To the Manor Born? The cultural evolution of land tenure, residence and labour in Austronesian societies. 

Cross-cultural differences in norms of land tenure may reflect both individual and population-level adaptations to ecological and social factors. A complex interplay is likely to exist between kinship practices such postmarital residence and descent, the type and division of subsistence-related labour, and the form of land ownership. Here I present work from a number of comparative studies in which we have used phylogenetic and simulation methods to disentangle the (co)evolution of these factors in the Austronesian-speaking societies of the Pacific. This framework allows us to practice “virtual archaeology” to infer past states of social norms, and to test adaptive hypotheses derived from behavioural ecology and anthropology about both the coevolution of kinship and subsistence labour, and land tenure and kinship. More broadly, I hope to demonstrate how these approaches can bring together social anthropology, population prehistory, and evolutionary theory in a new cross-cultural anthropology.

Link and info here.

The characters used for inferring phylogenetic relationships must be independent of one another (Kluge, 1989). Suites of morphological characters that evolve in concert violate this dictate. Such correlated evolution is most likely to occur when a set of characters underlie a functionally adaptive phenotype or common developmental pathway (Emerson and Hastings, 1998). Such suites of correlated characters can mislead phylogenetic analyses because they track adaptive history instead of phylogeny (Holland et al., 2010; McCracken et al., 1999) or because they are developmentally linked to other characters (Schlosser and Wagner, 2004; West- Eberhard, 2003). In practice, it is difficult to determine the underlying nature of character correlations. This is because a suite of characters that are highly correlated with one another are expected to produce the same result as a suite of independent characters with good phylogenetic signal: strong support for a given clade (Shaffer et al., 1991).

A relevant paragraph that I wish I’d had a couple weeks ago when teaching about the data one can use for phylogeny estimation.

From Eytan et al 2011

The First Great Western trains in the UK now have in-seat entertainment!

Part 2: Getting There and Being There.
In this post I’m going to cover plane (and train) travel, exploiting your accommodation, and your “kit”.

For the previous post: Part 1:  Preparing For The Trip.
[Updated 23/10/2011]

1. Don’t Write Your Talk on the Plane Mrs Jones

While it’s true that you can get a surprising amount of work done while sat in your seat at ten thousand metres up, the nature of that work should ideally never be the talk you’re about to give. Two reasons:

1. Your laptop can and will fail. This happened to me twice this summer: once at the very beginning of the trip, and once halfway through the conference but before I gave my talk. Both times my talk was done and safely saved to my Dropbox (more on that later), and it turned what could have been an absolute disaster into just a small annoyance.

2. Travel is stressful and unpredictable enough without leaving writing your talk until that 2/5/8/13 hour journey. And it doesn’t matter how long the journey, you really only have the battery life of your computer to get it done. You could be using that time to strategise your conference networking, reading papers to flesh out the fine points of your arguments, or watching a Drew Barrymore comedy on a tiny screen.

That out of the way, let’s imagine your talk is done and just requires a run-through the night before. You’ve arrived at the airport/station with your well-packed luggage, checked in, claimed your frequent-flyer points, and because you’re clever, you’ve worn an outfit that is comfortable yet business-y (increasing your chances of an upgrade), with easily removable shoes (for ease of navigating the security theatre).

If you have any time at the airport your choice is usually shopping, eating, or working. If I have time I walk around all the shops, for two reasons: first because I’ll be sitting down for the foreseeable future, and secondly when else do you get a good excuse to window shop in the luxury goods shops? The electronics shops at airports often have travel-related gadgetry, as well, though most of the time the trick is to note down anything you think looks useful and see if you can get it online. Speaking of online:

Lists of airports with (free) wifi here and here.

The other option is to exploit the lounges at the airport. Some require membership in a scheme, some are pay-per-visit, and some are complimentary depending on the type of ticket you hold. For example, I had a first-class rail ticket back from Berlin last week, and use of the business lounge was complementary. It’s a good idea to suss this out before you travel, and sometimes it’s worth the €25-50 fee if your trip is a long one or you’re changing planes on a long-haul trip. Being able to take a shower, have a light meal and zone out in a quiet space make long flights much more bearable and help you get over your jetlag quicker.

Final boarding call!
Because I check my bag most of the time my strategy is to board the plane LAST (why wait in a queue?), but if you like to do the one-bag carry-on thing then you need to get on EARLY to get that bag up in the overhead bins (especially on budget airlines or internal North American flights). Boarding the plane last-ish is apparently supposed to increase your chances of being bumped up a class on a full flight, but probably carries a chance you might be bumped OFF if the flight is overbooked.

On trains, board EARLY all the time. Luggage space is always at a premium and often seating is unassigned (or the assignment is ignored, passengers on UK trains I am looking at you). Many train companies have carriage maps on their websites so you can see the layouts, and many stations have maps that tell you where each carriage will stop. More on trains: many have wi-fi these days, you can check on the train company websites. Be vigilant about luggage and belongings on trains as it is much easier for theft to occur.

