A Startling Link Between Neanderthals and COVID-19

Researchers recently announced a discovery that connects Neanderthal DNA and people who experience severe symptoms from COVID-19. Hugo Zeberg, one of the scientists who led the study, speaks with SAPIENS host Chip Colwell.

What’s Behind Humanity’s Love-Hate Relationship With Exercise?

Evolutionary history can help resolve the question of why so many people desire a physical break even when their bodies need movement.

Two Surgeries, 800 Years Apart

An archaeologist’s hip surgery prompts him to reimagine the experience of a Puebloan woman who survived a terrible fall centuries ago.

What Pandemics Leave Behind

In Venice, archaeologists have uncovered the dawn of the modern quarantine—and one of our favorite modern myths.

No, “Racial Genetics” Aren’t Affecting COVID-19 Deaths

The coronavirus pandemic is unequally affecting minority communities in the U.K. and the U.S. Racism, not race, explains the disparity.

U.S. Coronavirus Advice Is Failing Pregnant Women

An anthropologist explores how her current study of COVID-19 and childbirth reveals profound and amplified problems with the United States’ maternity system.

Ventilators Alone Won’t Save Us

Amid the rush to ramp up the production of ventilators to battle COVID-19, the public has lost sight of an even more desperate need.

How the Opioid Crackdown Is Hurting Chronic Pain Patients

People who rely on opioids to work and live say a new federal guideline is making them suffer, even while overdose deaths continue to rise.

What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting Down Syndrome

An anthropologist holds up a mirror to his own experience in order to understand how humans conceive of difference.

Genetic Factors May Help Explain Athletic Sudden Death

Biological anthropologists and other researchers investigate why there is a diversity of symptoms and outcomes in people with sickle cell trait.