• Aboriginal treasures found in a basement
ABC news Australia reports that anthropologists at Perth’s Berndt Museum have discovered treasures in a basement that could change the lives of Aboriginal people. They will become part of an exhibition. This link will take you to a six-minute video.

• Double major in cultural anthropology for sports star
CSB Sports carried an article describing how a college sports star decided to double major in anthropology through inspiration from international travel. Mason Plumlee took a class on China last spring to help him prepare for his team’s trip to China in August. Plumlee enjoyed the class and trip so much that he decided to major in cultural anthropology in addition to his first major in psychology.

• Finding gender in fingerprints
Research conducted by Kewal Krishan of the anthropology department of Panjab University, India, along with his student Chitrabala, shows fingerprints found at a crime scene can help in determining a person’s gender. The research has been accepted by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFC) and will be presented in the 64th annual conference to be held in Atlanta. The study is based on the hypothesis that female fingerprints have finer ridges than male’s and a greater ridge density within a given area.

• Aztec findings in Mexico City
A total of 23 pre-Columbian stone plaques dating to 550 years ago were discovered by archaeologists in front of the Great Temple of Tinochtitlan in downtown Mexico City, according to the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH). Archaeologist Raul Barrera said the remains are of great archaeological value because they are the first such pieces to have been found within the sacred grounds of Tenochtitlan.

It’s that time of the year again with articles and blog posts popping up all over, addressing various romantic topics as we approach Valentine’s Day. For starts, an article in the U.K.’s Independent is titled “Pucker Up” (it goes on from there). No surprise: the subject is kissing. Among other tidbits dropped into the piece is a nod to the vast cultural variation in what makes sex exciting and fulfilling: “In 1929, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski visited the Trobriand Islands and discovered that lovers there would go through several phases of sucking and nibbling during intercourse before biting off each other’s eyelashes at the point of orgasm.” And, to keep everyone happy, also a nod to biological determinism: “According to Rutgers University Anthropologist Helen Fisher, kissing evolved to facilitate three essential needs: sex drive, romantic need and attachment. Each is a component of human reproduction and kissing bolsters all three. In this theory, kissing helps people find a partner, commit to them and stay with them long enough to have a child.” [Blogger's note: more research needed on the function of kissing in keeping a partner committed?]

• Republicans and Democrats in the bedroom: so close but so far apart?

Helen Fisher is cited again in a Washington Times article describing new research from the University of Binghamton’s Institute for Evolutionary Studies. A survey conducted in conjunction with match.com includes over 5,000 adults in the United States. Respondents were asked 135 questions about their romantic attitudes and lives as well as their political party. Fisher, a consultant on the study, comments: Liberals and conservatives are looking for entirely different things…their attitudes toward romance and how they court are really dramatically different. There’s almost no overlap.” [Blogger's note: Just thinking...there may be some overlap that the study has missed? In any case, the political culture of lovemaking is another topic that requires more research].

• The science of love
An article in London’s Sunday Times on changing patterns of emotional relationships mentions new research by Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University. His new book, The Science of Love and Betrayal, will be coming out in April. In it, he defines five key criteria for emotional closeness: having the same sense of humor, the same interests and moral values, a similar level of intelligence, and having grown up in the same area. [Blogger's note: it's not clear from the article what Dunbar's source of data is. So you may have to buy the book].

• Down turn on high street?
Sean Carey, regular contributor to anthropologyworks, published an article in the Guardian about how to transform the U.K.s declining high streets into a welcoming space.

• U.S. family law a rude shock to some immigrant men
The Daily Nation (Kenya) carried an article about Kenyan immigrants living in the United States and marital struggles taking place in a new legal culture: “Kenyan women quickly discover that the US takes violations of women’s rights very seriously…” Kenyan men pointed to state laws that require a man to continue paying child support for a child even if he discovers later that he is not the biological father. The article mentions a 2006 study published by Current Anthropology reporting that two per cent of married men who thought that the child they were bringing up was theirs in fact were not biological parents after paternity tests were conducted. [Blogger's note: I am trying to trace this publication; in the meantime, just be happy knowing that The Daily Nation had heard about our flagship journal].

