The Insight
The Insight
Insitome: Your guide to the story of you
Where did we come from? One of humanity's most basic questions, the answer is fascinating. Weaving together insights from the fields of genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and paleoanthropology, hosts Spencer Wells and Razib Khan take us on a grand tour of human history. Scientific storytelling at its best.
Brian Hare and Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity
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
Sep 15, 2020
1 hr 4 min
Why Western Europeans are so WEIRD and why that matters!
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
Sep 8, 2020
50 min
Why much of science is fiction
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
Sep 3, 2020
1 hr 20 min
Siberian paleohistory
Razib and Spencer discuss the geography, prehistory, and genetics, of Siberia. Also, the time Spencer experienced a Siberian winter!
Aug 6, 2020
1 hr 19 min
Sundaland: a human evolutionary hearth
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
Jul 31, 2020
1 hr 33 min
Peopling the Americas 32,000 years ago
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 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0
Jul 23, 2020
41 min
Ghost in the machine
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. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842210/ https://www.genetics.org/content/192/3/1065.short
Jul 16, 2020
53 min
Native American admixture into Polynesia!
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? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2
Jul 9, 2020
44 min
Will to Power and the Holocene transition
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!)
Jun 26, 2020
1 hr 1 min
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