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The Leakey Foundation

@leakeyfoundation.org
915 followers 79 following 54 posts

We're a nonprofit on a mission to explore and explain the human story. We're here to make friends and talk about science.

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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 09/02/2026
Yuting Gao from the University of Colorado, Boulder is investigaing how oral microbiomes vary across primates and what evolutionary factors drive the variation.
Yuting Gao working in the primate collection in The Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum in Singapore.
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 09/02/2026
Ellen Dyer from the University of New Mexico is asking how access to social support affects stress responses.
Ellen Dyer kneeling in a green forest, wearing a backpack and dressed for fieldwork.
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 09/02/2026
Kévin Di Modica from Espace Muséal d’Andenne is investigating the earliest human settlements in North-West Europe with a focus on Belgium.
Kévin Di Modica is touching a cave wall that has archaeological site flags marking significant spots.
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 09/02/2026
Maria Chreighton from Duke University is exploring how sociality links to health and longevity in primates. (Pic by Susan Alberts)
Maria Creighton in an open yellow grassland taking data on baboons.
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 09/02/2026
Here are a few examples of their fascinating projects: Olayemi Ajayi of The University of Cincinnati is studying how rainfall variation shapes gene regulation patterns in thick-tailed galagos.
Olayemi Ajayi working with a pipette in a lab. She's wearing a blue lab coat and sitting at a lab bench.
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 09/07/2025
Looking for research funding? Is your work relevant to understanding human origins? Our next deadline is July 15! Learn more and apply! #ScienceFunding #HumanEvolution leakeyfoundation.org/grants-schol...
An image with text about applying for a Leakey Foundation research grant. A photo of a grantee in the field holding a fossil is on the right side of the graphic.
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 07/03/2025
Need a last minute #StandUpForScience sign? Head to our website and download our free graphic. We have 3 sizes and 2 colorways. leakeyfoundation.org/stand-up-for...
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 12/02/2025
Happy Darwin Day! “There is grandeur in this view of life–that from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”⁠
photograph of Charles Darwin with a white beard, looking straight at the cameraA moody oil painting of Charles Darwin in a deep blue/black cloak holding his hat and looking straight at the viewer.Darwin's "I think" sketch showing a tree of life.
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 07/02/2025
⁠Photos 3,4 and 6 form part of the Wits University Archives and are published with kind permission of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in South Africa.⁠ We're grateful to them for allowing us to share these wonderful photos! ⁠
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 07/02/2025
This amazing fossil also had what's called an endocast of the brain, which you can see here. An endocast is a fossil impression of the inside of a hollow object, like a skull. This captured the shape and size of the Taung Child's brain, giving Dart an important clue that this was a human relative.⁠
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 07/02/2025
Dart recognized this was something special and spent over two months scraping away the surrounding limestone with knitting needles. He described the fossil in the journal Nature on February 7, 1925, giving it the species name Australopithecus africanus, which means the "southern ape from Africa."⁠
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 07/02/2025
The Taung Child skull was discovered in 1924 by workers at a South African rock quarry who had blasted it out of the limestone quarry wall. Josephine Salmons, a medical student at the University of the Witwatersrand saw the skull on a friend’s mantelpiece and brought to her professor, Raymond Dart.⁠
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 07/02/2025
This important fossil confirmed Africa as the birthplace of humanity and revolutionized our understanding of evolution. ⁠
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 07/02/2025
This tiny fossilized skull belonged to a 3-year-old child that lived around 2.8 million years ago! Today we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of the Taung Child, Australopithecus africanus. #onthisday
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The Leakey Foundation @leakeyfoundation.org · 29/01/2025
We're thrilled to introduce the fall 2024 Francis H. Brown African Scholars! This award recognizes and supports outstanding East African students and researchers whose work is focused on the earth sciences or botany related to human origins. leakeyfoundation.org/fall-2024-fr...
A collage showing four scientists working or looking at the camera.
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