linkfest – 05/19/13

J.P. Rushton’s theory of ethnic nepotism [pdf] – “Ethnic nepotism due to similarity is a weak social force compared to social identity. However its pervasiveness makes it a potential driver of evolutionary and social change, a potential borne out by sociological studies of the impact of ethnic diversity on social cohesion and public altruism. Genomics confirms the theory for interactions within populations with sufficient genetic diversity, such as ethnically mixed societies. GST [genetic similarity theory] applied to ethnicity is promising for further research in evolutionary social science because it unifies evolutionary and behavioral mechanisms in a single theory.” – from salter and harpending. h/t hbd bibliography!

Tibet – looks like selection for adaptations to high-altitude living in tibetans started waaaay back. – from greg cochran. see also: The genome sequence of Tibetan antelope sheds new light on high-altitude adaptation.

The Connection Between Tipping and Corruption (and Tribalism) – “[C]ountries in which tipping is common are more corrupt than others, according to the Corruptions Perceptions Index (CPI).” – from staffan – h/t jayman!

Corruption influences migration of skilled workers – “Countries that have higher levels of corruption struggle to attract and retain skilled workers….”

A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries – “Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant…. India, Jordan and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant…. The Middle East not so tolerant…. Racial tolerance low in diverse Asian countries…. Pakistan, remarkably tolerant, also an outlier.” – h/t nelson!

The Call of the Clan – “Why ancient kinship and tribal affiliation still matter in a world of global geopolitics.” – mark weiner in foreign policy.

The Ancestral Logic of Politics: Upper-Body Strength Regulates Men’s Assertion of Self-Interest Over Economic Redistribution – “In studies conducted in Argentina, Denmark, and the United States, men with greater upper-body strength more strongly endorsed the self-beneficial position: Among men of lower socioeconomic status (SES), strength predicted increased support for redistribution; among men of higher SES, strength predicted increased opposition to redistribution.”

High-Testosterone Competitors More Likely to Choose Red – “[M]ales who chose red as their color in a competitive task had higher testosterone levels than other males who chose blue.”

Complex Societies before Agriculture: Göbekli Tepe – from peter turchin.

Why Humans Took Up Farming: They Like To Own Stuff – hmmmm.

New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged – “[P]eople living in Xincun [southern subtropical china] 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture –before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.”

“More Genomes From Denisova Cave Show Mixing of Early Human Groups” – @race/history/evolution notes.

Geoffrey Miller: ‘Why the seduction crowd picked up on my work’ – ’cause it works? (~_^)

The evolution of lying.

‘Overspending Has Become a Modern Form of Mating Deception’ – “Living beyond one’s means can make dating easier, but it leads to problems as a relationship gets more serious.” – h/t geoffrey miller.

“Nice guys finish last.” Really? What does the research say? – from barking up the wrong tree.

Company creates DNA test that reveals whether you carry the redhead gene – (^_^)

bonus: In Defense of Jason Richwine – “His resignation is emblematic of a corruption that has spread throughout American intellectual discourse.” – charles murray is sick of it. me, too!

bonus bonus: Malaria Infected Mosquitoes Express Enhanced Attraction to Human Odor – more miiiind control!

bonus bonus bonus: Water bubbling deep in Canadian mine may be oldest on Earth – “A reservoir deep underground in Canada holds water that may be 1 billion years old, possibly the oldest water on Earth, researchers say.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Unusual Offshore Octopods: The See-Through “Glass” Octopus [Video]

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human leukocyte antigen (hla) haplotypes and human biodiversity

over the past few months, commenter chris davies has left several interesting comments here on the blog about hla haplotypes (see here and here and here and here for example) — something about which, like so very many things, i know absolutely NOTHING.

i asked chris if he’d help alleviate my ignorance by writing a post on the topic, and he has graciously obliged (thanks, chris!). so, without further ado, here’s chris’ introduction to hla!:

An Introduction to HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigens)

I would like to thank HBD Chick, who recently asked me if I wanted to write a guest post here about Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA). I have been a reader of this blog for several months now, and I really enjoy it. This blog is among the most innovative of the HBD-related blogs out there and takes a completely different approach to the subject. So it is a pleasure to write a post here, as I don’t write a blog myself.