Aisle or window?
I reckon that if your flight lasts for 4-5 hours or less an aisle seat is the way to go. Those short hops are usually where you’ll have an interconnecting flight and so want to maximise chances of getting off the plane quickly. If the flight is any longer (and if there’s a chance you’ll sleep) then the window is the best place. Less disturbance from people clambering over you, but your personal preference may be determined by your bladder. SeatGuru is a fabulous website (especially for plane nerds) that gives you not only all the amenities on your particular flight but also the seating layout, with all the details for each seat such as when seat recline is obstructed, or the entertainment unit is under the seat in front (and thus no space for your bag/legs). Choose wisely!

If you’re travelling with someone a good trick is to book the aisle and window of a three-row. If the middle seat gets taken on a full flight, you can negotiate to sit together, and if not, you’ve got an extra half-seat each. Let’s not pretend that academics ever get to travel business class, but nowadays many airlines now have some sort of “premium economy” where there is more legroom and the seat recline angle goes further back. For short haul flights there’s not really a point unless you’re a big or tall person, but for long haul flights the extra €100-€200 might just be worth it. For me, the extra recline angle means I actually get to sleep (otherwise I slide out of my seat because my legs are too short).

Speaking of sleep, I advocate sleeping pills over alcohol, and an eye-mask, earplugs, and supportive pillow are absolute necessities. You can also always ask for more pillows and blankets, even in economy. With food and drink, I avoid all caffeine on flights (both tea and coffee are always horrible) and guzzle my coffee at the arrival airport instead. I keep a drink bottle full of water, and you can always ask the cabin crew to top it up for you. Generally I order a special meal when travelling by myself, because you get them before everyone else, and they seem to be just a bit more interesting (asian vegetarian especially).

It’ll come down to personal preference what sort of work (if any) you like to do while travelling, but I’ve noticed that I gravitate towards tedious coding jobs, filing my poorly-named image files, and fiddling with diagrams in Illustrator. I can read a little, but it has to be gripping stuff and definitely not abstract theoretical argument. Remember, the cabin pressure is designed to simulate air pressure and oxygen at 2000m, not sea level, so unless you normally live at that altitude, your brain doesn’t work as well on a flight. It’s also a reason to not engage your colleague in 13A in an Important!Science!Discussion! unless they’re keen too: if they’re anything like me, most people’s thought processes on a flight are a bit sluggish.

Finally, a word about travelling with colleagues. It depends on how well you know them, but remember that your colleagues might have variable attitudes to travelling. These could include debilitating problems with travel such as motion sickness, fear of flying, fear of crowded spaces, sleep problems, and discomfort with unfamiliar places. People can have their own routines that cause stress if they’re interrupted: for instance, I’ve known a colleague who immediately rushes to the gate at any airport, even if the flight doesn’t depart for hours. And if you are travelling together, do make sure you know who is responsible for what. Some people like to be the one in charge with all the information, and other people are quite happy to just assume their colleagues will have taken care of things like departure times and the address of the hotel.

2. Is The Room To Your Specifications, Madam?

For academics on business travel, where we stay is often out of our control: there’s a single conference hotel, we’re staying with colleagues, our employers or granting agencies have rules about where and how much to spend, we’re students or junior researchers on a limited and/or personal budget, the conference is being held in a small town with one B&B and a giant Best Western …  etcetera. I covered some of the issues about choosing where you stay in Part 1.

Given all that, here’s a collection of tips to make your stay — wherever that is — restful and productive.

Some people can share a room, and some people can’t. Things to consider about potential share-ees: personal hygiene, differing sleep schedules, status/power differentials, likelihood of long calls to family, items charged to the room, displacement of anxiety/stress, person is reviewing your paper/grant. Don’t be pressured into sharing a room against your better judgement, and if it’s the make-or-break financial aspect to a crucial conference, then plan ahead and save up for your own room: you need the space to practice your talk, and wind down and rest.

Amenities vary hugely. If things are not available in your room, they’re often available at the desk (e.g. hairdryer, iron, extra hangers, extra pillows, more towels). I get very cranky when tea/coffee making facilities are not available in my room, because I’m not really a breakfast person and prefer to have my caffeine and a muesli bar in my PJs rather than talk about work over breakfast with colleagues. (Seriously, you guys! It’s indecent!) See Section 3: Stuff below on this. Also remember to ask the desk for things like power adaptors, extension cords, or a shower cap and toothbrushes if you’ve forgotten anything. It’s their job to be prepared for the forgetfulness of travellers.

Always go around the room and check things (including the internet!) as soon as you arrive, and always complain if things are not right. Ask to be moved immediately if necessary. Remember, you are there on business*, and you need to do your job effectively. If your shower only runs cold and you don’t sleep because of overactive airconditioning, that will impact your functioning!

When you check-in, ask the hotel staff about checking out: Can you stay later? Is there somewhere to keep your bags? If you’re giving a Very Important Talk, you might want to ask the hotel if they have a room you can practice in (quite likely if it’s a corporate hotel). And always ask them for restaurant recommendations, taxi companies, and local convenience shops. Even though this information may be available in the folder in the room, it’s good to have the desk staff familiar with your face — you’ll get more personal attention that way.

