Sausage of Science

Host Courtney Manthey unpack the obstetric dilemma with Dr. Anna G. Warrener. Dr. Anna G. Warrener earned her PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012. She is now an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver. She specializes in human evolutionary biology, biomechanics, and the evolution of locomotion. Her research explores how skeletal morphology influences movement, with a particular focus on the biomechanics of the pelvis, gait, and bipedal efficiency. Through experimental and comparative approaches, Dr. Warrener investigates how evolutionary pressures have shaped human locomotion and what these adaptations reveal about our ancestors. She is also passionate about mentoring students and fostering interdisciplinary research that bridges anthropology, biology, and biomechanics. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Warrener, A. (2023). The multifactor pelvis: An alternative to the adaptationist approach of the obstetrical dilemma. Evolutionary Anthropology, 32(5), 260-274. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21997 Warrener, A. (2024). Human lower limb muscle cross sectional area scales with positive allometry reflecting bipedal evolutionary history. Frontiers in Earth Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1301411 ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Courtney Manthey, Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com, Twitter: @ani_ruderman

Chris and Cristina chat with Dr. Ian Wallace, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, where he is the director of the Human Physical Activity Lab. As an Evolutionary Anthropologist, Ian's work focuses on how humans evolved to use their bodies and explores the costs and benefits of modern physical activity patterns for our health. He is particularly interested in populations transitioning from non-industrial to industrial and post-industrial contexts. Ian earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2013 from Stony Brook University, where his dissertation examined how physical activity and genetics determine limb bone structure. Following graduate school and an initial postdoctoral position at Stony Brook, he completed his postdoctoral training in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard and started his own lab at UNM. There, he focuses on measures of locomotor biomechanics and their ties to the health and function of the musculoskeletal system. Recently, his fieldwork has focused on the Indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia. In particular, he is interested in how their lifestyles are changing with the rapid expansion of industries, the market economy, and urban areas across Malaysia, as well as how these changes affect their health and risk of disease. ------------------------------ Find the papers discussed in this episode: Wallace, I. J., Worthington, S., Felson, D. T., Jurmain, R. D., Wren, K. T., Maijanen, H., Woods, R. J., & Lieberman, D. E. (2017). Knee osteoarthritis has doubled in prevalence since the mid-20th century. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(35), 9332–9336. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1703856114 Wallace, I. J., Lea, A. J., Lim, Y. A. L., Chow, S. K. W., Sayed, I. B. M., Ngui, R., Shaffee, M. T. H., Ng, K. S., Nicholas, C., Venkataraman, V. V., & Kraft, T. S. (2022). Orang Asli Health and Lifeways Project (OA HeLP): a cross-sectional cohort study protocol. BMJ open, 12(9), e058660. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-058660 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Wallace: Website: https://www.ianjwallace.com/; E-mail: iwallace@unm.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, Co-host, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu

Dr. Amato is a biological anthropologist studying the influence of gut microbes on host ecology and evolution. Her research examines how changes in the gut microbiota impact host nutrition, energetics, and health. She uses non-human primates as models for studying host-gut microbe interactions in selective environments and for providing comparative insight into the evolution of the human gut microbiota. Her main foci are understanding how the gut microbiome may buffer hosts during periods of nutritional stress and how the gut microbiome programs normal inter-specific differences in host metabolism. In this realm, she is also interested in global variation in the human gut microbiome and its implications for local human adaptation. Dr. Amato obtained her A.B. in Biology from Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed a postdoc at the University of Colorado Boulder. She joined the Department of Anthropology in 2015. She is also affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program and sits on the Executive Committee of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. Dr. Amato is the President of the Midwest Primate Interest Group, an Associate Editor at Microbiome, an Editorial Board member at Folia Primatologica, and a Fellow for the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research's ‘Humans and the Microbiome' Program. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Mallott, E., Kuthyar, S., Lee, W., … & Amato, K. R. (2024). The primate gut microbiota contributes to interspecific differences in host metabolism. Microbial genomics, https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.001322 ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host. Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, Guest Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer. Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow. E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com, Twitter: @ani_ruderman

Dr. Michael Muehlenbein is a prominent figure in anthropology and biology, currently serving as a professor at Baylor University. His academic journey has been marked by a deep commitment to understanding human evolution, behavior, and health through an interdisciplinary lens. Michael earned an MsPH in both Tropical Medicine and Biostatistics from Tulane University, and an MPhil and PhD in Biological Anthropology from Yale University. His research interests are diverse, encompassing topics such as the evolutionary basis of disease susceptibility, reproductive strategies, and the interplay between environmental factors and human physiology. At Baylor, he has contributed significantly to both teaching and research, mentoring students while also publishing extensively in peer reviewed journals. His work often integrates insights from evolutionary theory with practical applications in public health and medicine, making him a key contributor to discussions on how our evolutionary past shapes contemporary health challenges. Michael is also the Co PI on the NSF-funded project, “Shared markers of identity on inflammation and stress.” ------------------------------ Find the papers discussed in this episode: Muehlenbein MP, Gassen J, Nowak TJ, Henderson AD, Weaver SP, Baker EJ. (2023). Waco COVID Survey: A Community-Based SARS-CoV-2 Serological Surveillance Study in Central Texas. J Community Health, 48(1):104-112. doi: 10.1007/s10900-022-01143-y. Muehlenbein M, Gassen J, Nowak T, Henderson A, Morris B, Weaver S, Baker E. (2023). Age-Dependent Relationships Between Disease Risk and Testosterone Levels: Relevance to COVID-19 Disease. Am J Mens Health. doi: 10.1177/15579883221130195. ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Michael Muehlenbein: Michael_Muehlenbein@baylor.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter: @Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow , Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow, E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com, Twitter: @ani_ruderman

