items. Many of the institutions continue to hold these today — and in some cases resist their return despite the 1990 passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act."
A very interesting source of information on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) are the minutes of the Review Committee Meetings. They are available on this website:
A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. Senators asked universities and museums with large collections of Native American human remains why they’ve failed to repatriate them to tribes—more than 30 years after a federal law was passed that compelled them to do so.