In sum: remember that this is not a holiday. Focus on why you are there, and think about what you will need to get the best out of your conference attendance and academic networking. This is not advice to “go cheap” but rather to be utilitarian about your travel: what do you need to be effective and comfortable? You might need to supplement your travel budget from your own personal finances, but if the trip is one in which you deliver an important lecture, or give a job talk, or meet important colleagues, then think carefully about investing in yourself. Think about it from your colleagues point of view — people prefer to interact with refreshed and on-task people, rather than people who are tired or chaotic.

3. Stuff, or, The Fine Balance Between Minimalism and Remembering to Bring a Pen

In this section I’m going to describe the kit that has been useful for me on my academic travels. There’s a few generic items at the end, but I include these for your (hopeful) use in your own travels.

GADGETRY

1. Laptop
I have a 15″ MacBook Pro, which I love for its rugged titanium case (I’ve dropped it on concrete and it didn’t break), but  it can be a bit heavy to lug around. I also have bad eyesight, which means smaller screens are no good for making graphics (especially detailed phylogenies) for  presentations. However, if you have been paying attention you’ll know that I (now) have my talk ready before I go, so I’m not making slides the night before (anymore). So while I generally take my laptop with me while travelling, I don’t usually take it with me to the conference venue aside from the day of the talk. But, you ask, how do you tweet? How do you download and skim papers that are being talked about? Take notes? Answer: see item #2 Smartphone.

2. Smartphone
A year ago I was perfectly happy with my ancient mobile that made calls, played MP3s and took very bad pictures, and I still maintain that not everyone needs a swanky phone. But my phone was on the blink and a friend was selling his Android HTC Desire,so I bought it without having to angst about what to buy, and it’s been an absolute boon. This is not the place to extol the virtues of Android v iOS v BlackBerry phones (whatever), but the internet / file transfer features of the smartphone were invaluable when my laptop died. The mapping features are brilliant in unfamiliar locations, especially when combined with personalised Google Maps with all your hotel/conference/transport locations that you’ll need (conference organisers, take note and do the work for your attendees). I can access email and internet, and the brilliant DropBox app (see #8) means I can access all the files and papers I need. There are a number of note-taking applications that I use during talks, and it’s also cool as a big stopwatch when you can’t use presentation tools during your talk.

3. Clicker, pointer, dongle and case
I have a wireless USB presentation clicker/laser pointer that gets me free of the keyboard when presenting. Sometimes your facilities will come with these, but it’s always nice to have your own. I also have a neat telescopic pointer (basically a car aerial disguised as a ballpoint pen) which can be effective in small rooms when you’re close to the screen. I keep these guys, together with a USB stick and my video cable connector dongle, all in a little zip-up pouch, with a note reminding me what should be in there.

4. Laptop case and bag
I have a generic neoprene fitted case for my laptop, although I am eternally on the hunt for one with a integrated shoulder strap/handle. The one I have fits into my bag from Jost, a German company who I can recommend. I love this bag: it has multiple pockets without being “full of compartments”, a wide shoulder strap, lovely brushed leather that looks neither too corporate, studenty or handbaggy, and is not so deep or spacious that I overstuff it and lose items or strain my back. It’s a good carry-on size for short hops, too. I think that finding the right work-bag takes time but is worth the effort.

5. Business cards
People are always divided on this issue. The nays generally argue that (a) there’s no practical need because everyone is on email and/or (b) that’s something for the business world and/or (c) they feel too formal giving them out and/or (d) their institutional business cards are horrible. While (a) is true and (d) is often true, I disagree completely with (b) and (c) and think that academia would do well to integrate some of the formal rituals of the business world into our culture. While starting and ending conversations with strangers is hard, having a business card gives you an edge in being memorable. Even if the person doesn’t use the card for your details they will simply remember the fact they had an interaction where you gave them the card. They now are in possession of something with your name on it. They will think about you at least one more time.  Regarding (d), no matter if your institution’s card are good, bad, or otherwise, you should make your own, because as an academic ultimately You Are Your Own Business. If you feel weird about handing them out, make a space so that they’re “a scrap of paper to write on”, or have a useful diagram on the back. For example, I have a schematic phylogeny on mine that’s handy for explaining the concept of an evolutionary tree.

6. Kindle (or other e-reader)
These things are amazing. I don’t know about the capabilities of other e-readers, so this is just one perspective, but I got my Kindle a year ago and as well as being great for fiction, it’s changed my work habits completely. No more printing out papers or photocopying book chapters to take to read when I travel. No piles of dead trees. I just send pdfs to my Kindle (kept in original form or converted to the native format), where I can skim loads of papers without killing the rainforests, read a few closely, annotate those and save the notes to a text file, and keep important papers for further referral. You can download the first few chapters of most Kindle books on Amazon (great for when you’re indecisive), and many out-of-copyright classics (especially in anthropology) can be found in electronic format. I’ve converted six or so colleagues to using an e-reader (many of them total book-fetishists) and really credit it with reading more, and more effectively. And of course, it’s the size of a skinny paperback. One of them.

