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403: Grandmas (Kristen Hawkes)
Not What You Think with Zacha Rosen
English - September 23, 2016 00:00 - 21 minutes - 21 BytesSocial Sciences Science Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Why is menopause a thing? Only three species really do it: short-finned pilot whales, killer whales and humans beings. It’s biologically strange. And it gives us another biologically strange thing: grandmas.
Dr Kristen Hawkes (University of Utah) is the lead proponent of the Grandmother Hypothesis, which says that grandmas became a thing in human evolution because having them was a pretty good deal, evolutionarily speaking.
Links from this episode:
Listen to Kristen’s full lecture at the Science Festival at Sydney Uni’s Sydney Ideas podcast. (She’s introduced by local collaborator, Peter Kim.)
The Atlantic also has a bit more about the Grandmother Hypothesis.
If you just want to know about other animals that do go through menopause, National Geographic has you covered.
Songs in This Episode:
Green, Green Rocky Road — Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack)
1, 2, 3 — Camille
Golden Valves — Orkestra Del Sol
Il Principe — Eusebio
Green, Green Rocky Road — Dave Van Ronk (Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack)
Mis Dos Pequeñas — Orlando Cachaito Lopez (Six Feet Under soundtrack)