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Lust or Love: Understanding the Origin of Love
Human beings show a range of emotional attachment, affection, and infatuation often referred to as “love.” Love promotes long-lasting and secure relationships that involve nurturing and support. Biological mechanisms underlying such behavior involve ancient neuropeptides and their receptors in the brain. These systems are also involved in reproduction, ranging from mating and pair-bonding, to giving…
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From Caves to Skyscrapers, How Humans Have Built the World
Reaching 1,450 feet in the air, Willis Tower in Chicago was the tallest building on the planet for nearly a quarter of a century. It now ranks 26th, having long been surpassed by the towering Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which rises nearly 3,000 feet into the atmosphere. From a simple cave to buildings of steel…
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What Do the Beatles Have to Do With the Fossil Lucy?
The story starts on November 24, 1974, following a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying fossils at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. Before leaving to head back to camp, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and graduate student Tom Gray decided to investigate a small gully that had previously been checked twice before by other workers.…
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The Human Canvas: Exploring Body Modification Throughout Time
Permanent body modification is a unique and variable practice among humans that is not observed in other mammals. It has a long history and can be traced back thousands of years across various cultures and civilizations. Practices such as tattooing, scarification, piercing, and branding have been documented in ancient societies around the world. In this…
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Unraveling the Origins of Folkloric Narratives
In this episode from CARTA’s new series, The Role of Myth in Anthropogeny, scientist Brandon Parker explores the complexities of folkloric narratives and their origins. By dissecting their components and tracing their evolution, Parker illuminates how these narratives have been instrumental in shaping human cognition and society. Folkloric narratives, Parker explains, are not simple stories…
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A New Diet to Feed 10 Billion People and Help Save the Planet
Human activities are responsible for most of the increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere over the last 150 years. While the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions is from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat and transportation, there is one other contributing factor… emissions from livestock such as cattle, agricultural soils and rice production.…
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The Latest Series from CARTA Explores Impact of Humans on Planet Earth
The goal of CARTA (UC San Diego’s Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny) is to explore and explain the origins of the human phenomenon. The most recent symposium, “Human Origins and Humanity’s Future: Past, Present and Future of the Anthropocene,” looks at the long and short-term impacts of human activity. This latest series…
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New CARTA Series: From Molecules to Societies
The latest series from CARTA explores the development of several important distinctly human characteristics that range from molecules, to metabolism, anatomy, disease, and behavior. In Episode One, UC San Diego professor Carol Marchetto discusses how a comparative gene expression analysis of human and non-human primates revealed differences in the regulation of a class of transposable…
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Altered States
In this new CARTA series, experts address altered states of the mind that are deliberately induced by humans – from the use of psychoactive compounds both natural and man-made, to self-induced states of consciousness and awareness, to anomalous states precipitated by different physical conditions and behaviors. Find out what is known about origins and mechanisms…
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Exploring The Human-Ape Paradox
CARTA’s Fall 2020 symposium, Comparative Anthropogeny: Exploring the Human Ape-Paradox, examines humans as a uniquely evolved, “biologically enculturated,” species as juxtaposed with our closest living relatives, the “great apes” (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans). By definition, each species is unique as it represents the outcome of independent evolution. Yet, humans appear to be a remarkable…