Podcast: The Birth Pangs of Humanity

by Ann Gibbons on 15 February 2013, 6:00 PM |

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The Birth Pangs of Humanity.mp3

Credit: Science/AAAS

BOSTON—Evolution works with what it's handed. Take the human back, for example. It went from a horizontal connection between front and hind limbs to a vertical support for the upper half of the body. The resultant balancing act has led to chronic back pain for a huge percentage of the population. Science's Ann Gibbons spoke with Bruce Latimer and Jeremy DeSilva at the AAAS (publisher of ScienceNOW) meeting here about the tradeoffs we've made and the scars of human evolution.

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