Past Presentation

Jared Diamond: UCLA Dept. of GeographySome societies have suffered environmental collapses in the past (Easter Island, Angkor Wat, Anasazi, Classic Maya…), while others have remained intact for thousands of years (Japan, Northwest Europe, Java, Tikopia…). Some countries are close to collapse today, while others are not. What makes some societies more fragile than others? Authors […]

Carl Bergstrom: University of Washington Dept. of BiologyOver the past 3.5 billion years, biological organisms have evolved to acquire, process, store, and transmit information. How have organisms evolved to handle the same problems with which we are confronted in this so-called Information Age: problems of information storage and processing, problems of transmission and reliability, problems […]

Peter Gray : Charles Drew UniversityTwo hallmarks of human male reproductive strategies are the formation of long-term bonds with a mate and the provision of paternal care. These activities may, in part, be exclusive to male-male competition and mate-seeking, the main components of mating effort. From a complementary, mechanistic perspective, the steroid hormone testosterone (T) […]

Tim German: UCSB PsychologyThe human ability to make tools and use them to solve problems may not be zoologically unique, but it is certainly extraordinary. Yet little is known about the conceptual machinery that makes humans so competent at making and using tools. Do adults and children have concepts specialized for understanding human-made artifacts? If […]