Elizabeth Hadly of Stanford University delivers a sobering accounting of evidence that forecasts a climatic tipping point and what it may mean to our future. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 29694]
This symposium brings together scientists representing evolutionary biology, genetics, dermatology, anthropology, and physiology to share their knowledge and questions about human skin in an explicitly evolutionary framework. UC San Diego’s Richard Gallo begins with a discussion about Skin, a Window into the Evolution of the Human Super-Organism, followed by Michael Sawka on Human Skin: Sweating, Thermoregulation, and Water Balance, and Sarah Millar on Evolution of Hair Follicles, Mammary Glands...
This talk by Michael Sawka of Georgia Tech examines the role of skin in human thermoregulation as a potentially important evolutionary factor for modern man. Two strong selective factors for survival in early hominins were the ability to forage during peak daily heat when their predators were not a threat, and the capability for persistence hunting (track and pursue prey to cause hyperthermia-induced exhaustion of prey). Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny"...
Closing remarks to symposium on human skin in an evolutionary framework. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30219]
In this talk, Chris Kuzawa (Northwestern Uni) argues that human body fat co-evolved not just with the energetically-demanding and vulnerable brain, but also with the cultural strategies that humans use to buffer offspring intake. The human infant’s need for ample baby fat traces to the fact that the main causes of nutritional stress at this age are infections, which force a reliance on onboard energy by reducing appetite and impairing digestion. However, by early childhood, we are less reliant u...
Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute explains in this talk how studying the molecular evolution of the three types of human lice (head louse, body louse, pubic louse) can reflect important developments of human evolution. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30217]
Sarah Millar of the University of Pennsylvania summarizes our current state of knowledge of the molecular events that control hair follicle, mammary gland and sweat gland development. She also highlights major questions still remaining. Using the mammary gland as an example, she discusses how evolutionary pressures may have driven specific changes in molecular pathways to permit organ diversification, and further refinements in glandular number and location that permitted efficient feeding of ne...
This presentation by UC San Diego’s Richard Gallo provides an overview of the multiple cell types, both human and microbial, that comprise the human skin super-organism. Understanding their relationship changes how we think about evolution, gene transfer, and the impact of current hygiene and antibiotic therapies. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30213]
Mark Shriver of Pennsylvania State University explains in this talk how evolutionary approaches to understanding which genes affect pigmentation can provide important insights into both normal development and pathophysiology. Likewise, genetic and genomic investigations can help illuminate where and when the genes that affect contemporary skin color levels changed and, ultimately, which evolutionary forces shaped the wide range of skin colors we see today. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Re...
Opening remarks to symposium on human skin in an evolutionary framework. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30209]
Welcome remarks to symposium on human skin in an evolutionary framework. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30208]
All humans have the capacity for aggression and reconciliation. However, it is cultural institutions that harness aggression by shaping cognition, corresponding emotions and defining appropriate responses. In this talk, Polly Wiessner (Univ of Utah) compares the cultural institutions related to aggression and violence and their outcomes in two different societies: Ju/’hoan hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari and Enga horticulturists of Papua New Guinea. She tries to show “what culture has to do wit...
In this talk, Carol Ember (Yale Univ) describes the results from decades-long research that tested a variety of theories about warfare and other forms of violence in a sample of 186 societies. Many of the theories of warfare assumed to be plausible fell short, such as the idea that war becomes more likely with agriculture and political complexity. On the other hand, resource scarcity, particularly unpredictable scarcity such as drought, is a particularly strong predictor of more warfare. Warfare...
Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology on the climatic framework of Neandertal evolution. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 29689]
Renowned historian of science Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University addresses the question of human impacts on climate and whether we will survive the future, and posits that humanity will need to make substantial change in what we do and how we think. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 29695]
Why does humor exist at all? It consumes a lot of time and energy, and some humans are arguably addicted to humor. Daniel Dennett (Tufts Univ) explores what, in biological terms, sustains this costly habit. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 24981]
This symposium presents varied perspectives from earth scientists, ecologists, and paleoanthropologists on how climate may have shaped human evolution, as well as the prospects for the future of world climate, ecosystems, and our species. Elizabeth Hadly begins with a discussion about A Tipping Point: Using the Past to Forecast Our Future, followed by Naomi Oreskes on Human Impacts: Will We Survive the Future?, and Veerabhadran Ramanathan on Climate Change Mitigation: In Pursuit of the Common Go...
