Carta - Center For Academic Research And Training In Anthropogeny (audio)

Yoav Gilad is Associate Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. He studies genetic and regulatory differences between humans and our close evolutionary relatives, with the long-term goal of identifying the genetic basis for human-specific traits, including genetic variation that underlies higher susceptibility to certain diseases and disorders in humans than in other primates. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21985]

Katherine Pollard, Associate Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and Associate Professor of Biostatistics at UC San Francisco, specializes in evolutionary genomics, in particular identifying genome sequences that differ significantly between or within species and their relationship to biomedical traits. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21984]

Alysson Muotri, Assistant Professor at UC San Diego, focuses on human brain development and evolution, exploring mobile elements as generators of neuronal diversity. He is also interested in modeling neurological diseases using human induced pluripotent stem cells. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21983]

Evan Eichler is an Associate Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. The long-term goal of his research is to understand the evolution, pathology and mechanisms of recent gene duplication and DNA transposition within the human genome. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21982]

Richard “Ed” Green, Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, explains how and what we know about our relation to Neandertal Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21981]

Elaine Mardis, Associate Professor of Genetics at Washington University and Senior Research Scientist at Bio-Rad Laboratories, explores the orangutan genome. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21980]

Peter Richerson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis, focuses on the processes of cultural evolution. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 21289]

Donald Pfaff, head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior at The Rockefeller University, upends our entire understanding of ethics and social contracts with an intriguing proposition: the Golden Rule is hardwired into the human brain. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 21288]

Sarah Hrdy is currently professor emerita at the University of California, Davis. She is a renowned anthropologist and primate sociobiologist who seeks to understand, step by Darwinian step, how apes could have evolved to imagine and care about what the lives of others might be like. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21286]

Peter Hammerstein is a theoretical biologist at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Given his background in game theory and economics, he is interested in conflict and cooperation at the level of individuals and of genes. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21285]

Steve Frank is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. One of his current research projects is centered on microbial life history and sociality. The theory of virulence is an example of the broader problems of sociality and life history. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21284]

Patricia Smith Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at UC San Diego. The central focus of her research has been the exploration and development of the hypothesis that the mind is the brain. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21283]

Christophe Boesch is Director of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. His research takes an inclusive approach, addressing the biology of chimpanzees from many viewpoints and applying this knowledge to our understanding of the evolution of cognitive and cultural abilities in humans. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21282]

Christopher Boehm is Professor of Biological Sciences & Anthropology and Director of the Goodall Research Center at the University of Southern California. He is a cultural anthropologist with a subspecialty in primatology, who researches conflict resolution, altruism, moral origins, and feuding and warfare. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 21281]

Closing remarks for CARTA’s Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics symposium held in March 2009. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Show ID: 16440]

The human penchant for storytelling is universal, early-developing, and profoundly culture-shaping. Stories (folk tales, narratives and myths) influence the costs of social transactions and organize societies at every scale of human interaction. Story as a mode of communication is also unprecedented in the animal kingdom: although we are compelled to tell stories about other animals, they are not likewise compelled to tell stories about us (or anything else, for that matter). Even our ability to manage urgent human problems such as global health and climate change are affected by the stories and myths humans choose to tell. This symposium explores several stories about how the evolution of story-telling shaped, and continues to shape, the human epoch. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 39005]

The hunting hypothesis proposes that the dietary shift to meat procurement was the catalyst favoring a suite of transformative human biological and behavioral adaptations. Evolutionary changes in the human diet are associated with the emergence of food sharing, the division of labor and pooled energy budgets. To balance this discussion, I revisit several misconceptions linked to the hunting hypothesis. Revising myths about the centrality of hunting to more closely reflect the archaeological and ethnographic records has important implications for updating the entrenched emphasis on male behaviors. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38999]

Some 350 to 400,000 years ago when our ancestors gained control of fire, the day was extended to provide many hours for social interaction, undisturbed by economic activities. How were those hours spent in societies that only had firelight after nightfall? In most preindustrial societies, music, dance, healing and storytelling fill the darkness. Myths and legends create common understandings on such matters as the origins of humans, social groups, rituals or features of the landscape. Hilarious trickster traditions explore the successes and failures of those who have the pluck to break with social norms. Stories about the adventures of real people add other dimensions, a topic Polly Wiessner addresses here. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38998]

Why are humans a compulsively storytelling species? Why especially do we invent stories, why do we tell one another stories that both teller and audience know to be untrue? Why do many of us come to believe some invented stories? What difference has our compulsion to tell stories made to us as individuals, societies, and a species? How do we understand stories so seemingly effortlessly? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38995]

For more than a century, folklorists have indexed a vast number of the world’s folkloric narratives according to varying structures (i.e. tale types) and to discrete elements (i.e. motifs) that commonly appear across cultures. This talk will introduce and analyze several examples of motifs indexed in folklorist Stith Thompson’s system. Ultimately, I ask whether stories about origins (human origins or otherwise) might constitute a genuine cultural universal? And if so, what might the folkloric representations of human origins say about a contemporary science of anthropogeny? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38996]