Origin Stories
The Leakey Foundation
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Top 10 Origin Stories Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Origin Stories episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Origin Stories for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Origin Stories episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Episode 51: The Teeth Remember
Origin Stories
03/02/21 • 20 min
Your life story is hidden in your teeth. The days, weeks, years, and stressful events of your life are recorded in tiny timelines that can be read by scientists like Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Tanya Smith.
She and her colleagues used fossil teeth to tell a detailed and intimate story about the lives of two Neanderthal children and the changing world they lived in.
Links
The Tales Teeth Tell What teeth can tell about the lives and environments of ancient humans and Neanderthals Wintertime stress, nursing, and lead exposure in Neanderthal children Reconstructing hominin life history
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.
Support The Leakey Foundation
Support this show and the science we talk about. Become a monthly donor and your donations will be matched by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate
Lunch Break Science
Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live
1 Listener
Episode 54: The Obstetrical Dilemma
Origin Stories
06/04/21 • 34 min
The widely-held idea known as the “obstetrical dilemma” is a hypothesis that explains why babies are so helpless, and why childbirth is so difficult for humans compared to other animals.
The obstetrical dilemma suggests that babies are born early so their big brains can fit through the mother’s pelvis, which can’t get any wider due to our method of bipedal locomotion. This problem, the idea says, is solved by an evolutionary tradeoff that increases risks to pregnant mothers who must struggle to birth bigger and bigger-brained babies through narrow birth canals.
On this episode, Leakey Foundation grantees Dr. Holly Dunsworth and Dr. Anna Warrener describe their search for the evidence behind the obstetrical dilemma and they discuss the importance of the stories we tell about our bodies.
Send us your questions!
Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories!
There are three ways to submit your question:
- Leave a voicemail at (707) 788-8582
- Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message
- Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at [email protected]
Links
There is no 'obstetrical dilemma': towards a braver medicine with fewer chilbirth interventions
Metabolic hypothesis for human altriciality
The obstetrical dilemma hypothesis: there's life in the old dog yet
YouTube - Close up video of chimp childbirth
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.
All donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate and use the notes field let us know your donation is in support of Origin Stories.
Thanks
Thanks to Lynn and Larry Schafran for sponsoring this episode. We are grateful for their support of The Leakey Foundation and our educational programs.
Lunch Break Science
Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live
1 Listener
The Hobbit
Origin Stories
05/30/23 • 30 min
In this episode, we explore the fascinating tale of the Hobbit, an unexpected fossil find that shook the world's understanding of human evolution. Join researcher Matt Tocheri as he shares how this tiny hominin revolutionized the human story and transformed his life.
Links:
From the Field: Matt Tocheri Homo floresiensis Can rat bones solve an island mystery?
Love Origin Stories? Here's your chance to double the impact! Every dollar you donate helps us explore and explain our shared human origins, and right now, every donation will be matched! Click here to donate!
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Understanding Neanderthals
Origin Stories
06/06/24 • 43 min
Early prehistorians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals, but today’s researchers work in ways that early prehistorians could never have imagined.
Archaeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes' new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Art, and Death synthesizes more than a century of research on Neanderthals – from the first Neanderthal fossil discovered, to the most up to date and cutting edge research - revealing a vivid portrait of one of our most intriguing and misunderstood relatives.
Links
- Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
- Rebecca Wragg Sykes' website
- Kindred bibliography with 61 pages of Neanderthal research papers
- Leakey Foundation grantee Carolina Mallol's Neanderthal Fire Project
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.
Support The Leakey Foundation
Support this show and the science we talk about. leakeyfoundation.org/donate
1 Listener
11/09/21 • 33 min
As a young girl, Biruté Mary Galdikas dreamed of going to the forests of Southeast Asia to study the least-known of all the great apes, the elusive orangutan. People told her it would be impossible. But, in 1971, she traveled to Borneo and started what is now the longest ongoing study of orangutans in the history of science. This is her story.
