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Nature Podcast

27 June 2019: Callused feet, and protein-based archaeology

Nature Podcast

podcast@nature.com

News, Science, Technology

4.5893 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, how going barefoot affects what your feet can feel, and uncovering history with ancient proteins.


In this episode:


00:44 A sole sensation

A study of people who do and don't wear shoes looks into whether calluses make feet less sensitive. Research article: Holowka et al.; News and Views: Your sensitive sole


08:50 Research Highlights

Magma moving quickly, and twice-transforming 4D materials. Research Highlight: Volcano’s magma hit top speed; Research Article: Wang et al.



11:09 Dating fossils with proteins

Archaeologists turn to proteins to answer questions DNA cannot. News Feature: Move over, DNA: ancient proteins are starting to reveal humanity’s history


19:38 News Chat

A special report from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the ongoing Ebola crisis. News: The doctor who beat Ebola — and inspires other survivors to care for the sick; News: Meet the Ebola workers battling a virus in a war zone; News: World Health Organization resists declaring Ebola emergency — for third time


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Transcript

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0:00.0

nature in a

0:04.5

experiment i really know yet why is blight so far like it sounds so simple they had no idea

0:10.7

but now the data's i find this not only refreshing but but at some level astounding nature

0:20.3

welcome back to the Nature.

0:25.6

Welcome back to the nature podcast. This week we'll be learning about ancient proteins

0:28.6

and hearing about the feelings in your feet.

0:31.6

I'm Benjamin Thompson and I'm Charmany Bandelle.

0:35.6

I'm Chamonany Bandelle.

0:49.9

First up, reporter Nick Howell has been looking into how being shoeless may affect our souls.

1:02.0

Many years ago, on a podcast, the name of which I've long forgotten, I heard that wearing shoes may be bad for you, which at the time made a kind of sense to me.

1:06.3

After all, humans haven't really been wearing shoes for that long.

1:12.1

Humans and their direct ancestors have been walking on two feet for about six, maybe seven million years.

1:20.1

Anatomically modern humans, they've been around for maybe 100,000 to 200,000 years.

1:26.6

So in the grand scheme of things we have developed into who we are today without shoes at all,

1:28.7

it's only much later that we decided for whatever reason we wanted to wear shoes. That was Krista Ute, a researcher who studies the

1:35.9

evolution of how humans move. In fact, according to the archaeological evidence, humans may have

1:42.4

only been wearing shoes for about 40,000 years.

1:46.3

And even then, these were simple foot wrappings, not the cushioned shoes we're so used to today.

1:52.8

So, if these ancient humans could go without shoes, why couldn't I?

1:58.1

Being the science-interested and suggestible person that I am,

2:02.7

I decided to do an experiment with a sample size of one, myself, and shunned my shoes.

2:11.2

After several months, I had discovered a couple of things.

...

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