Dr Anna Marie Prentiss joins Host Chris Lynn to discuss the origins of institutionalised inequality. Anna is an archaeologist specializing in the ancient history of the Great Plains, Pacific Northwest, and Arctic regions of North America. She has a methodological specialty in lithic technology and theoretical interests in the archaeology of villages and towns, social inequality, hunter-gatherer mobility and technological organization, and the cultural evolutionary process. She is associate editor of the scholarly journal, Current Anthropology. Dr. Prentiss is actively engaged in a long term study of the evolution of complex hunter-gatherer-fisher societies on the interior of British Columbia. The current focus of this research is a multi-year excavation at the Bridge River archaeological site, located near the town of Lillooet, British Columbia. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Prentiss, along with her students and colleagues conducted major excavations during 2008 and 2009 to examine socio-economic and political changes that occurred during the occupation span of the village. Recent research (2012-2023) at Bridge River has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Prentiss, A. M., Foor, T. A., Hampton, A., Walsh, M. J., Denis, M. & Edwards. A. (2023). Emergence of persistent institutionalized inequality at the Bridge River site, British Columbia: the roles of managerial mutualism and coercion. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 14;378(1883). doi: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0304 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Prentiss: anna.prentiss@mso.umt.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com, Twitter: @@ani_ruderman

Cristina and Anahi chat with Dr. Gonzalo Figueiro about his groundbreaking research in ancient DNA, kinship, and population genetics. Dr. Figueiro is a Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of the Republic, Uruguay, and holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the Basic Sciences Development Programme (PEDECIBA), Uruguay. His main research interests are the genetics of ancient and modern human populations and the bioarchaeology of prehistoric populations in Uruguay. He also reflects and writes on the ethics of working with DNA samples and human remains from the past. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Figueiro, G. (2024). Simulating the effects of kinship and postmarital residence patterns on mitochondrial DNA diversity in mortuary contexts. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, e24910. ------------------------------ Contact Gonzalo via email: gonzalo.figueiro@fhce.edu.uy ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cristina Gildee, Co-host, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu Anahi Ruderman, Co-host, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com Twitter:@ani_ruderman

Cristina guest hosts her first episode with special guest Dr. Marina Watowich: an Evolutionary Biologist and current NIH F32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Watowich earned her Ph.D. in Biology in 2022 from the University of Washington, where she specialized in Data Science. Her research focuses on how environmental perturbations impact long-term health-related phenotypes and why some individuals are more resilient/susceptible to adverse conditions. To do this, she uses a combination of genomic approaches, computational techniques, and long-term observational data to understand how the environment 'gets under the skin' to result in phenotypic variation. Marina was recently awarded an F32 grant from the National Institutes of Aging to explore the consequences of differential immune investment on molecular aging phenotypes in subsistence-level populations. ------------------------------ Find the papers discussed in this episode: Watowich, Marina M., et al. "Natural disaster and immunological aging in a nonhuman primate." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119.8 (2022): e2121663119. Watowich, M. M., Arner, A. M., Wang, S., John, E., Kahumbu, J. C., Kinyua, P., ... & Lea, A. J. (2024). The built environment is more predictive of cardiometabolic health than other aspects of lifestyle in two rapidly transitioning Indigenous populations. medRxiv. ------------------------------ Contact Marina: website: https://mwatowich.github.io/; email: marina.watowich@vanderbilt.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cristina Gildee, Host, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu

Maria Florencia Cesani es Licenciada en Antropología y Dra. en Ciencias Naturales por la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Es investigadora independiente de CONICET y se desempeña como directora del Laboratorio de Investigaciones en Ontogenia y Adaptación (LINOA) de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, de la Universidad Nacional de la Plata, donde también es Profesora de Antropología Biológica. Sus temas de investigación giran en torno al estudio del crecimiento y estado nutricional infantil y adolescente y su relación con factores sociales, económicos y ambientales que los condicionan. Actualmente trabaja en barrios vulnerables localizados en la periferia urbana de La Plata (provincia de Buenos Aires). Maria Florencia Cesani holds a degree in Anthropology and a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences from the National University of La Plata. She is an independent researcher at CONICET and Director of the Laboratory of Research on Ontogeny and Adaptation (LINOA) of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum of the National University of La Plata, where she is also Professor of Biological Anthropology. Her research interests revolve around the study of growth and nutritional status in children and adolescents and their relationship to social, economic, and environmental factors. She is currently working in vulnerable neighborhoods in the urban periphery of La Plata (Buenos Aires Province). Find the paper discussed in this episode: Cesani, M. F., Montero, M. G., & Serrano, M. D. M. (2025). Anthropometric Studies of Schoolchildren During the First Decades of the 20th Century in Spain and Argentina. American journal of human biology, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.24183 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. María Florencia Cesani: florcesani@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/florcesani ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Anahí Ruderman, Guest Co-Host, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow. E-mail: ruderman@cenpat-conicet.gob.ar. Twitter: @ani_ruderman Miguel Ochoa, Guest Co-Host E-mail: mochoa88@uw.edu, Cristina Gildee, SoS producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

Chris Lynn and Courtney Manthey discuss about the role of monkey bars in human development with Dr. Nathaniel J Dominy, an evolutionary biologist and Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth. He study the behavior, ecology, and functional morphology of humans and nonhuman primates. His research philosophy is to integrate tropical fieldwork with mechanical, molecular, and isotopic analyses in order to better understand how and why adaptive shifts occurred during primate evolution. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Luke D Fannin, Zaneta M Thayer, Nathaniel J Dominy. (2024) Commemorating the monkey bars, catalyst of debate at the intersection of human evolutionary biology and public health, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, 12(1), 143–155, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoae017 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Nathaniel J Dominy: Nathaniel.J.Dominy@dartmouth.edu ----------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com

