Anthropology

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The Genetics of Humanness: Human-Specific Signaling Networks

The Genetics of Humanness: Human-Specific Signaling Networks, a presentation by Genevieve Konopka of the University of Texas, is a portion of a multi-part symposium sponsored by CARTA. Konopka examines the uniqueness of humans, even among other primates, at the level of the brain.

Human Evolution

Human Evolution Overview

From the extinction of the dinosaurs to humanity, Salman Khan of the Khan Academy explains how our species of homo sapiens came to be today. He covers an enormous span of time in just twelve minutes. The lecture is informative and the great visuals make for a quick and easy overview.

thomas mcgovern

How Nature Conquered the Vikings of Greenland

Greenland suffered a drastic climate change in the Middle Ages, where weather turned from warm to cold. Hunter anthropology professor Thomas McGovern looks to the ways Norse settlers adapted, buying an additional 200 years of survival by changing their way of life.

Isabel Behncke Izquierdo

Bonobo apes show how play solves problems and avoids conflict

The bonobo ape is one of our cousins and according to primatologist Isabel Behncke Izquierdo, it seems we can learn a lot from them. Bonobo life is made of a tolerant society run by empowered females. In their groups, they have very low levels of violence and are often found having sex to manage their issues.

carl zimmer

Darwin and Evolutionary Medicine

Professor Carl Zimmer discusses the work of one of Darwin’s great followers, the late Stony Brook University biologist and faculty emeritus George Williams, who died in September 2010. The internationally renowned Williams demonstrated how natural selection could help make sense of every stage in the lives of all living things.

tim white

Origins of Hominids; Paleoenvironments of Early Hominids

Renowned paleoanthropologist Tim White of UC Berkeley gives a fascinating overview of the search for the origins of Hominids (also known as great apes) in Africa, and Andrew Hill provides insight into the environments in which our earliest ancestors lived.

amber case

Modern tools and technology are evolving us

Technology is evolving us. Previously, tools were used as an extension of the physical self (i.e. the hammer); but today, tools have become an extension of the mental self (i.e. the internet). We now rely on “external brains” (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives.

Robin Nagle New York Street Cleaners

How Street Cleaners Saved New York City

By the end of the 19th century, New York was one of the filthiest cities, causing the spread of disease and whose mortality rates rivaled those of medieval London. But, it was the unlikeliest characters of all that saved the city: the street cleaners.

Helen Fisher Rutgers Love Darwin

Art, Emotion and Romantic Love

We know why we have thumbs, hair, and all the other wonderful physical characteristics that help us survive in the world…natural selection. But why do we have non-physical abilities like poetry, music, dance, storytelling, drawing, and architecture?

Steven Pinker TED blank slate

Is the Human Mind a Blank Slate?

Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, gives us some reasons to doubt that the human mind is a blank slate. Pinker reveals how parental studies often are false because they do not account for genetics. He also says we will not find actual answers until we can test more adopted siblings.

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