linkfest – 02/03/13

Can plants be altruistic? You bet, says new CU-Boulder-led study – “‘Embryos with the same mother and father as the endosperm in their seed weighed significantly more than embryos with the same mother but a different father,’ said Diggle, a faculty member in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. ‘We found that endosperm that does not share the same father as the embryo does not hand over as much food — it appears to be acting less cooperatively.’” – previously: even plants do it!

How to Survive a Siberian Winter – “[T]he study shows how, over the more than 25,000 years that modern humans been lived in Siberia, various peoples have adapted to the region’s cold weather and meaty food sources through selection on multiple genes that control several biological mechanisms.”

National intelligence and personality – “‘[T]aken together, Big Five traits and IQs of various cultures statistically explained 70% of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The most important predictors of economic success were intelligence and extraversion, which proved to be strongly positively related to GDP.’” – from mangan.

Childhood intelligence is heritable, highly polygenic and associated with FNBP1L – from race/history/evolution notes.

IQ and homicide – from the awesome epigone.

HVGIQ: Cuba – from jason malloy.

New Geology study raises questions about long-held theories of human evolution – “While the shift to bipedalism appears to have occurred somewhere between 6 and 4 million years ago, Feakins’ study finds that thick rainforests had already disappeared by that point—replaced by grasslands and seasonally dry forests some time before 12 million years ago.”

Ice Age Lion Man is world’s earliest figurative sculpture – 40,000 years old! – h/t dienekes.

New study sheds light on the origin of the European Jewish population – “Elhaik’s findings strongly support the Khazarian Hypothesis, as opposed to the Rhineland Hypothesis, of European Jewish origins.” – h/t jayman!

Aztec conquest of Xaltocan led to population replacement – from dienekes.

Students with Autism Gravitate Toward STEM Majors – duh.

When Taking Multiple Husbands Makes Sense – “Historically, polyandry was much more common than we thought.”

The supposedly educated believe in astrology – “‘Only 52% of science majors said that astrology is ‘not at all’ scientific.’” – from mangan.

Some chores linked to less sex – “Couples in which the husband did plenty of traditionally male jobs reported more sex than those in which the guy didn’t.” – but you already knew that, didn’t you? (~_^)

bonus: Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit – from jayman! (i LOVE baloney! fried baloney sandwiches — mmmmmm! (^_^) )

bonus bonus: ‘I feel like a stranger where I live’ – “As new figures show ‘white flight’ from cities is rising, one Londoner writes a provocative personal piece about how immigration has drastically changed the borough where she has lived for 17 years.”

bonus bonus bonus: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II – “In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered a family of six, lost in the taiga.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Stone Age tribe kills fishermen who strayed on to island

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: America’s most luxurious reservation: Huge homes of country’s richest Native American tribe where members make $1m EACH – “The tribe is also well-known for their charitable giving. It often donates cash to poorer tribes and charities across the country. Since 1996 they have given away $243.5 million…. ‘If it wasn’t for Shakopee, especially during this time when things are tough for loans, tough in this economy — there’s tribes who would be in a very tough situation,’ Ernest Stevens, chair of the National Indian Gaming Association explains. ‘There’s nobody in the gaming industry that I know of that can compare to what Shakopee does.’ In 2010 they were given a Jefferson Award for Public Service.”

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historic european homicide rates … and the hajnal line

here’s another map of europe — from steven pinker’s Better Angels:

“Figure 3-8. Geography of homicide in Europe, late 19th and early 21st centuries [i've only shown the 19th century map here - h.chick]. Sources: Late 19th century (1880-1900): Eisner, 2003.”

now here’s the same map with the hajnal line added. oh … oops!:

what i’ve been wanting to see is a map showing the reduction of homicide rates in europe over time. eisner has shown that the homicide rates didn’t drop all at once — they started dropping the earliest in england, belgium/netherlands, germany and switzerland — later scandinavia — and, much later, italy and the rest of peripheral europe (see this post for more details and nifty charts). here’s pinker summarizing eisner’s findings (from chapter 3 of Better Angels):

“[F]rom the 13th century to the 20th, homicide in various parts of England plummeted by a factor of ten, fifty, and in some cases a hundred — for example, from 110 homicides per 100,000 people per year in the 14th-century Oxford to less than 1 homicide per 100,000 in mid-20th-century London….

“Were the English unusual among Europeans in gradually refraining from murder? Eisner looked at other Western European countries for which criminologists had compiled homicide data. [T]he results were similar. Scandinavians needed a couple of additional centuries before they thought the better of killing each other, and Italians didn’t get serious about it until the 19th century. But by the 20th century the annual homicide rate of every Western European country had fallen into a narrow band centered on 1 per 100,000….

