Findings Things Like This Are Life!!!

“When you take a break from all this talking, thinking and theorizing, real knowledge becomes available.”

— Sosan Zenji

“Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.” - Roger W. Babson

My god!

How To Become A

Forensic Anthropologist!

Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology, and its various subfields in a legal setting. Forensic anthropologist assist in identifying deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, mutilated, burned or unrecognizable.

Today, forensic anthropology is well established as a discipline in the forensic field. When physical characteristics (fingerprints, face, etc) which could be used to identify a body are tampered with, an anthropologists is called to investigate the remains and help identify individuals by using their bones.

Forensic anthropologists often assist in the investigation of war crimes (genocide, terrorism, etc.) and mass fatality investigations, like natural disasters or epidemics.

So, how do you become a forensic anthropologists?

The idea usually begins with a television show, or if you are like me, death and bones were fascinating to you as a child. There are various ways of arriving at the Forensic Anthropology career, I will explain the way we here is the U.S.A usually go about it.

High School Students:

Take all of your science classes, even physics!

• Biology will help you understand the human body, and how it works.

• Chemistry will help you understand the make up of life, and how the outside world can impact the remains.

• Physics will help you understand what happened the victims remains, example, how to determine if the person jumped, or fell off the roof prior to dying.

Math: Do not neglect it, you will be converting centimeters to feet/inches and so on. You will measure bones with various instruments, and you will need to understand some geometry when digging up a site, or sketching a room.

Arts: Drawing will be a lifesaver when it comes to osteology, not to mention if you must dig up a site. Photography, and working with clay is also good. Sketching the human form, and molding it will give you an advantage for the field.

Gym/PE Class: Stay fit! I repeat, stay fit! You will be working in odd conditions at times. Take on yoga for balancing and strength. Sometimes remains are in hard to reach areas, or you must squat for a long time to observe prior to moving. Fitness will help your back and legs to become strong and not hurt as much. We also spend a lot of time on a desk, so moving and being active is good for us.

English: learn to write proper emails, and the difference between how you write text messages and papers/professional emails.

Also volunteer in hospitals, morgues, old people homes, etc. You are probably used to being around the dead things, but don’t forget to keep in touch with the living and their needs. You need to know both the living world and the dead world, you are going to become the bridge between the two. Build your resume, do good in school and find a university or college that is right for you.

College/University:

Join the anthropology club, first semester, first week, first meeting, be there! (if there is no club, start it!) Go on trips (zoo, cemeteries, visit other schools/their anthropology departments, and go to conferences) ask professors to teach a five to ten minute lecture for the club, bake goods, fundraise, teach other departments and students about us. The friendships made within the club will become your network.

Take all of your general requirement courses seriously! (yes I know it feels like a repeat of high school, but your GPA matters for later on.)

Have a social life! Go out, but be safe. (College will not last forever.)

Make studying fun, create study groups, study outside and test each other.

Meet with your professors, go to their office hours, ask them about their research, a favorite book, or their favorite bone!

Start a dermestid beetle colony (if there is none)!

This is where you start to understand if you are a good fit, and if the work really is for you.

Visit the library, learn to research and write proper documents and papers. You will inevitably write grant proposals and thesis papers that will go way beyond 20 pages, it is normal.

If you can, take up a minor (forensic science is a fan favorite). Even a biology or art minor can help. Minor in something that is like a hobby for you, this will keep you mentally active and distracted for when you need a break from anthropology.

Again, stay fit! And try your best to eat healthy. And network, network, network.

Towards the last two years of your undergraduate degree do research! It can be something simple, like determining the sex between a female pelvis and a male pelvis, but make sure to present it, like at a conference where the Anthropology club will go and see it (winks). Professors might let you tag along and do research with them. Try and see if you can get something published, it can even be for the university’s newspaper, or magazine.

Take undergrad to make yourself distinct, and learn as much as you can.

Get your moneys worth!

Also, find a part-time college job to fund your partying and unhealthy food orders at midnight/three AM.

Plan your future, whether involves moving to a smaller location for work, or getting a higher degree.

Graduate School:

Not everyone will find an anthropology job with a BA or BS degree, the economy is not really our friend here. It might help to move, or relocate out of the big cities.

To PhD. or not? This is a big step that can take years to accomplish. It does not need to happen right away.

Getting a Masters degree is a great option. This is why your GPA, research, papers, and extracurriculars during undergrad were important. Distinct students make it into good graduate programs to do research, and to better learn the field.

Try not to pay for graduate school, often times the programs are funded through scholarships, assistantships, work, or even merit. Graduate school should not get you into more in debt, find the way.

Keep doing everything you did for undergrad, but amp it up. You have more free time to select and narrow your area of expertise (do you want to focus on children, adults, the pelvis, the skull, the process of decomposition, etc.). Make a killer thesis, and present your case. Show the world that you are here!

Also, keep a part-time/full-time job to fund your social life. Make time to hang out with professors (they are human just like you), colleagues, and friends.

Master’s are about two years, Ph.D varies by university or program and are a lot longer. Expect to educate as a Ph.D candidate, you will be teaching others, and make it fun.

Remember that you are more than your research, and your studies, they are a part of you, not the other way around.

Simple Steps:

Step 1: Graduate high school.

Step 2: Earn a Bachelor’s Degree.

Step 3: Complete a Master’s Degree Program. (Optional but you might need it.)

