Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist, was to start work at Brown University as an assistant professor of medicine.

A new high-tech analysis of the fossilized jaw bone of Haramiyavia clemmenseni, one of our earliest ancestors, is shedding new light on the mammalian family tree. University of Chicago paleontologist Neil Shubin was one of the lead authors of the study and he joins us in studio to talk us through the findings.