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), e24951. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24951 Contact Meredith Aulds: maulds@purdue.edu Instagram: @meredith_aulds ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com

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 the book discussed in this episode: Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge. How to think like a Neanderthal. Oxford University Press, 2011. ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Wynn via e-mail: twynn@uccs.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Cristina Gildee, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

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 Collaborator on the Rural Embodiment and Community Health (REACH) project, and Project Manager for the NSF-funded project, “The Effects of Shared Markers of Identity on Inflammation and Stress,” among other initiatives. Courtney's research interests include reproductive health, maternal-fetal evolutionary genetics, energetics, and women's diseases. She is the Principal Investigator for the "PCOS in the Pacific" project, which examines the prevalence of polycystic ovary syndrome across the Pacific region through ancient DNA and disease prevalence studies, as well as the "PCOS Patient, Partner, Parent Stigma" project. Additionally, Courtney serves on the research and patient advisory boards of the National Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Association and the PCOS Multidisciplinary Clinic at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She is also a Patient Family Partner at the Preeclampsia Foundation and a Junior Service Fellow at the Human Biology Association. In her free time, Courtney is a childbirth doula, specializing in supporting adolescent mothers through the birthing process. ------------------------------------------------------------ Courtney Manthey, Special Guest, Website: www.HolyLaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn at ua.edu, Cara Ocobock, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Instagram: humbioassoc

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 Pandemics, from Our Bodies to Our Beliefs. MIT Press, 2024. ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Sholts: Website: http://profiles.si.edu/individual/nSholtsS2252014, Twitter: @sabrinasholts E-mail: SholtsS@si.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter: @Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, Co-host, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter: @CristinaGildee

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 this episode: Brutsaert, T. D., Harman, T. S., Bigham, A. W., Kalker, A., Jorgensen, K. C., Zhu, K. T., Steiner, B. C., Hawkins, E., Day, T. A., Kunwar, A. J., Thakur, N., Dhungel, S., Sherpa, N., & Holmström, P. K. (2024). Larger spleens and greater splenic contraction during exercise may be an adaptive characteristic of Nepali Sherpa at high-altitude. American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council, 36(9), e24090. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.24090 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Brutsaert: tdbrutsa@syr.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow. E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com, Twitter: @ani_ruderman Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Eric Griffith, Guest Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock

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 Associated With Higher Fertility and Lower Maternal Investment, but More Alloparental Support Among Gambian Mothers. American journal of human biology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.24144 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. John Shaver: John_Shaver@baylor.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Twitter: @ani_ruderman, E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com Courtney Manthey, Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Cristina Gildee, Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer, Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock

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 Biology, 36(5), e24033. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.24033 Van Doren, T. P., & Brown, R. A. (2023). Consequences of delayed care during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Emerging research and new lines of inquiry for human biologists and anthropologists. American Journal of Human Biology, 35(7), e23886. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23886 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Van Doren: Website: taylorvandoren.com, Twitter:@taylor_vandoren E-mail: tmvandoren@alaska.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, Co-host, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

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 for Comparing Regeneration Across Species. Annual review of cell and developmental biology, 37, 415–440. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120319-114716 Gehrke, A. R., Neverett, E., Luo, Y. J., Brandt, A., Ricci, L., Hulett, R. E., Gompers, A., Ruby, J. G., Rokhsar, D. S., Reddien, P. W., & Srivastava, M. (2019). Acoel genome reveals the regulatory landscape of whole-body regeneration. Science (New York, N.Y.), 363(6432), eaau6173. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau6173 Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com

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 Argentina. Science & Justice, 63(6), 680-688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2023.10.003 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Valenzuela: Website: https://isotoposestables.weebly.com , E-mail: lucianoovalenzuela@gmail.com ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Anahi Ruderman, Cohost, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com Cristina Gildee, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

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: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS Producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

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 mating strategy, providing practical insights into our daily lives. As a professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama, Dr. Lynn's research explores critical intersections between culture and health. His work also includes investigating the relationship between tattooing practices, known as tatau, and immune response among Samoans to understand how cultural practices may influence physiological responses. Dr. Lynn is also the executive producer and co-host of the Inking of Immunity podcast. ------------------------------ Find the book discussed in this episode: Transcendental Medication Lynn, C. D. (2022). Transcendental Medication: The Evolution of Mind, Culture, and Healing. Routledge. ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Lynn:Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cristina Gildee, Guest Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS Producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli

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 ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Eric Griffith, Guest Co-Host E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS Producer Website

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 conditions experienced by Maya populations from Yucatan have impacted their biology and health outcomes. ------------------------------ Find the paper discussed in this episode: Azcorra, H., Castillo-Burguete, M. T., Lara-Riegos, J., Salazar-Rendón, J. C., & Mendez-Dominguez, N. (2024). Secular trends in the anthropometric characteristics of children in a rural community in Yucatan, Mexico. American Journal of Human Biology, 36(2), e23995. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23995 ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Azcorra-Pérez: hugoazpe@hotmail.com Twitter: @AzcorraHugo and on Facebook: facebook.com/hugo.azcorra/ ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cristina Gildee, Guest Co-Host; HBA Junior Fellow; SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee Miguel Ochoa, Guest Co-Host E-mail: mochoa88@uw.edu, Twitter:@Miguel_Ochoa88