She was the third in the group of now world-famous scientists known as the Trimates—Jane Goodall in Tanzania, Dian Fossey in Rwanda, and Biruté Mary Galdikas in Borneo. The Trimates were the first women to establish long-term studies of great apes in the wild. They were all mentored by Louis Leakey.
Their work formed the basis of everything science now knows about chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. And they've inspired generations of researchers and conservationists to follow in their footsteps.
Today's episode celebrates Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas and her half-century of field research and orangutan conservation work.
About our guest
Dr. Galdikas is the founder and president of Orangutan Foundation International. She's a research professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and Professor Extraordinaire at the Universitas Nasional in Jakarta. She's a 19-time Leakey Foundation grantee, and she was one of Louis Leakey's last proteges in his lifetime.
Links
Credits
Ray Pang produced this episode. Sound design by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Meredith Johnson is the host and executive producer of Origin Stories. Thanks to Talain Blanchon for audio of Dr. Galdikas in the field and for recording our interview with Dr. Galdikas in his studio. And special thanks to Marcus Foley and Emily Patton for all their help.
Archival lecture audio is from The Leakey Foundation archive.
Music by Henry Nagle and Lee Roservere.
Please send us your questions!
Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories!
There are three ways to submit your question:
Leave a voicemail at +1(707)788-8582
Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message
Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at [email protected]
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.
Thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, all donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate and use the notes field to let us know your donation is for Origin Stories.
Lunch Break Science
Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2023
Origin Stories
12/27/23 • 44 min
2023 was another exciting year in human origins research! Fossil discoveries and long-term primate studies expanded our understanding of what makes us human. In this episode, four Leakey Foundation scientists shared their favorite human evolution discoveries from the past year.
Help us make more episodes! All tax-deductible donations to Origin Stories will be quadruple-matched!
>>>> Please click here to make a one-time or monthly donation.
Guests
Links to learn more
- Top 13 Discoveries in Human Evolution, 2023 Edition
- Hunting and processing of straight-tusked elephants 125,000 years ago: Implications for Neanderthal behavior (open-access research paper)
- Neanderthals lived in groups big enough to eat giant elephants
- Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago (open-access research paper
- Early Homo erectus lived at high altitudes and produced both Oldowan and Acheulean tools (open-access research paper)
- The surprising toolbox of the early Homo erectus
- Demographic and hormonal evidence for menopause in wild chimpanzees (open-access research paper)
- Wild chimpanzees experience menopause
- Chimpanzee menopause revealed ft. Melissa Emery Thompson (Lunch Break Science on YouTube)
Sponsors and credits
Origin Stories is sponsored by Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.
Origin Stories is produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.
Season 2 Preview
Origin Stories
08/11/17 • 2 min
Our new season of Origin Stories is coming soon! This is a sneak preview of the first episode.
Episode 48: Ancestor (rerelease)
Origin Stories
11/27/20 • 25 min
In 2017, Dr. Isaiah Nengo announced the discovery of a 13 million-year-old fossil ape found in Kenya. This remarkable fossil, nicknamed Alesi, was from a time period where there’s a big blank spot in the fossil record of our family tree. Alesi tells us something new about the early evolution of apes and shows what the common ancestor of humans and all the other living apes might have looked like. In this episode, Dr. Nengo tells the story behind the discovery.
This episode was originally released in 2017. We're revisiting it now because Isaiah Nengo will be featured on our new web series, Lunch Break Science, on December 3 at 11 am Pacific. He will share updates on his research and exclusive footage of his recent field work in the Turkana Basin.
Visit leakeyfoundation.org/live and sign up to receive event reminders.
Special thanks to Isaiah Nengo of Stony Brook University and the Turkana Basin Institute, and Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University.
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation.
Links
Click here to see photos of the discovery, along with a 3D animation of the inside of the fossil.
