Women have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to have more sensitive noses, sharper hearing at high frequencies, and longer life expectancy than men. But why have women's bodies been so under-researched? It’s one of the many questions Cat Bohannon raises in her book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. 

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, Eve explores how women’s biology has shaped human history and culture. In the lead up to the winner’s announcement, New Scientist books editor Alison Flood meets all six of the shortlisted authors.

In this conversation, we hear what motivated Cat to spend more than a decade researching and writing the book, how understanding the evolution of female traits can give us deeper insights into the workings of our species, and the overlap between sexism and science. 

The winner of the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize will be announced on the 24th October. You can view all of the shortlisted entries here:

https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/science-book-prize/ 

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit https://www.newscientist.com/

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