Fossils, teeth and ancient DNA, straight from the researchers
Gabby LaPera interviews biological anthropologists about their research, from new fossils in Ethiopia to cranial trauma in a Bronze Age city. The tone is warm and chatty, but she keeps asking how the evidence works, including how researchers tell a new species from one odd individual.
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AnthroBiology Podcast is an interview show about biological anthropology, hosted and produced by Gabby LaPera. Some episodes bring two guests at once. LaPera does not pose as an insider. By her own account she went to the American Association for Biological Anthropologists conference as someone who simply likes anthropology, and several of the guests here are people she met there. That shows in the tone, which runs on congratulations, shared conference memories and open excitement. The episodes cover a wide territory: teeth, fossils, head trauma, ancient DNA, sickness and the history of psychiatric care. Dr. Brian Villmoare comes on to talk about his Nature paper on Australopithecus and Homo finds from Ethiopia. It is also where LaPera raises the question she says she asks on every paleo episode: how do scientists decide that a strange fossil belongs to a new species rather than to one unusual individual? Villmoare answers with a bell curve. An individual can sit at the far tail of normal variation, and developmental problems tend to leave signs such as asymmetry, but these fossils showed a different pattern altogether. Keri Porter, introduced as a 'Dr. In Progress' from Notre Dame, reads cranial trauma as a sign that life in an emerging Bronze Age city was not purely cooperative. She describes the city as an urban experiment that lasted a couple of hundred years before people left, and she wonders whether conflict played a part. That episode's title also adds 'Plus: How to apply for grad school'. Dr. Maria Nieves-Colón and her grad student Jaime Zolik, both from the University of Minnesota, turn to the question of trust. To show descendant community members what ancient DNA lab work involves, the project filmed it with a head-mounted GoPro worn over full protective equipment, an idea borrowed from another burial ground project. With Dr. Eric Shattuck of Florida State University, the talk turns to illness, and to why thinking hard during an immune response is a bad bargain. Worse reaction times in driving simulators come up as evidence. The conversation with Dr. Wakefield and Dr. Neidich is titled around death in early New York mental health institutions. It also covers the wider history of those institutions in the United States and the gaps left by the push toward community care, plus a recommendation to visit the Public Hospital museum at Colonial Williamsburg. Teeth keep coming back. LaPera jokes that last year was the year of teeth, and she greets Dr. Erin Blankenship-Sefczek of Creighton University as the first tooth person of this one. Sign-offs invite questions and comments by email. Start with Villmoare for fossils and method, or with Porter for skeletal evidence of conflict and a title that also promises grad school advice.
Made for: Suits a listener who is curious about human evolution, skeletons and ancient DNA and wants working researchers to explain their methods in casual conversation. The episode whose title promises grad school advice also makes it a fit for someone thinking about further study in anthropology.
What sets it apart: The host comes to the field as, by her own description, someone who just likes anthropology, so basic questions of method get asked out loud, such as how a new species is told apart from one unusual individual. Guests also talk about the practical side of the work, from earning the trust of descendant communities to applying for grad school.
The AnthroBiology Podcast sits down with biological anthropologists once or twice a month to learn about what they do and why it's rad. Want to know more about our evolutionary past? Or what your bones say about you? Maybe chimps are more your speed? If it's anthropology and it's about humans, we'll cover it. Learn more at anthrobiology.com
A Bronze Age skull makes you ask whether ancient neighbors got along.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A relaxed, useful look at New York mental health institutions and the public responsibilities behind them.
This PlayNext review tracks early New York mental health institutions as sites where care, public responsibility, and the goal of returning patients to a "normal" mental state were still being defined. The discussion with Dr. Robin Wakefield and Dr.
A measured look at how teeth help distinguish a new hominin species from an unusual individual.
Teeth carry the argument here, as the episode looks at how scientists judge whether an early hominin is a distinct species or simply an unusual individual. Dr.
Ancient DNA research becomes a practical test of transparency and earned community trust.
Ancient DNA research turns into a grounded question of transparency in this conversation with Dr. Maria Nieves-Colon and Jamie Zolik about work at San Luis de Canete in Peru.
A clear look at how sickness reaches the brain, slowing reaction time and nudging behavior.
Feeling sick is not only a body problem here; it becomes a brain problem too. The episode follows Dr. Eric Shattuck through the link between inflammation, cognition, and everyday behavior, with special attention to what happens when the immune system is active and the mind still…
Mushroom culture from soil to society.
Clear neuroscience for curious minds.
Plant papers, jokes, and useful uncertainty.
Weed science, from genomes to paddocks.
Biomedical careers, described from the inside.
Human stakes behind biomedical progress.
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Anthrobiology Podcast host Gabby LaPera talks with Carrie Porter about early Bronze Age violence at Baba Dra in the Southern Levant, where her dissertation work at the University of Notre Dame focuses on neighbors, walls, and conflict.
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Henry Erlich, one of PCR's inventors, describes how the 1986 Pennsylvania v.
Boston University primatologist Christopher Schmitt tells host Gabby LaPera how a Milwaukee high school Earthwatch scholarship to study black and gold howler monkeys in Argentina led to a career in primatology.
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