In the comments section on some posts here recently I have talked about ‘HLA haplotypes’. I have had an interest in HLA haplotypes for a few years, following discussions with a molecular biologist who writes (or rather wrote) in newsgroups including Usenet. But what are ‘HLA haplotypes’, and more importantly what is their usefulness or relevance to those of us with an interest in ‘HBD’?

‘HLA’ means Human Leukocyte Antigen. The HLA system is simply the name given to the human version of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). MHC genes are found in most vertebrates, and this group of genes can be found on chromosome 6.

HLA genes are important in immune function and disease defence. There are three classes: Class I (A,B,C); Class II (DP, DM, DOA, DOB, DQ, DR); and Class III. All play different roles.

In addition to conferring resistance or susceptibility to various diseases and conditions (eg autoimmune diseases, such as type I diabetes), they are also vitally important in organ and bone marrow transplants. For example, if a donor is not a close enough match in terms of HLA, an organ could be rejected. Because diversity of HLAs in human populations is a part of disease resistance, it is very uncommon to find two unrelated individuals with identical HLA molecules at all loci.

In addition, it has been claimed that HLA may play a role in human mate selection through people’s perception of the odor of other people.

HLA haplotypes are like strings of HLA genes by chromosome, with one being inherited maternally and the other paternally. A multigene haplotype is a set of inherited alleles covering several genes, or gene-alleles. Common multigene haplotypes are generally the result of identity by descent from a common ancestor. As distance from the ancestor increases, chromosomal recombination causes multigene haplotypes to fragment.

An example of an HLA haplotype is shown below:

A*01:01 ; C*07:01 ; B*08:01 ; DRB1*03:01 ; DQA1*05:01 ; DQB1*02:01
[Which by serotyping, is more simply: A1-Cw7-B8-DR3-DQ2].

This particular haplotype btw is found at high frequency among people of North-West European descent, including Irish, British, Dutch, Germans, Scandinavians, and of course a high percentage of Americans and Australians. It is associated with autoimmune disorders like coeliac disease, and allergic diseases like hayfever and asthma.

In addition to medical use, HLA haplotypes can also be used as a means of tracing migrations in the human population as they are like a fingerprint of an event that has occurred in evolution.

So alongside Y Chromosome DNA and Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) markers, HLA haplotypes are useful tools for molecular anthropologists in determining evolutionary links between ancient and modern human populations. They also help to determine closeness of relationships between or within populations, and commonality of geographical origin between groups. Therefore patterns of migration and settlement can be traced, giving insight into how contemporary populations have formed and progressed over time.

Because the HLA system is under selection, diversity in HLA should be looked at in conjunction with other markers like Y-DNA and mtDNA in building a bigger picture when tracing migrations of modern humans.

However, HLA has several advantages over Y-DNA and mtDNA. mtDNA is often biased towards the founders in a core population and can show a punctuated distribution, while Y-DNA is biased more towards relatively recent migrations, and with both of these markers the effects of genetic drift are more rapid. With HLA there is intense heterozygous selection which works to preserve diversity.

Also with HLA, one tends not to see a punctuated distribution of haplotypes across geographical regions between groups, but rather one sees a fluidity of migrations tracing back to their original source population. Examples of this occur when one looks at diversity of HLA in northern Africa, which appears to be the source for a number of haplotypes that migrated into Europe in the Holocene. This picture is less clear from looking at mtDNA or Y-DNA data only.

Finally, the other advantage of HLA is the sheer volume of data available. [See: www.allelefrequencies.net]. The numbers of people worldwide who have been typed for HLA are huge. There are nearly 22 million donors and blood cord units in the BMDW (Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide) database, encompassing many different ethnicities and nationalities with hundreds of thousands of HLA alleles and extended haplotypes identified. Y-DNA and mtDNA cannot offer this volume of data. Whether used for tracing ancient human migrations, or researching diseases in different populations, this data can be extremely helpful.

The association of HLA haplotypes in populations with certain diseases in Western countries is interesting to consider from an HBD perspective. For example, if resistance or susceptibility to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, etc. are all affected by HLA type, then there could be wildly varying outcomes between different population groups, in addition to the effects of environmental or lifestyle factors.