• TV archaeologist quits show in disgust
According to the Sunday Mail (South Australia), archaeologist Mike Aston has walked out on the popular TV show, Time Team, after 19 years. He is not happy that the producers have hired a former model as the program’s co-presenter. The co-presenter, Mary-Ann Ochota, holds a master’s degree in archaeology and anthropology from Cambridge, and, “After graduation, she did some modelling.” Aston, a former academic at Bristol and Oxford Universities, has worked hard to bring archaeology to the public. He is quoted as saying, “It feels sad that I shan’t go on, but this is simply downgrading the product.”

• Deep insights but barely scratching the surface of a Maya city
In more than 25 years of research, Arlen and Diane Chase, a husband-and-wife team of anthropologists at the University of Central Florida, have pieced together “a much more complete story about Caracol,” one of the largest Maya cities. They know, for example, what people ate, and they know that the relatively uniform distribution of pottery suggests a strong sense of shared identity across social classes. Their research offers a portrait of a low-density, agriculturally self-sustaining, prosperous city. It achieved and maintained social integration through “symbolic egalitarianism” — the distribution of luxury and ritual items across the general population. Diane Chase is quoted in Insider Higher Education as saying: “The number of years [of fieldwork] has made it a lot easier for us to think about and answer a number of different questions about the Maya…On the other hand, in terms of the sample, we’ve barely scratched the surface.”

• Treasures of the Queen of Sheba
The Observer (England) carried an article about a British excavation in Ethiopia that may have unearthed a gold mine of the Queen of Sheba. Her domain spanned modern-day Ethiopia and Yemen. The excavation is headed  by archaeologist Louise Schofield.

• Neanderthals as first cave painters?
According to an article in the New Scientist, cave paintings in Malaga, Spain, could be the oldest human cave paintings yet found. It is likely that they were created by Neanderthals rather than modern humans. The images depict the seals that locals would have eaten, says José Luis Sanchidrián at the University of Cordoba, Spain. The paintings have been radiocarbon dated to between 43,500 and 42,300 years old, making them older than the 30,000-year-old Chauvet cave paintings in south-east France. Researchers are awaiting dating of the pigments for possible confirmation that the paintings were made by Neanderthals rather than modern humans. Neanderthals remained in the south and west of the Iberian peninsula until 37,000 years ago. Increasing evidence indicates that Neanderthals were capable of creating artistic works including decorated stone and shell objects.

• Kudos
Mahmood Mamdani, professor of government in the departments of anthropology and political science at Columbia University and director of the Institute of Social Research at Makerere University, is one of six Africans to receive an honorary degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Mamdani is a Ugandan of Indian origin. He received his Ph.D. in 1974 from Harvard University. The author of several classic books and articles in critical anthropology, his most recent book is Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror.

Like the populations of many African countries, Mauritians are football mad. The game played in stadiums and streets all over the palm-fringed Indian Ocean island is a legacy of 19^th century British colonialism — administrators, missionaries, soldiers and sailors introduced the game to locals — whereas in other African nations it was popularized by the Portuguese and French.

Mauritius football players. Flickr/llee_wu

Traditionally, Mauritius split into two more or less equal groups — those who supported Liverpool and those who supported Manchester United. Now, because of increased television coverage and the easy availability of football merchandise, especially branded t-shirts, other UK Premier League teams like Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City are gaining support as younger people choose different football clubs as vehicles for sporting and other identities appropriate to their age sets.

But Mauritians from all of the country’s diverse ethnic groups — Hindu, Muslim, Creole, Chinese and French — know that a Frenchman of Mauritian descent — in fact, of Hindu Telugu heritage — Vikash Dhorasoo, a member of the French team at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, was one of the most gifted midfielders in modern times.

The former AC Milan, Lyon and Paris St Germain player is also the most prominent footballer of South Asian descent in the history of the game, and very well known for his views on the importance of combating racism, homophobia and gender discrimination in sport. The regret among Mauritian football fans is that Dhorasoo never played for a Premier League team before his retirement in January 2008. However, he did visit Mauritius in May 2009 to promote FIFA’s Grassroots programme, which was inaugurated on the island.

