April 3, 2017 8:01 pm

What’s new with Neanderthals? Find out Tuesday from new All-Stars host Natalia Reagan

It’s time for many of us to update what we think we know about Neanderthals.

To help us to do that, this week on StarTalk All-Stars, we welcome our new All-Stars host Natalia Reagan, who is both a primatologist and a comedian, along with first-time comic co-host, Sarah Siskind. And they’ve invited biological anthropologist Todd Disotell, and Dr. William Harcourt-Smith, professor of anthropology, onto the show to investigate Neanderthals: their DNA, diet, culture, behavior, and more.

Neanderthals, pronounced with a hard “T”, lived from roughly 400,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. Thanks to a slew of new research being done – and with more on the horizon – we are learning much about Neanderthals that we didn’t know.

You’ll learn about Neanderthal DNA and how recent studies have given us new insights into what they looked like, their immune system, the possible diseases they suffered from, their diet, and their demographics. You’ll also hear about interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans, which researchers previously thought didn’t happen. New evidence shows that Neanderthal ancestry spread much further than was previously surmised – even into some of us!

Get details on the recent studies of Neanderthal dental calculus (tartar, or a form of hardened plaque) on subjects found in Spain and Belgium, which indicates Neanderthal diets were impacted by the environment they lived in. Learn more about a recently discovered strain of bacteria that suggests that anatomically modern human and Neanderthals were sharing the same food or, scientifically speaking, “swapping spit.”

Plus, join our panel in musing over the big question to which we all want to know the answer: why did Neanderthals go extinct? Were they out-competed? Did modern humans drive them away? Did the last major Ice Age freeze them?

This week’s episode also features fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about humans, our ancestors, and primates in general, including, “Why are humans so weak compared to other closely related species?” and, “Do primates commit crimes?”

If you want to discover more about Neanderthals, join us tomorrow night for Know Your Neanderthals, with Natalia Reagan at 7pm EDT right here on our website, as well as on our new All-Stars channels on iTunes Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. And  if you’re an All-Access subscriber, you can watch or listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Ian Mullen