Walking on two feet

Reflections on science and human origins

Displaying 41 - 44 of 44 articles

A reconstruction of Homo erectus making fire, Zhoukoudian Museum, China. Darren Curnoe

June 5, 2015

Our ancient obsession with food: humans as evolutionary Master Chefs

Amateur cook-offs like the hugely popular MasterChef series now in its seventh season in Australia have been part of our TV diet for almost two decades. These shows celebrate the remarkable lengths we…

The ~35,000 year old Pestera cu Oase cranium is probably a hybrid between modern humans and Neanderthals. Wikimedia Commons

May 26, 2015

All mixed up: interspecies love‑ins and the offbeat history of our species

Darren Curnoe, UNSW

Revolutionary developments in the study of the DNA of our fossil ancestors are forcing a major rewrite of the human evolutionary story. They hold major implications for fundamental questions that cut across…

Cannibalism in Brazil in 1557 as described by Hans Staden (b. around 1525 – Wolfhagen, 1579) Wikimedian Commons

May 7, 2015

The ‘other’ red meat on the ‘real’ palaeodiet

Darren Curnoe, UNSW

The so-called palaeodiet, and now even the palaeo-epigenetic diet, has come under a lot of scrutiny of late for making wild and unsubstantiated claims and for being downright dangerous to our health. I…

Artist’s interpretation of an Australopithecus family. Probably the first hominin to make stone tools, according to new research. Wikimedia Commons

April 23, 2015

From sticks to stones: getting a grip on the human genus

Darren Curnoe, UNSW

2015 has already been an amazing year for human evolution science. We’ve witnessed an uncanny convergence of discoveries on the beginnings of the human genus, Homo, and all that it implies for understanding…