Download or read book First Steps written by Jeremy DeSilva and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the W.W. Howells Book Prize from the American Anthropological Association and named one of the best science books of 2021 by Science News “DeSilva takes us on a brilliant, fun, and scientifically deep stroll through history, anatomy, and evolution, in order to illustrate the powerful story of how a particular mode of movement helped make us one of the most wonderful, dangerous and fascinating species on Earth.”—Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University and author of Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being “Breezy popular science at its best. . . . Makes a compelling case overall.”—Science News Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species. Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four legs—a locomotion known as bipedalism. We strive to be upstanding citizens, honor those who stand tall and proud, and take a stand against injustices. We follow in each other’s footsteps and celebrate a child’s beginning to walk. But why, and how, exactly, did we take our first steps? And at what cost? Bipedalism has its drawbacks: giving birth is more difficult and dangerous; our running speed is much slower than other animals; and we suffer a variety of ailments, from hernias to sinus problems. In First Steps, paleoanthropologist Jeremy DeSilva explores how unusual and extraordinary this seemingly ordinary ability is. A seven-million-year journey to the very origins of the human lineage, First Steps shows how upright walking was a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human—from our technological abilities, our thirst for exploration, our use of language–and may have laid the foundation for our species’ traits of compassion, empathy, and altruism. Moving from developmental psychology labs to ancient fossil sites throughout Africa and Eurasia, DeSilva brings to life our adventure walking on two legs. Delving deeply into the story of our past and the new discoveries rewriting our understanding of human evolution, First Steps examines how walking upright helped us rise above all over species on this planet. First Steps includes an eight-page color photo insert.

Download or read book Handbook of Paleoanthropology written by Winfried Henke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-05-10 with total page 2057 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 3-volume handbook brings together contributions by the world ́s leading specialists that reflect the broad spectrum of modern palaeoanthropology, thus presenting an indispensable resource for professionals and students alike. Vol. 1 reviews principles, methods, and approaches, recounting recent advances and state-of-the-art knowledge in phylogenetic analysis, palaeoecology and evolutionary theory and philosophy. Vol. 2 examines primate origins, evolution, behaviour, and adaptive variety, emphasizing integration of fossil data with contemporary knowledge of the behaviour and ecology of living primates in natural environments. Vol. 3 deals with fossil and molecular evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens and its fossil relatives.

Download or read book From Biped to Strider written by D. Jeffrey Meldrum and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-06-27 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for this volume of contributed papers stemmed from conversations between the editors in front of Chuck Hilton's poster on the determinants of hominid walking speed, presented at thel998 meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA). Earlier at those meetings, Jeff Meldrum (with Roshna Wunderlich) had presented an alternate interpretation of the Laetoli footprints based on evidence of midfoot flexibility. As the discussion ensued we found convergence on a number of ideas about the nature of the evolution of modem human walking. From the continuation of that dialogue grew the proposal for a symposium which we called From Biped to Strider: the Emergence of Modem Human Walking. The symposium was held as a session of the 69th annual meeting of the AAPA, held in San Antonio, Texas in 2000. It seemed to us that the study of human bipedalism had become overshadowed by theoften polarized debates over whether australo pithecines were wholly terrestrial in habit, or retained a significant degree of arboreality.

Download or read book The vocal origin of bipedalism written by Albert Roca and published by Falcons. This book was released on 2024-07-03 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We walk because we talk. This is the surprising and compelling conclusion of this essay, which provides an answer to the origin of bipedalism, one of anthropology's most persistent enigmas. By identifying evolutionary parallels with species that currently exhibit this faculty, the author traces the acquisition of vocal learning in the human lineage and proposes a reasoned sequence of events, implying the vocal origin of language, that led to the adoption of bipedalism. Within the fascinating narrative of human evolution, the mystery of bipedalism finds a natural and revealing explanation in an ancestral link with the capacity for speech.

Download or read book Feedback Control of Dynamic Bipedal Robot Locomotion written by Eric R. Westervelt and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bipedal locomotion is among the most difficult challenges in control engineering. Most books treat the subject from a quasi-static perspective, overlooking the hybrid nature of bipedal mechanics. Feedback Control of Dynamic Bipedal Robot Locomotion is the first book to present a comprehensive and mathematically sound treatment of feedback design for achieving stable, agile, and efficient locomotion in bipedal robots. In this unique and groundbreaking treatise, expert authors lead you systematically through every step of the process, including: Mathematical modeling of walking and running gaits in planar robots Analysis of periodic orbits in hybrid systems Design and analysis of feedback systems for achieving stable periodic motions Algorithms for synthesizing feedback controllers Detailed simulation examples Experimental implementations on two bipedal test beds The elegance of the authors' approach is evident in the marriage of control theory and mechanics, uniting control-based presentation and mathematical custom with a mechanics-based approach to the problem and computational rendering. Concrete examples and numerous illustrations complement and clarify the mathematical discussion. A supporting Web site offers links to videos of several experiments along with MATLAB® code for several of the models. This one-of-a-kind book builds a solid understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects of truly dynamic locomotion in planar bipedal robots.

