Sausage Of Science

Meredith Aulds is a practicing birth doula, community health worker, and medical anthropologist at Purdue University. As a public health worker and anthropologist, she have had the pleasure to work with both governmental and nonprofit organizations that provide free community resources to pregnant people and their families in Indiana. She is also a senior researcher in the Laboratory for Behavior, Ontogeny, and Reproduction (LABOR) at Purdue, where she have supervised undergraduate research projects in maternal-child health. She have experience in program management, grant writing, community-based programs, and qualitative/quantitative research methods. She is also a devoted dog mom, gardener, and quilting novice. In the future, she would love to become a certified yoga instructor with a focus in prenatal yoga. Find the paper discussed in this episode: Aulds, M. (2024). Prevalence of sacroiliac joint fusion in females and males depending on parity status. American journal of biological anthropology, 184(4),

Chris and Courtney sit down with Dr. Thomas Wynn, the Hand Axe Man, AKA: CU Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Colorado. Colorado Springs, where he taught from 1977 until his retirement. Dr. Wynn specializes in the archaeology of the Lower Palaeolithic, led pioneering research in Tanzania, and introduced psychological theory—specifically Piagetian concepts—into Palaeolithic studies, laying the groundwork for evolutionary cognitive archaeology. Dr. Wynn has published over 100 papers and authored key books such as The Rise of Homo Sapiens (2009) and How to Think Like a Neandertal (2012), which he co-authored with Dr. Frederick Coolidge. In 2011, Wynn co-founded the UCCS Center for Cognitive Archaeology, offering online courses on human cognition's evolutionary development. His recent work includes curating First Sculpture, an exhibition on Acheulean handaxes and early aesthetics, which opened at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas in 2018. ------------------------------ Find

Listeners, please welcome Courtney Manthey to the show ...as a guest! In this episode, Courtney takes a break from running the HBA social media accounts and being on the elected student committee to talk about her research regarding Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Also, the human biology word of the day is: hirsutism. Find the publication discussed in today’s episode via this citation: Manthey, C., Cepon-Robins, T., & Warrener, A. (2024). Hyperandrogenism associated with polycystic ovary syndrome may have a protective effect against fracture risk in female athletes: A pilot study. American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council, 36(8), e24070. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.24070 ------------------------------------------------------------ Courtney Manthey is a PhD student at the University of Montana, where she studies ancient DNA under the guidance of Dr. Meradeth Snow. She is also a Research Affiliate at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, a Research Collaborat

Chris and Cristina share a bookclub favorite: "The Human Disease How We Create Pandemics, from Our Bodies to Our Beliefs" with author Dr. Sabrina Sholts. Dr. Sholts is a Curator of Biological Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), received her PhD in Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, and was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley in the Department of Integrative Biology and the Human Evolution Research Center (HERC) and at Stockholm University in the Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry. Dr. Sholts is also the Director of the Smithsonian Institution Bio-Imaging Research (SIBIR) Center, Lead Curator of the Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World exhibition, and a World Economic Forum Young Scientist. Her research uses museum collections to explore intersections of human, animal, and environmental health. ------------------------------ Find the book discussed in this episode: Sholts, Sabrina. The Human Disease: How We Create Pandem

Co-host Chris Lynn joins Tom Brutsaert to dive deep into spleen variability and how it relates to intense exercise in high altitude populations. Dr. Tom Brutsaert is a professor at the Syracuse University. He has broad interests in how gene and environment interact to produce variation in human athletic ability and health and disease. He conducts field research on high altitude natives in the Andes, with some focus on gas exchange and the control of breathing. He and his collaborators have been using genome-wide approaches to elucidate the genetic basis of variation in specific altitude adaptive traits in several Andean populations, including the Quechua, in Peru, and the Aymara, in Bolivia. Brutsaert also has a laboratory-based program that focuses on how early life (intrauterine) developmental effects influence later-life adult exercise capacity, physical activity, body composition, the response to training, and the future risk for chronic disease. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in

