Dec 13, 2022

The Analogy of/and Inoculation Theory to Mental Immunity

Models from epidemiology are increasingly used to better understand how misinformation spreads in online networks.

Aug 23, 2022

The Anxiety Epidemic in Children: What are the Causes?

Rates of anxiety and depression have been rising in children since the 1980’s and might have accelerated during the last ten years.

Oct 12, 2020

How Covid-19 Reminds Us We Are More Alike Than Different

Genetic differences between individuals within groups are much greater than any average differences between groups of individuals.

Sep 14, 2020

For God’s Sake! What’s All This Fuss About a Virus?

The success (or failure) that societies have had in the wake of COVID-19 offers a simple reminder that the success of Homo sapiens has been essentially a cooperative enterprise.

Aug 24, 2020

Institutionalization of Animal Welfare and the Evolution of Coronavirus(es)

The current pandemic is an obvious manifestation of the price society has to pay for current practices.

Jul 28, 2020

Is Video Chat a Sufficient Proxy for Face-to-Face Interaction? Biosociological Reflections on Life during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“Zoom fatigue” and “touch starvation” have evolutionary origins that researchers need to take seriously.

Jul 27, 2020

Social Science Contributions to the Study of Zoonotic Spillover: Normal Accidents and Treadmill Theory

Two approaches help us identify high-risk activities and social processes that heighten the likelihood of zoonotic spillover.

Jun 15, 2020

The Cheating Cell: An Interview with Athena Aktipis

Understanding why and how both Twitter bots and cancer cells create conflict in different kinds of cooperative social systems may help us find new strategies to bring both kinds of disruptive behavior under control.

May 3, 2020

The Physical Activity Mismatch: Can Evolutionary Perspectives Inform Exercise Recommendations?

It’s highly likely that some degree of mismatch exists between our modern environment and the physical activity levels we have evolved to perform.

Apr 29, 2020

Did Paleolithic People Suffer From Kidney Disease?

Paleo-type diets by limiting salt and sugar should help limit damage to the blood vessels in the kidneys and other organ systems.

Apr 20, 2020

Pandemic: A Global Opportunity for National Renewal or Deterioration

Pandemics spread among human populations because the viruses and bacteria that cause them exploit a key evolutionary asset of the human species: our unique pro-social nature.

Mar 26, 2020

Big Pharma and the Death of Americans

As long as harmful practices result in profits to corporations and income to corporate leaders, harmful practices will continue.

Mar 23, 2020

How Coronavirus Bypasses Our Behavioral Immune System (And What We Can Do About It)

The evolved emotion of disgust neutralizes many pathogens by helping us avoid what makes us sick. We need to adapt our behavioral immune system to counter new threats.

Mar 19, 2020

How and Why the Food Industry Makes Americans Sick

The problem is that capitalism, as it is currently practiced in the United States, has no system for assessing the risks of companies’ products and marketing practices.

Mar 5, 2020

How Cigarette Marketing Killed 20 Million People

The tobacco industry provides a lesson about the harm that can be done in the name of profit. No other industry has contributed as much to promote illness and death.

May 22, 2019

Public Health and Evolutionary Mismatch: The Tragedy of Unnecessary Suffering and Death

The current anti-vaccination movement is a result, in part, of the innate cognitive biases inherent in our nervous systems that evolved to deal with problems in a very different premodern world.

Apr 4, 2019

The Potential Evolutionary Mismatches of Germicidal Ambient Lighting

Introducing germicidal blue light essentially creates a new environment that most bacteria appear to be mismatched to survive within. But we may be mismatched as well.

Apr 2, 2019

Is Cancer a Disease of Civilization?

Our cancer suppression mechanisms evolved for a world that is not the world we live in today.

Mar 22, 2019

The Darwinian Causes of Mental Illness

Why hasn’t natural selection eliminated -- or at least severely reduced the frequency of -- well-known risk alleles for major depression and other mental health conditions that compromise organismal fitness?

Mar 20, 2019

(Mis-) Communication in Medicine: A Preventive Way for Doctors to Preserve Effective Communication in Technologically-Evolved Healthcare Environments

Cultural evolution created technologically-advanced contexts that make it difficult for doctors to communicate with patients in manners concordant with our evolved, ancestrally-familiar modes of communication.

Feb 25, 2019

A Mother's Mismatch: Why Cancer Has Deep Evolutionary Roots

While cancer is not exclusively a disease of modern environments, many modern environmental changes influence our disease susceptibility.

