linkfest – 05/29/11

Ugandan Chimpanzees May Be Hunting Red Colobus Monkeys into Extinction

Is Your Religion Your Financial Destiny? – @altright

Prenatal testosterone and sexual jealousy – “The evidence keeps pouring out that gender is not a social construction (as if any reasonable person would think it is).” – from the inductivist.

and speaking of gender not being a social construction… Why male motorists are more stressed by traffic jams

Amazonian Tribe Lacks Abstract Concept of Time

Scientists Fight University of California to Study Rare Ancient Skeletons

‘Earliest’ Bronze Age battle site containing 100 bodies found on German river bank

Human Brain Networks Can be Tattle Tales – “Greicius and his colleagues have previously shown that the brain operates, at least to some extent, as a composite of separate networks composed a number of distinct but simultaneously active brain regions. They have identified approximately 15 such networks. Different networks are associated with vision, hearing, language, memory, decision-making, emotion and so forth.” @al fin.

Genetic Basis For Prudent Spending Habits – @parapundit

Junk food won’t just make you fat. It could also shrink your brain

Looking for Empathy in a Conflict-Ridden World – “The regions in red, he said, represented how subjects responded to others in physical pain; the green areas represented their response to emotional suffering. ‘The second thing you can see is that they’re completely separate from each other. So the brain regions that are responding to physical pain are very different than the brain regions that are responding to emotional suffering,’ he trailed off….”

Misunderstanding heritability – by chuck @occidentalist

bonus: Fiscally I’m A Right-Wing Nutjob, But On Social Issues I’m Fucking Insanely Liberal – heh.

getting that dynamo to hum

via al fin:

Secrets of the female orgasm revealed: Scientists discover new hope for women who can’t climax

“Scientists have discovered the female orgasm leads to an altered state of conciousness that could help the minority of women who can not climax.

“Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands unwittingly stumbled across the results after they examined the brain scans of women taken while they orgasmed.

“The team noticed that an area of the brain, known as the orbitofrontal cortex or OFC, switched off when the women climaxed….”

more (of the juicy details) from al fin (here) who has neat charts and pictures and stuff. (no, not THOSE sort of pictures!)

and now for something completely different…

(nsfw or small children. and for god’s sake don’t let your wife or girlfriend hear!)

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linkfest – 05/22/11

Gene responsible for the unique development of human brains is ‘discovered’ – LAGMC3. see also al fin.

Researchers uncover a new level of genetic diversity in human RNA sequences – rna-dna differences (RDDs).

A bad apple in Duckworth’s IQ-Motivation meta-analysis? – important review from statsquatch.

Hazy Recall as a Signal Foretelling Depression – “[R]esearchers at Oxford, Northwestern University in Illinois and other universities are conducting studies with thousands of teenagers to determine whether those with overgeneral memory are more likely to develop depression later on.”

Scientists find “master switch” gene for obesity

The £400 [$650] test that tells you how long you’ll live – telomere test.

Scientists find genetic link to depression

Happy people die younger than their more reserved peers, study finds

Q&A: Novel study suggests autism three times more prevalent than thought – in south korea.

Nicotine is less addictive for smokers who have a particular genetic quirk, study finds – via diversity is chaos.

Does Cupid play politics? That ‘something special’ might be your mate’s political ideology – “Researchers discover spouses select partners based on social and political attitudes.” via parapundit.

Proof heart disease is an ancient problem: Autopsy finds 3,500-year-old Egyptian princess had clogged arteries – “44 out of 52 mummies examined had clogged arteries”

Not-so-similar fate of identical twins infected with HIV-1

bonus: Military Social Influence in the Global Information Environment – A Civilian Primer

linkfest – 05/15/11

How to Live With an Unknowable Mind

Homicidal Fantansies – “The majority of subjects in both studies reported at least one fantasy. Males tended to recall more homicidal fantasies than did females (in Study 1, 73% vs 66%; in Study 2, 79% vs 58% of males and females, respectively). Males also reported longer and more detailed fantasies, and were more likely to imagine strangers and coworkers as victims. Females’ recent fantasies were more likely to involve family members than were males, but that appears to be due to the fact that males had more fantasies about members of other categories, and not due to a tendency for males to have fewer homicidal fantasies about family members than do females. There was some evidence of greater fantasies involving step-parents, especially when one considered the amount of time subjects had spent living with step-, as opposed to genetic, parents.”

Sexual Orientation Affects Cancer Survivorship, Study Finds

Why sons inherit their mother’s curse – mtDNA affects gene expression of nuclear genes in male fruit flies more than in female fruit flies

Scientific literacy by church attendance – from the epigone

Children Conceived in Winter Have a Greater Risk of Autism, Study Finds

The Tricky Chemistry of Attraction – “Taking Birth-Control Pills May Mask the Signals That Draw the Sexes Together, Research Shows”

Children can ‘recall early memories’, Canadian study suggests – “Events from well before the age of two can be recalled, suggests a Canadian study of around 100 young children aged 4 to 13.”

What will happen to us? – “Only 0.01 percent of all species that have ever existed continue to do so.”

The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science

bonus: The People vs. Goldman Sachs – the latest from matt taibbi

bonus bonus: It’s Raining on Men: Balls Deep at the Conference on Male Studies

linkfest – 05/08/11

The Reason We Reason << read this!