The Mauritius football team did not make it to the current African Cup of Nations, the finals of which are being co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. But the country is following the championship closely through local and international TV channels and local press coverage.

Significantly, Mauritius along with Zimbabwe, another former British colony, has been part of the FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre’s research into “11 for Health”, a football-based health education programme for young and teenage children. It had previously been piloted in a smaller study in Khayelitsha township in South Africa in 2009.

Vikash Dhorasoo playing with school girls from Birmingham, Flickr/Housing and Sport Network

In Mauritius, 389 schoolchildren, boys and girls, aged 12-15 years, at 11 secondary schools took part in eleven 90 minute sessions which combined learning or refining a football skill with linked information about 10 health issues – for example, heading a football and avoiding HIV infection, defending well and washing one’s hands, shooting for goal and vaccination for self and family, building fitness and eating a varied diet, and good teamwork and fair play. The study was conducted between February and June 2010.

Questionnaires assessed participants’ pre and post-intervention health knowledge as well as views about the “11 for Health” programme. The results carried out in co-operation with the Mauritius Football Association and the Mauritius Ministries of Heath and Quality of Life, Education, Culture and Human Resources, and Youth and Sport were extremely positive. The results among a similar group of children in an out-of-school setting In Zimbabwe were also excellent.That said, it would have been useful to know something regarding the ethnicity, social class and geographical location (urban vs. rural) of the Mauritian schoolchildren in order to more fully assess the relative importance of other sources of information available from families, peer groups and mass media on health issues. But there can be little doubt that using football, the most popular game globally for adults and children, to increase knowledge of health issues is likely to be an effective social marketing tool among many groups in many countries.

Indeed, the authors of the study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine “recommend that the programme be widely implemented in Africa in co-operation with government and non-government organisations” in order to reduce communicable and non-communicable diseases through the promotion of “exercise and healthy behaviours.”

In fact, since the research was carried out in Mauritius and Zimbabwe, “11 for Health” has also been rolled out in smaller African countries like Botswana, Namibia and Malawi. Then last month a high-level FIFA delegation also visited Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia in order to develop the programme in larger nations. As Professor Jim Dvorak, FIFA’s Chief Medical Officer, explained: “The experiences of the past couple of years have been very successful but the challenge for FIFA now is to implement the same concept in much more populated countries and vast regions.”

He added: “It’s very exciting, of course, to start this kind of project in such large countries, and moreover to receive such terrific support from the stakeholders involved. We know that there is a huge passion for football among children in these countries and, equally, that there is a huge need for increased knowledge about health issues.”

Which goes to prove as the old saying goes that football isn’t just a game, it’s a way of life.

• Let’s get down to bases
David Vine, assistant professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C., co-authored an article in Defense News describing the intriguing example of cross-party consensus in the U.S. on the issue of closing overseas military bases. The unusual coalition includes Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Democratic Senator Jon Tester, Republican presidential candidate Representative Ron Paul and outgoing House Democrat Barney Frank.

• Breaking up and social media
A radio interview with cultural anthropologist Illana Gershon describes her research on how U.S. college students handle romantic relationships, especially break-ups, via social media. She talked with many Indiana University students as part of her research on social media and relationships. For example, she posed this question to one of her classes: “If you and your sweetie are “Facebook official,” what happens when the relationship ends? Whose job is it to change the relationship status: the person who got dumped or the person who did the dumping?” She found student habits and values to be unpredictable on this and other questions: “In every interview I’d have a moment where I’d want to say, you do what?!” she says. The results of her research are presented in her book, The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media .Comments on the radio interview are invited.

• Messing around back then
New genetic analyses indicate that modern humans had reproductive relationships [Blogger's note: that's my euphemism of choice versus "they mated"...] with at least two groups of ancient humans in relatively recent times: the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia, dying out roughly 30,000 years ago, and a less-known group called the Denisovans, who lived in Asia and most likely vanished around the same time. The New York Times quotes Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist and research leader in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London: “In a sense, we are a hybrid species.”