This in turn could have serious implications. For example, certain disease-related charities’ fund-raising campaigns are aimed at convincing the general public to donate cash on the basis that everyone is almost equally at risk from that particular disease, when different ethnic groups living in the same country with the same lifestyle may often vary in risk considerably from very high risk down to very low risk, with HLA type being an important determining factor. But the charity may not publicise this information in order not to jeopardise their fund-raising. This, I should stress, is speculation on my part however.

If want to find out more about Human Leukocyte Antigens, please refer to some of the sources listed below:

References
- The Allele Frequency Net Database (AFND). A database and online repository for immune gene frequencies in worldwide populations: [www.allelefrequencies.net]
- “Tracking Human Migrations by the Analysis of the Distribution of HLA Alleles, Lineages and Haplotypes in Closed and Open Populations.” [Fernandez Vina, M. et al, 2012].
- “HLA 1991: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Histocompatibility Workshop and Conference” (Volumes I & II) [Kimoshi Tsuji; Miki Aizawa; Takehiko Sasazuki] Oxford Science Publications, 1991.
- “HLA-Net: A European Network of the HLA Diversity for Histocompatibility, Clinical Transplantation, Epidemiological and Population Genetics.” [www.hla-net.eu].
- “AHPD: Analysis of HLA Population Data to Reconstruct the History of Modern Humans and Infer the Role of Natural Selection.” [geneva.unige.ch/ahpd].
- “Challenging Views on the Peopling of East Asia: the Story According to HLA Markers.” [Di D, Sanchez-Mazas A.]. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2011 May; 145(1):81-96.doi:10.1002/ajpa.21470.Epub2011Jan4. PMID:21484761 [Pubmed – indexed for MEDLINE].
- Wikipedia: “Human Leukocyte Antigen.”
- Wikipedia: “Major Histocompatibility Complex.”

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linkfest – 04/15/13

Born to run: genetic test can reveal those best able to run marathons – “[T]o run a marathon in a good time requires the right combination of genes and that nearly a fifth of the population lack this special mix. For runners with the right genes, it means their bodies can quickly adapt to carry large amounts of oxygen to their muscles, allowing them to run faster and for longer. Those who lack these genes, however, will never improve, no matter how much they train, and their performance may even get worse the harder they push themselves.”

Scientists Breed Exercise-Crazy Rats – “While a wide biological gap exists between humans and rats, the researchers do propose that some people could be genetically predisposed against exercising.”

Genetic discovery found to influence obesity in people of African ancestry

New Studies Shake Up Human Family Tree – “[I]n a spate of new studies, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, of the University of the Witwatersrand, and a team of collaborators have put forward a controversial claim that another hominin — *Australopithecus sediba* — might be even closer to the origin of our lineage [than *australopithecus afarensis,* the most famous example being "lucy"]….” — see also: Special Collection – Australopithecus sediba @science.

Fish Fossil Shows Why Humans Have Two Arms, Legs

Castaways – “We may have yet another story of long-distance prehistoric contact. A new paper in PLOS genetics suggests that people from the Jomon culture in Japan may have reached northwestern South America.” – from greg cochran. also from south america: Southern Native American Y-DNA: no correlation with language – @for what they were…we are.

Fluctuation of Fertility with Number in a Real Insect Population and a Virtual Population – “Real fruit fly fertility increases with average consanguinity thus decreasing with population size in a pattern that is modelled successfully with a virtual population. This invites the deliberate manipulation of wild insect populations for the control of vectors of human disease.” – from our very own linton herbert! yay! (^_^)

Do drugs for bipolar disorder ‘normalize’ brain gene function? U-M study suggests so – “Brain tissue study shows gene expression in patients treated with antipsychotics is similar to expression in non-bipolar brains.”

Serenity – “If the realities of human nature render your hope on how to make a better world impossible, merely wishing it were not so is not going to help your cause. But instead, better results can be attained to by working *with* what we learn about human nature.” – from jayman. hear, hear!

HVGIQ: Dominican Republic – from jason malloy.

