Tim Coulson, Head of Biology at the University of Oxford and author of "A Universal History of Us," takes listeners on a compelling journey through the origins of life on Earth. He discusses how meteors influenced early life, the role of climate change in human evolution, and the profound impacts of the Great Oxidation Event. Coulson also explores the fascinating transition of life from sea to land and how our ancestors thrived alongside dinosaurs. His reflections highlight the remarkable journey of humanity and encourage curiosity about our existence.
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Malaria and Motivation
Tim Coulson's journey to writing "A Universal History of Us" began with a near-fatal malaria experience in Africa.
This inspired him to understand life's purpose through science, leading to years of reading and finally writing during the pandemic.
insights INSIGHT
Life's Space Origins
Life's building blocks, organic molecules, likely originated in space and arrived on Earth via meteorites.
These molecules accumulated in volcanic hydrothermal vents or plains with energy sources, enabling life's emergence.
insights INSIGHT
Luca's Legacy
Luca, the last universal common ancestor, used the DNA code that all life shares today, highlighting its survival.
Other DNA codes may have existed, but Luca's code outcompeted them through unknown advantages.
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This book, originally titled 'Historia universal de la infamia', is a collection of short stories published in 1935 and revised in 1954. The stories are largely based on real criminals but have been altered by Borges, making them unreliable as historical accounts. The book is notable for its unique blend of fact and fiction and is often associated with the beginnings of the magical realism movement. Borges himself described the work as an example of the 'baroque' style, where art is flaunted and resources are squandered, and he distanced himself from it in later years.
Welcome to the first episode of the Origins of Humankind!
In this sweeping pilot, we cover the entire planetary backstory of human existence – from the origins of life to the climate change that kickstarted human evolution. Our expert guide on this journey is Tim Coulson, the Head of Biology at the University of Oxford and the author of A Universal History of Us.
The episode explores questions such as:
What is "life”? How did it begin?
The surprising role of meteors (even before dinosaurs)
Why animals?
“Ediacaran Garden” and the dawn of predators
Blood, bones, and the dawn of “terrestrial fish” (yup, that’s us!)
Our ancestors amongst the dinosaurs
Fruits and snakes in primate evolution
The climate change that made humanity
The rise and spread of humans
As always, we finish with the guest’s reflections on humanity.
In episode two, we follow the first steps on the human line, exploring how abandoning life in the trees paved the way for many of our human oddities.
Key questions: Why was upright posture so important? What did it do to parents and children? When did the brains of our ancestors start to show human oddities?
Your guide: Dean Falk, a leading expert on brain evolution at the University of Florida. She recently published a book titled A Botanic Age, looking at human evolution before the Stone Age.
Stay tuned. And subscribe to On Humans.
KEYWORDS
Evolution | Human evolution | Human origins | Origin of life | Emergence of life | Abiogenesis | Natural history | History of life | Meteors | Organic chemistry | Vertebrate evolution | Tetrapods | Dinosaurs | Pleistocene | Predators | Early humans | Austrolopithecins | Lucy | Homo erectus | Homo ergaster | Homo sapiens | Megafauna extinction | Humanity | Carl Sagan | Ediacaran Garden | Cambrian Explosion | Mesozoic | Jurassic | Triassic | Cretaceous | The Great Oxigenation Event | Sauropsids | Synapsids |
On Humans 