Ug! Neanderthals were mostly right-handed … and may have had a proper language too

Better brain wiring linked to family genes – via roissy

The eternal infant – “[H]umans are different. We never grow up. As adults, we retain this infant-like mental plasticity…. Geneticists are now a step closer to understanding this evolutionary change. A team led by David Kingsley of Stanford has shown that ancestral humans lost a key piece of DNA that switches on GADD45G, a gene that stifles growth of brain tissue.” @evo and proud via diversity is chaos.

Who knows you best? Not you, say psychologists

Combination of ADHD and poor emotional control runs in families. see also: Stress in pregnancy ‘makes child unruly’: Mother’s anxiety can raise baby’s risk of ADHD

More than 20 percent of atheist scientists are spiritual – spiritual atheists. wait. what?

Female-to-male transsexual people have more autistic traits – “Simon Baron-Cohen interpreted the results as follows: ‘Girls with a higher than average number level of autistic traits tend to have male-typical interests, showing a preference for systems over emotions. They prefer not to socialise with typical girls because they have different interests, and because typical girls on average have more advanced social skills. Both of these factors may lead girls with a higher number of autistic traits to socialize with boys, to believe they have a boy’s mind in a girl’s body, and to attribute their unhappiness to being a girl.’”

Hearts Beat as One in a Daring Ritual – cool!

Does Revenge Serve an Evolutionary Purpose?

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retarded teenagers

i’m with parapundit on this one:

“As part of a rant about a double standard with regard to child pornography where movies and TV shows produced by large corporations can portray very sexualized teenagers Ferdinand Bardamu points out children are entering into puberty about 4-5 years sooner than they used to be. Where he gets it wrong is by arguing those kids are ready to handle their sexuality at the age of 12 or 13…. My take: The early puberty is a recent development that teens are not ready to handle. Sexual development should be delayed in order to give kids time to grow up and to avoid the cost for the rest of us that come from teen pregnancies.”

humans are probably not adults until well into their 30s and 40s (explains a LOT, doesn’t it?). there’s no way 12 and 13 year olds are “clearly capable of taking on adult responsibilities at younger ages” as f. bardamu says. just ’cause they’re hitting puberty at a younger age does not mean they’re capable of taking on adult responsibilities like raising kids properly. they’re just capable of reproducing, that’s all.

in fact, i’ve long thought that the discrepancy between age of puberty and age of brain maturity was kinda funny. it’s off. by a long shot.

i’d bet anyone a brewski that this has actually been selected for. i.e. being “retarded” has meant a greater number of kids than there would’ve been otherwise. no sense + a strong sexual drive (like most teenagers) = greater number of offspring than if u had sense. you know, just like how low iq folks have more kids than high iq folks.

natural selection in action, my friends.

a separate point that f. bardamu makes is:

“There. I admit it. I’m a sicko who gets off on underage girls.”

i presume he’s not talking about 6 year olds (pedophilia) but, rather, 16 (ephebophilia) or even 14 year olds (hebephilia) and that, obviously, is perfectly natural and makes sense. wouldn’t throw you in jail for that, f.b.! (~_^) (btw – olivia hussey was 17 or 18 in that fantastic version of “romeo & juliet” – not 13, of course.)

linkfest – 01/23/11

Mammoth ‘could be reborn in four years’

Average IQ by occupation (estimated from median income) – by mr. audacious

Roman rise and fall ‘recorded in trees’ – “An extensive study of tree growth rings says there could be a link between the rise and fall of past civilisations and sudden shifts in Europe’s climate.”

Dieting while pregnant can lower your baby’s IQ – (duh)

Religiosity and the origins of civilization – @evo and proud – “The causes of civilization are not to be found in early art, writing, or architecture. These are merely the consequences of a preceding mental revolution.”

Best friends forever: It’s all in our genes, say scientists – genetic similarity theory. see also Brain Genes Influence Friend Choices @futurepundit.

Blood group O ‘protects against heart attacks’

Watch out feminists: Why acting like a man at work won’t get you promoted at work

White ethnic groups more likely to vote Republican than whites in general and More on ethnicity and voting among whites from inductivist. “Americans of English/Welsh, Dutch, and German descent are significantly more likely to vote Republican, compared to other whites.”

Dumb Farmers @overcoming bias. see also If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?

Miscellaneous musings on the Ainu, I @ahnenkult. via race|hist|evo notes.

Worm Sperm – “Sperm built to resist being sucked out after copulation.” see also The sexual battles of flatworms: barbed sperm, mating rings, traumatic insemination, and going down on yourself

9,000 Years Ago, North Americans Tamed–and Ate–Dogs

linkfest – 12/26/10

“Fighter Pilots’ Brains Are ‘More Sensitive’”

“Breastfed boys (but not girls) are brainier: Reading, writing and maths skills better than those given bottle”

“The cultural genome: Google Books reveals traces of fame, censorship and changing languages” @ not exactly rocket science.

“Women can’t have it all: Female academic says those with top jobs only end up with ‘nominal families’” -“Those [women] who try to combine high-powered jobs with having children really only end up with ‘nominal families’ with whom they spend little time. Dr Catherine Hakim concludes that the battle for sexual equality is over and any pay gap is down to women’s lifestyle choices.”