Sausage Of Science

In this episode, Mallika and Chris chat with Dr. Jason DeCaro, Professor and Chair of the University of Alabama's Anthropology Department. Dr. DeCaro studies the intersection of cultural models, everyday practices, and human physiology in the production of differential well-being across the life course, especially but not exclusively focusing on children. His Developmental Ecology and Human Biology Lab is a biological anthropology "wet lab" providing a center within the department for biocultural research involving immunological, endocrine, nutritional, and other biological markers. His recent publication on applying minimally invasive biomarkers of chronic stress across complex ecological contexts can be found at the following link: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23814 ------------------------------ Dr. DeCaro's email: jason.a.decaro@ua.edu Website: https://dehb.ua.edu/jason-decaro.html -------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups

What happens when hypercapitalism intersects with human fertility? Professor Diane Tober joins Chris and Mallika to reveal some of the nuances of Assisted Reproductive Technologies, with a focus on egg donation. ------------------------------------- Diane Tober is Associate Professor at the University of Alabama Department of Anthropology and Institute for Social Science Research. She is a medical anthropologist with a focus on biocultural aspects of health, gender and sexuality, the commodification of the body, science and technology studies, bioethics, and social and reproductive justice. She has been conducting research exploring egg donors’ decisions and experiences within the global market for human eggs since 2013. With funding from the National Science Foundation, she is comparing egg donation in the United States and Spain. She has conducted field research in Iran, Spain, and the United States. Prof. Tober can be contacted via her website: https://dianetober.com/ Her book, "Romancing the Sperm,"

Welcome Sausage of Science's newest host Dr. Mallika S. Sarma! Mallika joins Chris as co-host while Cara is out on sabbatical. In this episode, Mallika and Chris chat with Dr. Paula Tallman about several aspects of water insecurity, notably an important overlap with gender-based violence. Dr. Paula Skye Tallman is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago. Her research examines the drivers of health inequities among marginalized populations in South America and Southeast Asia, with a focus on connecting this scholarship to environmental and social policy. Dr. Tallman received her B.A. in Behavioral Biology from Johns Hopkins University, her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Northwestern University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship focused on indigenous well-being and conservation at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Her recent publications discussed on the show can be found at the following links, titled: Water insecurity, self-reported physical health

Chris and Cara discuss underappreciated athletes before unpacking Big Data with Dr. Elizabeth Miller, an Associate Professor at the University of South Florida. Dr. Miller is a biological anthropologist interested in evolutionary and biocultural approaches to maternal and child health. Her research program spans the study of human milk composition and infant feeding practices, infant immune function in diverse ecologies, maternal iron homeostasis, and early microbiome maturation. In this episode, she breaks down her use of a biocultural approach to early growth using data from NHANES to test the effects of social inequalities on birth weight and later height and how it can be used to contextualize potential pathways of embodiment that link social structure and biology. Her latest publication can be found in AJHB, titled: A critical biocultural approach to early growth in the United States Find it here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23726 ------------------------------ Dr. Miller's e-mail: emm3@usf.edu Twitt

On this show Dr. Asher Rosinger joins Cara and Chris to discuss his new paper in the American Journal of Human Biology (AJHB) titled “Cross-cultural variation in thirst perception in hot-humid and hot-arid environments: Evidence from two small-scale populations.” Dr. Rosinger’s paper is available here:  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.23715  For more insight on this topic please see the upcoming AJHB special issue on Extreme Climatic Events and Human Biology and Health, which will be released in January and ties into the theme of thirst and extreme thermal environments.  Applications for the NSF REU field school mentioned on this episode can be accessed here:  https://anthropology.columbian.gwu.edu/koobi-fora-field-school  Correction: During the podcast Dr. Rosinger mentions “Sarah Fenestra” but her last name is Hlubik.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Dr. Rosinger is an assistant professor of Anthropology and Biobehavioral

Chris sits down with Dr. Emily Pollock, a Prevention Effectiveness Fellow at the CDC in the Division of Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention, where she brings a more robust understanding of human behavior to the challenges of STI modeling for public health. Dr. Pollock earned her PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Washington, with a certificate from the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the same institution. Her dissertation, "Epidemics as Complex Systems: Demography, Networks, and Treatment of Chlamydia trachomatis," focused on applying dynamic network analysis to understand how behavioral, biological, and biomedical factors influence chlamydia reinfection. Most recently, she worked as a data analytics and modeling team member for the CDC's response to the monkeypox outbreak. She has helped develop agent-based network models to understand behavioral drivers of monkeypox transmission and the effects of behavior on the epidemic's trajectory. She discusses two papers: First

Prof. Lynnette Leidy Sievert joins Chris and Cara to discuss how hot flashes, and other symptoms of menopause, vary around the world. Stick around for "offboarding" career advice and a conversation about fish! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lynnette Leidy Sievert has studied variation in age at menopause and symptoms at midlife for more than 30 years. In collaboration with local researchers, she carried out studies of menopause in western Massachusetts; Hilo, Hawaii; the Selška Valley, Slovenia; Asunción and Mbaracayu, Paraguay; Puebla and Campeche, Mexico; Sylhet, Bangladesh; and London, UK, as well as pilot studies in Odisha, India, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Sievert also studies and writes about the evolution of menopause and post-reproductive life. Of late, she has been disentangling the experience of hot flashes from the heat and humidity of Campeche, Mexico, and planning to study hot flashes in the winter cold of Mongolia. Her current study i