Step 4: Enroll in a PhD Program. (Optional.)

Aspiring Forensic Anthropologists:

• Need at least a master’s degree in anthropology or forensic anthropology to find suitable work.

• Note: A doctoral degree (Ph.D) is needed to pursue research and tenured teaching opportunities in academia.

And Have Fun!

Live by example

Nikola Tesla–Who He Was, What He Had Done, and Where He Dreamed to Lead Us

Nikola Tesla is a man from the past whom the general public still knows very little of. Recently, his name has been sensationalized with all sorts of things–from conspiracies to the newest technology, but even so, people today still know only a small percentage of what the great inventor and discoverer has truly done for the science and the technology we take for granted today. 

I get asked all the time why Nikola Tesla isn’t as popular today as other well-known historical figures, but to be honest, Tesla is partly to blame. It is true that he was blackballed by corporations, such as General Electric and Radio Corporation of America, but to deny Tesla’s responsibility for the today’s lack of knowledge of himself would be leaving a big part of the story out. His fault was that he wasn’t the kind of person who needed attention to feel special. He hated the praise and notoriety he recieved for his work and accomplishments. He preferred to be hidden from the public and left alone. He did get a great joy out of sharing his work and discoveries to those who cared, and would also protest anyone who stole his work and claimed it as their own, but he hated the spotlight and hoped his inventions, discoveries, and writings would speak for themselves.

To talk about what Tesla has done for science would lead one into a maze of technical terms unsuited for the mind uneducated in electricity. To even go into the technicalities of it all would be about as entertaining as an eighth period lecture on Donald Trump’s fraudulent business career on the last day of school. So I will only dwell on who he was, what he had done, and what he hoped to accomplish for the future. 

Nikola Tesla is of the Serbian race and was born in Smilja, Lika, which during his time was located on the border of Austria-Hungary, today known as Croatia. His mother was a very talented inventor, and his father was a clergyman in the Greek Church. Tesla received his early education at Gospic in a public school, and later spent three years in the Higher Real Schule at Carstatt, Croatia. There he saw his first steam engine, which triggered his interest in electricity, and encouraged him to go against his father’s wishes, who wanted him to enter the ministry. It took Tesla surviving a cholera outbreak to persuade his father into allowing him to study science. Giving up to Tesla’s wishes, his father proposed that he become a college professor of mathematics and physics, and sent the young man to the Polytechnic School at Gratz. 

At this new school, Tesla witnessed a gramme dynamo. It was one of the first industrial motors that produced direct current electricity. Its one fault was that it had commutator that caused great friction and resistance, making it highly inefficient. Tesla believed it was possible to run the dynamo without the commutator, but his professors scolded him, and dedicated an entire lecture on how it was completely impossible. Tesla began then and there to disprove his professors, and began working on ideas that would soon develop into one of his greatest inventions, the rotating magnetic field motor.

After finally making this discovery, the plan of becoming a professor disappeared, and the young student turned inventor took up engineering instead. He left for Paris to work with a telephone company, which gave him the opportunity in 1884, to move to America in hopes of capitalizing on his new discovery. Here is where the great genius would revolutionize and practically create the 20th century. 

So what has he done?

Nikola Tesla literally has more original inventions to his credit than any other human in history. As mentioned above, he is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system that we rely on today. All electricity using or generating alternating current is due to Tesla, without which, all our power lines extending out to all businesses and households, providing light and power, would be far less advanced. Tesla invented the Induction Motor, the Tesla Rotary Converter, the Tesla Phase System of Power Transmission, the Tesla Steam and Gas Turbine, the Tesla Coil, and the Oscillation Transformer. All these inventions helped advance America and its industrial revolution far beyond what any other country had done in history. 

His popularity first rose when he first demonstrated wireless energy/power by lighting phosphorescent light bulbs wirelessly in a demonstration given before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, 1893. In his laboratory, he conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and some of the earliest X-ray imaging, which he made more safe for medical use. He was the first invent and display neon lights, and is the father of remote control, building a wireless controlled boat exhibited in 1898. Although not recognized for, he was the first to discovery the electron, radioactivity, neutrons, cosmic rays, terrestrial resonance, and stationary waves. He was the first to explain the photoelectric effect, 4 years before Albert Einstein, and has a patent to prove it. He proposed a particle beam to be used for defense in war, which was based off his electrical experiments in Colorado Springs where he produced sparks up to 100 feet in length. He once said he could produce an artificial Aurora Borealis to light the night skies and help ships at sea in navigation with the same principle. 

His ultimate goal was to unify all his inventions into one big machine, known as his “World System,” but lacked the investments and funds to finish his work on a large scale. This machine would have provided clean, and cheap energy to the whole world! His failure to accomplish his goals left him with a distorted persona of a mad scientist, and a dreamer whose imagination created an unrealistic hope for the future. This is why his name has been twisted today.

Tesla would eventually die penniless and alone in his New York apartment, but he cared very little about that. He chose to live through all his inventions and contributions to this world that will last until the end of us all.

And that is who Nikola Tesla was.

“Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”

–Nikola Tesla

“A Visit to Nikola Tesla,” by Dragislav L. Petković. Politika, April 1927.

They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never dissapointed.

J. G. Ballard, High-Rise (via quotespile)

I have learned that people can stay, leave, save, or destroy you, but by far the most dangerous thing they can ever do is come back.

Beau Taplin (via thoughtkick)