New 13 million-year-old infant fossil ape skull sheds light on ape evolution
Questions and answers about Alesi
Skull secrets of an ancient ape
Research article in Nature: New infant cranium from the African Miocene sheds light on ape evolution
Credits
Produced by: Meredith Johnson and Shuka Kalantari
Editor: Julia Barton
Sound Design: Katie McMurran
Theme Music: Henry Nagle
Intern: Yuka Oiwa
Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere
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Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2022
Origin Stories
01/31/23 • 35 min
2022 was another exciting year in human origins research! New fossil discoveries and ancient DNA research expanded our understanding of the past. We learned something surprising about the evolution of human speech, and new methodologies and showed promising potential to improve the future of medicine. In this episode, four Leakey Foundation scientists shared their favorite human evolution discoveries from the past year.
Our guests
- Carol Ward, University of Missouri
- Sofia Samper Carro, Australian National University
- Kevin Hatala, Chatham University
- Megan Henriquez, City University of New York
Links to learn more
- Evolutionary loss of complexity in human vocal anatomy as an adaptation for speech
- When less is more in the evolution of language
- The face of the first European found in Atapuerca
- Europe's oldest fossil named after Pink Floyd
- Meet the first Neanderthal family
- Genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals
- Population genetics study of Strongyloides fuelleborni
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing human origins research and outreach. Want to support the show? Your donation will be matched by Leakey Foundation President Jeanne Newman who is matching up to $5,000 in gifts from Origin Stories listeners. Every dollar helps! leakeyfoundation.org/originstories23
Sponsors and credits
This episode was generously sponsored by Diana McSherry and Pat Poe. Origin Stories is also sponsored by Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Camilla and George Smith, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund. Thanks as well to the Benevity Community Impact Fund for their support of the show.
Origin Stories is produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.
Join us for these events
February 8, 6 pm Pacific - Where is the love?: Secrets of Chimpanzee Relationships - click to register
February 16, 11 am Pacific - Lunch Break Science with Tom Plummer - click to watch
Episode 52: How to Study an Endangered Species
Origin Stories
03/27/21 • 28 min
What is it like to study an endangered species like chimpanzees, knowing they may go extinct within your lifetime?
Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Zarin Machanda is a co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, a long-term field study in Uganda. This study was started by primatologist Richard Wrangham in 1987, and project members have collected daily records of the chimps there ever since.
These notes hold the life stories of around 150 chimpanzees, and this long-term data is a powerful way for scientists to understand chimpanzees–and ourselves.
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.
Support Long-Term Field Research
The Leakey Foundation’s Primate Research Fund helps keep long-term primate studies going no matter what. We provide emergency funding to projects facing a gap in their usual funding - or other emergencies that threaten their ability to collect data.
During the pandemic we have had more applications than ever so we need your help. We are trying to raise a total of $25,000 for this fund. Every donation up to that total amount will be quadruple-matched. Any amount helps! Click here to learn more and donate.
Register for Free Lecture April 7, 2021 7:00 pm Eastern
Why are humans the way we are? One way to answer this question is to look to our closest cousins, the chimpanzees. Join Assistant Professor of Psychology and Anthropology Alexandra Rosati of the University of Michigan and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Biology Zarin Machanda of Tufts University as they examine the world of chimpanzees, including chimpanzee social lives, ecological context, and how they think and solve problems.
Lunch Break Science
Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live
Links
Kibale Chimpanzee Project Dr. Zarin Machanda First Molar Eruption, Weaning, and Life History in Wild Chimpanzees No Grumpy Old Men in the World of Chimps Social selectivity in aging chimpanzees The Kasisi Project Primates and social media
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FAQ
How many episodes does Origin Stories have?
Origin Stories currently has 84 episodes available.
What topics does Origin Stories cover?
The podcast is about Evolution, Life Sciences, Behavior, Psychology, Archaeology, Natural Sciences, Storytelling, Podcasts, Education, Science, Anthropology and Biology.
What is the most popular episode on Origin Stories?
The episode title 'Episode 54: The Obstetrical Dilemma' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Origin Stories?
The average episode length on Origin Stories is 29 minutes.
How often are episodes of Origin Stories released?
Episodes of Origin Stories are typically released every 32 days, 5 hours.
When was the first episode of Origin Stories?
The first episode of Origin Stories was released on Apr 1, 2015.
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