Bonus: before I got my smartphone I was using the Kindle as a halfway device: I saved maps to pdf and loaded them on, and kept all of my travel documents on the Kindle instead of printing them out. If you’re short on budget and tossing up between a smartphone and an e-reader, the e-readers are hands-down winners in the eyestrain/readability stakes. Screen glare is for losers

7. Spare battery for your laptop
Expensive, but if you ever take seven hour journeys where you do want to work, utterly invaluable.

8. Cloud data storage
As I’ve said, having my work saved in a remote location has been brilliant when technology has failed me. It’s also excellent if you have need to access your files (be they data, writing, or literature) when you’re travelling, but you’re not really certain what you might need. All the presentation-related files I need are  in my Dropbox, as is my Papers library of pdfs. Although technically most institutions let you establish a secure connection to your files from remote locations, in practice the variable networks we encounter while travelling make this tricky sometimes. Cloud storage is a good solution if you can work it, I can recommend Dropbox. They give you 3GB free to start off with.

PERSONAL ITEMS

9. Collapsible drink bottle
Cannot recommend my Vapur bottle highly enough. Holds half a litre of water, flattens and rolls to nothing, comes in great colours, and can attach to your bag strap with the carabiner. Brilliant for bypassing airport security nonsense too. I get curious-then-envious looks everywhere.

10. Tea, coffee and sustenance
I have one ziplock bag containing a selection of teabags, instant coffee, sugar, and powdered milk/creamer, and another containing muesli bars and other “breakfast bar” -type snacks. I top the first bag up with the complimentary teabags/sugar etc in the hotel room if they are deemed to be of sufficient quality Following Ann’s advice, (more here) I now also have a small french press / insulated mug for travel where the coffee might be dire for some time. It’s also just generally useful for keeping your hot drink hot throughout a two-hour session. I always have a packet of mints in my bag during travel and at a conference too.

11. Personal items
I have a small clear toiletries bag for carry-on, so I don’t have to repack my deodorant and moisturiser out of the regulation plastic bag into another. It’s generally the same stuff that I carry in my bag during the day (lipstick, asthma inhaler, perfume spritzer) so I then just throw it in my conference bag.

TIP (mostly for the ladies): If you buy your cosmetics from department stores or upscale pharmacies you are more likely to get samples of useful products for your carry-on, like moisturiser, hand-cream, refreshing sprays etc. If this sort of thing is out of your normal price-range then fashion magazines often have surprisingly generous travel-size “free gifts” that are definitely worth the price of the mag, even if you don’t read it. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for free samples at the duty-free.

12. (optional) Crochet
I find that if I have something to do with my hands I listen and comprehend much more effectively. If I’m doing herringbone half-double crochet stitches during your talk, I’m listening really closely.  :)

* Not just the business of your university or employer, but the business of Your Career. More about that in a later post.

–

Let me know what you think about the issues covered in this post, and if you have any further travel tips of your own. In the third and last post in this series, “Making The Most of Your Trip”, I’ll cover: practicalities on using conferences, workshops, seminars and visits effectively, and your travel follow-up procedure.

JR ticket from Osaka Umeda to Kansai Airport. The exit gate machines swallow your ticket so I took pictures of each one as I went in order to claim them on expenses.

This year I’ve been travelling a lot for work. It’s been deliberate — I decided that being mid-contract, 2011 was my best year to do all the conferences, talks, workshops, and courses (as both teacher and student) as I possibly could. Getting into the groove of semi-constant travelling, and getting into a routine that meant I wasn’t constantly forgetting my passport or being too jetlagged to remember my name, has been a learning experience. So I thought I’d blog about what has worked for me. I seem to have a lot to say on this topic so this’ll be a series, the first of which is Preparing For The Trip. There’s a lot of generic travel advice in this first bit, but I hope that’s useful too.

In this post I introduce you to:

1. The Amazing Conference Spreadsheets of Planning and Packing
2. The Delights of Two Pieces of Good Luggage, or, Why I Don’t Admire You and Your One-Bag
3. Packing So Hardcore Even My Naval Dad Was Impressed
UPDATED 23/10/2011

1. The Amazing Conference Spreadsheet

One of the delights of being an academic is the multitude of transferable skills one has to have (*insert wry grin*), including those of travel agent and event planner. This got a lot easier for me once I came up with the Amazing Conference Spreadsheet (ACS). This is a GoogleDoc spreadsheet with two parts.

The first is a PLANNER where every event, including potential and unconfirmed events, has a column in which I list the details of, and check off, various steps such as “enter business trip request form”, “book hotel”, “submit conference registration form”, “check out location on Streetview”, etc. I can look at this and at a glance see the things that are outstanding for a given trip. I also use it for keeping track of advances, and expenses on the go.

The second is a PACKING CHECKLIST tailored to business travel and includes things like “video cable connector for Mac”, “map of venue”, and “business cards”, but also includes each item I individually take, rather than a generic catchall like “Toiletries” or “Shoes”. If you, like me, are the kind of person who remembers the toothbrush but not the toothpaste, then this level of detail could work for you too. People often think I am organised. I’m not. I just have good coping strategies.

I’m more than happy to share a copy of these if anyone wants one, just let me know.

