Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · 22h

We are currently testing these ideas with empirical data collected by our project in Malaysia, the Orang Asli Health and Lifeways Project (OA HeLP). Stay tuned!

www.orangaslihealth.org

Orang Asli Health and Lifeways Project

Welcome to the homepage of the Orang Asli Health and Lifeways Project (OA HeLP) OA HeLP is a systematic and comparative study of biology, health, behavior, and culture among the Orang Asli, the...

www.orangaslihealth.org

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · 22h

Why dampened inflammatory activity?

Four possible reasons explored here: low levels of adiposity, high physical activity levels, diets consisting of minimally processed foods, and infections from helminths

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · 22h

We propose that non-industrialized peoples have lower osteoarthritis risk dude to having dampened inflammatory activity, a key factor in osteoarthritis pathogenesis.

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · 22h

Check out our new paper in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, led by Ian J. Wallace.

"Dampened inflammation and reduced risk of osteoarthritis among non-industrialized societies"

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · 25d

From a 2004 autobiographical piece by Bruce published in Before Farming (now Hunter Gatherer Research), well worth a read!

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · 25d

Bruce Winterhalder was once asked to share some professional insights.

Here they are:

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

SAPIENS Magazine @sapiens.org · Sep 9

From the archive. Societies divide labor by gender and age. A biological anthropologist considers when and why this behavior arose. Read more: www.sapiens.org/biology/labo...

How Allocating Work Aided Our Evolutionary Success

Many societies divide labor by gender and age. A biological anthropologist considers when and why this behavior arose.

www.sapiens.org

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Sep 2

A great piece on the women's hunting debate by Elena Bridgers that covers some of our work: elenabridgers.substack.com/p/did-women-...

Did Women Hunt in Our Evolutionary Past?

When Western gender ideology gets in the way of good science

elenabridgers.substack.com

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Sep 2

"We should be careful not to fall into the trap that only hunting mattered in the Paleolithic, and therefore only a revisionist picture of our evolutionary past in which women hunted will ever fully justify egalitarian gender norms in contemporary society."

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Sep 2

A great piece on the women's hunting debate by Elena Bridgers that covers some of our work: elenabridgers.substack.com/p/did-women-...

Did Women Hunt in Our Evolutionary Past?

When Western gender ideology gets in the way of good science

elenabridgers.substack.com

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Ed Hagen @edhagen.net · Aug 23

My review of Sex is a Spectrum, by Agustín Fuentes 🧪 #BioAnth blog.edhagen.net/posts/2025-0...

Review of Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary by Agustín Fuentes – Grasshoppermouse

Blog posts and talk slides

blog.edhagen.net

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Zach Garfield @zhgarfield.com · Aug 22

Some thoughts on how preferences for #leaders change with our environments:

Leaders for the World We Think We Live In | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ecol...

#LeadSciSky #EvPsych #CultEvol #socialpsyc #BehSci 🧪 @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social @psychologytoday.com

Leaders for the World We Think We Live In

Why do we trust steady hands in some contexts and risk-takers in others? Evolutionary theory reveals how environments shape our shifting choices of leaders.

www.psychologytoday.com

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Aug 18

Do not accept the premise that education is to blame for abysmal jobs outcomes.

“The fantasy economy's framing of economic inequality… focuses exclusively on education…deflects attention away from decades of public policies and changing business practices that have…contributed to stagnating wages”

Cover image of Neil Kraus’s The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism inequality and the education reform movement

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Roope Kaaronen @roopekaaronen.net · Jun 1

Published two years ago in @science.org:

"Body-based units of measure in cultural evolution"

We looked into how, and why, human societies have measured things with their bodies.

A little thread about the deep ancestry and cross-cultural heritage of measurement:

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Body-based units of measure in cultural evolution

Measurements based on body part length have cognitive and behavioral advantages, which accounts for their widespread and persistent use.

www.science.org

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Aug 13

I’ve been trying to figure out which scientists in the human evolutionary sciences were directly influenced by Robert Ardrey’s books.

Mostly the answer is a resounding no.

Lewis Wolpert: 'No one working in the social sciences can ignore the

I recently had lunch with John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the University of California at Santa Barbara. They have become famous for their contributions to evolutionary psychology, and have revolution...

www.independent.co.uk

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Aug 13

Our current thinking on this topic is in this preprint on Man the Hunter.

osf.io/preprints/os...

OSF

osf.io

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Aug 13

In light of this, was Ardrey perhaps more influential for evolutionary psychology than for human behavioral ecology and cultural evolution?

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Aug 13

But...I did learn that Leda Cosmides was influenced by The Territorial Imperative early in her career.

www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Aug 13

I’ve been trying to figure out which scientists in the human evolutionary sciences were directly influenced by Robert Ardrey’s books.

Mostly the answer is a resounding no.

Lewis Wolpert: 'No one working in the social sciences can ignore the

I recently had lunch with John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the University of California at Santa Barbara. They have become famous for their contributions to evolutionary psychology, and have revolution...

www.independent.co.uk

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Hugo Mercier @hugoreasoning.bsky.social · Aug 11

From ancient Greece to the Arabic golden age, scholars have been driven by their curiosity to investigate astronomy, history, philosophy, and sundry other disciplines. Is there a structure to that curiosity? Are astronomers as likely to also be historians or to also be philosophers?

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Aug 2

good question. no, we didn't, but perhaps good to consider for our round of revision! thanks

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Chris Stringer @chrisbstringer.bsky.social · Aug 1

Changes in diet drove physical evolution in early humans www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Changes in diet drove physical evolution in early humans

A Dartmouth-led study shows that early humans developed a taste for grassy carbohydrate-rich plants 700,000 years before they evolved the ideal teeth to chew the tougher plant fibers efficiently. The ...

www.eurekalert.org

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Reposted by Vivek V. Venkataraman

Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · Aug 1

This is fascinating. It is also evidence in favour of taking biological agency seriously, rather than treating it as an "as if" property.

Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Jul 31

"Behavior drives morphological change during human evolution"

Our new article is out in @science.org today

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Jul 31

We find evidence for behavioral drive in the hominin fossil record. Changes in graminivorous behavior preceded corresponding changes in dental morphology by ~700,000 years

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Vivek V. Venkataraman @vivek123.bsky.social · Jul 31

"Behavior drives morphological change during human evolution"

Our new article is out in @science.org today

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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