Search results
Human-like relatives two million years ago had it "pretty easy", according to birth reconstruction in a fossil. For Australopithecus sediba, which lived 1.95 million years ago in South Africa,...
- Overview
- The Eves of evolution
Download PDF
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution Cat Bohannon Knopf/Hutchinson Heinemann (2023)
What is a woman? In Eve, Cat Bohannon traces the development of female bodies back 200 million years. A writer with a doctorate in the evolution of narrative and cognition, Bohannon offers a refreshing and lively corrective to a story that has focused mainly on male evolution.
“The male body, from mouse to human, is what gets studied in the lab,” writes Bohannon. “Unless we’re specifically researching ovaries, uteri, estrogens, or breasts, the girls aren’t there.” Only since 2016 has any US funding agency required grant recipients to use animals of both sexes in experimental studies. And a Google search for “human lineage images” shows only male hominids, often clutching a spear, club or briefcase.
Bohannon begins her odyssey with a mouse-sized, egg-laying early mammal called Morganucodon, the first of our furry ancestors to feed milk to her offspring. Pattering around under the feet of dinosaurs about 205 million years ago, the insect-eating ‘Morgie’ — as the author calls her — sweated beads of milk filled with water, sugars and lipids from her skin for her offspring to slurp.
Oldest genetic data from a human relative found in 2-million-year-old teeth
- Josie Glausiusz
Mar 14, 2024 · No other mammals on the planet have been observed regularly helping one another give birth. With gynaecology comes contraception, reproductive choice and birth-spacing.
- Edwina Preston
There are documented cases of Soviet experiments in the 1920s where artificial insemination was attempted using female chimps and human sperm. However, none of these experiments resulted in a pregnancy, much less the birth of a ‘humanzee’.
Sep 14, 2024 · Not just how large the brain is in relation to the body, but also how quickly the brain grows before birth. Both factors correlate with especially invasive placentae.
May 18, 2020 · A Strategic Choice. Early female animals laid eggs in the sense that they released their ova into the world, often thousands at a time. Sperm released by males then fertilized some of these eggs in a hit-or-miss fashion, and the resulting embryos took their chances on surviving in the hostile world until they hatched.
Dec 15, 2020 · Through genetic testing, zoo scientists discovered the newly hatched female, born on Aug. 24, 2016, had been produced through a reproductive mode called parthenogenesis. Parthenogenesis is...
People also ask
How did early female animals lay eggs?
How long have reptiles been giving birth?
How do newborn animals come into the world?
Did humans have a 'pretty easy' birth process 2 million years ago?
Did a female water dragon have a mother?
Which came first chicken or egg?