Cara interviews Dr. Monica Keith, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University and Data Scientist who studies longitudinal health and child growth in a biosocial framework. Monica uses Bayesian models to assess predictors of growth and health outcomes and integrates health, socio-ecological, and genetic data to study human variation and health disparities in diverse contexts. Monica currently works with three ongoing field studies in Dominica, Bangladesh, and Argentina, researching health, growth, and biodemography in rural and Indigenous populations. She also uses data from the NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to address disparities in reproductive and maternal health in the US. She joins Cara to discuss her most recent work (in review) titled: "Racialized/ethnic disparities in pathways linking social determinants of health, markers of allostatic load, and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy among nulliparous US women." ------------------------------ Monica'

Cara returns to join Chris in interviewing Kathy Wander, a biological anthropologist and epidemiologist working at the intersection of human evolutionary biology and health. Much of Dr. Wander's research seeks to understand how humans (and in particular, children) cope with nutritional and infectious disease stress and the impact of malnutrition and infectious disease on the protective and pathological capacity of the immune system. She has recently published papers about a method developed in her lab (https://www.wanderlab.org) to describe immune activity in human milk; the impact of gender and kinship on risk for chronic disease; and, how genetic adaptations to high altitude may decrease the risk for chronic disease among Himalayan-descended populations. She has active grants to investigate nutrition and infectious disease risk in Tanzania and Nigeria. Check them out here: "Tradeoffs in milk immunity affect infant infectious disease risk" https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoac020 "Human milk lactoferrin variat

Ale Geisel-Zamora is an undergraduate student at Dartmouth College working under the direction of Prof. Zaneta Thayer. Ale won the Hilde Spielvogel Award for Outstanding Presentation by an Undergraduate Student at this year's HBA meeting for her poster "Social support promotes postpartum mental health among US-based participants during the COVID-19 pandemic." The poster, and supplements, can be found here: https://sagz.myportfolio.com/ Ale also chats with Cara and Chris about her undergraduate thesis work examining how Tiktok use affects stress. Ale can be contacted on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/alegoesglobal/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website:humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relati

Dr. Alison Murray joins Chris and Cara to discuss how activity levels during puberty have lifelong effects on bone structure in human females. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Murray’s research examines the evolutionary and behavioral mechanisms shaping variations in human bone and body composition, as well as sex differences within it. To do so, she/they combine the study of archaeological skeletal remains with engineering-based musculoskeletal computer modeling and the experimental study of living humans, including athletes and control subjects. Her paper discussed on today's show, titled "Tibial cortical and trabecular variables together can pinpoint the timing of impact loading relative to menarche in premenopausal females," can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajhb.23711 Follow Dr. Murray @ali_murray & Dr. Murray’s research group @PhaseUVIC on Twitter --------------------------------------------------------------

Chris triumphs in a battle with technology while interviewing our gracious guest Rachael Anyim, a Clifford D. Clark Diversity Fellow and PhD candidate in anthropology at Binghamton University. Rachael and Chris discuss her recent abstract submission, "The effects of milk cortisol on immune responses to in vitro bacterial stimulation" and her work with immune biomarkers in infants and breastmilk. Rachael is the 2022 recipient of the HBA's Phyllis Eveleth Student Award for her outstanding presentation during last year's annual meeting. Rachael recently co-authored a related methods paper with Dr. Katherine Wander and others in the Journal of Human Lactation titled "In Vitro Stimulation of Whole Milk Specimens: A Field-Friendly Method to Assess Milk Immune Activity" which you can find here: https://doi.org/10.1177/0890334421999628 ------------------------------ Rachael's e-mail: ranyim1@binghamton.edu Twitter: https://twitter.com/BUBreastfeeding -------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Hu

Dr. Amanda Veile is a biological anthropologist, and her research broadly examines human birthing and breastfeeding behaviors and outcomes, and several epidemiologic factors that shape cross-cultural variation in child development. She currently maintains field research projects in Mexico and Peru. She is an Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology, the Director of LABOR (Laboratory for Behavior, Ontogeny and Reproduction), a faculty associate at the Center on Aging and the Life Course (CALC), an executive board member of the Ingestive Behavior Research Center (IBRC), and holds a courtesy faculty appointment in the Department of Public Health at Purdue University. She is also an Assistant Editor at Birth, a peer-reviewed obstetrics and gynecology journal. Her paper discussed on today's show, titled "Household conditions modulate associations between cesarean delivery and childhood growth," can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24563 ------------------------- Prof.