Part of the ACS procedure is choosing how to get there, where to stay, transport to your venue etc. Sometimes those choices are restricted (which makes life easy), sometimes not (which means you spend a morning playing travel agent instead of doing science). Here are five questions that I ask myself as I plan my trip:

1. When are you going? Morning flights are tricky for me once the 2 hours travel to the airport is added to the 2-3 hours at the airport. I also feel that life is stressful enough without panicking that I won’t wake up at the five AM alarm. It’s a trade-off though: if I’m going somewhere unfamiliar and won’t arrive until after ten PM then I either budget a hotel near the airport or a taxi to the venue. Again, conferences are stressful enough without wandering around some strange town at midnight with a suitcase and a serious case of jetlag. More on evil jetlag in another post.

2. How are you getting there? Travel by train if you can, but realistically I only do if it’s going to take less than a day. Your time is important too, and your laptop battery doesn’t last forever.

3. Where are you staying? Stay in (one of) the conference hotel(s). More chance of casual networking opportunities. If you can, stay in the one nearest to the venue. You get to sleep in a bit longer. Carefully read online what the hotel has available as services and in the rooms so you can plan accordingly. Is there an iron? Can you go swimming? Do you really need that hairdryer? IS THERE WIFI?

4. Where are you going? Do a dry-run of getting from the airport/station to your hotel using GoogleStreetview AKA the Greatest Use of The Internet Ever. Print or download PDF maps of the relevant local transport system to your phone / e-reader. Carry these, along with the hotel address in the local language, wherever you go. When you get to the hotel, ask them to write the name and number of two local taxi companies on their business card and carry that. I’ve rescued myself with this more than once.

5. What will you be doing? Exploit the internet. Read TripAdvisor or similar travel advice sites before you go for info and reviews of:

• The hotel you’ll be staying at (I’ve cancelled a booking based on reviews of a scummy hotel)
• Things to see and do close to the venue/your hotel, especially museums, parks, and places to stretch your legs. Leisure is important!
• The boring logistics of getting around the city/town.
• Restaurants — remember, the person who leads the way to dinner, nay, even knows the name of a restaurant in a strange town, is universally admired

2. The Delights of Two Pieces of Good Luggage, or, Why I Don’t Admire You and Your One-Bag

My life was physically transformed by purchasing a four-wheeled, lightweight, hard-case suitcase. While I apologise to those on restricted incomes for whom purchasing new luggage is a bit of a luxury, I truly think a good rugged suitcase is a necessary investment for an academic. You will travel, and you will travel to cities with ankle-twisting cobbled streets, to towns whose public transit has no lifts or escalators, and to out-of-the-way campuses where the bus drops you on a gravel road. You need good luggage. Comparison shop, look for sales, and buy as high-quality as you can.

The four-wheeler is great for:

• Not giving you shoulder/back strain
• Keeping an eye on your luggage (I generally push it in front of me)
• Navigating down aisles of trains
• Not tipping over in the middle of a crowded concourse
• Not giving you shoulder/back strain (Did I mention that? It bears repeating)

In my opinion, you actually need two pieces of good quality luggage: the four-wheeled suitcase and the carry-on. The carry-on can vary depending on your height, upper-body strength, and tolerance for hauling crap around on your shoulders. I tried a backpack for a while and although I liked the hands-free nature it was causing me back strain as well as not being a good footrest (see below). Now I have a little wheeled briefcase/cabin bag similar to what the flight attendants have (like this) that is much smaller than the standard carry-on suitcase but as roomy as a good backpack. In this goes:

• Laptop, e-reader, vital cords/connectors for both
• Travel pillow (this one from Muji, BRILLIANT)
• Toiletries for the plane*
• Comfy trousers for the plane, extra top & underwear, travel socks*
• Wallet, phone, travel wallet with printouts
• Crochet for take-off when I can’t use my e-reader

* these double as emergency stand-ins in case of luggage loss/delay

(More on my onboard procedure in another post). This bag sits on top of my bigger suitcases so they can be wheeled around as a unit. Importantly, it’s also the perfect size to fit under the seat in front of me on the plane. This is advantageous for three reasons:

• It’s much quicker to grab your stuff from below if you have to transfer quickly.
• You can saunter on the plane later and not worry about fighting for the overhead cabins.
• When you’re a short person, not having a footrest on an eleven hour flight is simply painful. My bag does double duty.

Note: Lots of people pride themselves on the “carry-on only” trip. Hooray for you if you can not only get a week’s clothes into your carry-on as well as your laptop, another pair of shoes and your toiletries, but also carry it. I can’t. Part of this is because I don’t want to wear the same trousers for four days. Part of it is because I don’t really have a problem standing for ten minutes waiting for my checked suitcase. But mostly it’s because I have enough to worry about on a business trip without pulling a muscle in my bag carrying my insanely heavy carry-on. Your mileage may vary, of course

UPDATE: Make sure you remove the barcode stickers that get affixed to your luggage. A check-in desk attendant told me that nowadays the vast majority of luggage is sorted by laser-read scans of these barcodes, not by a person checking the tags. Any bags that make the scanner confused get put to one side and only dealt with with ground crew have time, which mostly means “too late to be on your flight”. This is apparently the number one cause of misdirected or delayed luggage. If you can’t get the stickers off, black them out with a marker. And don’t buy luggage with stripey/complex  patterns! 

