How It All Began

TED Radio Hour

• Episode: How It All Began
• Website: TED Radio Hour
• Feed URL: https://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510298
• Published: 2014-10-24 23:03

In this hour, TED speakers explore our origins as a species — who we are, where we come from, where we’re headed — and how we’re connected to everything that came before us. Geneticist Spencer Wells describes how he uses DNA samples to trace our individual origins going back 2,000 generations. David Christian explains the history of the universe from the Big Bang, and how humans occupy little more than a millisecond on that cosmic timeline. Paleontologist Jack Horner explains what dinosaurs tell us about our own origins and what we can learn by attempting to revive a piece of the past. Louise Leakey describes her and her family’s long search for early human remains in Africa, and how unlocking that mystery is the key to understanding our survival as a species. Geneticist Spencer Wells returns to tell the story of early humans, and our eventual migration from Africa. Juan Enriquez argues that human evolution is far from over — homo sapiens are becoming a new species right before our eyes.