Napoleon Chagnon’s “Noble Savages” – The Life of an Anthropological Heretic – “Napoleon Chagnon’s ‘Noble Savages’ is a must read.” – from helian unbound.

Frequent texters more shallow, racist, study finds – w.e.i.r.d. students. (psychology students, no less! (~_^) ) also: Texting, social networking and other media use linked to poor academic performance.

Study: we assume people stare at us – “People often think that other people are staring at them even when they aren’t, vision scientists have found. In a new article in Current Biology, researchers at The Vision Centre reveal that, when in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they’re under the gaze of another person.”

Political organization in a hunter-gatherer tribe – @mangan’s.

First Encounters of the Close Kind: John Derbyshire’s Address To The 2013 American Renaissance Conference – from john derbyshire.

Jared Taylor Remembers Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen

Our Inconsistent Ethical Instincts – read also: The Pro-Death Movement from jim goad – “[T]here’s an almost universal human definition of good and evil: If it enhances my survival, it’s good. If it harms it, it’s evil.” – yup.

Individual Donation Amounts Drop When Givers Are in Groups, Says MU Researcher – “Numerous studies have provided evidence that people are less likely to help when in groups, a phenomenon known as the ‘bystander effect.’” – see also this old post from steve sailer: Chinese kindness.

The Fraud Of America’s “Rape Culture” – from anatoly. see also his earlier post Much Ado About Rape: Quantifying A Big Taboo – “[I]t is ironic that the public panic over rape and sexual assault has risen to fever pitch at precisely the moment in history when the real lifetime risk of becoming a victim of rape has never been lower.”

Monkey chatter smacks of human speech, researcher says

How Parents Around the World Describe Their Children, in Charts – “A fascinating new study reveals that Americans are more likely to call their children ‘intelligent,’ while European parents focus on happiness and balance.”

DNA Shows It: Birds Are Promiscuous – “Here’s the warm and fuzzy part of this column: most birds really do mate for life. But here’s the cold side: They mess around. And here’s the switch: Blame the ladies.”

How to blackmail your parents for food – “Fledglings extort food by putting themselves in danger.”

When Animals Mourn: Seeing That Grief Is Not Uniquely Human – cr*p. i hate sad animal stories. *sniff*

Hawking: Humans Will Not Survive Another 1,000 Years ‘Without Escaping’ Earth – manifest destiny!

In Defence of Pseudonyms in Science: Defending the Right to Write

bonus: read this!>> Sam Parnia – the man who could bring you back from the dead – “This British doctor specialises in resurrection and insists outdated resuscitation techniques are squandering lives that could be saved.”

bonus bonus: James Lovelock: A man for all seasons – lovelock thinks there are too many people on the planet.

bonus bonus bonus: and this week’s “bras in the news” stories >> Bras Make Breasts “Saggier”, 15-year French [of course! - h.chick] Study Reveals and How your under-wired bra could kill you… if you’re a keen walker – “Metal in under-wired bras can cause compasses to be reversed because of the magnetic effect”. (sorry, no naked boobies at either of those pages.)

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linkfest – 03/24/13

extra-long [insert dongle joke here] linkfest this week since there wasn’t one last sunday (sorry, dog ate it…). note that there (probably) won’t be one next sunday either, ’cause i’ll be too busy hunting for easter eggs…. (^_^)

Common DNA Markers Can Account for More Than Half of the Genetic Influence on Cognitive Abilities – “In the same sample of 3,154 pairs of 12-year-old twins, we directly compared twin-study heritability estimates for cognitive abilities (language, verbal, nonverbal, and general) with GCTA estimates captured by 1.7 million DNA markers. We found that DNA markers tagged by the array accounted for .66 of the estimated heritability, reaffirming that cognitive abilities are heritable. Larger sample sizes alone will be sufficient to identify many of the genetic variants that influence cognitive abilities.” – via race/history/evolution notes.