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 this episode: Gold, C. L., & Bertone‐Johnson, E. (2024). Self‐reported history of breastfeeding in relation to recalled age at menarche in the United States. American Journal of Human Biology, e24067. Gold, C. L., Kitrinos, C. E., Sievert, L. L., & Kamilar, J. M. (2023). Mean age at menarche and climate variables on a global scale. American Journal of Human Biology, 35(12), e23961. ------------------------------ Contact Claire: cgold@umass.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey-Peirce, Guest-Co-Host, Website: courtneymanthey-pierce.godaddysites.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

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 epigenetic changes in inflammatory-related biomarkers. ------------------------------ Find the works discussed in this episode: Winful, Taiye, "Bioethics as a Dynamic Issue: Holistic Approaches to Understanding and Applying Ethics to Study Design" (2024). Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints. 208. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol_preprints/208 Winful, T.; Sorunke, M.; Benn Torres, J. “The Impacts of Stress on Salivary CRP Variability in a Nigerian Population” (in prep). ------------------------------ Contact Taiye: olawunmi.winful@vanderbilt.edu Twitter: @twinanthro ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, Guest Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

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 a biological anthropologist whose work integrates bioanthropological theory with biomedical science. For 20 years, she has sustained a program of research exploring the intrauterine environment as a biosocial determinant of health. She studies how maternal life history and lived experience shape this earliest developmental setting, and how, in turn, the intrauterine environment influences growth, health, and development across the life course and across generations. ---------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn at ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith at duke.edu

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 A. Gregoricka is a Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Social Work at the University of South Alabama. She also serves as Director of the USA Forensic Science Program. She received her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Dr. Gregoricka uses biogeochemical techniques to examine changing patterns of human mobility, mortuary practices, paleo diet, and social complexity in the Near East, Arabia, and beyond. Her primary research program investigates prehistoric mortuary landscapes across the United Arab Emirates and Oman, seeking to evaluate how shifting mortuary traditions in southeastern Arabia reflect corresponding changes in sociopolitical complexity and subsistence strategies. From this, she explores how local identity was reinforced and negotiated through the construction of monumental tombs and treatment of the dead. Dr. Gregoricka's interest in embodied social identity has also taken her to Poland, where she worked with skeletons buried at the post-medieval cemetery at Drawsko as part of the Slavia Project. The Drawsko cemetery is well-known for its deviant burials, and her research focuses on the radiogenic and stable isotope analysis of the skeletal tissues of those interred as “vampires” to better discern why certain individuals were selected for apotropaic burial rites when others were not. Today, Dr. Gregoricka co-directs the NSF-REU Site: Bioarchaeology of Bronze Age Social Systems, which brings undergraduate students from across the country to USA each summer to learn to conduct bioarchaeological research. She is also currently involved with research on the movements of pastoralist groups in ancient Nubia. ------------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn at ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith at duke.edu

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 AC, Eisenberg DTA, Fehrenkamp BD, McGuire MA, McGuire MK, Meehan CL and Brindle E (2022) SARS-CoV-2 specific antibody trajectories in mothers and infants over two months following maternal infection. Front. Immunol. 13:1015002. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.1015002 Alicia Rice, Olivia Sather, Kenneth P Wright, Céline Vetter, Melanie A Martin, Horacio O de la Iglesia, COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions increase the alignment in sleep and light exposure between school days and weekends in university students, Sleep, Volume 46, Issue 7, July 2023, zsad059, https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsad059 ------------------------------ Contact Melanie: martinm7@uw.edu Website: https://www.melaniemartin-anthropologist.com/ ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Co-Host, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Eric Griffith, Guest Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

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 Evolution and Social Change and the Center for Evolution and Medicine and the Institute of Human Origins. His work focuses on chronic diseases of aging, working to understand how environmental conditions like parasites, pathogens, food availability, and social interactions impact human health. Taking an evolutionary life history perspective, he uses field and laboratory studies to understand variation in human endocrine systems, and how this influences chronic health conditions like benign prostatic hyperplasia, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's dementia. Prof. Trumble's website can be found here: https://trumblelab.org/ ----------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Courtney Manthey-Pierce, Co-Host, Website: courtneymanthey-pierce.godaddysites.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Alex Niclou, special returning Co-Host Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith at duke.edu

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 issues of health. ------------------------------ Contact Chris: kuzawa@northwestern.edu Website: https://sites.northwestern.edu/kuzawa/; Twitter:@ChrisKuzawa ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter: @CaraOcobock Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter: @CristinaGildee

Listeners, please welcome Dr. Eric Griffith to the show ...as a guest! In this episode, Eric takes a break from producing to talk about his research regarding human variation in dementia. Find the publication discussed in today's episode via this citation: Griffith EE. (2023). “Recruiting Participants for Dementia Research Without Saying ‘Dementia': A Site Study in Central Mexico.” In: Anthropological Perspectives on Aging, BM Howell & RP Harrod eds., University of Press of Florida. ------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Eric Griffith received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as an MA in psychology from Boston University. He completed his dissertation fieldwork in central Mexico, focusing on the experiences of familial caregivers for people living with Alzheimer's disease. Eric's research interests include biocultural anthropology, dementia, cognitive aging, health disparities, and mixed methods research. Eric is currently a T32 postdoc at the Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human development. He also worked as a postdoctoral fellow with the Samuel DuBois Cook Center at Duke University on the project “The influence of religion/spirituality on Alzheimer's Disease and its related dementias (ADRD) for African Americans." ----------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn at ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith at duke.edu