• Altai homeland
More findings from DNA studies about human origins were highlighted in the media this past week. Archaeologists have long thought that American Indians came from Asia, migrating to Alaska during a time of lower sea levels, making it possible to walk over the Bering Strait. New findings based on genetic profiling tie American Indians to a group of people living in a small region of Russia called the Altai, near the borders of Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan. The results are published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

When: Feb 7
Where:
Dinner: 5:30pm | Beacon Bar and Grill
Meeting: 7:00pm | Charles Sumner School, Rotating Gallery G-4 (ground floor)

In 2008 an anthropologist working for an international NGO co-designed a $60 million one year emergency agricultural recovery program for northern Afghanistan in response to drought and increasing food insecurity. At conclusion it had assisted 341,301 small farms (1.7 million individuals) to regain their own food security. Through cultural sensitivity and local knowledge, consultation and community involvement, the program maintained local dignity, self-determination, and participant ownership, while enhancing local productive relationships. This was the largest program of its kind ever implemented by the US government. Project success led to national expansion and time extensions that continue to 2011.

More information.

Mention the Maldives to many Europeans and most of them will think of a string of paradise islands. Along with other countries in the Indian Ocean like Mauritius and the Seychelles, the Maldives is renowned as a honeymoon destination replete with 5-star hotels and luxury spas. In fact, like Mauritius and the Seychelles the country derives most of its foreign currency from tourism.

Unlike secular Mauritius and the Seychelles, however, Islam is the official religion of the Maldives and public practice of other religions is forbidden. In order to exercise social and cultural control over relationships between the indigenous population and foreign visitors, authorities in the Maldives permit the development of tourist resorts on unpopulated parts of the territory, which consists of 1192 islands stretching 230 miles from south-west India. So far, this strategy has worked very well.

View of the Maldives. Flickr/nicadlr

After 30 years of autocratic rule, the Republic of Maldives became a multi-party democracy in 2008, headed by President Mohamed Nasheed. The newly-elected leader has been praised by other members of the international community for his achievements, especially in creatively publicising the effects of climate change and rising sea levels on low-lying island states in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. He has also indicated that he intends to open up the inhabited islands of the Maldives to tourists in order to attract more visitors from the new growth economies of China and elsewhere. “We’ve segregated ourselves in these little islands for too long,” President Nasheed told foreign journalists last year. “The tourists don’t get to see the real Maldives and Maldivian culture. In the past there was a desire to segregate the Maldives from certain influences, but it also kept us from ideas and knowledge. Maldivians are Muslims but modern. The time has come to end the segregation from the outside world.”

Now comes the news that Reporters Without Borders new press freedom index 2011-2012 ranks the country at 73 compared with its previous position of 51 in 2010. The reason for the drop? The NGO claims that the “rising climate of religious intolerance” in the country has had a significant impact on freedom of expression.

Like many other relatively closed Islamic societies that are opening up, the Maldives government, which is attempting to steer a middle course and maintain community cohesion, has found it hard to come to terms both with moderate and fundamentalist Islamic critics. Last September, in an attempt to wrong-foot opposition groups the Government issued new “religious unity” regulations, which prevents the media from producing programmes or disseminating unlicensed information that might be designed to “humiliate Allah or his prophets or the holy Quran or the Sunnah of the Prophet (Mohamed) or the Islamic faith.”

While this policy is relatively easy to enforce with traditional media like television, radio and newspapers the Maldives, like all governments, has found new media platforms much harder to control. Nevertheless, in November, the Islamic Ministry ordered that the website of Ismail “Hilath” Rasheed, a moderate Sufi Muslim, was being blocked on the grounds that it was a threat to the “Maldives’ young democracy.” On December 14, Rasheed was arrested and detained before being released on January 6 without charge after his involvement in a “silent protest” in the capital Male when he called for religious tolerance. The protest designed to coincide with Human Rights Day on December 10 was deemed by the country’s police as “unconstitutional,” although Amnesty International was quick to make Rasheed a “prisoner of conscience.”