Genotypes over-represented among college students are linked to better cognitive abilities and socioemotional adjustment – “The present study investigated … genotype frequencies of 284 SNPs covering major neurotransmitter genes in a sample of 478 Chinese college students, comparing these frequencies with those of a community sample (the 1000 Genomes dataset)…. Results showed that 24 loci showed Hardy–Weinberg disequilibrium among college students, but only two of these were in disequilibrium in the 1000 Genomes sample. These loci were found to be associated with mathematical abilities, executive functions, motivation, and adjustment-related behaviors such as alcohol use and emotion recognition.” – via … somebody … can’t remember who. sorry!

Genes and Smarts – from the derb.

Why Bacteria Commit Suicide – “[I]nfected individuals self-destructed before they could spread the virus to others.”

Evolution via Roadkill – “Cliff swallows that build nests that dangle precariously from highway overpasses have a lower chance of becoming roadkill than in years past thanks to a shorter wingspan that lets them dodge oncoming traffic. That’s the conclusion of a new study based on 3 decades of data collected on one population of the birds. The results suggest that shorter wingspan has been selected for over this time period because of the evolutionary pressure put on the population by cars.”

‘Out of Africa’ Story Being Rewritten Again – “Our early human ancestors may have left Africa more recently than thought, between 62,000 and 95,000 years ago, suggests a new analysis of genetic material from fossil skeletons.” – see also Mitochondrial DNA tree calibrated with ancient DNA @race/history/evolution notes and Revised timescale of human mtDNA evolution from dienekes.

How Social Darwinism Made Modern China – “A thousand years of meritocracy shaped the Middle Kingdom.” – good stuff from ron unz. see also the derb and peter frost and anatoly.

Does the Clark-Unz model apply to Japan and Korea? – from peter frost.

Did evolution give us inflammatory disease? – “[S]ome variants in our genes that could put a person at risk for inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease or rheumatoid arthritis, have been the target of natural selection over the course of human history.” – original research article.

Genes may be reason some kids are picky about food – “The study looked at 66 pairs of twins between ages 4 and 7 years old, and found that genes explain 72 percent of the variation among children in the tendency to avoid new foods, while the rest was influenced by environment.”

A Tale of Three Maps – from jayman.

Dan Freedman’s babies and National Character – from greg cochran @west hunter (buy the e-book!).

HVGIQ: The Bahamas – from jason malloy.

The Personality of Tribalism – from staffan.

Remembering Stephen Jay Gould: Bully and Boob – from steve sailer.

Depicting reality or escaping from it? – the awesome epigone asks a good question/makes a good point about something in steven pinker’s Better Angels.

Assortative mating and shared life history strategy – from mr. mangan.

Uh-Oh… – malcolm pollack on why there’s not so much “diversity” in silicon valley: “It’s because Silicon Valley … *is* a meritocracy — you just can’t fake being good at writing code, solving complex engineering problems, or designing high-tech gadgetry….”

Was inbreeding common among early humans? 100,000-year-old deformed skull adds evidence to theory of ‘very small’ communities – “The discovery adds to growing evidence that early humans inbred often” – prolly because populations were small. see also Abnormalities in Pleistocene Homo from dienekes.

Moral Matter – the neuroscience of morality.

Crime and punishment: From the neuroscience of freewill to legal reform

Men programmed to avoid sex with best friends’ wives: study – “Researchers suggest guys may have a biological predisposition against hitting on their best friends’ partners…. A University of Missouri study has found that adult males’ testosterone levels dropped when they were interacting with the marital partner of a close friend.”

Downton Abbey: Earl of Grantham maximizes inclusive fitness – @occam’s razor.

Experts Say Food May Contribute To Anger, Violent Behavior – “Pace and other nutritionists say if you eat plenty of fish, eggs, beans, fruits and green leafy vegetables, you should have the nutrients you need. However, people who tend to eat a diet loaded with processed or packaged foods could find themselves more easily irritated.”

Women abused as children likelier to bear autistic child

One of Us – animals are people, too.

Text mining uncovers British reserve and US emotion – “An analysis of the digitized texts of English-language books over the past century concludes that, since the 1980s, words that carry emotional content have become significantly more common in US books than in British ones.”

Evolution and Existentialism, an Intellectual Odd Couple – “On the basis of evolutionary existentialism, I would therefore like to suggest the heretical and admittedly paradoxical notion that, in fact, we need to teach more disobedience. Not only disobedience to political and social authority but especially disobedience to some of our troublesome genetic inclinations.” – hmmmm….

