India bound

This post is true, despite what day it is: I will be off on an 8-day, 3-city speaking tour in India beginning tomorrow, at the kind invitation of the Indian Academy of Sciences. My topic is "What Made Humans Modern?" This is a subject I have written about many times for Science, not that I necessary know the answer. But the question is one of the most important in human evolution studies: How did Homo sapiens evolve the advanced cognitive abilities that have allowed our species to pretty much take over the planet, for better or for worse. My talk will focus on the origins of art and symbolism, a subject I recently wrote about as part of Science's Darwin anniversary series.

I will be speaking at various venues in New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai (Madras.) If you are in Delhi this Saturday evening, come hear me at the India International Centre. Information is at this link, and if you scroll down to April 4 (the very bottom as of today) you will see the details for my talk. The image at left is the flyer of one of my two talks in Hyderabad, on April 7, at the B.M. Birla Science Centre, which looks like a pretty cool place judging from its Web site.

By the way, please let me know if you have any trouble with the link to the Science article "What Made Humans Modern?" at the top of this post, as I have had some reports of problems. If so, I will get my Web person to fix it.

PS--If all goes well I will be blogging about my trip, with photos, whenever I can; although my hosts will be keeping me very busy!