This week Spencer and Razib discuss the ramifications of a new paper which reports on the ancient DNA of West Africans who lived 8,000 and 3,000 years ago. https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/Shum_Laka_published_online_0.pdf
Razib discusses the new book Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity with one of the authors.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07ZC6XGGX/geneexpressio-20
Razib talks to evolutionary anthropologist Joe Henrich about his new book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07RZFCPMD/geneexpressio-20
Razib talks to Stuart Ritchie about his new book, Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250222699/geneexpressio-20
Razib and Spencer discuss the geography, prehistory, and genetics, of Siberia. Also, the time Spencer experienced a Siberian winter!
Razib and Spencer discuss why the geology and biogeography of Southeast Asia may explain why it is so important in the history of human evolution. Show notes: https://blog.insito.me/humanitys-second-cradle-in-southeast-asia-cbb26244f08a
Razib discusses revolutionary new work published in Nature that tells us that modern humans were present in the Americas 32,000 years ago with one of the authors, Lorena Becerra-Valdivia.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02190-y
Spencer and Razib talk about what we mean when we say "ghost population" in human genetics, and why it's so important to understand our origins.
Razib talks to Alex Ioannidis on the new paper which he is a first author of which argues that there is pre-Columbian Native American ancestry in Eastern Polynesia. Did the Polynesians bring them back from the mainland? Or did they voyage themselves?
Razib and Spencer talk about what a new ancient DNA paper from Neolithic Ireland suggests about radical inequality and power differentials in early agricultural societies, and what that says about the transition from hunting and gathering more generally https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2378-6
(also, coronavirus update!)
Spencer and Razib discuss what the humanities can offer to science with Kerim Yasar, professor of East Asian literature https://twitter.com/nihonkyo
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