I will be in Ann Arbor next week visiting the University of Michigan. For those in the area, I'll be giving a seminar next Wednesday, February 15.
Title: "Behavioral implications of archaic human genomes"
Time: 5:00pm, Wednesday, February 15.
Place: East Hall, Room 3048
Looking forward to seeing all my friends there!
Hey, I'm in the New York Times today!
It's a story about the Denisova genome and its possible relationships to recent human populations. We have been concentrating here on the Neandertals for the last few months, but I did get some analyses run on Denisova last week (thanks in large part to my grad student, Aaron Sams, who lifted over the genome from the old to new genetic map coordinates). I'll share some of those results soon.
I'm in Bordeaux for the rest of this week, taking part in the meetings of the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris. The city is just as beautiful as I remember!
I will be at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association for the rest of this week, which are being held in Montreal, Canada. I'm presenting in an invited session organied by Karen Rosenberg and Rachel Caspari, titled "The Scars of Human Evolution". It's a great idea for a session focusing on those parts of our biology that one might consider negative legacies of evolutionary change in the past. The title is pulled from a classic article by Wilton Krogman, now published 60 years ago. I'll be talking about pseudogenes, in particular focusing on those cases where a broken version of a gene has had a selective advantage in our recent evolution.
There is much going on, including a session devoted to last year's #AAAfail er...communications breakdown: "Science in Anthropology: An Open Discussion". I'll be there taking notes.
I'm giving a public lecture this Thursday evening at the Wisconsin Historical Society, basically an overview of Denisova Cave in the context of the archaeology of Central Asia. I'll be talking about some of the work we are doing with the archaic genomes, and I'll discuss some of the new results we have.
The lecture is in the Auditorium of the Wisconsin Historical Society building, just off Library Mall, and starts at 7:00 pm. It is sponsored by the Charles E. Brown Archaeological Society.
My essay in Anthropologies ("What's wrong with anthropology") is cited by Monalisa Gharavi in a review for Social Text of David Graeber's new book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years.
I'm pointing to this because (a) one month is a much faster publication-to-citation conversion than is possible in print, and (b) Social Text is just one of those places where I didn't imagine I'd be cited.
I was interviewed last month for the CBC radio broadcast, "Quirks and Quarks". They have done a segment on the Denisova genome, with contributions from David Reich, Peter Parham, Chris Stringer and me, and it's part of this week's episode of the show.
This Friday, October 14, I'll be appearing in Anaheim, CA, at the National Association of Biology Teachers conference. I'm part of a symposium sponsored by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), titled "Changing humans in a changing environment."
It's a fantastic set of presentations on human evolution from the behavior of our ape relatives, the origin and evolution of Homo and new insights coming from ancient genomes (that's my part). The other presenters are Jill Pruetz, Rick Potts and Susan Antón. The symposium will be webcast live, and I can share the instructions for seeing it in progress:
Even if you can’t make it to this year’s meeting in Anaheim, you can still watch the symposium via live webcast.Tune in Friday, October 14 from 4:30-8:30 PM EST (1:30-5:30 PM PST).
To view the live, free webcast, simply go to http://dukeuniversity.acrobat.com/nabt2011 at 1:30 pm Pacific/4:30 pm Eastern and log in as a guest. (Note: We suggest you do this in advance to test the connection and make sure you can access the site without problems. When you log in successfully you'll see a "Congratulations" message. If you have problems, please contact eog@nescent.org.)
I think I'm fourth in the order, and my presentation is titled, "New discoveries from ancient genomes". That's pretty much what all of my talks are titled lately, but many discoveries actually are new in each one. I'm reporting things as we figure out how to do them!
I'll be in the U.K. the rest of this week. The University of Birmingham has invited me to give a lecture for their "Great Read" event as they begin the new academic year. If you're in the area, the talk is at 3:30 on Thursday, September 22, in the Concert Hall of the Barber Institute. I'll be appearing after Ken Miller, widely known for his work in evolutionary biology and his advocacy of evolution education in the U.S.
As for myself, I'll be talking about Neandertal and Denisovan DNA and what they tell us about human evolution. All my talks have new, unpublished stuff in them, and this is no exception.
I notice that the topic of evolution education has really hit the news this week in the U.K, as a group of 30 prominent scientists, including Paul Nurse and Richard Dawkins, have signed a letter protesting lax evolution education standards ("David Attenborough joins campaign against creationism in schools", "Scientists demand tougher guidelines on teaching creationism in schools"). Looks like I'll be going there just in time.
My host has planned some exceptional activities later this week for us, and I'll plan to report back when I can.
Dear Dr. Hawks,
In case you don't already know, the current issue of Science has 2 articles on the Denisovans:
Who Were the Denisovans?
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6046/1084.summaryA Denisovan Legacy in the Immune System?
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6046/1086.summaryAlso, their podcast discusses what is covered in the issue:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6046/1167.2.summaryHave a wonderful night!
You'll see I make a brief appearance in the article, and I'll be writing more about the site and my trip there in the next few weeks. Hope everything's going well with you!
