A fascinating anecdote about how norms and experiences shape reactions to emotional expressions: An Inuit gentleman heard spectators cheering during a hockey game. His conclusion? “They're happy; I guess they don't make war.”

It's a major structural problem in academia that we are incentivised, basically soft-forced, to apply for the Big Money, even though all many of us would need is a meagre Researcher Basic Income. It's all a big waste and misallocation of resources at the Altar of Overheads.

Now on Apple Podcasts: Deep into Chauvet… a Sleep Story Trial! (Human Voiced, no AI!) Testing 60-min, human-voiced deep history episodes for sleep & focus, set to natural cave acoustics. Listen with headphones: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d... Would you tune into full 1-hour episodes?

Pilot: Deep into Chauvet Cave (36,000 BP) | Human-Voiced Ambient Sleep Story

Podcast Episode · Deep Time Sleep Stories: Ambient Journeys into Prehistory · S1 Trailer · 4m

podcasts.apple.com

This paper is so worth revisiting! "During the mid-1980s, half of the [baboon] males died from tuberculosis; because of circumstances of the outbreak, it was more aggressive males who died, leaving a cohort of atypically unaggressive survivors. A decade later, these behavioral patterns persisted."

A Pacific Culture among Wild Baboons: Its Emergence and Transmission

A unique less-aggressive suite of behaviors that affects the overall structure and social atmosphere of a wild baboon troop potentially represents an intergenerational transfer of social culture.

journals.plos.org

Tough knuckles of a serious scientist: "During the author’s childhood, various renowned authorities (his mother, several aunts...) informed him that cracking his knuckles would lead to arthritis of the fingers. To test the accuracy of this hypothesis, the following study was undertaken."

"One of the most provocative episodes, on any podcast, that I have enjoyed." Want to know what all the fuss is about? Listen or read the latest On Humans episode, with ecologist Jonathan Loh. [The quote is from a public comment on Spotify, from user "Joseph"]

How Do Humans Fit Into the Story of Life?

“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal

onhumans.substack.com

I've changed, but now I'm ready. midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdf...

“An American monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus was wiser than many men.” - Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, Chapter 1

When humans were the minority ape open.substack.com/pub/anthropo...

"Young people tend to be happier than older generations, but not in the Anglosphere, [especially] in the US and Canada. ... The opposite is true in Eastern Europe, where young people appear to be very far ahead." by @hannahritchie.bsky.social substack.com/home/post/p-...

Young people tend to be happier than older generations, but not in the Anglosphere

For a long time, the “U-shaped curve” has been a dominant framework in the research on happiness.

substack.com

Political cartoons in ancient Egypt? "A possibly satirical ostracon depicting a scrawny cat giving a bolt of cloth and a trussed up goose as an offering to a seated mouse. ... Either a satire on upper-class life, or perhaps a scene from a fable." 🏺

"On the shores of an ancient lake more than 1.5 million years ago, two species of early humans might have set eyes on each other." www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

The participants across the world believed that morality has declined and “they believed this in every decade and in every nation we studied. They believed the decline began somewhere around the time they were born, regardless of when that was, and they believed it continues to this day.“

The illusion of moral decline - Nature

We show that the perception of moral decline is pervasive, perdurable, unfounded and easily produced, and suggest that this illusion has implications for research on the misallocation of scarce r...

nature.com

“He who understands baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke.” - Charles Darwin in his private notebook, 1838.

A Roman officer finishes his military correspondence, says farewell, and then remembers something important. “My fellow-soldiers have no beer. Please order some to be sent.” 🏺🗃️ romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...

A cool graph on how Americans spend their time across their lifespan. ourworldindata.org/grapher/time...