Listeners, please welcome Dr. Sheina Lew-Levy to the show! In this episode Prof. Lew-Levy discusses the importance of social learning among children to the study of evolution. Stick around for some gardening tips! Find the publication discussed in today's episode via these citations: Pretelli, Ilaria, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Edmond Dounias, Sagan Friant, Jeremy Koster, Karen L. Kramer, Shani M. Mangola, Almudena Mari Saez, and Sheina Lew‐Levy. "Child and adolescent foraging: New directions in evolutionary research." Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews (2023): e22020. Lew‐Levy, Sheina, Wouter van den Bos, Kathleen Corriveau, Natália Dutra, Emma Flynn, Eoin O'Sullivan, Sarah Pope‐Caldwell et al. "Peer learning and cultural evolution." Child Development Perspectives (2023). ------------------------------------------------------------ Using methods from anthropology and psychology, Prof. Lew-Levy conducts research in hunter-gatherer societies to understand the cultural diversity in, and evolution of, social learning in childhood. Specifically, Prof. Lew-Levy uses quantitative and qualitative methods to study how and from whom children learn through meaningful participation in every day activities. With Forager Child Studies, her interdisciplinary research team conducts cross-cultural reviews and secondary data analysis on the pasts, presents, and futures of forager children's learning. Since 2016, Prof. Lew-Levy has worked with egalitarian BaYaka foragers and their farmer neighbours in the Congo Basin. Her primary research uses behavioural observations to understand social learning. She can be contacted via e-mail: sheina.lew-levy at durham.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn at ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith at duke.edu

Special Edition HBA Fellow take-over! HBA Junior Fellows Eric Griffith and Courtney Manthey-Pierce co-host this season's final episode with Dr. Meradeth Snow. Dr. Snow is an Associate Professor and Co-Chair of Anthropology at the University of Montana. There, she and her research team analyze ancient and degraded DNA for anthropological and forensic purposes. Her lab focuses primarily on the northern region of prehistoric Mexico. She is here to talk to us today about her most recent paper (currently in review) titled “A Reanalysis of Population Dynamics in the Casas Grandes Region of Northern Mexico Using Mitochondrial DNA.” ------------------------------ Contact Meradeth: meradeth.snow@umontana.edu Website: meradethhouston.com; Twitter: @MeradethHouston ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Courtney Manthey-Pierce, Guest-Co-Host, Website: courtneymanthey-pierce.godaddysites.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Eric Griffith, Guest Co-Host, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

Cara is solo hosting this episode! She is joined by Dr. Charles Roseman to discuss the finer points of why/how "adaptionist" thinking can lead us all down scientific dead ends. Bonus fun: We also learn a little bit about squirrels and nicotine withdrawal. You know Chris was sorry to miss this episode! ******************************* The Scientific American article "To Understand Sex, We Need to Ask the Right Questions," co-authored by Profs. Roseman and Ocobock can be found here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-understand-sex-we-need-to-ask-the-right-questions/ Dr. Roseman's video demonstration will be uploaded to the HBA youtube page soon: https://www.youtube.com/@HumanBiologyAssociation ******************************* Dr. Roseman is an Associate Professor in Evolution, Ecology and Behavior and Anthropology in the School of Integrative Biology at the University of Illinois. His work broadly focuses on genotype phenotype map structure, and the evolution of complex traits. You can view his website here: sib.illinois.edu/profile/croseman and follow him on Twitter @EvoRoseman. ******************************* Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Chris and special guest co-host Courtney Manthey-Peirce interview Dimitris Xygalatas, author of Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. Associate Professor in Anthropology and Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut and head of the Experimental Anthropology Lab, Dimitris is an anthropologist and cognitive scientist who studies some things that make us human – but not the obvious ones. He is interested in some of the more peculiar aspects of human nature: ritual, music, sports fanship, and other things that help people connect, cope, and live meaningful lives. Dimitris' research combines experimental methods with ethnographic fieldwork to study human culture holistically over the last several years in Southern Europe and Mauritius. ------------------------------ Contact Dimitris: xygalatas@uconn.edu Website: xygalatas.com; Twitter: @xygalatas ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey-Peirce, Guest-Co-Host, Website: courtneymanthey-pierce.godaddysites.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Cristina Gildee, SoS producer Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

Listeners, please welcome Ed Hagen to the show! In this episode Prof. Hagen discusses his research on self medication and parasites. Prof. Hagen joins our regular host, Prof. Chris Lynn, as well as returning guest host Cristina Gildee. Find the publication discussed in today's episode via this citation: Hagen, E. H., Blackwell, A. D., Lightner, A. D., & Sullivan, R. J. (2023). Homo medicus: The transition to meat eating increased pathogen pressure and the use of pharmacological plants in Homo. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 180(4), 589-617. ------------------------------------------------------------ Prof. Hagen investigates tobacco use in the larger context of human use of plant secondary compounds. He investigates depression, suicide, and deliberate self-harm as potential signaling strategies. Child growth and development is a research theme that grew out of his work on postpartum depression. Prof. Hagen also recently begun testing evolutionary models of leadership and knowledge specialization as part of my more general interest in the evolution of human social organization. Finally, he has published a number of theoretical papers on evolutionary approaches to ontogeny, cognition, and behavior. Blog: https://grasshoppermouse.github.io Twitter: @ed_hagen Email: edhagen@wsu.edu ----------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, SoS producer, SoS Guest Host: Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Listeners, please welcome Achsah Dorsey to the show! In this episode Prof. Dorsey discusses her research on childhood anemia in Peru and casually tosses in an excellent airplane turbulence metaphor to describe human physiology. Stick around for the ABBA shout-out. Prof. Dorsey joins our regular host, Prof. Chris Lynn, as well as returning guest host Prof. Theresa Gildner. Find the publication discussed in today's episode via this citation: Dorsey, A. (2023). Biological and Ecological Impacts on Recovery from Anemia Among Peri-Urban Peruvian Children. In Human Growth and Nutrition in Latin American and Caribbean Countries (pp. 397-419). Cham: Springer International Publishing. ------------------------------------------------------------ Prof. Achsah Dorsey's research utilizes life-history and evolutionary medicine perspectives to investigate the relationships between immune activation, body size and growth, and nutritional status in women and children. Her recent research explores the biological, environmental, and cultural links between anemia and infection, the gut microbiome, and home environment in families living in peri-urban communities within Lima, Peru. She can be contacted via e-mail: adorsey@umass.edu ----------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Theresa Gildner, HBA Fellow, SoS Guest Host E-mail: gildner@wustl.edu Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