Download or read book Understanding Climate s Influence on Human Evolution written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-04-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.

Download or read book Bones Stones and Molecules written by David W. Cameron and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2004-06-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bones, Stones and Molecules provides some of the best evidence for resolving the debate between the two hypotheses of human origins. The debate between the 'Out of Africa' model and the 'Multiregional' hypothesis is examined through the functional and developmental processes associated with the evolution of the human skull and face and focuses on the significance of the Australian record. The book analyzes important new discoveries that have occurred recently and examines evidence that is not available elsewhere. Cameron and Groves argue that the existing evidence supports a recent origin for modern humans from Africa. They also specifically relate these two theories to interpretations of the origins of the first Australians. The book provides an up-to-date interpretation of the fossil, archaeological and the molecular evidence, specifically as it relates to Asia, and Australia in particular. Readily accessible to the layperson and professional Provides concise coverage of current scientific evidence Presents a robust computer-generated model of human speciation over the last 7 million years Well illustrated with figures and photographs of important fossil specimens Presents a synthesis of great ape and human evolution

Download or read book The Story of the Human Body written by Daniel Lieberman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark book of popular science that gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years—with charts and line drawings throughout. “Fascinating.... A readable introduction to the whole field and great on the making of our physicality.”—Nature In this book, Daniel E. Lieberman illuminates the major transformations that contributed to key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering; and how cultural changes like the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions have impacted us physically. He shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning a paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment and pursue better lifestyles.

Download or read book Primate Morphophysiology Locomotor Analyses and Human Bipedalism written by 近藤四郎 and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fast Motions in Biomechanics and Robotics written by Moritz Diehl and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-07-13 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past decades, much progress has been made in the field of walking robots. The current state of technology makes it possible to create humanoid robots that nearly walk like a human being, climb stairs, or avoid small - stacles. However, the dream of a robot running as fast and as elegantly as a human is still far from becoming reality. Control of such fast motions is still a big technological issue in robotics, and the maximum running speed of contemporary robots is still much smaller than that of human track runners. The conventional control approach that most of these robots are based on does not seem to be suitable to increase the running speeds up to a biological level. In order to address this challenge, we invited an interdisciplinary community of researchers from robotics, biomechanics, control engineering and applied mathematics to come together in Heidelberg at the Symposium “Fast Motions in Biomechanics and Robotics – Optimization & Feedback Control” which was held at the International Science Forum (IWH) on September 7–9, 2005. The number of participants in this symposium was kept small in order to promote discussions and enable a fruitful exchange of ideas.

Download or read book Biped Locomotion written by Miomir Vukobratovic and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here for the first time in one book is a comprehensive and systematic approach to the dynamic modeling and control of biped locomotion robots. A survey is included of various approaches to the control of biped robots, and a new approach to the control of biped systems based on a complete dynamic model is presented in detail. The stability of complete biped system is presented for the first time as a highly nonlinear dynamic system. Also included is new software for the synthesis of a dynamically stable walk for arbitrary biped systems, presented here for the first time. A survey of various realizations of biped systems and numerous numerical examples are given. The reader is given a deep insight into the entire area of biped locomotion. The book covers all relevant approaches to the subject and gives the most complete account to date of dynamic modeling, control and realizations of biped systems.