Cara cannibalizes pickles before she and Chris interview Dr. Zachary Cofran, an assistant professor of Anthropology at Vassar College who is affiliated with the Center for the Exploration of the Deep Human Journey at the University of Witwatersrand. Dr. Cofran received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2012 (GO BLUE!). Zachary studies human evolution, growth, and development and has been heavily involved in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. Zachary has a new paper out in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology called "The immature Homo naledi ilium from the Lesedi Chamber, Rising Star Cave, South Africa" Find it here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24522 ------------------------------ Zach's e-mail: zcofran@vassar.edu Website: https://lawnchairanthropology.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZCofran -------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website:humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBi

SoS 171: Behold! Natalia Reagan Behold! Natalia Reagan joins Chris and Cara to talk science engagement, precarity in academia, and ...phallic grapes?! Natalia Reagan is an anthropologist, primatologist, actor, producer, writer, host, and comedienne. She is a comedy writer and correspondent on Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk on Nat Geo and is also a StarTalk All-Star podcast host. She was the co-host on Spike TV’s show 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty. Natalia wrote and produced a web series called Talking Shit with Dr. Todd and Natalia. She was also a regular animal expert on Nat Geo Wild’s Everything You Didn’t Know About Animals. She was a regular writer and host for Discovery Communication’s Seeker & TestTube. She has appeared on the TODAY Show, Fox News, Arise 360, HuffPost Weird News Podcast, and various podcasts & radio shows weighing in on different scientific subjects, from the evolution of boobs and butts to how pheromones play a role in human mating. As an actress, Natalia has appeared in My Na

Dr. Lara Durgavich is a visiting lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Boston University. In 2013, Lara received her Ph.D. from Boston University as well. Her research focuses on ovarian function, mating behaviors, and life history in captive orangutans. A strong proponent of science communication and outreach, Lara is also heavily involved with March Mammal Madness, a topic of discussion on this podcast many times in the past. Chris and Cara investigate her new paper, “A composite menstrual cycle of captive orangutans, with associated hormonal and behavioral variability,” which recently came out in The American Journal of Primatology and can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35856470/ Her 2020 TEDxTufts Talk "An evolutionary perspective on human health and disease" can be found here: https://www.ted.com/talks/lara_durgavich_an_evolutionary_perspective_on_human_health_and_disease ------------------------------ Lara's e-mail: ldurgavich@gmail.com on Twitter at: twitter.com/tinkeringprim8 We

Andrea Silva-Caballero joins Chris and Cara to discuss her studies of adolescent sleep patterns in urban and rural Mexico. Silva-Caballero completed her BA in Biological Anthropology in 2013 at the National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico City. Since then, she has specialized in medical anthropology with a focus on the pediatric population. She holds an MSc in Evolutionary Medicine awarded in 2017 by the University of Durham, United Kingdom, and is a member of the Durham Infancy & Sleep Center. She’s currently wrapping up revisions on her dissertation. Silva-Caballero's research reexamines current biomedical ideas concerning adolescent sleep by examining and comparing adolescents' sleep patterns in two rural sites and one urban site in Mexico. In particular, she addresses the phase shift in adolescents' sleep-wake cycle and the influence of artificial light and solitary sleep on their sleep timing and duration. Silva-Caballero was also the recipient of HBA’s 2022 E.E. Hunt Award, which recogniz

Our last guest of the season is Dr. Kristen Knuston, an Associate Professor of Neurology (Sleep Medicine)and Preventative Medicine (Epidemiology) at the Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Knutson studies the associations between sleep, circadian rhythms, and health. She chats with Chris and Cara about the different health outcomes between morning and night persons and tells us how a misalignment with your chronotype can lead to asthma or GI issues. Contact Dr. Knuston at kristen.knutson@northwestern.edu and follow her on Twitter @klknut Read Dr. Knuston's article featured in this episode here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29642757/ Found out more about her work at https://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=37050 See Dr. Knutson's work being highlighted on Saturday Night Live: https://twitter.com/mvonschantz/status/986288195376680962?s=20&t=WvxRisJg5PL6lDY3ZMMUHQ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanb

Blast from the past! In this episode we bring you an interview with Amy Anderson from Spring of 2021. Chris and Cara talk to her about her dissertation research on health as reflected through the human skeleton and biomarkers of bone turnover. She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at The University of California Santa Barbara. You can contact her via her website: https://www.amyandersonskeletonreader.com/about or on Twitter: @skeletonreader Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website:humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, Email: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Delaney Glass, Website: dglass.netlify.app/, Email: dglass1@uw.edu, Twitter: @GlassDelaney Alexandra Niclou, Email: aniclou@nd.edu, Twitter: @fiat_Luxandra

Dr. Alyssa Crittenden joins us today for an excellent conversation (despite internet connectivity issues) about her work with Hadza community members, community-based work, and reconsidering biological sample collection. You can find her recent paper “Who Owns Poop? and Other Ethical Dilemmas Facing an Anthropologist Who Works at the Interface of Biological Research and Indigenous Rights” https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/anthro_fac_articles/590/. Dr. Alyssa Crittenden is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. You can contact her via her website: https://www.unlv.edu/people/alyssa-crittenden and on Twitter: @an_crittenden Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website:humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Cara Ocobock, Website: sites.nd.edu/cara-ocobock/, Email:cocobock@nd.edu, Twitter:@CaraOcobock Chris Lynn, HBA Public Relations Committee Chair, Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/,