Matthias Meyer (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) discusses the technical difficulties one faces when working with poorly preserved ancient material and the insights this work provides into human evolution in the Middle Pleistocene (e.g., the 400,000 year-old hominin remains from a cave site in Northern Spain). Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30977]
Apr 17, 2017•19 min
Harvard’s Daniel Lieberman argues that genus Homo differs from other early hominins through an integrated suite of behaviors, collectively termed hunting and gathering, that emerged sometime between 3 and 2 mya. The emergent properties associated with hunting and gathering made possible increased access to energy. More energy, in turn, led to further selection for increased brain size, larger body size, and slower life histories, characteristics which are all associated with the genus Homo. Seri...
Apr 10, 2017•20 min
Q&A, and Closing Remarks for Awareness of Death and Personal Mortality: Implications for Anthropogeny Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 32060]
Apr 07, 2017•37 min
Nicholas Humphrey provides opening remarks and context for the CARTA symposium: Awareness of Death and Personal Mortality: Implications for Anthropogeny Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 32059]
Apr 07, 2017•9 min
Fred Gage opens the CARTA symposium Awareness of Death and Personal Mortality: Implications for Anthropogeny. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 32058]
Apr 07, 2017•7 min
Sheldon Solomon explores how humans manage the terror of death, and the larger implications of this quest for immortality via death denial. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 32056]
Apr 07, 2017•20 min
Ajit Varki gives an in-depth look at how and why the unique human characteristics or abilities of denying reality, self-deception, holding false beliefs, optimism bias and irrational risk-taking behavior; traits that should be evolutionarily maladaptive, developed, and are part of what makes us human. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 32053]
Apr 07, 2017•19 min
In this presentation, Leslie Aiello explains that although the fossil record offers clues that cooperative childcare may have been present early in the evolution of genus Homo, the full human life history pattern including both extended childhood growth and development and longevity were much more recent evolutionary developments. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30644]
Apr 03, 2017•22 min
Charles Nunn (Duke Univ) identifies selective pressures that may play a role in favoring shorter sleep in humans, and considers the consequences of these evolutionary changes for understanding human sleep disorders, health across the lifespan, and health disparities. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 31609]
Mar 27, 2017•22 min
"My mother's kin are not my father's kin." David Haig (Harvard Univ) explains in this talk that this asymmetry results in conflicting selective forces acting on genes of maternal and paternal origin revealed in the phenomenon of genomic imprinting. He provides several examples of disorders of imprinted gene expression. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31602]
Jan 23, 2017•25 min
This symposium brings together experts who offer examples of applications of evolutionary biology and comparative medicine to the understanding, prevention, and treatment of various illnesses. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31598]
Dec 28, 2016•58 min
Joshua Akey (Univ of Washington) and his team have developed methods to identify Neandertal sequences that persist in the DNA of modern individuals and applied it to whole-genome sequences from over 1,500 geographically diverse individuals. Their data provide new insights into hominin evolutionary history and genomic regions that may harbor substrates of uniquely modern human phenotypes. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30980]
Dec 26, 2016•20 min
This symposium brings together experts who offer examples of applications of evolutionary biology and comparative medicine to the understanding, prevention, and treatment of various illnesses. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31597]
Dec 21, 2016•57 min
This symposium brings together experts who offer examples of applications of evolutionary biology and comparative medicine to the understanding, prevention, and treatment of various illnesses. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31596]
Dec 14, 2016•58 min
Barbara Natterson-Horowitz (UCLA) explains in this talk why increasing awareness of the occurrence of "diseases of civilization" in humans and in wild animal species offers a path towards a more empathic and more accurate understanding of the nature of health and disease. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 31601]
Dec 12, 2016•15 min
New fossil evidence of hominin diversity suggests that there was not a single transition to human-like body form in early Homo. In this talk, Carol Ward explains how this may be changing our ideas about the origins of our genus. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30643]
Dec 05, 2016•19 min
In this inaugural presentation to incoming UC San Diego Medical School students, Dr. Ajit Varki, Executive Co-Director of CARTA, provides an evolutionary perspective on understanding human health and disease. Why? Because The biological aspects of medicine are rooted in understanding the evolution of our species, and those of other organisms that interact with us in health and disease. Thus, to paraphrase Dobzhansky, “nothing in the biological aspects of medicine makes sense except in the light ...