Co-Hosts Chris Lynn and Anahí Ruderman talk abot how religion impacts fertility and maternal and child health with Dr. John Shaver, a biocultural and evolutionary anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology at Baylor University. Most of his work to date has focused on understanding cultural variation in solutions to collective action and collective resource problems, and how these solutions may impact health and well-being. This research has involved fieldwork in Fiji, The Gambia, Mauritius, New Zealand, and the United States. His work is interdisciplinary and has been published in anthropology, biology, neuroscience, religion, psychology and general science journals. He is a co-editor of Religion, Brain & Behavior, a journal dedicated to the biological study of religion. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Shaver, J. H., Chvaja, R., Spake, L., Hassan, A., Badjie, J., Prentice, A. M., Cerami, C., Sear, R., Shenk, M. K., & Sosis, R. (2024). Religious Involvement Is A

Chris and Cristina talk pandemics and welcome back Dr. Taylor Van Doren, a biocultural pandemic researcher investigating social inequalities, demography, and population health during and after pandemic events. As an NSF OPP Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alaska Anchorage in the Institute of Circumpolar Health Studies, her focus is the demographic, epidemiological, and social consequences of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Alaska with the help of historical vital records, death records, and archival data. Previously, she studied COVID-19 impacts and resilience in rural Southeast Alaska communities, work which she is expanding to include quantitative and qualitative analyses of delayed care and its determinants to understand the indirect population health impacts of COVID-19. ------------------------------ Find the papers discussed in this episode: Van Doren, T. P. (2024). Sex‐based tuberculosis mortality in Newfoundland, 1900–1949: Implications for populations in transition. American Journal of Human

Dr Mansi Srivastava of Harvard University joins Chris and Courtney to talk about her research on regeneration throughout evolution. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Srivastava's research focuses on understanding the evolution of animal development and regeneration. Her group utilizes the three-banded panther worm, Hofstenia miamia, which Dr. Srivastava has developed as a new acoel model system. Acoels represent the sister-group to all animals with bilateral symmetry, which allows the study of genetic mechanisms that span 550 million years of animal evolution. Current projects in her lab range from identifying gene regulatory networks for regeneration to determining the embryonic origins of pluripotent stem cells to understanding the origins of bilaterian nervous systems. Her lab website can be found here: www.srivastavalab.org/ The following are citations for the articles mentioned on today’s show: Srivastava M. (2021). Beyond Casual Resemblance: Rigorous Frameworks fo

Our new Co-producer, Anahí Ruderman, is joined by Christopher to co-host this episode with Dr. Luciano Valenzuela. He is a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET). He specializes in the use of stable isotopes in Anthropology, Ecology, and Forensic Science in his research at the School of Social Sciences of the National University of the Center of Buenos Aires. He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Utah. His interests are very diverse; not only does he research isotopes and their application in forensic cases, but he also has an extensive curriculum in fascinating subjects such as the feeding behavior of whales! Trigger Warning: this episode contains information regarding the identification of human remains. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Valenzuela, L. O., Otero, F., Loupias, L. L., Béguelin, M., & Mancuso, R. G. (2023). BITACORA: An isotopic database of modern human tissues (keratin, teeth) for Arge

Chris checks in with Dr. Adam Johnson to discuss javelinas and their impact on humans. Dr. Johnson is an environmental anthropologist whose current work engages human-animal relations. His current project explores human-javelina relations in Texas, including affective relationships between javelinas and property owners, tourist-javelina encounters at Big Bend National Park, and the intimacy and care that pairs with violence in hunting. Previous research includes social boundary policing in a Drag Queen community in rural North Carolina, time budgeting and allocation in captive chimpanzees (at the North Carolina Zoo), female social relationships in rhesus macaques (Ocala National Forest, Florida), and science, racism, and inequality. ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Johnson: Website: anthropology365.com, E-mail: adam.johnson@my.utsa.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website:

