john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Peer review in Castle Wolfenstein

Tue, 2012-03-13 20:24 -- John Hawks

"Peer fortress: The scientific battlefield" uses first-person shooter gaming characters to put a humorous spin on scientific peer review. Six characters that might show up whenever you submit a manuscript. The one I seem to get most often is the Medic:

The Medic wanted to save your paper.

But, they ended up killing the patient.

Rife with suggestions for improvement, the Medic's review somberly concludes that "even though I enjoyed the paper, it would be premature to publish these results at this time."

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.