Dec 02, 2016•49 min
Canadian Rap-Artist, award-winning playwright, and former tree-planter Baba Brinkman brings his singular form of "peer-reviewed" Rap to the CARTA symposium Implications of Anthropogeny for Medicine and Public Health with a very special performance of unique Raps on disease, evolution and even the symposium itself. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31611]
Dec 02, 2016•41 min
In the last seven years, two hominin species possessing a mixture of primitive and Homo-like morphology – Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi – have been discovered in South Africa. Duke University’s Steven Churchill believes that these remarkable finds call for new models in not only understanding the origins of genus Homo, but also the emergence of Homo erectus. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30642]
Nov 28, 2016•20 min
Harvard’s Philip Rightmire describes the rich array of early hominin fossils discovered at the Dmanisi site in the Georgian Caucasus. He maintains that these fossils can most reasonably be attributed to Homo erectus, but several of the skeletons display primitive anatomy. That means that the boundaries between H. erectus and other early Homo taxa are less distinct, making it difficult to identify diagnostic traits. He concludes that the emergence of the Homo clade was characterized more by an ov...
Nov 21, 2016•22 min
Closing Remarks and Audience Questions for the CARTA syposium, Implications of Anthropogeny for Medicine and Public Health. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31610]
Nov 18, 2016•20 min
Opening remarks to the CARTA syposium, Implications of Anthropogeny for Medicine and Public Health. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31600]
Nov 18, 2016•5 min
Welcome and introduction to the CARTA syposium, Implications of Anthropogeny for Medicine and Public Health. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 31599]
Nov 18, 2016•6 min
The search for the “origin of Homo” suggests we know what we are looking for, so unless we are clear about that, then how will we know when we have found it? In this talk, Bernard Wood (George Washington Univ) explains what he looks for within the fossil record when searching for the origins of our own genus, Homo. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30637]
Nov 14, 2016•19 min
The age of origin of the Homo lineage is thought to have fallen between 2.5 and 3.0 mya. However, William Kimbel (Arizona State Univ) argues in this talk that recent fossil and stone tool discoveries call for a new evaluation of factors involved in the origin and the early evolution of Homo. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 30638]
Oct 31, 2016•24 min
The human species underwent a watershed change in the biochemical composition of its cell surfaces, via a genetic event estimated to have occurred ~2-3 mya, which is also the apparent period of the emergence of the genus Homo. In this talk, UC San Diego’s Pascal Gagneux explains how this radical makeover of cell surfaces in early Homo would have brought about a mismatch between females lacking a certain cell surface sialic acid and males still expressing it, essentially providing a mechanism for...
Sep 19, 2016•15 min
Jeff Severinghaus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego addresses Abrupt Climate Transitions and Humans. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 29691]
Sep 19, 2016•18 min
Jessica Sommerville (Univ of Washington) reviews evidence to suggest that, within the first year of life, infants develop an understanding of transient mental states (such as goals and desires), enduring personal dispositions (such as preferences), and socio-moral norms (such as fairness norms), that is driven by their own actions on the world, as well as their interactions with other people. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 26082]
Sep 08, 2016•19 min
Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) and his research team analyzed more than 200 ancient human genomes spanning the last 10,000 years of Western Eurasian pre-history. They found direct evidence for two major genetic turnover events at the beginning and at the end of the Neolithic time period in Europe, which they attribute to two major migrations. This explains why all modern European populations are a genetic mixture of steppe pastoralist, early farmers and i...
Sep 05, 2016•21 min
Tony Capra (Vanderbilt Univ) and his team analyzed the contribution of common Neandertal variants to over 1000 electronic health record (EHR)-derived phenotypes in ~28,000 adults of European ancestry. Their results establish that archaic admixture influences disease risk in modern humans, provide hypotheses about the effects of hundreds of Neandertal haplotypes, and demonstrate the utility of HER data in evolutionary analyses. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthrop...
Aug 29, 2016•22 min
