Eating is a risky affair. All animals have to offset risks of feeding such as exposure to plant
toxins, increased vulnerability to predation, or conspecific aggression with a food's energetic …

Interdisciplinary research has benefitted the fields of anthropology and engineering for
decades: a classic example being the application of material science to the field of feeding …

Dental microwear has long been used as evidence concerning the diets of extinct species.
Here, we present a comparative baseline series of dental microwear textures for a sample of …

The remarkable mechanical performance of biological materials is based on intricate
structure–function relationships. Nanoindentation has become the primary tool for …

ABSTRACT The African Plio‐Pleistocene hominins known as australopiths evolved derived
craniodental features frequently interpreted as adaptations for feeding on either hard, or …

Mammalian tooth enamel is often chipped, providing clear evidence for localized contacts
with large hard food objects. Here, we apply a simple fracture equation to estimate peak bite …

Attempts to establish relationships between mandibular morphology and either traditional
dietary categories or geometric and material properties of primate diets have not been …

Recent biomechanical analyses examining the feeding adaptations of early hominins have
yielded results consistent with the hypothesis that hard foods exerted a selection pressure …

Animals (including humans) use objects to solve problems or accomplish goals in diverse
ways. Sometimes while doing so they achieve a mechanical effect on a target object or …

Background Primates—including fossil species of apes and hominins—show variation in
their degree of molar enamel thickness, a trait long thought to reflect a diet of hard or tough …