Anthropology

A new mathematical model developed by Indiana University Bloomington and Arizona State University geographers could help communities that are in the midst of passing or reforming sex offender laws. The researchers describe the model and report its first test in an Early View edition of Papers in Regional Science. By forcing users to quantify risk and issues of special concern, the model can help the policymakers of concerned communities to focus on the spatial management of sex offenders and not mere punitive measures.
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Indiana University Bloomington will join seven partners in Britain and the Netherlands to investigate early human settlements in Europe. The $1.81 million (1.1 million pound) Leverhulme Trust grant, spearheaded by the Natural History Museum in London, will be distributed to collaborators over four years. Paleontologist David Polly oversees IU Bloomington's participation in the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project.
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Indiana University Bloomington holds more than 560,000 audio and video recordings and film reels, many of which are historically significant, all of which are actively deteriorating. And the window of time to save these materials is closing fast.
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The National Endowment for the Humanities' "We the People" project has awarded a group of Indiana University anthropologists $250,000 to transcribe, translate and publish the oral literature of the Assiniboine, a northern Plains Indian tribe with only about 50 living members still fluent in the tribal language of Nakota.
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A new exhibit exploring humanity's cosmic, terrestrial, biological and cultural origins will be opening in Bloomington in fall 2010, thanks in part to a $149,000 grant recently awarded to Indiana University's Mathers Museum of World Cultures.The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the grant in support of "From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything."
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