Forbidden City – “The left-wing stranglehold on academia.”

bonus: Life found deep under the sea – “Oceanic-crust microbes survive on hydrogen and carbon dioxide.” in other microbial news: Mariana Trench: Deepest ocean ‘teems with microbes’ – “The deepest place in the ocean is teeming with microscopic life, a study suggests.”

bonus bonus: Palestinian Mother Speaks Out About Daughter’s Honor Killing – “[H]onor killing defendants [are] usually given light sentences. Three years in prison was the stiffest in these cases. Life sentences or execution were never a consideration…. Offenders receive reduced sentences pursuant to Article 18 of Penal Code no. 74 of 1936, which is entitled ‘Necessity.’ The article provides for ‘leniency in punishment for crimes that offenders have committed in order to avert consequences, which could cause irreparable damage to their honor, money, or the honor of those such offenders are obliged to protect.’”

bonus bonus bonus: The Hate List – “[T]he [$]PLC’s site explains that it counts counted ’1,007 active hate groups in the United States in 2012,’ including ‘organizations and their chapters.’ But ‘The Year in Hate and Extremism’ did not make the ‘chapter’ distinction explicit. It is rarely drawn out in the organization’s frequent media appearances, nor was it mentioned in a letter from the SPLC to the Justice Department warning of the growing threat.” – see also What’s hate got to do with it? @bad data, bad!

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Amazing photographs reveal the lost world of the Omo tribes of Ethiopia

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: A Tiny Village Where Women Chose to Be Single Mothers – “30 years ago in this bucolic village in northern Vietnam, the fierce determination of one group of women to become mothers upended centuries-old gender rules….”

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Cannibals of the Past Had Plenty of Reasons to Eat People

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Phallus-shaped fossils identified as new species [insert dongle joke here]

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Global Internet Porn Habits Infographic – ‘sup finnish people?! and romanians and hungarians (“mom and son”?!)?!

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: i love the ukrainian parliament. no, i really do! (~_^)

_{(note: comments do not require an email. double dongle.)}

linkfest – 03/06/13

sunday linkfest on wednesday evening. what is the world coming to?

rand paul ftw, btw! (^_^)

We Aren’t the World – a W.E.I.R.D. article.

African-American’s Y chromosome sparks shift in evolutionary timetable – “Scientists say an African-American male’s odd genetic signature suggests that the human Y chromosome’s lineage goes back further in time than they thought — perhaps due to interbreeding with other populations such as Neanderthals.” – see also dienekes: Extremely old (237–581 kya) root of human Y-chromosome phylogeny.

Counting blue gods – more pie(-chart)s than in a pie-eating contest! from the awesome epigone.

For every person that doesn’t want kids there are 25 that do. Is that so? – from jayman.

It’s not because research is cheaper there – “Perhaps among the many genes with small effects [on iq] there are a few with big effects….” – @evoandproud.

HVGIQ: Jamaica – from jason malloy. see also steve sailer: Average IQ in Jamaica.

How much mental illness is lifestyle-related? – from mangan.

Genomewide diversity in the Levant (Haber et al. 2013) – “Our results show recent genetic stratifications in the Levant are driven by the religious affiliations of the populations within the region…. Levant populations today fall into two main groups: one sharing more genetic characteristics with modern-day Europeans and Central Asians, and the other with closer genetic affinities to other Middle Easterners and Africans.” – @dienekes’.

5 Disorders Share Genetic Risk Factors, Study Finds – schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, major depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Single gene might explain dramatic differences among people with schizophrenia

Is “Natural Law” Anti-Nature? – @occam’s razor.

Feet on the Autism Spectrum – “Psychotherapist Cary Terra works with adults with autism spectrum disorder…. Over many years, she’s noticed what she calls an ‘unmistakable trend’: that her patients have a tendency to sit with their feet stacked.” – *hbd chick looks down* – oops!

Rape on the Reservation – “…one in three Native women is raped over her lifetime….”

