Updating Human Evolution

Light blogging this week is due to my frantic fragment of a week, returning from Thanksgiving and preparing to head down to DC to participate on a panel at the American Anthropological Association. The panel is called "Updating Human Evolution: Bringing Anthropological and Public Coneceptions into Contemporary Perspective," and will take place Saturday afternoon starting at 1:45 pm. Ten anthropologists are going to talk about new advances in our understanding of human evolution, from humans as prey to the evolution of the sexes. (You can find the full line up here. Search the pdf for the title of the panel.) The panel will also discuss how the public comes to learn about this sort of research. The discussion is where I come in, along with Ann Gibbons, a reporter for Science magazine and the author of the upcoming The First Human, a book about the oldest hominids which I suspect will be fantastic. I'm looking forward to the session for both parts of its goals, and I plan to blog about it afterwards.