Leah Berger

For most animals, reproduction continues until the end of life. Humans are unusual. Women can live decades after their last reproductive event. This biological pattern raises a fundamental question that fascinated me while reading Menopause by biological anthropologist Lynette Sievert: Why would evolution favor a long post-reproductive lifespan? Menopause is often discussed in modern medicine primarily as a hormonal transition accompanied by symptoms such as hot flashes, sleep disruption,...

Over the summer, I took a fascinating edX course called DartmouthX: Bipedalism: The Science of Upright Walking. It explored one of the most defining traits of being human: walking on two legs. The course covered the biomechanics, evolutionary pressures, and anatomical trade-offs of bipedalism, but what stood out most was the focus on Lucy, one of the most iconic hominin fossils ever found. Lucy, formally known as Australopithecus afarensis, lived about 3.2 million years ago in what is now...

I first picked up Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari back in middle school. At the time, I was fascinated by the...