Sep 20, 2016

Evolutionary Medicine Comes of Age: An Interview with Randolph Nesse

The evolutionary outlook expands the perspective of health professionals from that of mechanics to that of engineers.

Jun 27, 2016

Evolutionary Medicine: The Top Ten Questions

Evolution explains why we have traits that leave us vulnerable to disease, as well as why so many other aspects of the body work so well.

Mar 29, 2016

On Junk Diets and Junk Science: What’s the evidence for and against the paleo diet?

Adopting an evolutionary framework, based on sound scientific empirical work, is our best way forward to understand human health in the modern world.

Mar 8, 2016

Evolution Shows Us That Nurture & Love Are Fundamental To Mental Health

Evolution helps explain why the need for love and nurture is key in creating a childhood that makes humans happy and productive throughout their lives.

Jan 8, 2016

Cancer and the transformation of life: An Interview with Athena Aktipis

An insightful interview with Athena Aktipis on cancer research from an evolutionary perspective.

Feb 16, 2015

The Vaccine Controversy. Through An Evolutionary Lens

Jun 21, 2013

Misconception & Menopause, Media & Public Reception, And The Larry King Effect

Scientists respond to the media buzz about their research that went viral.While scientists increasingly have become interested in publicizing science and publishing popular books, media have played important roles in translating science from the field or laboratory to the public domain. Thus, scientists, media, and the public flanked by industry, business, and government define the consortium of producers, consumers, and sponsors of discovery.

Jun 6, 2013

How to Really Eat Like A Hunter-Gatherer: Why The Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked

We are not biologically identical to our Paleolithic predecessors, nor do we have access to the foods they ate.

Mar 22, 2013

Did Evolution Give Us Inflammatory Disease?

Researchers demonstrate that some variants in our genes that could put a person at risk for inflammatory diseases have been the target of natural selection over the course of human history.

Jan 26, 2013

Patients and Evolutionary History

What evolutionary insights are there for clinical medicine?

Jan 22, 2013

How Can Evolutionary Biology Explain Why We Get Cancer?

Using evolutionary medicine to treat cancer.

Dec 27, 2012

Exercise and the Ever-Smarter Human Brain

The role of physical endurance in shaping humankind.

Dec 27, 2012

Erratic Environment May Be Key to Human Evolution

Key mental developments within the human lineage may have been linked with a highly variable environment.

Dec 10, 2012

Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains

The connection between mother and child is ever deeper than thought.

Nov 18, 2012

Mental Disorders And Evolution: What Would Darwin Say About Schizophrenia?

How do debilitating mental disorders survive natural selection?

Nov 14, 2012

Evolutionary Pharmacology is at the Forefront of an Adventure in Crowdfunding

Funding evolutionary pharmacology research.

Nov 7, 2012

More Reasons To Thank Grandma - She May Be The Secret To Human Longevity

People live longer thanks to the grandmothers who help raise them.

Oct 16, 2012

Modern Humans Found to be Fittest Ever at Survival, By Far

Humans have done more to extend our life expectancy in the last century than during the previous 6.6 million years, since the evolutionary divergence from chimpanzees.

Oct 15, 2012

Can Humans Stop Aging?

Can scientists prevent aging in late life?

Oct 14, 2012

Has our War on Microbes Left our Immune Systems Prone to Dysfunction?

An Epidemic of Absence takes on the worms you're missing.

Oct 8, 2012

For Some Primates, Survival of the Nicest

Baboons, like people, really do get by with a little help from their friends.

Oct 2, 2012

The Evolutionary Advantage of Depression

Alleles (forms of genes) that increase one's risk for depression also enhance immune responses to infections.

Sep 23, 2012

Inequality of Wealth. Inequality of Health.

Historical data show that rampant economic inequality results in declining standards of life for the least advantaged.

Sep 9, 2012

Why Fathers Really Matter

What if it turned out, though, that expectant fathers molded babies, too, and not just by way of genes?

Sep 8, 2012

Evolution Could Explain the Placebo Effect

Scientists have discovered a possible evolutionary explanation for the placebo effect with new evidence.

Aug 28, 2012

Why Humans Give Birth to Helpless Babies

Why are human infants so helpless?

Aug 27, 2012

Debunking the Hunter-Gatherer Workout

DARWIN isn’t required reading for public health officials, but he should be.

Aug 25, 2012

The Evolutionary Basis For Obesity

The first evidence for the evolutionary basis for the obesity epidemic and the increased prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes.

Aug 22, 2012

Menopause Evolved to Prevent Competition Between In-Laws

The menopause evolved, in part, to prevent competition between a mother and her new daughter-in-law.