Skeptophilia

It's astonishing how linked we all are -- and how we often don't even realize it. Long-time readers of Skeptophilia  might recall th...

Here in the United States we're celebrating Thanksgiving today.  It's a day a lot of folks think about their heritage, and the weird...

Today's topic comes to us from the One Thing Leads To Another department. I got launched into this particular rabbit hole by a notice f...

As you might expect from someone who is passionately interested in genealogy, linguistics, and evolutionary genetics, when there's a stu...

Archaeologists and paleontologists are up against the same problem; bones and other fossils only get you so far. There are cases where fossi...

It will come as no surprise to long-time fans of Skeptophilia  that I love a mystery.  And if that mystery is mixed up with questions of anc...

My maternal grandmother was born Flora Meyer-Lévy, in the little town of Chackbay, Louisiana, in 1893.  I never knew her -- she died fourtee...

129 years ago, Bertha Viola Scott was born in the little town of Wind Ridge, in Greene County, Pennsylvania.  She was the fourth child of Th...

It was in my evolutionary biology class in college that I ran into a concept that blew my mind, and in many ways still does. It was the idea...

A while back I had my DNA tested.  I know a good bit about my family tree, and I did it not only to find out about my genetic heritage, but ...