In the past decade, new studies of ancient DNA from fossils have shown that, until as recently as 40,000 years ago, our ancestors shared the planet with two close relatives, the Neanderthals and a mysterious group called the Denisovans. Both of those groups became extinct, but traces of their DNA remain in the genomes of modern humans. Join us for a discussion with Ann Gibbons about new research that has changed perceptions of the Neanderthals, shed new light on the mysterious Denisovans, and showed we were not alone on Earth until recently.

Ann Gibbons is a Contributing Correspondent for Science magazine. She is an award-winning writer on human evolution and the author of The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors. In addition to Science magazine, she has written for numerous publications, including National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Slate. She teaches science writing at Carnegie Mellon University.

This talk is part of the Science and Society lecture series co-organized and moderated by Fred Dylla, Executive Director Emeritus of the American Institute of Physics and author of Scientific Journeys, Linda Dylla, former public information officer at the Jefferson Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy, and Colin Norman, the former News Editor at Science.

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