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"This blog this the repository for all the triumphs and tribulations as I embark on the newest chapter of my life as an exchange student in Japan. As such, there will be English, Japanese, and pictures galore in this blog. The first purpose of this blog is so that my friends and family can see what I'm up to a world away, but also so that others who are interested in studying abroad can learn through my experiences. A little bit about myself... I'm a student at Mount Holyoke College where I major in Asian Studies and Anthropology. I'm spending two weeks in June in Tokyo as part of an MHC anthropology class before returning to the US for the remainder of the summer (hopefully to work a summer job...). Through the Associated Kyoto Program, I will be attending Doshisha University in Kyoto for a period of nine months starting in September. "

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now genetically engineered a strain of mice whose FOXP2 gene has been swapped out for the human version. In a region of the brain called the basal ganglia, known in people to be involved in language, the humanized mice grew nerve cells that had a more complex structure. Baby mice utter ultrasonic whistles when removed from their mothers. The humanized baby mice, when isolated, made whistles that had a slightly lower pitch, among other differences, Dr. Enard says. Dr. Enard argues that putting significant human genes into mice is the only feasible way of exploring the essential differences between people and chimps, our closest living relatives.

"Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world often leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo" in Spanish-influenced cultures, "face" in Japanese culture, and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea cultures. Here Horace Miner demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive influence on many institutions in Nacirema society."