The Leakey Foundation

Why Walk on Two Legs? The Pros and Cons of Bipedalism
2015-04-01 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | American Museum of Natural History, 56 West 81st St., New York, NY, 10024, United States
Join us for an evening of science, cocktails and conversation at SciCafe at the American Museum of Natural History. Wednesday, April 1 at 7:00. Admission is free and registration is recommended.
Walking on two legs, or ‘bipedalism’, is one of the key characteristics defining humans and our early ancestors. But what an odd way to walk and run. In this SciCafe, join Museum Curator Brian Richmond and Jeremy DeSilva from Boston University in exploring the great advantages of walking on two legs that allow us to be human, as well as the unfortunate consequences of evolving bipedalism from a body plan designed to walk on four, not two, legs.

Medicine Without Evolution is like Engineering Without Physics
2015-03-03 18:30 - 19:30 | The Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX, 77030, United States
Evolutionary medicine uses the basic science of evolutionary biology to improve the understanding, prevention and treatment of disease. Instead of just asking how the body works and why it goes awry, it also asks why natural selection left us with so many traits like wisdom teeth and the narrow birth canal that leave us vulnerable to disease. The old answer–the limits of natural selection–is important, but there are five other important explanations for vulnerability.
Randolph Nesse, a founder of the field, will give examples to illustrate all six reasons, with a focus on cancer, infectious diseases, and emotional disorders. He will explain why the field is growing so quickly, its prospects for providing a deeper understanding of disease, and how scientists and clinicians can join the effort to bring evolutionary biology to bear on the problems of medicine.