This symposium presents varied perspectives from earth scientists, ecologists, and paleoanthropologists on how climate may have shaped human evolution, as well as the prospects for the future of world climate, ecosystems, and our species with Jeff Severinghaus on Abrupt Climate Transitions and Humans, followed by William Ruddiman on How Humans Took Control of Climate, and Charles Kennel on The Impacts of Arctic Sea Ice Retreat on Contemporary Climate. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Researc...
Questions and answers and closing remarks for the symposium Human-Climate Interactions and Evolution: Past and Future. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 29697]
Charles Kennel of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego addresses the impacts of Arctic sea ice retreat on contemporary climate. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 29693]
Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Institution addresses how climate instability affected the evolution of human adaptability. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 29690]
Peter deMenocal of Columbia University on cycles of African climate change and its effect on human evolution. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 29688]
Co-Director of The Center for Advanced Research and Training in Anthropogen, Ajit Varki, welcomes guests and partcipants to this symposium which presents varied perspectives from earth scientists, ecologists, and paleoanthropologists on how climate may have shaped human evolution, as well as the prospects for the future of world climate, ecosystems, and our species. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 29686]
This symposium presents varied perspectives from earth scientists, ecologists, and paleoanthropologists on how climate may have shaped human evolution, as well as the prospects for the future of world climate, ecosystems, and our species with Peter deMenocal on African Climate Change and Human Evolution, followed by Jean-Jacques Hublin on The Climatic Framework of Neandertal Evolution, and Rick Potts on Climate Instability and the Evolution of Human Adaptability. Series: "CARTA - Center for Acad...
In human languages, spoken and signed, words or signs are products of combinatorial systems that combine meaningless smaller units in different ways to yield different words or signs with different meanings. In spoken languages, those smaller units are the sounds of speech (phonemes). In sign languages, they are handshapes, movements, and the places on the body where signs are made. In this talk David Perlmutter of UC San Diego suggests that the evolutionary path for signs of iconic origin could...
Merlin Donald (Queen’s Univ) opines that if one crucial adaptation had to be singled out as the signature move that started the human journey, he would nominate “mimesis,” or body artistry, which is the platform on which all complex skilled performance, including language, has evolved. A capacity for refining skill started to evolve very early in the emergence of hominids, as testified by the existence of very ancient stone tools that predate the appearance of our species. Such tools cannot be m...
CARTA: Behaviorally Modern Humans: The Origin of Us – Michael Hammer: Interbreeding with Archaic Humans in Africa Today there is an abundance of DNA sequence data from the entire genome of contemporary human populations, as well as from ancient DNA recovered from extinct forms of humans. Michael Hammer (Univ of Arizona) discusses how analyses of these data, with increasingly sophisticated computational tools, are yielding new insights into human evolutionary history. Series: "CARTA - Center for ...
V.S. Ramachandran (UC San Diego) argues that human mental uniqueness emerged from the fortuitous co-emergence of certain novel anatomical structures and functions and equally fortuitous synergistic interactions between them. These include structures involved in inter-sensory abstraction (IPL and its uniquely human subdivisions; supra-marginal gyrus and angular gyrus; certain frontal structures, Wernicke’s area, etc.) and sensorimotor abstraction (mirror neurons). He contends that these were then...
A key feature of human social interactions is the ability to make inferences about other individuals’ mental states (e.g. others’ knowledge, beliefs and desires). Juliane Kaminski (Univ of Portsmouth, UK) reviews studies which investigate whether the cognitive capacities underlying these skills are uniquely human or shared, at least to some degree, with other species. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 26077]
This CARTA symposium addresses the question of how human language came to have the kind of structure it has today, focusing on three sources of evidence. One source, which is discussed in these three talks, concerns neuroscientific investigations of functional specialization for language in the human brain and its dependence on the linguistic input the language learner gets during cognitive development. Evelina Fedorenko (Massachusetts General Hospital) begins with an examination of Specializati...