On January 20, the Maldives police arrested Sheik Imran, a prominent Muslim cleric and leader of the opposition conservative Adhaalath Party (Justice Party). He had accused President Nasheed of encouraging “anti-Islamic waves” and to the “shores” of the Maldives called for the implementation of full Shari’a law. Interestingly, two days previously, the Maldives government issued a statement and warned foreign embassies that it was extremely concerned that “Islamic fundamentalism” could threaten the social fabric of the Sunni-dominated society, as well as the visitor economy, which contributes around 30 per cent or $1.5 billion to GDP.

On the page devoted to “culture” on the Maldives Tourism Board website –- the country’s tagline is “Always Natural” — the final paragraph reads: “Maldivians are quite open to adaptation and are generally welcoming to outside inspiration. The culture has always continued to evolve with the times… Most Maldivians still want to believe in upholding unity and oneness in faith, but recent waves of reform in the country have created a whole new culture of new ideas and attitudes. The effects of the modern world are now embraced, while still striving to uphold the people’s identity, traditions and beliefs.”

The Maldives, like many societies organized on the basis of kinship and religious faith, is attempting to solve the conundrum of how to allow measured social and cultural change that maintains community cohesion and generates economic growth when many of the drivers for those changes — secular and religious ideologies — lie outside its borders and therefore beyond its control.

It’s a hard one to pull off.

• More on macho
The Gazette (Montreal) carried an article about how the male stereotype of the “…all-powerful protector and provider is doing a disservice to men – pressuring them to conform and ultimately leaving many powerless to face the challenges of modern society.” Many academics working in the area of masculinity studies consider how the culture of maleness affects men. The article notes the work of Wayne Martino, of the University of Western Ontario, whose research on is on masculinity, gender and role modeling.

• And more…Oxford University report says it all boils down to macho
The New York Daily News, along with several other mainstream media outlets, carried a piece about “male warrior” behavior and its role in the world’s conflicts: “From the football field to the front lines, scientists are blaming conflict on what they call the ‘male warrior’ behavior, a natural instinct that causes men to be aggressive to ‘outsiders.’” According to the news, evolution shapes men to be fighters, while women have historically resolved conflicts peacefully. “Our review of the academic literature suggests that the human mind is shaped in a way that tends to perpetuate conflict with ‘outsiders,’” said professor and study author Mark van Vugt.

• But wait..possibly nice Norse marauders?
The Bronze-age Norse may have an inaccurately bad reputation. Archaeological research in the Outer Hebrides suggests peaceful intermixing and continuity of Hebridean culture. The research team has looked at hundreds of sites.

• Car flags, racism and push-back in Australia
An op-ed in the Herald Sun (Australia) states that Australia Day has developed into “kick an Australian Day.” “It is almost an industry. In the past few days you have been told that if you enjoy Australia Day, there’s a fair chance you are a drunk, a redneck, and flying the flag, not because you are proud, but because you are racist.” The author addresses a study by Farida Fozdar, a cultural anthropologist at the University of West Australia which revealed a correlation between showing an Australian flag on one’s car and racist attitudes. “She also found that 91 per cent of flag bearers thought migrants should adopt Australian values and only 76 per cent of non-flag wavers felt the same, which makes you wonder about the question. Why would anybody who embraces Australian values not think they were good for all? The problem here is fairness. Yes, it’s a nice headline for an academic, but it is offensive to anybody who flies the flag, and such a small sample is hardly definitive.”

• The immortal words of MM
The Hindu (India) carried an article recalling Margaret Mead’s wisdom. Sixty years ago, the world renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead recorded her essay for the series: “This I Believe.” She calls for understanding “the other” and not just trying to look for similarity in other cultures or to influence others into one’s own way of life: “I believe that to understand human beings it is necessary to think of them as part of the whole living world. Our essential humanity depends not only on the complex biological structure which has been developed through the ages from very simple beginnings, but also upon the great social inventions which have been made by human beings, perpetuated by human beings, and in turn give human beings their stature as builders, thinkers, statesmen, artists, seers and prophets.”

