▪ Abstract The study of complex adaptive systems, a subset of nonlinear dynamical systems,
has recently become a major focus of interdisciplinary research in the social and natural …

An intense period of human population expansion over the past 250 years is about to cease.
Total fertility rates are falling dramatically all over the world such that highly industrialized …

Storytelling is a human universal. From gathering around the camp-fire telling tales of
ancestors to watching the latest television box-set, humans are inveterate producers and …

Abstract The Holocene (beginning around 12,000 years ago) encompassed some of the
most significant changes in human evolution, with far-reaching consequences for the …

Human brain size nearly quadrupled in the six million years since Homo last shared a
common ancestor with chimpanzees, but human brains are thought to have decreased in …

Over recent millennia, human populations have regularly reconstructed their subsistence
niches, changing both how they obtain food and the conditions in which they live. For …

Social networks in modern societies are highly structured, usually involving frequent contact
with a small number of unrelated 'friends'. However, contact network structures in traditional …

Economic models predominate in life history research, which investigates the allocation of
an organism's resources to growth, reproduction, and maintenance. These approaches …

In psychological research, there are often assumptions about the conditions that children
expect to encounter during their development. These assumptions shape prevailing ideas …

Maladaptation to modern diets has been implicated in several chronic disorders. Given the
higher prevalence of disease such as dental caries and chronic gum diseases in …