News

The Leakey Foundation’s new series Lunch Break Science has been a great success with over 7,000 views of episodes since its launch on June 25. The series was originally slated to run through August 27th, but don’t pack up your lunches quite yet! Lunch Break Science has been renewed for another 26 episodes starting Thursday, October 1st.

The Leakey Foundation’s new live-stream series Lunch Break Science has been a great success. We’ve spent the summer hearing about the exciting research Leakey Foundation grantees are conducting all over the world. Now it’s time to plan what comes next and we need your help!

Boxgrove in Sussex, England, is an iconic, old stone age site. This is where the oldest human remains in Britain have been discovered – fossils of Homo heidelbergensis. Part of an exceptionally preserved 26km-wide ancient landscape of stone, it provides a virtually untouched record of early humans almost half a million years ago.

Leakey Foundation grantee Stephanie Fox grew up surrounded by examples of strong female friendships. A few years ago, she learned that those kinds of friendships aren’t as common as she thought. Now her Leakey Foundation-supported research investigates the biological roots of female friendship.

A study funded in part by The Leakey Foundation investigated the links between parasite infection and the gut microbiome. Researchers discovered that the presence of parasites was strongly associated with the overall composition of the microbiome.

It is with profound sadness that I share the news of Barry Sterling’s death on July 26th at his home in Sebastopol, California. He was 90 years old.
Barry was elected to The Leakey Foundation Board of Trustees in 1991 and received the honorary title of Life Trustee in 2007.

On July 22, The Leakey Foundation hosted a free webinar with global change biologist and science communication educator Sara ElShafie. The recording of “Science Through Visual Stories” is now available!

Ancient humans deliberately collected perforated shells in order to string them together as beads, according to a study supported in part by The Leakey Foundation and published July 8, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

This month’s featured video is primatologist Zarin Machanda’s talk from The Leakey Foundation’s new web series Lunch Break Science. Dr. Machanda is assistant professor of anthropology at Tufts University and director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project. Her talk explores the surprisingly nuanced world of chimpanzee vocalizations and gestures.

The Leakey Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of the 2020 Franklin Mosher Baldwin Memorial Fellowships. These Fellowships are awarded to graduate students from countries where there are limited opportunities for advanced training and education in fields of research related to the study of human origins.