CRESIDA webinar by Professor Stuart Semple on the biological principles underpinning biological information systems

On 4 November 2020, CRESIDA’s Professor Stuart Semple presented a webinar in our CRESIDA seminar series titled ‘Geladas, genes and the clouds of Venus – compression as a fundamental principle of biological information systems’. Abstract A fundamental goal of the life sciences is to identify universal biological principles – the basic rules of organisation that Read More…

Spotlight on… Stuart Semple

Position: Professor in Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Roehampton Bio: Stuart completed his PhD in 1998 at the University of Sussex with a dissertation on the topic of female copulation calls in barbary macaques. After completing his doctorate, he held a research fellowship at the Institute of Zoology, London before joining Roehampton in 2002. Read More…

Primates, penguins and the evolution of language

Analyses of human language and the behaviour of a range of non‐human animal species have provided evidence for a common pattern underlying diverse behavioural phenomena. This is a longstanding research interest of CRESIDA’s Stuart Semple, who has extensively studied this phenomenon in primates – including a recent study demonstrating that compression underpins chimpanzee gestural communication. Drawing Read More…

Anthropology of Life and Death: Exploring concepts of life and death through the lens of pregnancy loss

As part of our third year Anthropology of Life and Death module, students explore cross-cultural understandings of life and death. This week, our featured essay is by Jack Robson. Jack’s bio: I am a final year anthropology undergraduate student, having studied the majority of my degree part-time alongside work. When I discovered anthropology a number Read More…