“The Civilizing Process spread not only downward along the socioeconomic scale but outward across the geographic scale, from a Western European epicenter…. England was the first to pacify itself, followed closely by Germany and the Low Countries. Figure 3-8 [the one i half-posted above - h.chick] plots this outward ripple on maps of Europe in the late 19th and early 21st centuries.

“In the late 1800s, Europe had a peaceable bull’s-eye in the northern industrialized countries (Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, and the Low Countries), bordered by slightly stroppier Ireland, Austria-Hungary, and Finland, surrounded in turn by still more violent Spain, Italy, Greece, and the Slavic countries. Today the peaceable center has swelled to encompass all of Western and Central Europe, but a gradient of lawlessness extending to Eastern Europe and the mountainous Balkans is still visible.”

i wanted to see THAT on a map, so i drew one (NOT with crayons, although it kinda looks like it…). lighter shades=earlier drop in homicide rates; darker shades=later drop. i’ve indicated the century in which homicide rates began to drop for each region. and i’ve drawn in the hajnal line:

finally, a footnote from pinker:

“There are gradients within each of these countries as well: the hinterlands and mountains remained violent long after the urbanized and densely farmed centers had calmed down. Clan warfare was endemic to the Scottish highlands until the 18th century, and to Sardinia, Sicily, Montenegro, and other parts of the Balkans until the 20th.”

previously: ibd rates for europe and the hajnal line and outbreeding, self-control and lethal violence and what pinker missed

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linkfest – 01/14/13

late linkfest again! sorry. (*^_^*)

Group Selection (and homosexuality) and Homosexuality, epigenetics, and zebras – from greg cochran. also, from jayman -
A Gay Germ? Is Homophobia a Clue?

The Trouble with Epigenetics (Part 1) – “[E]ven though epigenetic mechanisms may be involved in maintaining some stable traits over the lifetime of the animal, they are just that: mechanisms. Not causes. Epigenetics is not a source of variance, it is part of the mechanism whereby certain environmental factors or experiences have their effects.” (in other words, epigenetics is not magic.)

DNA ‘identichip’ gives a detailed picture of a suspect – “The VisiGen team tested the chip on more than 3000 DNA samples collected around the world, and found that it was 99 per cent accurate at predicting gender. The chip also predicted European or East Asian ancestry with an accuracy of 97 per cent, and African ancestry in 88 per cent of cases. However, it was only 63 per cent accurate at predicting blond hair….”

What did our ancestors look like? – “A new method of establishing hair and eye colour from modern forensic samples can also be used to identify details from ancient human remains….”

Black homicide rates by state – from the awesome epigone. compare to his White homicide rates by state. also, from hail: White Murder Rates by U.S. State, 1960 (vs. 2010).

People With Brown Eyes Appear More Trustworthy, But That’s Not The Whole Story – “‘Brown-eyed individuals tend to be perceived as more trustworthy than blue-eyed ones,’ explain the authors. ‘But it is not brown eyes that cause this perception. It is the facial morphology linked to brown eyes.’” – see also dienekes.

Networking Ability a Family Trait in Monkeys – “Social behaviors have been acted on by natural selection”

Cheating — and getting away with it – “Scientists have found a gene that allows amoebae to pass on more than their fair share of their genes but doesn’t make them less fit in other ways”

Banded mongooses structure monosyllabic sounds in a similar way to humans

America’s Real Criminal Element: Lead – “New research finds Pb is the hidden villain behind violent crime, lower IQs, and even the ADHD epidemic.” – maybe.

Darwin Was Wrong About Dating – maybe.

How Did Humans Figure Out That Sex Makes Babies?

bonus: #overlyhonestmethods is the PostSecret of the science world, and it is amazing – heh. (^_^)

bonus bonus: Why I Am Not an Atheist – from kanazawa.

bonus bonus bonus: Immigrant mothers in Britain could be aborting unwanted girls, ministers admit after study of birth rates

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Why is gingerism so common in Britain? – from ed west.

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: China’s one-child law: Less competitive adults?

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clans in the news: india, israel, etc.

first of all — how come no one ever told me that the indian (as in call centers) diamond industry was run in large part by ca. 2500 jainist families? a lot of them from palanpur (see also here). from time magazine:

“The Surat diamond trade was built by a dynamic and enterprising religious community – the Palanpuri Jains, followers of an ancient religion that emphasizes nonviolence and vegetarianism. Jains account for 0.4% of India’s population. The Palanpuris, who hail from the town of Palanpur in the Indian state of Gujarat, form a close-knit community that thrives in the atmosphere of secrecy and informality that envelops the diamond trade – there are often no written contracts, many transactions occur in cash, and stones worth millions of dollars are transported with virtually no security. ‘It’s an industry built on trust,’ says Biju Patnaik, a Bombay-based diamond-industry expert at Dutch bank ABN AMRO. The Palanpuris have also ventured over-seas, setting up small family-run polishing centers in Antwerp and Tel Aviv, and slowly elbowing into the U.S. as diamond sellers. In Manhattan’s midtown diamond district, Palanpuri businessmen sitting beneath portraits of their saint, Mahavira, now run shops side by side with black-coated Hasidim from Brooklyn.”