Month a baby is born ‘suggests what career they will have’ – “The time of year a baby is born can shape what profession they will embark on in later life, a new study has suggested.” – via mangan.

Lack of sleep ‘switches off’ genes – “One week of bad sleep can ‘switch off’ hundreds of genes and raise the risk of a host of illnesses including obesity and heart disease, scientists claim.”

bonus: In China, ‘red nobility’ trumps egalitarian ideal – “Relatives of communist China’s founding fathers enjoy privileged status in politics and business that runs counter to party ideology.” – this one’s for luke and anatoly. (^_^)

bonus bonus: China imprisons four men for ‘ghost marriage’ corpse bride trafficking – “Yanchuan court jails men for digging up and selling bodies in afterlife custom of matching dead women to deceased bachelors.”

bonus bonus bonus: At Largest Religious Festival, Some Abandon Elderly – “At the Maha Kumbh Mela in India, families ditch older relatives in the crowds.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Beppe Grillo: Cronyism has hurt Italian science

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Why Did (or Didn’t) the Meerkat Cross the Road? – hierarchy’s a b*tch.

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Giant ancient camel remains discovered in Canadian Arctic <<- best headline of the week!

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Report: Chinese Third-Graders Falling Behind U.S. High School Students in Math, Science (~_^)

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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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linkfest – 01/27/13

A Fat Problem With Heart Health Wisdom – awesome post from jayman. look at the chart. just look at it!

Stress’s impact can affect future generations’ genes – “For the first time, genes chemically silenced by stress during life have been shown to remain silenced in eggs and sperm, allowing the effect to be passed down to the next generation…. They found that a tiny number of methylated gene regions survived unerased: an average of just 233 out of approximately 25,000 in the germ cells examined…. Do the markings survive simply because the erasure process may not always work properly, or are they deliberately spared so that the information they carry is passed to the next generation? The finding ‘doesn’t solve this question’, says Hackett. ‘But it’s a proof of principle for one possible mechanism by which traits might be inherited epigenetically.’”

four part series from frank salter — deals mainly with australia, but still an important read for everyone: The War Against Human Nature in the Social Sciences and The War against Human Nature II: Gender Studies (Part 1) and The War against Human Nature II: Gender Studies (Part 2) and The War Against Human Nature III: Race and the Nation in the Media

HVGIQ: Haiti – “A weighted average of the Cotten study and the de Ronceray study gives us an IQ of 68 for Haiti. More or less identical to the estimate currently used by Lynn.” – from jason malloy @human varieties. see also A Note on the Hypothesized Haitian Average IQ from nelson.

Sex differences on g and non-g intellectual performance reveal potential sources of STEM discrepancies – “Sex differences in cognition are masked by the general factor of intelligence (g). The difference in favoring boys increases across adolescence up to 4 IQ points. Boys show an advantage in mechanical reasoning irrespective of latent g. This advantage might help to understand sex discrepancies in STEM disciplines.” – via mangan.

News in Brief: Ancient human DNA suggests minimal interbreeding – “Genetic analysis indicates Stone Age people mated infrequently with Neandertals and other close relatives” – see also dienekes. also peter frost: When was the split?

Messing with the privates – “[W]omen in the generality are physically different from men.” – thank you for noticing, john! (~_^) – the derb on, amongst other things, the physical differences between men & women and what that means wrt women in the military and on the front lines (bad idea!). eg.: “‘Using the standard Army Physical Fitness Test … the upper quintile of women at West Point achieved scores on the test equivalent to the bottom quintile of men.’”

The case for earlier Out-of-Africa – @dienekes’.

The Liberals’ War on Science – “41 percent of Democrats are young Earth creationists….”

Emotional Smarts Tied to General IQ – “The same brain regions that perform cognitive tasks may also provide social intelligence, according to a new study.”

