The species we recognise as our own - anatomically modern humans - has existed for only 300.000 years, a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms and uring that time our species has been shaped by strong evolutionary forces, often unwittingly as an indirect result of human activities. One of those activties is growing the animals for their milk, and one mutation that appeared because of that activity is the ability to drink milk during all life, not only as a small child. The milk mutation was and is a good one because people can feed themselves with milk even when they don't have any other food (the normal food they are usually eating).
In the lecture called A 300.000-Year History of Human Evolution, Professor Robin May' followers fond out how disease outbreaks, the rise of civilisation and even the invention of agriculture have left their traces in our DNA. This lecture was recorded on 7th February 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.
Robin May is Gresham Professor of Physic, he is also Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham.