yeah, it’s an industry built on trust all right … in family members! fellow inbred members prolly (there are some hints that cousin marriage is a-okay amongst the jains — and we know that uncle-niece marriage is allowed with that other diamond-trading group — the hasidim).

see also Jews Surrender Gem Trade to Indians and Jainism in Belgium
_____

i suppose that, like me, you’re all closely following the story of the unfortunate mr. urooj khan who lived in chicago and who, the day after collecting his $1 million lotto winnings ($425,000 after taxes), DIED from CYANIDE poisoning!

the question is, whodunit?:

- his wife/cousin who cooked his last meal (kofta curry) which she may or may not have eaten with him (reports differ)?
- his father-in-law/uncle who lived with mr. khan and who owes $124,000 in back taxes?
- his brother-in-law/possible cousin (married to mr. khan’s sister) with whom mr. khan’s daughter by his first wife is now living and who is suing khan’s wife/estate for the daughter’s share of the lottery winnings (or so he says)?
- his brother who called the police to say that mr. khan’s death was suspicious and that they should exhume his body to check for any funny business (which they are gonna do)?
- someone else entirely?

if this were back in the old country, clearly there would be a clan war a-brewin’!

see also: Brother of $1m lottery winner cyanide victim revealed to be relative who tipped off police about his ‘unnatural death’ and Poisoned Lottery Winner Urooj Khan’s Family Knew Something Wasn’t Right, Nephew Says
_____

meanwhile, in israel:

1 dead, 6 apartments burned in J’lem clash of clans

these are arab, not jewish, clans…

“22-year-old man dies in hospital after being stabbed in a conflict between two family clans; six apartments, cars burned in fire.

A clash between two family clans (hamulot) in the northeast Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina left one man dead and led to a massive fire that burned six apartments on Tuesday….

“The warring Arab families threw rocks at police officers who tried to respond at the scene, though they did not injure anyone else, according to Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby….”

very helpful. =/
_____

and, although not really a clan per se, here’s an extended family for you … one set of identical twins married to another set of identical twins, and both couples have some kids …

… shouldn’t all those kids — all those cousins — be related to each other as though they were all siblings? they should, shouldn’t they? amirite?

previously: clans in the news: deutschland

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consanguinity and homicide

luke says/asks:

“It is interesting to compare world maps of consanguinity and murder rates…. Incidentally, someone who is proficient in computing correlation coefficients could use the country tables in the two links above to compute an actual number.”

here at hbd chick, we take reader requests! (^_^)

so i plotted the consang.net data as compiled by woodley & bell — just to be consistent — against the intentional homicide rates as compiled by the united nations office on drugs and crime and got … *drumroll please!* …

…nuthin’. zip. zilch. nada. a correlation of -0.0758. in other words, there is noooo correlation between modern consangunity rates and known intentional homicide rates. i love non-result results! they’re some of the best. (^_^)

here’s a chart for you — x-axis=consanguinity rates, y-axis=intentional homicide rates (as bob would say: that’s a scatter plot!):

and here’s a table of the data sorted by homicide rates:

like i said, though, i think there are problems with using the modern consanguinity rates when we are (i think probably/possibly) talking about the evolution of behaviors — and steven pinker thinks that there are probably some problems with the collection of homicide rates in certain countries. still — no correlation is no correlation.

previously: consanguinity and democracy

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linkfest – 07/08/12

Genes May Play Role in Educational Achievement, Study Finds – “Researchers have identified genetic markers that may influence whether a person finishes high school and goes on to college, according to a national longitudinal study of thousands of young Americans…. The three genes identified in the study – DAT1, DRD2 and DRD4 – have been linked to behaviors such as attention regulation, motivation, violence, cognitive skills and intelligence, according to the study.”

Racial bias colours visual perception – “Prejudiced people slowest to recognize faces from other races.” – or maybe people who are slowest to recognize faces from other races are the most “prejudiced”?

Cross-national IQ, inequality, and homicide – from the inductivist.

Research shows endowment effect in chimpanzees can be turned on and off – “‘These results strongly support the idea that the endowment effect reflects the deep influence of evolutionary processes – notably natural selection – on psychological predispositions that affect how brains ascribe value to objects.’”

A scientific study reveals that individuals cooperate according to their emotional state and their prior experiences – “[P]eople do not act thinking in their own reward, as had been previously believed, but rather individuals are more influenced by their own mood at the time and by the number of individuals with whom they have cooperated before.”