Social evolution: The ritual animal – “A major aim of the investigation is to test Whitehouse’s theory that rituals come in two broad types, which have different effects on group bonding. Routine actions such as prayers at church, mosque or synagogue, or the daily pledge of allegiance recited in many US elementary schools, are rituals operating in what Whitehouse calls the ‘doctrinal mode’…. Rare, traumatic activities such as beating, scarring or self-mutilation, by contrast, are rituals operating in what Whitehouse calls the ‘imagistic mode’. ‘Traumatic rituals create strong bonds among those who experience them together,’ he says, which makes them especially suited to creating small, intensely committed groups such as cults, military platoons or terrorist cells…. [L]ow-frequency but high-arousal imagistic varieties that were more common in societies with a smaller average community size, and high-frequency, low-arousal doctrinal rituals that were more established in societies in which communities are larger.”

‘Man Flu’ might not be a myth after all – “‘Man Flu’ might not be a myth after all as they have different brains, a female academic has claimed. Dr Amanda Ellison claims that men really do suffer more with coughs and colds as they have more temperature receptors in the brain which causes them to experience the symptoms more acutely than the fairer sex.”

Polynesians reached South America, picked up sweet potatoes, went home – “Tubers were spread from New Zealand to Hawaii before European contact.”

Diet, Parental Behavior, and Preschool Can Boost Children’s IQ – wonder if the effects are permanent? the diet one (3.5 points w/omega-3) certainly might be.

bonus: echidna penises have four heads – what more is there to say?

bonus bonus: Ethnic origins of US attendees of 2013 World Economic Forum in Davos – @race/history/evolution.

bonus bonus bonus: Chinese man kept alive by self-built dialysis machine – extra iq points can come in d*mn handy!

bonus bonus bonus bonus: HIV-like viruses in non-human primates have existed much longer than previously thought – “Viruses similar to those that cause AIDS in humans were present in non-human primates in Africa at least 5 million years ago and perhaps up to 12 million years ago….”

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linkfest – 12/30/12

Monkey brain area keeps count of kindnesses – “The primates have an altruistic ‘tally chart’ that keeps track of social rewards and gifts.” – mine’s on an excel spreadsheet. (~_^)

Are Babies Born Good? – “New research offers surprising answers to the age-old question of where morality comes from.”

Xenophobia Upside: Ethnic And Religious Diversity Correlated To Less Environmental Action – “Scandinavian countries, low in ethnic and religious diversity, take more collective action than more diverse nations, like the UK, China and the United States.” – reminiscent of putnam’s findings [pdf]. via amren.

It’s not the cads, it’s the tramps – from jayman.

Latin Americans Most Positive in the World – “Singaporeans are the least positive worldwide” – from gallup.

Fluctuating environment may have driven human evolution

Shape of human hand may have evolved for fighting, scientists say

Birdsong study pecks at theory that music is uniquely human – “‘[T]he same neural reward system is activated in female birds in the breeding state that are listening to male birdsong, and in people listening to music that they like….’ For male birds listening to another male’s song, it was a different story: They had an amygdala response that looks similar to that of people when they hear discordant, unpleasant music.”

Virtual women reveal more skin, regardless of body proportions – “71% of male avatars covered between 75-100% of their skin, while only 5% of females did. In contrast, 47% of the virtual females they studied covered between 25-49% of their skin, compared to 9% of males.”

Indonesia’s Islamic spirit of tolerance – “Indonesia is rather middling in terms of attitudinal religious tolerance.” – from the awesome epigone.

Are fathers necessary? – @mangan’s.

DNA of Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza to be examined for ‘evil’ gene in first study of its kind ever conducted on a mass murderer – “The study of the killer’s DNA has been ordered by Connecticut Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver who carried out the post mortems on all the victims. He has contacted geneticists at University of Connecticut’s to conduct the study.”

bonus: Judeo-Christian, Not So Much – from assistant village idiot.

bonus bonus: No heir to run the company? Why adult ‘adoption’ is big business in Japan

bonus bonus bonus: Why Do We Blink So Frequently? – “[B]riefly closing our eyes might actually help us to gather our thoughts and focus attention on the world around us.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Even in same vineyard, different microbes may create variations in wine grapes – “Yeast species may cause differences in otherwise identical grapes from the same vineyard.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Buried Christian Empire Casts New Light on Early Islam – “Archeologists are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Unsexing the Language – “Every day, the left is beavering away at the language. Fight back. Proudly use such sentences as ‘Man is a mammal so he suckles his young.’” – heh! i love jared taylor. (^_^)

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