Archives for diet

03.25.20

Grantee Spotlight: Mareike Janiak

Grantee Spotlight
What makes humans such "adaptable" and flexible creatures, especially when it comes to what we eat? Primates, in general, can survive on a wide variety of foods, but there are also a lot of species with a range of really specialized diets, like those focused on insects, leaves, or fruit, and all of these foods have different challenges when it comes to digesting them. Mareike Janiak's research is focused on understanding how the species in these different dietary niches have adapted to digesting their foods.
07.02.19

Bonobo Diet of Aquatic Greens May Hold Clues to Human Evolution

Journal Article
With support from The Leakey Foundation, scientists have observed bonobos in the Congo basin foraging in swamps for aquatic herbs rich in iodine. Iodine is a critical nutrient for brain development and higher cognitive abilities, and this new research may explain how the nutritional needs of prehistoric humans in the region were met.
12.20.16

From the Field: Dorothée Drucker

From the Field
My work takes place in the lab where bone samples are prepared for isotopic analysis. To reconstruct diet, carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 are measured to establish the origin of the dietary proteins. Collagen, the main protein in bone, is extracted from the bone sample after several steps of cleaning and purification.