The SoS Team puts one of their own in the hot seat as Courtney and Cristina interview Dr. Christopher Lynn about his book Transcendental Medication: The Evolution of Mind, Culture, and Healing. His book offers a unique perspective on why human brains evolved to have consciousness, yet we spend much of our time trying to reduce our awareness. It outlines how limiting consciousness—rather than expanding it—is more functional and satisfying for most people, most of the time. He suggests that our brains evolved mechanisms to deal with the stress of awareness in concert with awareness itself—otherwise, it is too costly to handle. Defining dissociation as “partitioning of awareness,” Dr. Lynn touches on disparate cultural and psychological practices such as religion, drug use, 12-step programs, and dancing. The chapters draw on biological and cultural studies of Pentecostal speaking in tongues and stress, the results of our 800,000+ years watching hearth and campfires, and unconscious uses of self-deception as a m

From the New York Times Best Selling Authors of “The Genius of Dogs,” Vannessa Woods and Brian Hare, comes “Puppy Kindergarten: The New Science of Raising a Great Dog.” Chris and his trusty co-host Eric unpack “dognition” with Vanessa, a research scientist who runs a “Puppy Kindergarten” at Duke University. She also happens to be an award-winning journalist and author of Bonobo Handshake. Brian is a professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke, where he founded the Duke Canine Cognition Center. ------------------------------ Find the books discussed in this episode: Hare, B., & Woods, V. (2024). Puppy Kindergarten: the new science of raising a great dog. Random House Trade Paperbacks. Hare, B., & Woods, V. (2021). Survival of the friendliest: Understanding our origins and rediscovering our common humanity. Random House Trade Paperbacks. Learn more about Puppy Kindergarten here. ------------------------------ Contact Vanessa: v.woods@duke.edu ---------------------

Special guest hosts Cristina and Miguel Ochoa unpack the nutritional ecology with Dr. Hugo Azcorra-Pérez, a human biologist at Centro de Investigaciones Silvio Zavala, Universidad Modelo, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. He is interested in the biology of populations during the early stages of growth and development and how environmental factors and intergenerational influences shape biological conditions. Born in Yucatán, México, he holds a Master of Sciences in Human Ecology and a Ph.D. in Human Biology (Loughborough University, UK). His research focuses on human growth and its variation according to economic and sociocultural variables. In his Ph.D. work, he assessed how intergenerational factors influence Maya families' development and nutritional status, particularly the phenomenon of nutritional dual-burden (i.e., the coexistence of undernutrition and overweight within the same family or individual). These interests have continued through his current work, which focuses on how the chronic adverse living conditi

Chris and Courtney host Claire Gold, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she studies the life histories and diet of the women and children from a Medieval Italian population. Claire received her MA in Biological Anthropology from the State University of New York, Binghamton, where she focused on the reproductive correlates of reproductive cancers. Since then, she has raised three children with her husband. In 2019, Claire decided to pursue her PhD at 45 to continue contributing to relevant research on women's and children’s health. She is interested in early life events in modern humans and archaeological populations. Claire is a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists, the Human Biology Association, the American Investigative Society of Cold Cases, and the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. ------------------------------ Find the works discussed in

Chris and Cristina interview Taiye Winful, a PhD Candidate at Vanderbilt University, who studies stress and embodiment in African and other Black populations. Taiye completed her bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology from Loyola University Chicago and MA degree in Anthropology from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Taiye’s Master’s thesis was titled “Reconstructing Africa’s Evolutionary Histories: DNA Collection, Coding, Analysis, and Interpretation.” Her thesis focused on generating a comprehensive bio-culturally informed set of African DNA databases that reflected continental and diasporic African genomic diversity. Taiye’s current research interests include genetics, race, health, embodiment, and health disparities. Her dissertation focuses on understanding how life experiences translate into physiological systems via stress in Black populations. She explores the biological mechanisms that connect stress and health, specifically focusing on how social and environmental factors can lead to ep

