Osher Master Class I: An Anthology of Anthropogeny

Event Date (Pacific Time): 
Wednesday, Oct 12, 2022 - 10:00am to Wednesday, Dec 7, 2022 - 12:00pm
Event Speakers:
Abstracts:

In this series of Osher talks, five prominent UC San Diego scholars, all CARTA members, address different topics related to human origins research.

Event Sessions:

Media for each talk can be played by clicking on icons in the table below, or by clicking on the individual talk titles below and then the attachment file at the bottom of the page.

Speakers Media Session

Charles Kennel

File The Coming Crisis of the Anthropocene
This talk will broadly trace connections between past and present human exploitation of the environment, the coming crisis of the Anthropocene and what we humans can do to alleviate the crisis.

Adena Schachner

File Music, Dance, Evolution: The Origins and Consequences of Human Musicality
Music and dance are cultural universals and begin early in infancy. In this talk, we'll explore the origins of these fundamentally human behaviors, from an evolutionary, cognitive, and developmental perspective. Why can humans move to a beat, while many other species cannot? What can children’s early development tell us about the musical mind? And what consequences does musicality have, for human social and even moral behavior?

Carol Marchetto

File Stem Cells and Human Evolution
Comparative analyses of brain cells in closely related species can shed light on changes occurring during evolution. The study of post-mortem brains of nonhuman primates (NHPs) has been limited and often does not recapitulate important species- specific developmental hallmarks. This talk will discuss new technology to investigate the development of live neurons from human and nonhuman primates and compare specific cell behaviors such as migration and maturation. We show differential migration... read more

Margaret Schoeninger

File Evolution of the Human Diet
This lecture will discuss the evolution of the human diet in a comparative setting. It will highlight the importance of cultural inventions from hunting prey much larger than ourselves to processing and cooking food. All indications are that humans are now biologically dependent on the cultural practice of cooking.

Pascal Gagneux

File One Health and Emerging Diseases
This talk will address the latest insights into the origin of humans and how this single species of primate became a planetary force. I will discuss biological aspects ranging from molecules (e.g., DNA, glycoproteins, antibodies, etc.) to societies (e.g., nature deficit syndrome, habitat destruction, field biology, agricultural and medical practice, and emerging diseases). The notion of “One Health,” a holistic approach to the health of ecosystems, non-human animal species and humans, is... read more