• Disgust could be a good thing
Another “invisible anthropologist” (meaning someone who is an anthropologist by training but not so identified in the mainstream media) is Dr. Valerie Curtis of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She received front page coverage in the New York Time’s Science section in an article entitled “Survival’s Ick Factor.” The article reports on a recent conference on Disgust held in Germany. Curtis is a leading researcher in this area with contributions to public health initiatives related to promoting the use of handwashing with soap. [Blogger's note: CIGA brought Dr. Curtis to GW for a talk; click here to see a recording].

• Be careful what you tweet
Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University, has new findings indicating that Twitter and Facebook encourage people to say things they regret, largely because of the absence of normal human interaction on such websites. Facial expressions, reactions such as laughter and vocal tones are all vital natural tools in helping people judge what they say, and their absence in extreme cases can lead to online bullying. These findings are based on a survey of 2,000 internet users. A quarter of those polled admitted writing personal remarks to someone online which they would never say to their face and a similar proportion admitted posting material or comments on social media sites which they later regretted. One in five admitted that they “rarely, or never” stop to check what they have written before clicking “send.”

• Forensic anthropology of U.S. war dead
CNN covered the work of forensic anthropologists at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, the world’s largest skeletal identification laboratory. More than 30 forensic anthropologists, archaeologists and dentists of Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command are working to put names to the remains of 84,000 U.S. service members who have gone missing during war or military action. The unit researches war records, battle sites, and aircraft crash sites around the world.

• Argentine forensic anthropologists in Vietnam
The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) has helped Viet Nam confirm identification of people missing after wartime battles, according to EAAF President Louis Fondebrider. The cooperative plan was established in 2010 following the Vietnamese Government’s request for technical assistance. In 2011, two EAAF experts went to Vietnam to provide training in forensic anthropology and identification of remains in Ha Noi and HCM City. The two sides will cooperate in the search for the remains of missing soldiers and also confirm identification of natural disaster victims.

• Drought exposes ancient Constantinople
Archaeologists have made an extraordinary discovery 13 miles west of the center of Istanbul. The find is Bathonea, a harbor town dating from the second century B.C. As quoted in the New York Times, Sengul Aydingun, the archaeologist who made the initial discovery, says that Bathonea has the potential to become a ”library of Constantinople.” After an extended drought exposed a sea wall, Dr. Aydingun discovered that the harbor had been equipped with docks, buildings, and a jetty, probably dating to the fourth century. In the last dig season, the archaeologists uncovered port walls, elaborate buildings, an enormous cistern, a Byzantine church and stone roads spanning more than 1,000 years of occupation. ”The fieldwork Sengul has conducted over the last few years is spectacular,” said Volker Heyd, an archaeologist at the University of Bristol in England who surveyed Bathonea for two field seasons. ”The discoveries made are now shedding a completely new light to the wider urbanized area of Constantinopolis. A fantastic story begins to unveil.”

• Hello doggy
A 33,000-year-old dog skull unearthed in a Siberian mountain cave presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication which, along with an equally old find in a cave in Belgium, suggests multiple ancestors of modern dogs.

• Simply elegant: Neanderthal stone tools
Dr Metin Eren, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University’s School of Anthropology and Conservation, conducted experimental flint knapping to learn about Neanderthal stone tool-making. On the basis of his study, he said: “The more we learn about the stone tool-making of the Neanderthals and their contemporaries, the more elegant it becomes.”

The Association for Feminist Anthropology welcomes sessions to be considered for inclusion in AFA’s programming for the 111th AAA Annual Meeting. The AAA meeting theme this year is “Borders,” so AFA particularly welcomes panels that take up “borders” from a feminist anthropological perspective.

For more information, visit the AFA website.

National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL), one of two national laboraties in China

“Two cultural genes have passed through generations of Chinese intellectuals for more than 2,000 years. The first is the thoughts of Confucius, who proposed that intellectuals should become loyal administrators. The second is the writings of Zhuang Zhou, who said that a harmonious society would come from isolating families so as to avoid exchange and conflict, and by shunning technology to avoid greed. Together, these cultures have encouraged small-scale and self-sufficient practices in Chinese society, but discouraged curiosity, commercialization and technology. They helped to produce a scientific void in Chinese society that persisted for millennia. And they continue to be relevant today.”

