Origins of Us (2011)

ORIGINS OF US
Documentary, 2011
Dr. Alice Roberts

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2088447/



EXCERPTS:

EP. 1 - BONES

So really in order to be good runner
you have to be a good strong butt.


So the muscles in my bottom,
your bottom,
and every human bottom on Earth,
have been shaped
by the facts that our ancestors
evolved the body meant to run.

But this running body wasn't built for
more speed.
It evolved to run long distances.
Our ancestors were endurance runners.


In a developed countries say
few hours run on regular basis
its really is remarkable reflect
how much our bodies are shaped by running.

(Our Ancestors) their running wasn't a choice
it wasn't their accretion activity,
it was essential to survival.


4 million sweat pores
3 liter sweat in an hour.


Our long distance runner body
became our secret weapon.


It took nearly 5 million year of evolution
to get from Toumai (7 m yrs) to Nariokotome Boy (1.8 m yrs)
in that time our ancestors had abandoned the forest
for the Savannah.
And it had gone for being four limb climbers to legged runners.



As far as we know
the first stone tool makers
were Homo Habilis
appearing around 2.5 million years ago.


Big powerful thumb we have and don't chimpanzees.
relatively new, 2.5 million years in Homo Habilis.

_____________________________

EP. 2 - GUTS

Recent research suggests
it was cooking, not meat
that fuel the evolution
of our big brains.
It was cooking
that made us human.


Cooked food is much easier to digest than raw.
and this single fact holds the key that why cooking was so important in our evolution.


... Risk taking is almost doubled
when an attractive woman is present.

_____________________________

EP. 3 - BRAINS

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul.
And our eyes are unique.

We are the only animals on the planet
which show the whites of their eyes.

We can do something that no any other animal on Earth can do,
we can tell what someone thinking just by looking at their eyes,
we can literally read their minds.



But there's a price to pay having a big brain
giving birth is one of the most painful and dangerous experience
women have to endure.

Humans are the only species that need help to get birth,
our babies heads are so big that it standing like it getting out at all.*


... but compare to the most new born mammals
his brain is relatively immature.
He doesn't have much control over his body, and even less ability to make sense the world around him. It'll be about 8 years before his brain reaches its full size, and it'll around midteen before it properly mature.


(Europeans) share the genes with Neanderthal (by interbreeding)


Human Evolution in glimpse.
_____________________________
_____________________________

Are We Still Evolving (2011)

ARE WE STILL EVOLVING (2011)
Dr. Alice Roberts

Excerpts:

"Our species emerged some 200,000 year ago.
About 60,000 years ago, we spread out from Africa."


"In the past, we were all dark-skinned."


Prof. Steve Jones: "In Shakespeare's time, about one English baby in three made it to be 21.
In the year of Darwin's birth, about one English baby in two, made it to be 21.
But now, about 99% of the English babies born make it to be 21."
Dr. Alice Roberts: "Will, certainly just personally, I'm asthmatic and I would've probably died as a child, (as a result of natural selection),
Prof: "Real reason i think that evolution has come to an end is partly modern medicine but
more important perhaps, modern engineering."



"Are you actually allowing people to choose whether they have a boy or a girl?"
"Anyone can choose here. Yep. They can choose a boy, choose a girl.
And we've done this close to 9,000 times now."
(Dr. Jeff Steinbert, The Fertility Institutes.)


"... how we evolve depends on how the world changes,
and how we change the world."


"Humans are pretty special but they're not that special.
99.9% of all animals have gone extinct and I'm pretty sure we'll go extinct in the end as well." Prof. Steve Jones


"In the broadest possible sense,
we haven't always been human,
and we won't always be in the future."

________________________

The Incredible Human Journey - Excerpts

The Incredible Human Journey
by Alice Roberts


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1397256/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Human_Journey
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/incredible-human-journey/

Excerpts:

"We are all the children of Africa."

[Omo river in Ethiopia (far western side of the Omo) nearly 200,000 years, is our birthplace]

"The evidence suggests that the very first human-like creatures evolved in Africa over four million years ago.
They were much more ape-like than us,
A series of human species with gradually bigger brains came and went,
The most recent, and only surviving,
is our own species, Homo sapeins."


"For just a few thousand years, the Sahara, Sinai and Arabian deserts were lush and green.
So it looks like, 125,000 years ago, it would have been possible for our ancestors to have walked
through the Sahara and leave Africa to the northeast."


Part.2


"Professor Wu sees a clear line,
Homo erectus evolving into Upper Cave Man, becoming today's Chinese,
For him, these fossils prove that the Chinese come from a completely different branch of the human family."

"But I can see significant differences between the skulls,
The whole skull shape of Homo erectus is quite different from modern humans."

[conclusion: Chinese are not from different branch, they are also African, Geneticists proved]


Part.3


"Wo when Homo sapiens first arrived around 40,000 years ago,
Europe was already taken. (by Neanderthals)"


"Some scientists believe their descendants are still walking around today.
If our ancestor interbred with them, some of us could be part of Neanderthal."

"Researchers are now sequencing the Neanderthal genome,
using DNA from bones tens of thousands of years old (Neanderthal)
and comparing it with our own.
And so far there's no sign of any interbreeding.
Neanderthals really did die out."

[lack of vitamin D made the Europeans skin white]
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