3. Packing So Hardcore Even My Naval Dad Was Impressed

There are plenty of online resources about packing efficiently. Some of these are aimed at cruise-ship matrons whose greatest concern is not to wrinkle their silk. Some is aimed at backpackers who are going for maximum stuff/minimum space and weight. Some of it is for participants in the “one-bag” sport. Some of it is aimed at people who travel rarely or only travel on family holidays and are daunted at not being able to fit the entire contents of their wardrobe into their suitcase “just in case”. You and I, being business-travel academics, are none of these, and so I will link to none of the above. You can use Google. Here are my packing tips, I hope they may be useful to you.

A Justification:
Earlier this year when I visited my Dad, who is ex-Navy and thus with Experience and Opinions on packing, I packed the suitcase the night before my flight home and left it out in the living room. When I got up for breakfast Dad told me that he had looked at how I packed and felt not only proud to call me his daughter, but that he’d picked up a few tips.

Having said all that, my system is pretty simple.

(1) Take versatile clothes
(2) Lie them flat
(3) Use vacuum bags for small and dirty stuff

Versatility: Here are some guidelines for clothes, I think they should be pretty unisex:

• Pick three colours that go together and only take clothes in those colours (blue jeans = neutral). That way everything can be worn with everything else.
• If N = the number of days you are going for (including travelling days), calculate in terms of tops and bottoms. Take N+1 tops. Take N/2 (rounded up) bottoms. For a week you need three or less top-second-layers (i.e. jacket/cardigan/sweater).

Flat: On the bottom of the “clothes side” of the suitcase:

• Trousers can be folded leg-to-leg and placed on the bottom with the leg hanging out. Alternate the placement.
• Everything else should be flat. DO NOT FOLD ANYTHING. Even when you are tempted. FLAT.
• Dresses (skirt out), jackets/sweaters (arms out), long-sleeve tops (arms out), skirts/shorts, other tops. Then fold the long sleeves over the other tops. Then fold all other hanging-out parts over everything. Lay a scarf/sarong/PJ top over all this and tuck in.

Compression roll-up vacuum bags: Socks/undies should go in these guys. They are like ziplock bags with one-way valves. You zipper them then roll and squeeze all the air out. They are utterly magic. Get them from travel goods companies, or cheaper at the equivalent of poundstretcher/dollarstores. Then the rolled bag can go on the sides of the suitcase. Take two extra – your dirty tops will go in these on the way home.

In each quadrant of the other half of your suitcase should go: your 1-3 pairs of shoes in bags (for smells and dirt), your toiletries bag, your bag of electronic stuff (converters, camera etc), and your umbrella/drink bottle/hair straighteners/space for local alcohol/notebook/whatever other items.

I have been rocking this system over four continents and seven pages of my passport so far this year, and it works a charm. Lying things flat, especially if you pay attention to the sleeves, means no wrinkles. If you unpack as soon as you arrive and hang stuff up, you will look fresh and presentable without having to do the world’s most boring chore, ironing.

Buy a scale to weigh your luggage at home. Don’t bother with the fancy travel ones — I got a fishing scale for about a third of the price.

Finally, let me vent on a pet peeve related to one-bag/poor packing. Dear colleagues — you are not backpackers. Conferences or other professional gatherings are not places to act like backpackers. If you look wrinkled, smell damp (or worse), and I recognise your shirt because you’ve worn it four times, I do not care how brilliant you are or whether you have just had your fourth paper in Nature or Science, I don’t want to talk to you. Be professional. This doesn’t mean formal. Just clean and presentable. Excitement, anxiety, and ambition are always present at an academic gathering, and it kills me how rank the average conference room ends up smelling, and how the average conference participant looks a bit wretched by the end of the week. Take care of yourself!

Okay, towards that end (taking care) the next post will be on Getting There and Being There i.e. airplane travel, exploiting your hotel, and what kit to take (or not).

Let me know what you think, and if you have any travel tips for academics of your own.

Possibly my favourite work email I’ve ever written was the one to the head of IT, notifying her that, in the interests of science, I needed to access websites like pornhub.com and youporn.com. Here’s why:

The internet is an amazing resource for scientists in all manner of domains, one of which is human variation. You might think that after a hundred years of cross-cultural investigations of human diversity, and a much longer period of anatomical observations, we would have a fair idea of the variability in genital morphology. But this kind of information, like so much else to do with our bodies–and especially their sexual characteristics–is just not readily available.

Stemming from that, we asked the question: do visual depictions of female genitalia differ, depending on the kind of source they are from? Are the images that we see in medical textbook illustrations different in proportions from those seen in internet pornography? What about feminist “celebrations” of female anatomy? These are important questions, because we construct our ideas about the range of normal variation through experience, and if women express concern that their bodies are not “normal” in some way, then health professionals need to be aware of how “normality” is constructed. Spoiler: we found differences, as I’ll explain below.