This week, Chris and guest co-host Cristina catch up with Georgia Scott, a master's student studying bioarchaeology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research interests focus on mortuary practices and treatment of the deceased, both past and present. Georgia received her Bachelor of Science in Anthropology from Montana State University and has a background in vertebrate paleontology, zooarchaeology, and museum studies. She is passionate about collaborative methodologies and improving engagement with descendant communities. Her most recent work explores the ethical considerations in bioarchaeological research and publications regarding the use and treatment of human remains. ------------------------------ Contact Georgia: georgiascott@nevada.unr.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter: @Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, SoS producer and guest co-host Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter: @CristinaGildee

Chris and Cristina sit down with Dr. Molly Fox, Associate Professor of Anthropology and of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. She studies the evolutionary context of chronic disease and the biosocial relationships between grandmothers, mothers, and children. Her current research projects investigate (1) the biological embedding of immigration and acculturation experiences in Mexican-American women and how this process influences aspects of gestational physiology that are implicated in shaping fetal developmental trajectories, thereby affecting health across generations; (2) psychobiological profiles of postpartum depression risk, etiology, and manifestation; (3) how the human newborn intestinal ecology (microbiome) affects infant cognitive and emotional development, with implications for vulnerability to mental illness; (4) how gestational and lactational (pregnancy and breastfeeding) physiology impose long-term alterations to biophysiology in ways that affect later-life risk of Alzheimer's and other geriatric disease. Find the work discussed in today's episode here: Molly Fox, Delaney A. Knorr, Dayoon Kwon, Kyle S. Wiley, Michael H. Parrish. “How prenatal cortisol levels relate to grandmother-mother relationships among a cohort of Latina women.” American Journal of Human Biology. (2023) https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23883 Molly Fox (2022) How demographics and concerns about the Trump administration relate to prenatal mental health among Latina women. Social Science and Medicine. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115171 ------------------------------ Contact Molly: mollyfox@ucla.edu; website: mollyfox.mystrikingly.com/ Twitter: @mollymfox ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, SoS producer: Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

Dee Jolly, PhD student in anthropology at the University of Oregon, joins Cara and Courtney to discuss how stigma affects the health of trans and gender diverse people. Dee is currently a 2nd year PhD student, working with Prof. Zachary DuBois. They finished their undergraduate studies at the University of Florida in 2016 and then earned a Master's degree in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice from Boston University in 2018. Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Courtney Manthey-Pierce, HBA webmaster, SoS co-host Website: courtneymanthey-pierce.godaddysites.com/ Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Cara and Chris chat with Dr. Rob Tennyson, a Postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sociology Department at the University of Utah, who received his PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Washington in 2022. His research focuses on psychosocial stress, aging, and student-athlete mental health and well-being. His research program leverages diversity within and between populations to tease apart how differences in social environments, physical environments, and behavior influence human biological aging, connecting lived experiences to molecular, immunological, and demographic processes. Find the work discussed in today's episode here: Analyzing COVID-19 Related Disruptions and Psychosocial Stress in Collegiate Student-Athletes https://osf.io/25f4h/ 'Legs Feed the Wolf': An Evolutionary Perspective on Psychosocial Stress, Physical Activity, and Telomere Length in NCAA Student-Athletes https://osf.io/s2cuj/ ------------------------------ Contact Rob: robtennyson@gmail.com; website: robtennyson.org Twitter: @RobTennyson_PhD ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, SoS producer: Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