Chimpanzee teachers! "We found that tool transfer constitutes a type of teaching in Dindefelo. Our results support the idea that teaching and facilitation, mainly from mothers, contribute to the acquisition of technological skills in immature chimpanzees." #Primatology

Frontiers | Savanna chimpanzee tool and fruit transfers facilitate the transmission of technological behaviours at Dindefelo, Senegal

Social learning is a key factor in the transmission of technological behaviours amongst primates. We studied chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) social intera...

frontiersin.org

How do humans fit into the story of life? This was one of the most memorable conversations I've had during the four years of running On Humans. My guest was Jonathan Loh, conservation biologist and author of the remarkable new book, "Life Story". Enjoy!

How Do Humans Fit Into the Story of Life?

“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal

onhumans.substack.com

Should vegetarians use leather? A common modern dilemma, but here's an ancient echo: Chinese buddhist monks debating whether to wear silk or not. What a title by the way: "Bald head Destroyers of Living Things" www.jstor.org/stable/26571...

Orangutans playing kazoos?! Funny, but apparently very significant, too. "The observation that orangutans can exercise active voicing and have a degree of online control over the larynx suggests that the roots of this ability within the human clade are much older than previously thought."

"Humans are the animal kingdom's ultimate omnivores" - Daniel Lieberman onhumans.substack.com/p/beyond-pal...

Have you ever wondered why humans are the only animals who cook their food? And what can a culinary history of humanity tell us about healthy eating?  What a joy to chat about these questions with Dan Lieberman, author of Fed Up! [Fed Up is out now, published by @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social]

Beyond Paleo: A Culinary History of Humanity

How did food shape the human journey? And what lessons can ancestral diets give us about healthy eating? Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman explains.

onhumans.substack.com

Including podcast episodes in my Evolution & Human Behaviour module for the first time this year. I have episodes from @manymindspod.bsky.social , @epthepod.bsky.social , @ilarimakela.bsky.social & @thedissenteryt.bsky.social . Any others I've missed?

New resources are now available to accompany our economics podcast which delves into lessons from the past to help inform our future. 🎧 In this series hosted by @ilarimakela.bsky.social leading experts discuss why the West became the richest corner of the early modern world. buff.ly/wvoRhlv

What a pleasure to finally have Valerie Hansen on the show! 👏 A lot of fascinating topics here, from Silk Roads in Africa to Viking explorers in the Americas. Hansen also finished with a wonderful reflection on some of the surprisingly mundane forces that have long driven the story of humanity.

Yale Classics Library@yaleclassicslib.bsky.social · 3mo ago

When Did Globalisation Really Begin? Valerie Hansen @yale.edu on the On Humans Podcast @ilarimakela.bsky.social onhumans.substack.com/p/when-did-g...

"The continued attraction of the ‘human revolution’ perhaps comes from the fact that for a generation of researchers the notion of a revolution separating ‘modern’ humans from ‘archaic’ hominins was axiomatic." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... >>@huwgroucutt.bsky.social

Brad Delong at his best, reminding econ historians to pause at times, and look deeper than growth, institutions, or early modern pin factories. braddelong.substack.com/p/hoisted-fr... @braddelong.bsky.social

A highlight from the recent episode with Ken Pomeranz, together with @cagewarwick.bsky.social #history onhumans.substack.com/p/why-the-west

“The Industrial Revolution happened after the Scientific Revolution, and that's probably not a coincidence.” In this episode of our #economichistory podcast Joel Mokyr, 2025 Nobel laureate explores the many ways science contributed to Europe’s economic rise. 🎧️ Listen at: buff.ly/lbfDqgF

It's been a privilege working on this! I read Pomeranz's "The Great Divergence" as a first-year master student at Pekiing University, and was awed. This was the kind of history I had always wanted: It wasn't about kings and courts. It was about the forces that shape the everyday -- still today.

CAGE Research Centre@cagewarwick.bsky.social · 6mo ago

In the first episode of our #economichistory podcast we talk to Kenneth Pomeranz who coined the term Great Divergence. He explains his theories on why Europe became the birthplace of industrial modernity. 🎧️ Listen at: buff.ly/tlzwdzo 🎙️ Hosted by @ilarimakela.bsky.social