This study was part of a wider project aimed at understanding variation and preferences regarding female genital morphology undertaken by Helena Howarth for her masters thesis at UCL, co-supervised by Volker Sommer and and myself. Only a few studies had measured actual female genitalia to try and get real-world estimates of the range of female morphology. Helena had the insight that readily-available internet pornography wasn’t simply a tremendous source of measurable variation, but that it might be a  contributing factor to our perceptions of normality.

Helena gathered a hefty amount of image data for her project, trawling through libraries, and finding internet images that she could take measurements from morphological landmarks – for example, the length of the labia minora, or the distance from the clitoris to the perineum. For my part in doing inter-rater reliability measurements, I can attest that this is about as far from “oh wow, surfing the internet for porn at work” as one can get.

What did we find? Two major things. First, that labial protuberance–how much the inner labial lips protrude from between the larger labia majora–was significantly less in the online pornography sample compared to that in the  feminist publications, with medical illustrations falling somewhere in between. Second, there was a less varied range in organ proportions in the pornography sample; all the measurements were highly correlated with one another, but this wasn’t the case in the other two sources.

What does this mean? As we stated in the abstract, there are public health implications:

Women and health professionals should be aware that specific sources of imagery may depict different types of genital morphology and may not accurately reflect true variation in the population, and consultations for genital surgeries should include discussion about the actual and perceived range of variation in female genital morphology.

It’s interesting that the feature we found that was most different (labial protruberance) is also the one that is most commonly requested in elective/cosmetic genital surgery. There has been a great deal of media attention paid to the rise in these surgeries in recent years, and responses that somewhat dismissively attribute this to fashion, unattainable body ideals or partner-pressure are not helpful. We suggested that it was important to explore how women arrived at their ideas about normality:

Genital variation is understudied, and we strongly encourage scientific and educational/artistic initiatives that promote clinical and popular understanding of the range of variation in genital morphology. Here, we were concerned with depictions in sources that may shape the perceived range of variation, therefore imagery samples are justified, but measurements of genital morphology should ideally be taken directly from life.

Some of those initiatives include the four great papers below; the work by the New View Campaign challenging the medicalisation of sex; and other public or online initiatives such as All About My Vagina, I’ll Show You Mine, Design-A-Vagina, amongst others I’ve surely missed (let me know!).

Here’s a link to the pdf of our paper. The journal, Medical Humanities, also published another paper by Shelley Wall on normativity in images of genitalia, focusing on intersex conditions, and both were featured in an accompanying editorial piece.

[1] Basaran et al. Characteristics of external genitalia in pre- and postmenopausal women. Climacteric (2008) vol. 11 (5) 416-421
[2] Lloyd et al. Female genital appearance: “normality” unfolds. BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology (2005) vol. 112 (5) 643-6
[3] Liao et al. Labial surgery for well women: a review of the literature. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (2010) vol. 117 (1) 20-25
[4] Schick et al. Evulvalution: The Portrayal of Women’s External Genitalia and Physique Across Time and the Current Barbie Doll Ideals. J Sex Res (2009) 1-9

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If it can be shown that culture has an innate form, a series of contours, quite apart from subject-matter of any description whatsoever, we have a something in culture that may serve as a term of comparison with and possibly a means of relating it to language. But until such purely formal patterns of culture are discovered and laid bare, we shall do well to hold the drifts of language and of culture to be non-comparable and unrelated processes.

Sapir (1921) Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech.

“Anthropology shares with history the feature of never having seriously held the opinion it is of practical utility, but of assuming that its end of understanding is sufficient justification in itself.”

A.L. Kroeber, “So-called Social Science”

” Society in its full sense [...] is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it. No individual can arrive at even the threshold of his potentialities without a culture in which he participates.

It is largely because of the traditional acceptance of a conflict between society and the individual that emphasis upon cultural behaviour is so often interpreted as a denial of the autonomy of the individual. [...] Anthropology is often believed to be a counsel of despair which makes untenable a beneficent human illusion. But no anthropologist with a background of experience of other cultures has ever believed that individuals were automatons, mechanically carrying out the decrees of their civilization. No culture yet observed has been able to eradicate the differences in the temperament of the the persons who compose it.”

1989 (1934), p. 253

What with the interdisciplinary thing, I know some delightful and interesting people in quite disparate fields. Starter for 10 is a semi-regular (monthly) series of peer interviews, with questions both serious and trivial for your edification.

This month’s interview is with Dr Mike Dickison, who wears many awesome hats: comparative fossil biologist, teacher of and advocate for effective science visualisation and presentation, ukulele player, and lately, earthquake blogger. I met Mike by sending him fangirl email about Pictures of Numbers, his science-visualisation project, and discovered that not only did we know people in common (as you do in New Zealand evolutionary circles) but we were both moved to tears at bad Powerpoint. If you do nothing else today, watch Mike’s Big Bird presentation – your life will be immeasurably improved.

1. In the little space for “occupation” on immigration cards at airports, what do you write?

Teacher. One of the principal benefits of the PhD has been the ability to put “Dr” Mike on airline boarding passes. Though nobody checks, so I could just as well choose “Reverend” or “Admiral”.

