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Ask Dr. Universe Anthropology
University Communications Network > Ask Dr. Universe > Academic Subjects > Social Sciences > Anthropology

Are fishes related to humans? – Sarah, 9, Nigeria

Dear Sarah,

Tuna, salmon, mackerel. Cats like me are famously big fans of fish. But I’ve never looked at my afternoon sushi and wondered if it’s related to my human friends.

So, I asked one of those friends named Thomas Siek. He’s a biological anthropologist at Washington State University. He studies how humans evolved.

He told me that fish and humans are distant relatives. All vertebrates—animals with backbones—are related.

“Humans and fish aren’t close evolutionary cousins,” Siek said. “We’re part of the same phylum called Chordata. We share a common ancestor. Those in Chordata have backbones. So, this will also include birds, dogs, … » More …

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Did man live with dinosaurs together? – Daniel, 9, Republic of Korea

Dear Daniel,

When I think about dinosaurs, I usually picture the big ones. I think of triceratops with its pointy horns or apatosaurus with its long, long neck.

I asked my friend John Blong if those dinos ever lived with people. He’s an environmental archeologist at Washington State University. He studies early humans.

He told me that people and dinosaurs never lived at the same time. Well, mostly.

Dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago when a giant asteroid crashed to Earth. It threw up tons of dust and soot. It made Earth super cold and dark. It stayed that way for a long time. The world became a very hard place to live. Eventually, 75% of all living things died, including all the big dinosaurs.

People didn’t live on Earth at that time. The only mammals that lived back then were tiny. They looked like shrews or moles. It would take millions of years before mammals adapted enough to become primates. Scientists think the first humans showed up about 300,000 years ago. That was long after the dinosaurs died out.

But some dinosaurs survived the asteroid.

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Are unicorns real? – Emma, 8, Minnesota

Dear Emma,

My favorite animated GIFs are the ones with cats riding unicorns. I’m delighted to tell you about a real unicorn that lived a long time ago: the Siberian unicorn.

The Siberian unicorn was bulky and furry. It had a big hump on its back. Its horn was three feet long. That’s as big as a human preschooler!

This real-life unicorn was a kind of rhino from Eurasia. But it was bigger than modern rhinos and probably galloped like a horse.

Scientists have known about Siberian unicorns since 1808. For a long time, they thought the unicorns went extinct 200,000 years ago. Recently, that changed. Now they think the unicorns went extinct closer to 39,000 years ago.

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Did dinosaurs eat humans? – Brileigh, 10, North Carolina

Dear Brileigh,

If you looked inside a T. rex mouth, you’d see some 12-inch teeth. That’s longer than my tail!

I asked my friend Aaron Blackwell if dinosaurs used those big chompers on humans. He’s an anthropologist who studies human biology at Washington State University. He told me dinosaurs and humans didn’t live at the same time.

“Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago—before there were even primates,” Blackwell said. “So, they could never have eaten a human or even a monkey.”

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Dr. Universe: Why do apes walk on their knuckles? - Sam, 10, Benton, Arkansas

Dear Sam, A lot of apes walk on their knuckles. Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos use their knuckles for stability and balance. That’s what I found out from my friend Nanda Grow, an anthropologist and wildlife biologist at Washington State University who studies primates. “Gorillas and chimpanzees both do knuckle walking, but they do different kinds,” she said. Read More ...

How was popcorn discovered? - Jalen, 12, Benson, N.C.

Dear Jalen,

There’s nothing like popcorn in progress: the snapping kernels, the warm buttery smell, and the knowledge that a delicious snack will be ready in minutes. It gives you some good time to think and wonder: how did humans first start doing this?

To find out where popcorn came from, I visited my friend Erin Thornton, an archaeologist at Washington State University. Archaeologists study how humans lived in the past—including the things they ate.

To learn the story of popcorn, we have to trace the history of maize.

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