Languages: English

How do humans adapt to environmental challenges? In this video, experts explore this question from many angles. The difference between acclimatization and adaptation is explained. Nina Jablonski explains skin color function and adaptations related to UV radiation levels, the vitamin D hypothesis, and preventing the loss of folate in the body. High-altitude adaptations are also discussed, along with responses to heat and cold stressors. In the last segment, the evolutionary dance between humans and their pathogens is brought to light. The interwoven interactions between human cultural activities, and the evolution of new pathogens, as well as the evolution of drug resistance in existing pathogens are discussed.

The state of Oaxaca, Mexico, is the backdrop of this film, which explores the nature of culture and how cultures are studied. The Oaxacan society is used to illustrate the basic characteristics of culture: an integrated, dynamic system of beliefs, values, and behaviors that are shared by the members of a society; wholly learned and based on symbolic systems; and constituting humankind?s most important method of adaptation. Jayne Howell?s work in Oaxaca aims to determine how this society in transition is adapting to the pressures imposed by outside forces, and illustrates some of the methods of research that ethnographers employ in a biocultural approach to discovering how the world?s diverse cultures function.

This program focuses on the efforts of the Serrano tribe of Native American to revitalize their dying cultural traditions and language. The features and structures of human language in general are discussed, showing some examples from the Serrano language, and the role played by descriptive linguist assisting them is examined. A discussion of deaf sign languages reveals that they are in every way like all other human languages except that they are based on gestures instead of sounds. Nonverbal human communication systems are explored, as are various aspects of the fields of ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics. African-American Vernacular English is discussed as an example of a social dialect that marks membership in a group. The film closes with a focus on the Serrano children, who it is hoped will carry on the tribal language and traditions.

When studying how personality develops, we cannot ignore the role that sex and gender may play nor can we overlook the biological factors that may influence and differentiate male and female behaviors. Determining whether gender roles influence personality and social identity or vice versa may be difficult, but we know that gender roles vary greatly from culture to culture. It is also recognized that every culture has individuals who are transgenders?people who do not fall neatly within the proscribed male and female categories. Western cultures prefer to think exclusively in male and female gender roles, but many other cultures have created a ?third gender? or even a ?fourth gender? in which to place these individuals. As individuals, we not only need to know who we are but also how we fit in and belong to the culture we were born into. Sometimes it gets complicated.

This film focuses on three types of subsistence patterns: foraging, horticultural/ agricultural, and pastoralism. What all subsistence systems have in common is the need for water. Who controls the water is at the heart of human survival. In the postindustrial era, traditional subsistence activities have been relegated to hobbies, such as hunting, fishing, and berry picking. The next time you ask ?What?s for dinner?? think about what it took to get food to your table.

This video succinctly presents a portrait of what it is to be a primate with adaptation to an arboreal environment. The suite of traits that distinguish primates are presented along with a comparison to other types of mammals. Then the video delves into the adaptations and traits that distinguish the various type of primates from one another. Prosimians, tarsiers, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and hominoids are all adroitly described and distinguished. The types of locomotor patterns, diets, and habitats used by primates are interwoven throughout.

This lesson tackles why we study the behavior of nonhuman primates and how their behavior patterns can be related to human behavior and evolution. Experts discuss their field study experiences and what they learned about the behavior of their subjects. Social structure and social organization are related to impact on reproductive success. The central mother-infant bond is explored, along with patterns of affiliative and aggressive behaviors in social groups. Nonhuman capacities for language and culture are also addressed in interesting ways

Experts at the cutting edge of paleoanthropological research show how it?s done. In this video, students are introduced to the ways researchers gather data in order to answer the basic human question: Who are we and where do we come from? The multidisciplinary approach to this research is shown through interviews with established paleoanthropologists and with researchers in related areas such as archaeology, geology, the reconstruction of paleoenvironments, geomorphology, paleontology, and paleobotany. There is a strong focus on Koobi Fora, one of the most important field sites in paleoanthropology. In the last segment, relative and chronometric dating methods are explained in ways that will demonstrate state-of-the-art methods for discerning how old a specimen is.

Who is related to whom? How do species evolve? What has happened in geological time? This video focuses on macroevolution and the processes that explain it. It begins on location at a paleontological site in the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming, where scientists are recording mammalian evolution in the first ten million years after the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary extinction. A key question of macroevolution is, ?What distinguishes a species?? This leads to taxonomy and discussion of the two main approaches to classification: evolutionary systematics and cladistics. Examples are given of homologies and analogies, and ancestral and derived traits, keys to classifying by these different approaches. Cladistics focuses only on derived traits. In the second segment, two different species concepts are mentioned?the biological species concept, which is the most commonly used definition, and the ecological species concept, which places emphasis on niche occupation and natural selection.