WHO: Briana Pobiner is a paleoanthropologist and educator in the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She conducts original scientific research on the evolution of Stone Age human diets, studying modern and fossil animal bones. She also leads the public engagement efforts of the Human Origins Program. In this capacity, she develops and facilitates public programs for various audiences, updates website content, responds to public and media inquiries, manages social media accounts, and leads training for exhibition volunteers. She joined NMNH in 2005 as a research fellow, and in 2008 she became a member of the core team for the Hall of Human Origins which opened in 2010. She is also an Associate Research Professor of Anthropology in the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at George Washington University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate classes. Briana received a BA (1997) in Evolutionary Studies from Bryn Mawr College and an MA (2002) and PhD (2007) in Anthropology from Rutgers University.
WHEN: Thursday 13 April 6:30PM Pacific (0230 UTC)
WHERE : Online. Click HERE to join.
Previous SkepTalks:
9 Mar 2023 Netflix’ Ancient Apocalypse: Confronting Mainstream Pseudoarchaeology – John Hoopes 9 Feb 2023 The Cultural Logic of Vaccine Refusal – Jennifer Reich 12 Jan 2023 Racism, Not Race: Answers to Questions Even a Skeptic Might Ask – Joseph Graves 8 Dec 2022 Gods and Robots: Imagining Artificial Life in Antiquity – Adrienne Mayor 10 Nov 2022 Science Education in an Age of Misinformation – Jonathan Osborne 13 Oct 2022 Science vs… History? – Wendy Zuckerman & Sebastion Major 8 Sep 2022 How to Effectively Push Back Against Misinformation – Jonathan Jarry 11 Aug 2022 What Does Evidence Do – Jenny Rice 9 Jun 2022 How to Talk to a Science Denier – Lee McIntyre 12 May 2022 Superstitions, Aliens, and Conspiracies: The Frontlines of Astronomy Outreach – Mike Simmons 14 Apr 2022 Confidence Men: How 2 Prisoners Made History’s Most Remarkable Escape – Margalit Fox 10 Mar 2022 The Reality of Reality TV – Yau-Man Chan 10 Feb 2022 Who’s Making All Those Scam Calls – Yudhijit Bhattacharjee 13 Jan 2022 Weirdness!: What Fake Science & the Paranormal Tell Us about the Nature of Science – Taner Edis 9 Dec 2021 Dangers of the “Lost Civilization” Trope – A.J. White 11 Nov 2021 Machineries of Doubt: Climate, Cigarettes & Confusion – John Mashey 9 Sep 2021 The Great Australian Psychic Prediction Project – Richard Saunders 12 Aug 2021 What To Do About Misinformation (in Four Dimensions) – John Cook 8 July 2021 Tilting at Strawmen & Other Tricks of Climate Denial Enablers – Mark Boslough 10 Jun 2021 The Truth Behind False Memories – Jill Yamashita 13 May 2021 Vaccine hesitancy in the era of COVID – Tara C. Smith 8 Apr 2021 Why storytelling is vital to science communication – Sara ElShafie 11 Mar 2021 Haunted Humanity: The Fringe Is Not Fringe, and That’s a Big Deal – Daniel Loxton 11 Feb 2021 From Junk to Genes: The birth of new miRNA genes in the human genome – Nathan Lents 14 Jan 2021 The Continuing Relevance of America’s Eugenic Legacy – Paul Lombardo 10 Dec 2020 Deepfakes, GANs and Visual Misinformation – Nick Dufour 12 Nov 2020 The Debate about Dark Matter: Is the Matter Settled? – Don Lincoln 8 Oct 2020 Facilitated Communication: Holding on to (False) Hope – Janyce Boynton 10 Sep 2020 Mad Myths: The Case for Using Persuasion to Promote Critical Thinking – Jay Diamond 13 Feb 2020 Big Data: What it is, how it’s used, where it’s headed – Mike Olson 12 Dec 2019 Are you sure that sippy-cup is safe? – Layla Katiraee 7 Nov 2019 Why Do People Reject Good Science? – Eugenie Scott 10 Oct 2019 Shit Students Say: Chem trails, hollow earths, and other strange ideas – Steven Newton 12 Sep 2019 Successful Skepticism: Creating Lasting Community – Tucker Phelps 9 May 2019 The Bitter M&Ms of Climate Change: Misconceptions and Misinformation – Brad Hoge 11 Apr 2019 The Year in Anti-Science-Education Legislation – Glenn Branch 14 Mar 2019 Australia’s Psychic Detectives and Psychic “Predictions” – Richard Saunders 14 Feb 2019 What Would Darwin Say to Today’s Creationists? – Eugenie Scott 10 Jan 2019 Common Misconceptions About CRISPR Genome Editing – Kevin Doxzen 13 Dec 2018 BAS BAH Fest 8 Nov 2018 A Skeptic’s Guide to Planet Hunting – Josh Lofy 11 Oct 2018 Beyond a Candle in the Dark – Mick West 13 Sep 2018 When a Biology Meets a Biology – David Almandsmith 10 May 2018 Common Misconceptions in Anthropology – Julie Hui 12 Apr 2018 Skepardy! — Bill Patterson 8 Mar 2018 A Quirky Colloquium Quashing Quantum Quackery — Miriam Diamond 8 Feb 2018 The Human Drive to Explain — Tania Lombrozo 14 Jan 2018 Neuroscience and the Great Questions — Ransom Stephens 14 Dec 2017 Top Ten Myths of Homelessness — Carrie Sager 9 Nov 2017 Myths of Mass Extinctions — Kevin Padian 12 Oct 2017 Hurricanes and Heat Waves: Is This Climate Change? — Brad Hoge 11 May 2017 Beyond the Choir – Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia — Susan Gerbic 13 Apr 2017 An Invisible Plague: the Growing Threat of Tuberculosis — Lauren Popov 9 Feb 2017 Are Saturated Fats Bad for You? Separating Fat from Fiction — Kent McDonald 12 Jan 2017 Harry Houdini vs. Psychics & Mediums — Mark Tarses 29 Dec 2016 Too Good to be True? – Richard Saunders 10 Nov 2016 Myths of Astronomy — Thomas Targett 10 Sep 2015 Angle Trisection: A problem many tried to solve — Paul Stepahin 9 Apr 2015 Herding Cats and Teaching Science — Dan Pemberton 12 Feb 2015 Quantum Pseudoscience and the Nature of Mind — Russel Willcox 8 Jan 2015 The Manson Family, Cults, and the Psychology of Commitment – Dr. Patrick O’Reilly 10 Oct 2012 Writing About Vaccines When Evidence Doesn’t Matter — Liza Gross 12 Sep 2012 Gay Conversion Therapy: You Make Me Sick — Sheldon Helms 8 Aug 2012 Documentary & Skype — “In God We Teach” 11 Apr 2012 A Skeptical View of Climate Change Skeptics — Mark McCaffrey 14 Nov 2011 Climate Change: From the Biotic to the Exotic — Minda Berbeco 12 Oct 2011 A Unicorn in Your Tank: Magic Tablets That Won’t Improve Gas Mileage — Yau-Man Chan 14 Sep 2011 Catastrophes! — Don Prothero
WHAT: The modern “paleo” diet movement makes many assumptions about what our ancient human ancestors ate. But are these assumptions based on actual evidence? Presenting a variety of lines of evidence for prehistoric human diets including early human, animal, and plant fossils, ancient stone tools, DNA, and living human and chimpanzee diets, Dr. Briana Pobiner will discuss significant changes in the evolution of human diets – and highlight what makes human meat-eating unique.