Author Archives: Christopher Lynn
The Endemicity & Pervasiveness of Sexual Harassment
I just came back from great presentation & networking conferences, as usual elated by the collaborative opportunities & feedback about my work & the performances of my students & rejuvenated to push envelopes. I also returned slightly less oblivious to … Continue reading
Fire Up Your Hearth: Relax & Stay Warm (While Being Energetically Inefficient)
My lab & I have presented on & written about fireside relaxation so many times by this point that I’m running out of clever titles. However, now that our first paper has finally been published &, as it happens, at … Continue reading
Tuscaloosa is BEST: Prosociality in Tuscaloosa
This past spring I started a study called the Belongingness Ecology Study Tuscaloosa (BEST). Like the Religious Ecology Study Tuscaloosa (REST) before it & over which I consider it an umbrella project, it grew out of the readings & activities … Continue reading
Cognitive Evolution via Campfire Stories
A fantastic analysis of fireside conversations among Ju/’hoansi Bushmen collected over the course of four decades (1970s-2000s) was recently published by Polly Wiessner in PNAS Early Edition (“Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen“—thanks to Daniel Lende & … Continue reading
Gettin’ Down & Dirty with Dr. Dana: Xiphactinus, Enchodus, & Other Cretaceous Chalk Critters
I’ve been wanting to go fossil-hunting since arriving in Alabama, as I keep hearing about the wonderful locations down here, & finally got to experience this particular cheap thrill thru evolution. Our friend & Alabama Museum of Natural History Paleontology … Continue reading
EvoS Will Lead to (Good) Transformative, Lifelong Experiences
Maybe that’s a stretch, but I don’t think so. I just had to share this tweet the president of the UA EvoS Club sent out last week during the Sarah Tishkoff lecture. She just turned 21 last week, so maybe … Continue reading
We Need Neandertals or Some as Yet Unknown But Genetically Similar Population Within the Last 100 ky in Our Story
A couple years ago when I first started blogging here, my friend John Edvalson asked me right out of the gate my opinion on the Neandertal-sapiens interbreeding controversy. I think I skirted an answer because, though as a biological anthropologists … Continue reading
Modeling Recent Human Genetic Adaptation
Geneticist Dr. Sarah Tishkoff from the University of Pennsylvania is speaking as part of UA’s ALLELE series today, & EvoS students are reading a recently review she co-authored for Nature with Laura Scheinfeldt for the occasion. The piece, “Recent human … Continue reading
Menstrual Huts Signal Paternal Certainty
An article from 2012 by Beverly Strassmann & colleagues is the first piece I think I’ve read that connects religious signaling to actual reproductive fitness, instead of merely group commitment (not that there’s anything wrong with that). They analyzed genetic … Continue reading