Dr Melandri Vlok
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melandrivlok.com
Dr Melandri Vlok
@melandrivlok.com
Bioarchaeologist ☠️
National Geographic Explorer
South African Australian 🇿🇦 🇦🇺
Ancient tropical diseases 🦟
Living with ME/CFS and POTS
All are welcome here 🏳️‍🌈
Note: following does not mean endorsement.
#anthropology #archaeology #diseases #epidemiology
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Oops…“Principal components (PC) axes
identified by a PCA are not necessarily the most informative biologically. Nevertheless, paleoanthropologists frequently interpret proximity in PC space as indicative of morphological and thus evolutionary affinity or relatedness”

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Principal Components Analysis fails to recover phylogenetic structure in hominins
Objectives Paleoanthropologists often utilize geometric morphometrics and principal components analysis (PCA) to interpret shape variation within the hominin fossil record. It is common practice to in...
www.biorxiv.org
November 8, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
15 million Americans are going to lose their health care.
October 31, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
trickle down economics
trickle down economic
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November 1, 2025 at 1:31 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Melioidosis—it's a fatal but preventable infection. Why is it not classed as a Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD)? Sophie Cousins reports in The Lancet.

Read in the latest issue 👉 tinyurl.com/zz65vbup
October 10, 2025 at 7:30 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Vanderbilt University is hiring a Mellon Assistant Professor (three-year term, 2-2 teaching load) whose research engages climate and environmental humanities. All historical periods and cultural fields, especially welcome those who work in arts or public humanities. apply.interfolio.com/173717.
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
October 6, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
We are pleased to offer Student Conference Support Grants for our 2025 meeting. If you are an ASHB student member and intend on presenting either a paper or poster, consider applying for financial support here: forms.gle/77WCN3ym3fGQ...

Applications close 11:59 NZDT on Monday 13th of October.
October 7, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943
October 4, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
I have so much respect for Greta Thunberg because she easily could have coasted on speaking gigs and Davos appearances for the rest of her life
October 5, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Analysis of skeletons found that, whilst scurvy increased during this period, it did not cause people to die earlier, suggesting Jōmon people adapted their food sharing practices to survive the ecological stress. 2/2

🔗 from 2024 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Nutritional deficiency and ecological stress in the Middle to Final western Jōmon
Despite significant research, the direct and indirect causes of a population decline in the eponymous foragers of the Late Jōmon period (c. 4500–2300 BP) in Japan remains undetermined. Here, the authors examine the impact of nutritional stress, using scurvy as a case study, on Middle and a Late/Final Jōmon populations. While an increase in the prevalence of scurvy between the time periods is apparent, no associated change in age at death was observed. The authors argue that the Late Jōmon adapted their food-sharing practices in times of ecological stress, and they highlight the need to consider morbidity and mortality together in palaeopathological assessments and the growing evidence for a non-nutritional cause in the Late Jōmon population decline.
doi.org
October 1, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
The Late Jōmon period in Japan saw a significant population decline, and it has been suggested this was caused by nutritional deficiency as climate change reduced the availability of resources. 1/2

🏺 #Archaeology
October 1, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.
September 23, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
The @washingtonpost.com story on Tylenol & autism leaves out a MAJOR 2.5M sibling-controlled study of children in Denmark, which "found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy and Children’s Risk of Autism, ADHD, and Intellectual Disability
This nationwide cohort study with sibling control analysis examines the association of acetaminophen use during pregnancy with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, and intellectual disability.
jamanetwork.com
September 22, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
PhD Studentship alert!
I'm looking for a motivated student to work here in Vienna @vdsee-univie.bsky.social on my ERC grant "DISPERSE". It's a fulltime scholarship (working in 14C and #archsci in Palaeolithic archaeology in Eurasia.
Details in the link below!
jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...
University assistant predoctoral 1
University assistant predoctoral 1
jobs.univie.ac.at
September 15, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Sequence data from the new Ebola outbreak in DRC suggests it is indeed a new spillover.

And just incredible to see the virus sequenced and the data publicly shared less than 24 hours after confirmation of the outbreak.
#IDsky 🧪

virological.org/t/the-16th-e...
The 16th Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Bulape Health Zone, Kasai, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A new spillover event from an unknown reservoir host
Background The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently facing concurrent outbreaks including mpox, cholera and malaria (1-4). The Ministry of Public Health, DRC has declared the 16th Ebola...
virological.org
September 5, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
It's really weird to demand accountability from a NYC mayoral candidate for a deadly NYC shooting rather than the current NYC mayor, an ex-cop who campaigned on a "tough on crime" platform and promptly got indicted for crimes
July 31, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Seeing Kamala Harris openly say that the system is broken was so powerful.

Just having someone in her position say it so candidly without qualification was beyond powerful.
August 1, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Here’s a report on how the destruction of USAID is causing harm & death by cutting malaria prevention. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
Malaria ‘back with a vengeance’ in Zimbabwe as number of deaths from the disease triple
Withdrawal of USAID funds threatens decades of progress, say experts, with cuts to research and shortage of mosquito nets putting thousands at risk across the country
www.theguardian.com
July 20, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
July 1, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years (preprint) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years
The mechanisms driving the spatial organisation of early human societies in Africa are typically addressed through climate variables [1][1]-[3][2]. However, genetic and archaeological studies have als...
www.biorxiv.org
June 10, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Are you a forensic anthropologist or other biological anthropologist who considers skeletal trauma interpretation part of your skill set?

We are running a study (survey, ~15 min) on how practitioners interpret skeletal trauma. It's kinda fun to do!

Sharing this with others is much appreciated 🤩
🚨 Seeking practitioners, researchers, or students involved in forensic anthropology and/or skeletal trauma interpretation 🚨

Help us understand how forensic practitioners interpret gun shot and other trauma on long bones by participating in a short survey!

binghamton.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
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binghamton.qualtrics.com
June 10, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
Hello,

Our paper on enamel proteins from Paranthropus robustus has finally been peer reviewed, please have a read here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Paranthropus robustus has been puzzling scientists since its discovery in 1938 in South Africa, where a high number of fossils have been found.
Enamel proteins reveal biological sex and genetic variability in southern African Paranthropus
Paranthropus robustus is a morphologically well-documented Early Pleistocene hominin species from southern Africa with no genetic evidence reported so far. In this work, we describe the mass spectrome...
doi.org
May 29, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
🧵5 Top Free Alternatives to BioRender for Scientific Illustrations!

These five websites offer free scientific illustrations for biologists. Great for presentations, research papers and other research communication needs.

Save and share the post!
May 13, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok
New podcast out on Talking Indonesia, all about bones 🦴🦴
Despite the dicey audio this one was really fun to record with! @melandrivlok.bsky.social

open.spotify.com/episode/72uF...
Melandri Vlok - Archaeology and Reading Bones
Talking Indonesia · Episode
open.spotify.com
April 16, 2025 at 10:17 PM
Someone tell this man to google 'steel production during The Great Leap Forward'
This “genius” genuinely believes that healthcare budget analysts can simply be reassigned to making toasters.
April 13, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Dr Melandri Vlok