Welcome to Bizarro World, Sausage of Science listeners! Cara is on the show today ...as a guest! She is joined by Sarah Lacy to discuss their recent American Anthropologist articles "Woman the hunter: The physiological evidence" and "Woman the hunter: The archaeological evidence." Also, please welcome guest host, and HBA webmaster, Courtney Manthey-Pierce. Find the publications discussed in today's episode here: Ocobock, C., & Lacy, S. (2023). Woman the hunter: The physiological evidence. American Anthropologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13915 Lacy, S., & Ocobock, C. (2023). Woman the hunter: The archaeological evidence. American Anthropologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13914 And here is a link to their article in the Nov. 2023 issue of Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong/ ------------------------------------------------------------ ​Sarah A. Lacy is a biological anthropologist specializing in paleoanthropology and bioarchaeology. She received a BS in anthropology from Tulane University in 2008 and a PhD in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014. She taught at the University of Missouri, St. Louis and at California State University, Dominguez Hills (Los Angeles) before joining the faculty at the University of Delaware in 2023. Prof. ​Lacy explores dental cavities, periodontal disease, and tooth loss in Neandertals and early modern humans across Europe and Southwest Asia and given the prevalence among recent humans. More than just oral health, she looks at how oral diseases also reveal information about diet, environment, disease susceptibility, and overall health in individuals and populations. Her website can be found here: https://www.anthropology.udel.edu/people/salacy ------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Cara Ocobock is the Director of the Human Energetics Laboratory at Notre Dame. Her research program integrates human biology and anthropology, with a focus on the interaction between anatomy, physiology, evolution, and the environment. She explores the physiological and behavioral mechanisms necessary to cope with and adapt to extreme climate and physical activity. Ocobock works in northern Finland, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Lapland and University of Oulu. Prof. Ocobock is also an avid powerlifter and loves to bring anthropology to sport. She has worked with hockey players at the collegiate and semi-professional level as well as collegiate track and field athletes. Her website can be found here: https://anthropology.nd.edu/people/faculty/cara-ocobock/ ----------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey-Pierce, HBA webmaster, SoS co-host Website: https://courtneymanthey-pierce.godaddysites.com/ Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Twice the Caras! Cara and Cristina interview Dr. Cara Wall-Scheffler, professor and co-chair of Biology at Seattle Pacific University and an affiliate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the evolution of human sexual dimorphism, particularly in the context of balancing the pressures of thermoregulation and long-distance locomotion. She has been working on this problem for over 20 years. Her work demonstrates that different selection pressures have acted on men and women and that women, in particular, have a rare (among mammals) ability to work both efficiently (energy per unit of mass) and economically (total energy) when carrying loads. Women's abilities are partly due to their relatively small body size, relatively high surface area, relatively broader pelves, and unique methods of thermoregulation. In addition to her research, Dr. Wall-Scheffler teaches courses in human physiology and evolutionary mechanisms on campus and at the Blakely Island Field Station. Find the publications discussed in today's episode here: Anderson A, Chilczuk S, Nelson K, Ruther R, Wall-Scheffler C (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women's contribution to the hunt across ethnographic contexts. PLoS ONE 18(6): e0287101. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287101 Wall‐Scheffler, C. and H. Kurki, Beyond sex, gender, and other dilemmas: Human pelvic morphology from an integrative context. Evolutionary Anthropology. 2023;1‐13. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.22001 Wall-Scheffler CM (2022). Women carry for less: body size, pelvis width, loading position and energetics. Evolutionary Human Sciences 4, e36, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.35 ------------------------------ Cara Wall-Scheffler's email: cwallsch@spu.edu, Twitter: @WallScheffler ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Co-Host, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Cristina Gildee, SoS producer: Website: cristinagildee.org, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee

Prof. Liz Mallott of Washington University in St. Louis joins Chris and Cristina to talk about her research on the human microbiome. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Liz Mallott is an assistant professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Mallott's research examines how social and environmental determinants of health shape variation in the human microbiome. Current projects examine how exposure to environmental pollutants, which disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, influences the gut microbiome and cardiovascular disease risk. Her lab website can be found here: https://mallott-lab.github.io/ The following are citations for the articles mentioned on today's show: Mallott, E. K., Sitarik, A. R., Leve, L. D., Cioffi, C., Camargo Jr, C. A., Hasegawa, K., & Bordenstein, S. R. (2023). Human microbiome variation associated with race and ethnicity emerges as early as 3 months of age. PLoS biology, 21(8), e3002230. Cepon‐Robins, T. J., Mallott, E. K., Recca, I. C., & Gildner, T. E. (2023). Evidence and potential drivers of neglected parasitic helminth and protist infections among a small preliminary sample of children from rural Mississippi. American Journal of Human Biology, e23889. Chioma, O. S., Mallott, E., Shah-Gandhi, B., Wiggins, Z., Langford, M., Lancaster, A. W., ... & Drake, W. P. (2023). Low Gut Microbial Diversity Augments Estrogen-Driven Pulmonary Fibrosis in Female-Predominant Interstitial Lung Disease. Cells, 12(5), 766. Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, SoS Co-Host and Producer E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu, Twitter:@CristinaGildee Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Season 6 premiere. Cara's back! Chris and Cara chat with Dr. Saige Kelmelis, a biological anthropologist specializing in bioarchaeology, paleodemography, paleoepidemiology, and forensic anthropology. Her research involves the study of human skeletal and dental remains to reconstruct aspects of life, health, disease, identity, and demography. She integrates methods and theory in osteology, paleodemography, epidemiology, and hazard analyses to explore the interplay between human biocultural behavior and infectious disease. She also uses methods from bioarchaeology to reconstruct life histories and health outcomes in modern and past populations through cementochronology. Kelmelis is also a primary investigator on a collaborative project with other professionals, students, and tattoo artists in South Dakota to understand how this ancient practice of body modification affects health outcomes in modern people. Current and ongoing research includes the exploration of mortality risk and disease in monastic, urban, and rural medieval Denmark, the application of cementochronology to reconstruct modern human life histories in Bangladesh, paleodemographic and life history reconstruction of the ancient Maya in the Upper Belize Valley, advancing statistical models in paleodemography, and the short- and long-term impacts of tattooing and body modification on health in past and present populations. Find the publications discussed in today's episode here: Kelmelis, S., & DeWitte, S. N. (2021). Urban and rural survivorship in Pre- and Post-Black Death Denmark. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 38, 103089. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103089 van Doren, T. P., & Kelmelis, S. (2023). Contextualizing pandemics: Respiratory survivorship before, during, and after the 1918 influenza pandemic in Newfoundland. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 181(1), 70–84. https://doi-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1002/ajpa.24678 ------------------------------ Saige's email: Saige.Kelmelis@usd.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter: @CaraOcobock Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter: @Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer: E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu Twitter: @CristinaGildee

