What extreme expeditions reveal about human evolutionary physiology

by Danny Longman (Loughborough University)

Thursday 29 Oct 2026, 16:30 → 18:00 Europe/Zurich

500/1-001 - Main Auditorium (CERN)

In 2009, Dr Danny Longman joined a team attempting to row 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Their boat sank. He lost his glasses. They were rescued by a Ukrainian cargo tanker. It was, by any measure, a complete disaster – and yet it launched a research programme he is still running today.

In this talk, Danny describes what a series of extreme expeditions – including ocean rows across the Atlantic, Arctic and Black Sea, a six-month unsupported cycle from Mexico to Argentina and open-water swimming records in the English Lake District – have revealed about human evolutionary biology.  

Two scientific threads run through the adventures. The first concerns what happens to the body under extreme physical stress and why, when energy runs short, the body makes ruthless choices about what to protect and what to sacrifice. The second concerns the environment itself: whether wild landscapes restore something in human physiology that urban environments steadily erode.

 

Bio:

Dr Danny Longman is a keen adventurer, outdoors enthusiast and Helly Hansen sponsored athlete. He holds eight official Guinness World Records for Arctic exploration and a fastest known time for ultra-endurance wild swimming in the English Lake District.

He read Natural Sciences as an undergraduate, before completing his Masters, PhD and postdoctoral fellowship in evolutionary anthropology, all at the University of Cambridge. 

He now leads the Human Evolutionary EcoPhysiology Research Group at Loughborough University, investigating how the body adapts under extreme physical stress and how natural and industrialised environments affect human health and performance. 

 

 

Coffee and tea will be served at 16h

Organised by : Matthew Chalmers