{"podcast":{"title":"The Fossil Files","slug":"the-fossil-files-7375611","podcast_index_feed_id":7375611,"rss_url":"https://feeds.libsyn.com/583670/rss","website_url":"https://sites.libsyn.com/Fossils","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/9/9/f/3/99f352ecbfc60de0d959afa2a1bf1c87/logo4-20250704-h86q14pd0t.jpg","author":"Robert Sansom","episode_count":40,"summary":"In \"The Fossil Files\", a pair of palaeontologists delve into the latest discoveries from the world of palaeontology and seek to bring fossils to back to life. Each episode, Susie and Rob will discuss an interesting new research paper ranging from topics of what dinosaurs ate, how plesiosaurs swam, where we came from, and the science of de-extinction. Whilst doing so, we peek under the hood of how the science of palaeontology is done and how research gets to see the light of day. It is for anybody interested in palaeontology and past life whether that is students, researchers themselves, or simply the fossil-curious - we laugh as we learn, and hope you will too. Episode guide at https://fossils.libsyn.com/ Bonus content at Patreon https://patreon.com/FossilFiles","last_synced_at":"2026-07-21T12:18:38.080077+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611"},"episode":{"title":"21. Lead Poisoned Apes and Our Human Origins","slug":"21-lead-poisoned-apes-and-our-human-origins","published_at":"2026-01-27T03:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611/21-lead-poisoned-apes-and-our-human-origins","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611","url":"https://a94020de-22e2-432b-af22-019fdb3026ee.libsyn.com/21-lead-poisoned-apes-and-our-human-origins","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/a94020de-22e2-432b-af22-019fdb3026ee/Episode_21_lead_in_teeth.mp3?dest-id=5062010","summary":"Lead is a well known pollutant affecting human health over the course of our urbanisation and industrialisation. But what about before this? Analysis of a range of fossil hominid teeth from the Pleistocene reveals that lead poisoning might have been a ubiquitious part of our deep evolutionary history. Furthermore, lab experiments looking at the effect of lead exposure on human and neanderthal brain development reveals the interplay between this pollutant and 'the language gene' (FOXP2). Together, this suggests that the development of language, socialisation and ultimate evolutionary success of humans might be related to our ability to overcome lead poisoning. This week's paper is \"Impact of intermittent lead exposure on hominid brain evolution\" by Renaud Joannes-Boyau and colleagues published in Science Advances, October 2025. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adr1524 Wide screen art by Mark Witton","meta_description":"Lead is a well known pollutant affecting human health over the course of our urbanisation and industrialisation. But what about before this? Analysis of a…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2531,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-fossil-files-7375611/episodes/21-lead-poisoned-apes-and-our-human-origins/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611/21-lead-poisoned-apes-and-our-human-origins.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}