Dr. Cohen launches Town Talks at Telluride's Palm Theatre July 6

Dr. Cohen launches Town Talks at Telluride's Palm Theatre July 6

[click “Play” for Susan’s conversation with Dr. Cohen]

Mark-cohen-skull-02 Like the Telluride Musicfest  (just over) and the Telluride Playwrights Festival (ongoing this week through July 13) the Telluride Science Research Center (TSRC) is another of the towns well-kept secrets, despite the stature of the participants. The Research Center’s mission: to inspire substantive scientific inquiry, breakthroughs, and discoveries by hosting scientific meetings in an open environment conducive to productive collaboration and positive contributions to research, policy, and education. To those ends, TSRC has provided meeting services for top scientists, who have met in the Telluride region every summer since 1984.

The Pinhead Institute, dedicated to teaching young people and adults bio-literacy, and TSRC collaborate from time to time, for example, to present Tuesday night Town Talks, 6 – 7:15 p.m., a program in its eighth year.


 

The summer schedule opens on Tuesday, July 6, with Dr. Mark Nathan Cohen, SUNY University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. His subject: “The Decline of Human Health and the Rise of Civilization: A surprising relationship.”
 
Talk about skeletons in a person’s closet. Cohen has more than a few, and the secret his bones have revealed has changed the way archeologists, anthropologists, and historians look at the past.
 
A book Cohen authored in 1977, “The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture” really stirred the pot. Among his revelations: we were taller in the Stone Age, had fewer nutritional problems and fewer infectious diseases. In other words, mankind was better off when we were living by hunting and gathering more than 15,000 years ago than when we became Farmer Brown.
 
Want to learn more? For a preview of Cohen’s talk, click the “play” button and listen to his interview.

A reminder: Pinhead holds its 5th annual Geekfest on Thursday, July 8, 6:30 p.m. To support this esteemed organization, and help evolve and improve the quality of science education for young people especially in the region, go to http://www.pinheadinstitute.org/support_geekfest.htm.

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