The second article is titled, Research in Asia Heats Up: US Indicators Reveal Challenges and Opportunities as Science Momentum Shifts to China. It reports that:

“Asia, led by China, is on track to displace the United States as the world’s science and technology powerhouse. That message is loud and clear in the 2012 edition of Science and Engineering Indicators, a nearly 600-page snapshot of the state of global research that looks at education, academic infrastructure, the knowledge-based workforce and international markets.”

So what has happened to the two “cultural genes” of Confucius and Zhuang in China? And what is going on with what one might caricature as the U.S. “cultural genes” of curiosity, commercialization, and technology? Just thinking.

Mauritius is in the premier league of the world’s democracies, according to the newly released London-based Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index. The Index, which monitors 167 nations ranks the small Indian Ocean island, with a population of 1.3 million, 24th out of 25 “full democracies,” just ahead of Spain.

Norway is in first place followed by three other Scandinavian countries—Iceland, Denmark and Sweden. Canada is eighth, Ireland is 12th, Germany is 14th, the U.K. is 18th, while the U.S. is ranked 19th.The remaining 90 countries which make it into the “democratic” category are divided into 53 “flawed democracies,” which includes France and Italy at 29th and 31st respectively. The next category consists of 37 “hybrid regimes” and includes Hong Kong (80th), Singapore (81st), Turkey (88th), Tanzania (90th) and Kenya (103rd). The remaining countries in the Index, including Bahrain, Chad, Fiji, Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, are described as “authoritarian.”

EIU Democracy Index 2011

The Index is based on five criteria: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. However, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that almost all of the “full democracies” belong to a group of the world’s advanced economies, whose populations are well-practiced in placing marks on ballot papers and tossing out unpopular or incompetent governments.

Little wonder, then, that Mauritius’s inclusion has caught the eye of some commentators. “In some ways, of the 25 ‘full democracies,’ Mauritius is now the most notable,” writes Neil Reynolds, economics correspondent for the Toronto-based Globe and Mail. Reynolds cities Mauritius’s endorsement by the World Bank as the best among African economies, and its top position in the Sudanese-born telecoms billionaire Mo Ibrahim’s Index of African Governance.

Reynolds also goes on to note Mauritius’s ascent in the Index of Economic Freedom jointly produced by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. In 2010, it was in 12th place of 179 countries. In 2012 it has moved up to eighth place. The piece finishes with a rousing cry: “Economic freedom is as much a prerequisite for democracy as voting. Let’s hear it for the prosperous little democracy with a dodo on its coat of arms.”

But free-marketeers are not the only members of the economic tribe to endorse Mauritius. Last year, for example, Joseph Stiglitz, after a brief visit, wrote an article for The Guardian, heaping praise on the country for the provision of free education, transport for schoolchildren and free healthcare, including heart surgery. The former chief economist at the World Bank, and a leading light in the neo-Keynesian “third way” movement, reckoned that North America and Europe could learn lessons from Mauritius in terms of how the country managed “social cohesion, welfare and economic growth.”

Despite the brevity of his stay, the Nobel prize-winning economist was observant enough to point to some of the island’s problems, especially the colonial legacy in inequality in ownership of land and other forms of capital which differentially affects the life chances of various segments of the polyethnic population.

Then there is the vexatious issue of the US base on Diego Garcia. The island, along with 54 other atolls that make up the Chagos Archipelago, was detached in breach of international law before Mauritius’s independence from the UK in 1968 to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. “The US should now do right by this peaceful and democratic country: recognise Mauritius’s rightful ownership of Diego Garcia, renegotiate the lease and redeem past sins by paying a fair amount for land that it has illegally occupied for decades,” argued Stiglitz. He should have added that those 1500 or so islanders, who were forcibly removed from the Chagos Archipelago in the late 60s and early 70s by the British authorities to make way for the military base and dumped in Mauritius and the Seychelles, should be allowed to return to their homeland if they so wish.