Episode 158: Alex Bezzerides
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Why Our Teeth Don't Fit in Our Mouths
From bad teeth to appendix surgeries, it seems like our bodies are breaking down in modern times. So how has society and evolution changed how our bodies work?
Alex Bezzerides is a professor of biology at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho, where he teaches a wide range of biology classes, from human anatomy and physiology to entomology. He is also the author of “Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Why Our Bodies Work (Or Don't).”
In this episode, Greg and Alex cover bipedalism and its baggage, sore feet and back pain, snoring and sleep apnea and other bodily quirks.
Episode Quotes:
Evolution and the rise of C-sections
“First, you have the bipedal issue, which did change the shape of the birth canal. That's the first piece of the difficulty of birth puzzle. And then the brain gets, triples in size, in that period of time from 5 million years to a couple of million years ago. And then with modern nutrition, you're able to feed that fetus in a way that it's never been fed before. So women can develop and grow this child that is bigger than it's ever been. You put all that in the stew and mix it together and you've got a problem.”
Timeline of human speech
“Somewhere around 50,000 years ago is when the modern head and neck comes into place. That means for most of the time humans have been humans, they weren't capable of the type of speech that they are now.”
Why are feet are sore all the time
“It used to make sense for our feet, right? When they needed to be nimble and grabbing branches, doing all these things. But now it's just a mess. You got all these bones down there that are just pounding the earth, which is not what they were made to do. And they slip and slide and sprain.”
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