Baby makers scorn porn? – from the awesome epigone.

Chronic pain is determined by emotions, scientists believe – “The more emotionally the brain reacted to the initial injury, the more likely it was that pain will persist after the injury has healed, he said. Prof Apakarian added: ‘It may be that these sections of the brain are more excited to begin with in certain individuals, or there may be genetic and environmental influences that predispose these brain regions to interact at an excitable level.’”

‘Cat ladies’ more likely to commit suicide, scientists claim – “Researchers found women infected with the Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) parasite, which is spread through contact with cat faeces or eating undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables, are at increased risk of attempting suicide.”

Autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may share common underlying factors, study suggests – “New research led by a medical geneticist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine points to an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) among individuals whose parents or siblings have been diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.”

O Brother, Who Art Thou? – review of Born Together – Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study.

23andMe Contributes to Genetic Discoveries Related to Breast Size and Breast Cancer – “23andMe … has identified seven single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with breast size, including three SNPs also correlated with breast cancer in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) now published online in BMC Medical Genetics. These findings make the first concrete genetic link between breast size and breast cancer risks.” – they looked at data from women of european ancestry.

Researchers Find a Brain Center for Social Choices – “Poker-playing subjects seen weighing whether to bluff.”

bonus: the higgs! (maybe/probably)

bonus bonus: The ‘appetite-suppressing’ effect of proteins explained

bonus bonus bonus: Plants that feed on animals underground discovered – “Three species of carnivorous plant that feed on worms underground have been discovered in the Brazilian savannah.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Women ‘deliberately post ugly photos of friends online’ – heh.

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Dogs May Mourn as Deeply as Humans Do – dogs are people, too.

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european and european-american homicide rates not very different

olave’s got a post up — Correlation Data on Homicide and Race — in which he crunches some numbers and finds that the homicide rates in europe AND very white u.s. states are not all that different. homicide rates go up in u.s. states that have a greater percentage of blacks in their populations.

go see olave’s numbers here! me? i’m movin’ to new hampshire. (~_^)

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more on the cinderella effect

greying wanderer suggested the other day that a murderous person would prolly stab a stranger with a knife up “to the hilt,” but if he went to stab his brother, he might, at the last second, have a change of heart and only stab the blade in an inch or two.

there might be something to that notion. what he said reminded of something i read a while ago now, around the time i had a couple of posts about the cinderella effect, i.e. that step-parents generally don’t treat their step-kids as well as biological parents do. this makes sense, of course, if you keep inclusive fitness in mind, ’cause step-parents are (usually) not related to their step-kids.

what i read was a really interesting, but depressing (esp. for a chick, i think), article entitled “Some Differential Attributes of Lethal Assaults on Small Children by Stepfathers versus Genetic Fathers.” what the researchers found was that, not only do step-parents kill their step-kids at much greater rates on average than biological parents, but that when they do, it’s usually a more violent, brutal affair. when biological parents do kill their own kids, they tend to do it in a rather clean, almost humane way. and they more often kill themselves as well afterwards.

“Killings of children less than five years of age by stepfathers versus (putative) genetic fathers are compared on the basis of Canadian and British national archives of homicides. In addition to previously reported differences in gross rates, the two categories of killings differed in their attributes. Beatings constituted a relatively large proportion of steppaternal homicides, whereas genetic fathers were relatively likely to shoot or asphyxiate their victims. A substantial proportion of killings by genetic fathers, but almost none of those by stepfathers, were accompanied by suicide and/or uxoricide. These contrasts lend support to the hypothesis that the differential risks incurred by children in different household types reflect the differential parental solicitude that is predictable from an evolutionary model of parental motivation.”

here are some charts.

methods of killing of children under five, canadian study — that first category is “beat”:

methods of killing of children under five, uk study — the categories from left to right are “hit, kick, blunt object,” “shoot,” “suffocate, strangle, exhaust fumes,” and “all other”:

relatedness matters. even — or maybe especially — in the most gruesome scenarios.

so, if you’re a parent, and you’re thinking of re-marrying (or re-shacking-up, altho that’s prolly a bad idea anyway), CHOOSE CAREFULLY.

btw — you would think that it would also make a difference if, say, a child was mixed-race or mixed-something. in such a case, the biological parent would clearly be less genetically related to their child than in a family that was 100% swedish or chinese, for example. not to mention all the cousin-marriage scenarios i’ve been talking about (ad nauseum). you would think, all else being equal (like economic circumstances), that there ought to be less child killing by parents in a place like saudi arabia.

and, that’s all i’m going to write about this subject (for now anyway), ’cause it’s just too d*rn sad.

previously: evo psych in need of a little hbd? and killing kids & step-kids, part ii and the cinderella effect, again… and even plants do it and more plants playing favorites

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