john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Food guidelines

Fri, 2010-01-15 07:30 -- John Hawks

As long as I'm linking to the Daily Mail for their "Neanderthal metrosexuals" quip, I thought I'd pass along a story I liked -- "Unlikely but brilliantly simple rules to transform the way we eat" from dilemmistic omnivore Michael Pollan.

The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead

There are maybe twenty of these little guidelines, mostly clever but not generally rhyming. My favorite:

It's not food if it has the same name in all languages.

Explanation: "Think Big Mac or Pringles."

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.