How can marmosets inform human birth experiences? Are there really four types of human pelvises? What happens when primates birth litters? Prof. Julienne Rutherford joins Chris and Eric to answer these questions and more! Find the articles discussed on this episode via the following citations: Rutherford, J.N., Ross, C.N., Ziegler, T., Burke, L.A., Steffen, A.D., Sills, A., Layne Colon, D., Demartelly, V.A., Narapareddy, L.R. and Tardif, S.D., 2021. Womb to womb: Maternal litter size and birth weight but not adult characteristics predict early neonatal death of offspring in the common marmoset monkey. Plos one, 16(6), p.e0252093. VanSickle, C., Liese, K.L. and Rutherford, J.N., 2022. Textbook typologies: challenging the myth of the perfect obstetric pelvis. The Anatomical Record, 305(4), pp.952-967. ---------------------------------------------------- Dr. Julienne Rutherford is Professor and John & Nell Mitchell Endowed Chair for Pediatric Nursing in the University of Arizona College of Nursing. She is

Prof. Lesley Gregoricka joins Chris and Eric to explain her work in the field of bioarchaeology. Topics include everything from strontium isotope analysis to the ethics of legacy collections of human remains. Stick around for a diversion to King Cakes and Mardis Gras. The article discussed on this episode can be found via this citation: Gregoricka, L. A. (2023). The ethics of excavating: bioarchaeology and the case for rehabilitating legacy human skeletal collections in the Near East. Levant, 55(3), 294-303. ------------------------------------------------------------- Bioarchaeologist Dr. Lesley Gregoricka is a Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at the University of South Alabama. Her research focuses on prehistoric mortuary practices and the chemistry of ancient human teeth and bones to examine changing patterns of mobility and the evolution of social complexity in Arabia and the broader Middle East. -------------------------------------------------

Chris and Eric catch up with Dr. Melanie Martin, an Associate Professor in the University of Washington Department of Anthropology, whose research examines biocultural influences on health, growth, and development across the life course. In addition to being the Co-PI of the Biodemography Lab at the University of Washington Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, she conducts field research with two international projects on Indigenous community health and well-being: the Chaco Area Reproductive Ecology Program (Co-Director) and the Tsimane Health and Life History Project (Affiliate). In this episode, Dr. Martin breaks down two of her papers, one looking at COVID-19 transmission in mothers and infants and another examining sleep health in undergraduates before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. ------------------------------ Find the papers discussed in this episode: Martin MA, Keith M, Pace RM, Williams JE, Ley SH, Barbosa-Leiker C, Caffé B, Smith CB, Kunkle A, Lackey KA, Navarrete AD, Pace CDW, Gogel

Listeners, please welcome Prof. Ben Trumble to the show! Prof. Trumble joins us to talk about his fascinating research on how oral health can affect cardiovascular disease risk and cognitive health later in life. Find the publication discussed in today’s episode via this citation: Benjamin C Trumble, Matthew Schwartz, Andrew T Ozga, Gary T Schwartz, Christopher M Stojanowski, Carrie L Jenkins, Thomas S Kraft, Angela R Garcia, Daniel K Cummings, Paul L Hooper, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Kenneth Buetow, Bret Beheim, Andrei Irimia, Gregory S Thomas, Randall C Thompson, HORUS Team, Margaret Gatz, Jonathan Stieglitz, Caleb E Finch, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan. Poor oral health is associated with inflammation, aortic valve calcification, and brain volume among forager-farmers, The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 2024;, glae013, https://doi-org.proxy.lib.duke.edu/10.1093/gerona/glae013 ------------------------------------------------------------ Benjamin Trumble is an associate professor in the School of Human

Cara and guest co-host Cristina sit down with Dr. Chris Kuzawa, the John D. MacArthur Professor & Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He uses principles from anthropology and evolutionary biology to gain insights into the biological and health impacts of human developmental plasticity. His primary field research is conducted in Cebu, the Philippines, where he and his colleagues work with a large birth cohort study that enrolled more than 3,000 pregnant women in 1983 and has since followed their offspring into adulthood (now 30 years old). They use the nearly 3 decades of data available for each study participant, and recruitment of generation 3 (the grand offspring of the original mothers), to gain a better understanding of the long-term and intergenerational impacts of early life environments on adult biology, life history, reproduction, and health. A theme of much of his work is the application of principles of developmental plasticity and evolutionary biology to