Nova - Evolution: The Minds Big Bang

This video is Part 6 of a 7-Part NOVA series on evolution, narrated by Liam Neeson. In this episode, they look at the emergence of mind that may have given early homo sapiens the edge over neanderthals.

Evolution: The Minds Big Bang

2001 original air date

Anatomically modern humans existed more than 100,000 years ago, but with crude technology, no art, and primitive social interaction. By 50,000 years ago, something happened which triggered a creative, technological, and social explosion—and humans came to dominate the planet. This was a pivotal point in our evolution, the time when the human mind truly emerged. This program examines forces that may have contributed to the breakthrough, allowing us to prevail over other hominids, the Neanderthals, who co-existed with us for tens of thousands of years. The film then explores where this power of mind may lead us, as the culture we create overtakes our own biological evolution.

Omnivore - As We Evolve: Empathy, Monogamy, and Networked Minds?

This is an excellent and diverse collection of links from Bookfoum's Omnivore blog, this time dedicated to the various possibilities of evolution - past and future.


As We Evolve

AUG 8 2013 

9:00AM

• Thomas Grund, Christian Waloszek, and Dirk Helbing (ETH Zurich): How Natural Selection Can Create Both Self- and Other-Regarding Preferences, and Networked Minds. 
• How could we engineer humans to have more empathy? Charlie Jane Anders wonders. 
• A study says some species have become monogamous through evolution and, for primates, infanticide is at its root. 
• The work is only beginning on understanding the human genome: Elizabeth Quill interviews Eric D. Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. 
• Marek Kohn on the Neanderthal mind: Troglodytes who couldn't compete, or humans with complex culture?
• This island life: Lewis Spurgin on the strange biology of island populations highlights the role of chance, not just selection, in evolutionary change. 
• What is the fastest articulated motion a human can execute? On the mechanics and evolution of human throwing. 
• Infections, institutions, and life history: Daniel Hruschka on searching for the origins of individualism and collectivism. 
• Living people linked to 5,500 year-old DNA. 
• What will become of humans as we evolve under the selective pressures of our modern lives and technology? If we adapt to some of the more bizarre elements of the present, humans could undergo some surreal changes. 
• Nobody expects atoms and molecules to have purposes, so why do we still think of living things in this way?

Bookforum Omnivore - State of the Human Species

From Bookforum's Omnivore, here is an interesting collection of links on human beings, our history, and our long-time neighbors, the neanderthals.

State of the species

Nov 6 2012
1:00PM

 

• From Edge, Daniel Lieberman on how taking an evolutionary approach to the body gives us insights about how to better use our bodies. 
• Elizabeth Preston on the hazards of being an athletic ape. 
• Saber-Toothed cats, snakes, and carnivorous kangaroos — what are you so scared of? Rob Dunn on the evolutionary legacy of having been prey. 
• Robert Krulwich on how human beings almost vanished from Earth in 70,000 B.C. 
• Erin Wyman on how to retrace early human migrations. 
• Sirio Canis Donnay reviews The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery and Empire by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus. 
• Who would win in a fight, a modern human or a Neanderthal? 
• When did humans and Neandertals stop having sex? 
• The Neanderthal in my family tree: New genetic evidence shows our ancestors interbred with now-extinct species. 
• Are humans monogamous or polygamous? Archaeologists, anthropologists, and biologists agree — it’s complicated. 
• Modern humans found to be fittest ever at survival, by far: Humans have done more to extend our life expectancy in the last century than during the previous 6.6 million years, since the evolutionary divergence from chimpanzees. 
• State of the species: Does success spell doom for Homo sapiens?