john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

whoa

  • Annals of self-experimentation

    Sun, 2011-11-13 11:49 -- John Hawks

    Mental Floss: "11 Scientists Who Experimented on Themselves".

    Werner Forssmann: In 1929 in the basement of the Eberswaled Hospital in Germany, surgical resident Werner Forssmann inserted a ureteral catheter tube into his elbow, feeding it through a vein up to his heart. He used a mirror as his assistant, since he had restrained his nurse to the operating table. He then took an x-ray of his chest (at left) to determine the catheter had indeed made it to the right atrium. Instead of praise, Forssmann was met with condemnation. This rejection led him to abandon cardiology for urology, but he was later rewarded with the Nobel Prize in 1956.

    Stubbins Ffirth is number 11. Whoa.

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Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.