The show is currently on summer hiatus as most of our staff work on their research. New episodes will be back in the fall. In the meantime, we have a special bonus episode of the podcast. Prof. Joseph L. Graves Jr. of North Carolina A&T University reads an excerpt from his book A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a link to the Barnes and Noble page for the book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-voice-in-the-wilderness-professor-joseph-l-graves-jr-phd/1140835416 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Graves's faculty page: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=113858234 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, Email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Mallika Sarma, Sausage of Science Co-Host Website: mallikasarma.com/, Twitter: @skyy_mal Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Anwesha Pan joins Chris and Mallika to talk about her work on famine and fecundability in Bangladesh as well as the connection between neighborhood-level family poverty and ovarian reserve. This is the season finale -- please check back in the fall for new content! Thank you to Mallika for filling in as co-host this season! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Anwesha Pan is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington and can be reached by e-mail at: anweshap@uw.edu Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, Email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Mallika Sarma, Sausage of Science Co-Host Website: mallikasarma.com/, Twitter: @skyy_mal Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Chris welcomes guest co-host, Cristina Gildee, to chat with Sofiya Shreyer, a Ph.D. student in the Anthropology Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Sofiya is passionate about increasing research and education on menopause and other understudied women's health issues, such as PCOS, endometriosis, and sexual wellness. Under the guidance of Dr. Lynnette Sievert, she studies grandmotherhood, variation in caretaking behaviors, and the impact of child-rearing on both grandmaternal and children's health and well-being. With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Sofiya's work toggled to focus on the study of menopause, where she manages and coordinates an ongoing multi-year study on hot flash experiences and brown adipose tissue in perimenopausal and menopausal women. Find her recent book chapter, “Aging and Childcare: A Biocultural Approach to Grandmothering in Ukraine” published in Anthropological Perspectives on Aging here: https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813069593 ------------------------------ Sofiya's email: sshreyer@umass.edu Twitter: @sofiya_shreyer ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly

Chris and Mallika sit down with Sean Prall, an Assistant Professor and evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Missouri. His interests center on human health and reproduction, reproductive decision-making, and evolutionary ecology. He examines costs and trade-offs associated with investments in reproduction. He utilizes a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, including anthropometrics, demography, endocrinology, actigraphy, validated health surveys, and dyadic peer ratings, alongside semi-structured demographic interviews and measures of social norms. Sean's work is informed by a mix of evolutionary and behavioral ecology, cultural evolutionary theory, and evolutionary psychology, especially related to reproductive concerns. Sean is also a co-director of the Kunene Rural Health and Demography Project, a contributor to the ENDOW project, and a collaborator on the Shodagor Longitudinal Health and Demography Project. Find the publications discussed in today's episode here: https://sprall.github.io ------------------------------ Sean's email: sprall@missouri.edu Twitter: @ssprall ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Mallika Sarma, Website: mallikasarma.com/, Twitter: @skyy_mal Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer: E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu

Drs. Karen Rosenberg and Wenda Trevathan join the show to discuss their work examining the evolution of human childbirth and infant helplessness. They also preview some of the content that will appear in their forthcoming (untitled) book. Title suggestions are welcome! Information about their previous publication Costly and Cute can be found here: https://sarweb.org/costly-cute/ -------------------------------------------------------- Karen Rosenberg is a biological anthropologist with a specialty in paleoanthropology. She received her degrees from the University of Chicago (B.A. 1976) and the University of Michigan (M.A. 1980, Ph.D., 1986) and has taught at the University of Delaware since 1987. She has studied human fossils and modern human skeletal material in museums in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. Her research interests are in the origin of modern humans and the evolution of modern human childbirth and human infant helplessness. She has published in edited volumes as well as anthropological and clinical obstetrical journals. Wenda Trevathan is Regents Professor (emerita) of Anthropology at New Mexico State University and a biological anthropologist who earned her PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research focuses on the evolutionary and biocultural factors underlying human reproduction including childbirth, maternal behavior, sexuality, and menopause. Her primary publications include works on the evolution of childbirth and evolutionary medicine. She is a co-editor of two collections of works on evolutionary medicine (Oxford University Press, 1999 and 2008) and published the book Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives: How Evolution Has Shaped Women's Health (Oxford University Press) in 2010. She currently serves as a Senior Scholar at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she is writing a book on infancy in evolutionary perspective with Karen Rosenberg. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, Email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Mallika Sarma, Sausage of Science Co-Host Website: mallikasarma.com/, Twitter: @skyy_mal Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu

Chris and Mallika chat with Florence Lee, a PhD candidate at the University of Albany (SUNY), to discuss her collaboration with the Akwasane Task Force on the Environment. Their work investigates pollutant exposure and autoimmunity in Akwesasne Mohawk women. In this episode, Florence discusses the biological consequences of a century of DDT and PCB contamination along the St. Lawrence River for the indigenous women who continue to live there. ------------------------------ Find the publication discussed in today's episode here: “Associations between autoimmune dysfunction and pollutants in Akwesasne Mohawk women: Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and polychlorinated biphenyl exposure” https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23773 ------------------------------ Florence's email: flee2@albany.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Mallika Sarma, Website: mallikasarma.com/, Twitter: @skyy_mal Cristina Gildee, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer: E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu

Elizabeth Holdsworth, PhD, joins the Sausage of Science to chat about her new paper titled “Maternal–infant interaction quality is associated with child NR3C1 CpG site methylation at 7 years of age.” The paper can be found at the AJHB website here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.23876 ------------------------------------- Dr. Elizabeth Holdsworth is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Meehan lab at Washington State University. Elizabeth is a researcher of mother-infant relationships, infant growth, and the early life origins of health. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University at Albany, SUNY, for her biocultural anthropological research into how mothers' unequal exposure to stress can affect maternal health, as well as contribute to small changes in infant growth through epigenetic mechanisms. Her current research identifies how maternal-infant dynamics and maternal stress may contribute to variation in the milk microbiome. ------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, Email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Mallika Sarma, Sausage of Science Co-Host Website: mallikasarma.com/, Twitter: @skyy_mal Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith@duke.edu