Download or read book Primate Adaptation and Evolution written by Bozzano G Luisa and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Primate Adaptation and Evolutionis the only recent text published in this rapidly progressing field. It provides you with an extensive, current survey of the order Primates, both living and fossil. By combining information on primate anatomy, ecology, and behavior with the primate fossil record, this book enables students to study primates from all epochs as a single, viable group. It surveys major primate radiations throughout 65 million years, and provides equal treatment of both living and extinct species. ï Presents a summary of the primate fossilsï Reviews primate evolutionï Provides an introduction to the primate anatomyï Discusses the features that distinguish the living groups of primatesï Summarizes recent work on primate ecology

Download or read book Food Acquisition and Processing in Primates written by David J. Chivers and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book results from a two-day symposium and three-day workshop held in Cambridge between March 22nd and March 26th 1982 and sponsored by the Primate Society of Great Britain and the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. More than 100 primatologists attended the symposium and some 35 were invited to participate in the workshop. Speakers from Prance, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa and the U. S. A. , as weIl as the U. K. , were invited to contribute. In recent years feeling had strengthened that primatologists in Europe did not gather together sufficiently often. Distinctive tradit ions in primatology have developed in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy and the U. K. in particular, and it was feIt that attempts to blend them could only benefit primatology. Furthermore, studies of primate ecology, behaviour, anatomy, physiology and evolution have reached the points where further advances depend on inter-disciplinary collaboration. It was resolved to arrange a regular series of round table discussions on primate biology in Europe at the biennial meeting of the German Society for Anthropology and Human Genetics in Heidel berg in September 1979, where Holger Preuschoft organised sessions on primate ecology and anatomy. In June 1980 Michel Sakka convened a most effective working group in Paris to discuss cranial morphology and evolution. In 1982 it was the turn of the U. K.

Download or read book Bipedal Robots written by Christine Chevallereau and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents various techniques to carry out the gait modeling, the gait patterns synthesis, and the control of biped robots. Some general information on the human walking, a presentation of the current experimental biped robots, and the application of walking bipeds are given. The modeling is based on the decomposition on a walking step into different sub-phases depending on the way each foot stands into contact on the ground. The robot design is dealt with according to the mass repartition and the choice of the actuators. Different ways to generate walking patterns are considered, such as passive walking and gait synthesis performed using optimization technique. Control based on the robot modeling, neural network methods, or intuitive approaches are presented. The unilaterality of contact is dealt with using on-line adaptation of the desired motion.

Download or read book Lowly Origin written by Jonathan Kingdon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our ability to walk on two legs is not only a characteristic human trait but one of the things that made us human in the first place. Once our ancestors could walk on two legs, they began to do many of the things that apes cannot do: cross wide open spaces, manipulate complex tools, communicate with new signal systems, and light fires. Titled after the last two words of Darwin's Descent of Man and written by a leading scholar of human evolution, Lowly Origin is the first book to explain the sources and consequences of bipedalism to a broad audience. Along the way, it accounts for recent fossil discoveries that show us a still incomplete but much bushier family tree than most of us learned about in school. Jonathan Kingdon uses the very latest findings from ecology, biogeography, and paleontology to build a new and up-to-date account of how four-legged apes became two-legged hominins. He describes what it took to get up onto two legs as well as the protracted consequences of that step--some of which led straight to modern humans and others to very different bipeds. This allows him to make sense of recently unearthed evidence suggesting that no fewer than twenty species of humans and hominins have lived and become extinct. Following the evolution of two-legged creatures from our earliest lowly forebears to the present, Kingdon concludes with future options for the last surviving biped. A major new narrative of human evolution, Lowly Origin is the best available account of what it meant--and what it means--to walk on two feet.

Download or read book Basics in Human Evolution written by Michael P Muehlenbein and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basics in Human Evolution offers a broad view of evolutionary biology and medicine. The book is written for a non-expert audience, providing accessible and convenient content that will appeal to numerous readers across the interdisciplinary field. From evolutionary theory, to cultural evolution, this book fills gaps in the readers’ knowledge from various backgrounds and introduces them to thought leaders in human evolution research. Offers comprehensive coverage of the wide ranging field of human evolution Written for a non-expert audience, providing accessible and convenient content that will appeal to numerous readers across the interdisciplinary field Provides expertise from leading minds in the field Allows the reader the ability to gain exposure to various topics in one publication

Download or read book The History of Our Tribe written by Barbara Welker and published by Open SUNY Textbooks. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where did we come from? What were our ancestors like? Why do we differ from other animals? How do scientists trace and construct our evolutionary history? The Evolution of Our Tribe: Hominini provides answers to these questions and more. The book explores the field of paleoanthropology past and present. Beginning over 65 million years ago, Welker traces the evolution of our species, the environments and selective forces that shaped our ancestors, their physical and cultural adaptations, and the people and places involved with their discovery and study. It is designed as a textbook for a course on Human Evolution but can also serve as an introductory text for relevant sections of courses in Biological or General Anthropology or general interest. It is both a comprehensive technical reference for relevant terms, theories, methods, and species and an overview of the people, places, and discoveries that have imbued paleoanthropology with such fascination, romance, and mystery.