2. Give me your conference tea-break pitch: “…and what do you work on?”

My doctoral research was on the scaling of bones and eggs of giant flightless birds, including why the kiwi has such a disproportionately large egg. Currently I’m interested in working with other scientists on improving data presentation—not complicated issues of visualisation, which get all the attention, but simple visual thinking, which can be challenging for academics used to solving all problems with words.

3. What’s your origin story – how did you end up in your field? Was there a defining moment, or person, or something else that steered you?

Working as a technician in the National Museum of New Zealand, I saw the ornithologist Phil Millener identify bones of pigeons and ducks to species with a quick glance, which seemed almost a supernatural power. I was always fascinated by the art of reconstruction and extrapolation from fossil material. I also believed strongly in the importance of science communication, and worked in exhibition development before leaving to, eventually, teach graphic design and typography. But then I realised that might also involve teaching Microsoft Word for the rest of my life, so I applied for grad school at Duke, which let me hang out for years with some very smart people, and measure bones in museums (my kind of field work). Now I’m back in NZ, and curiously part of my job involves teaching dissertation formatting with, yes, Microsoft Word.

4. Your website (one of them …) is giantflightlessbirds.com. Tell me about your favourite giant flightless bird.

The adzebill (Aptornis) isn’t well-known, but was really peculiar. Extinct, like all the best flightless birds. Something like a giant rail, it had huge cervical vertabrae for muscle attachment, and tendons in its tarsus so well-developed they were enclosed in a bony tube. A digging, chiselling ground predator. [FJ: Looks like it would feed a family for a week] Moa get all the attention, but New Zealand was, and to some extent is, still full of crazy flightless birds.

5. For a month, you get to do a job-swap. What would you do?

Actor in a decent theatre company production of Shakespeare or Stoppard. [FJ: *heart* Stoppard] I nearly answered “making croissants in an artisan bakery” but that would probably ruin croissants for me for life.

6. Too much time, money and intellect has been wasted researching what?

Keeping it just to my own field, there are too many allometric studies of simple scaling trends without a good analysis of what these trends mean and how they might have developed. It’s easy to just plot a measurement against body mass, but that doesn’t say much. Also, while alpha taxonomy is important, and there are huge numbers of undescribed bones sitting in boxes in museums, we need to be looking at overall patterns now—we have enough data. There are plenty of sensible questions, like why do some groups of birds go flightless and not others? Why do some disperse across the Pacific better than others? Why are there no flightless bats? Why didn’t elephant birds get as big as elephants? What kind of bird is Big Bird—wait, I did that one. I think there should be more papers published with questions as titles, but I’m old-fashioned. [FJ: Only if they ANSWER the question though. Hate false advertising.]

7. Recommend for me (a) a good pop-science book (b) a good history/philosophy/politics book and (c) a poem.

a) It seems an obvious choice, but Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is the one book I would recommend to a humanities-educated person who wanted to know what was up with science. Bryson makes everything approachable and gets almost nothing wrong. I would love to teach an entire year of General Science with this as the text.

b) Christopher Hitchens’s Letters to a Young Contrarian. I’m not a fan of Hitchens’s recent political decisions, but while reading this I was constantly copying down wise and brilliant lines. [FJ: never knew there was an "Art of Mentoring" series]

c) Auden’s The More Loving One, a poem all scientists can respond to.

8. So, you’re a ukulele player (and author of Kiwi Ukulele) What are you playing at the moment? Any Lady Gaga? Do Radiohead translate?

Almost half my repertoire at the moment is the Mountain Goats, and the rest mostly indie rock. I don’t like Hawaiiian music. There’s a nice ukulele cover of Poker Face on YouTube. No Surprises is my favourite Radiohead song on uke, but Street Spirit and Fake Plastic Trees work well too. The ukulele is the litmus test of a good tune.

9. In the age of Google and Wikipedia, would you consider it worthwhile to write a book [on your field]?

These days I would never write JUST a book about anything. My future book projects will work best as e-books linked to websites, possibly with some video, pretentious as that sounds. (How long, by the way, before we lose the hyphen in e-books, the way we have with email?) [FJ: my prediction is that it'll take longer for phonetic reasons: ebook looks like it rhymes with eh-duke]

10. Finally, what’s your absolute number one science-presentation peeve? Mine are those horrible excel colours on bar charts.

The Scientist’s Rainbow: using every colour in the visual spectrum to convey a simple one-dimensional gradient. Which promptly disappears as soon as one prints, because, oops, we don’t all have colour printers on our desks yet.

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Science-folk: do check out Mike’s Pictures of Numbers for tips/advice/makeovers of charts, graphs and visual information.

I’d just like to announce that Ross Clark and I have placed the POLLEX (Polynesian lexicon) database online at http://pollex.org.nz. POLLEX-Online currently contains 55,183 reflexes with 4,746 reconstructions from 68 languages.

An awesome resource for anyone interested in the Pacific, comparative and historical linguistics, and Polynesian culture history. Databases are what will transform linguistics.