linkfest – 05/14/13

Emergence of Individuality in Genetically Identical Mice – “Our results show that factors unfolding or emerging during development contribute to individual differences in structural brain plasticity and behavior.” – the nuture side of nature-nuture. – see also Mice, Men, and Fate.

Mysterious Minoans Were European, DNA Finds – “[T]he research team analyzed DNA from ancient Minoan skeletons that were sealed in a cave in Crete’s Lassithi Plateau between 3,700 and 4,400 years ago…. The researchers found that the Minoan skeletons were genetically very similar to modern-day Europeans — and especially close to modern-day Cretans, particularly those from the Lassithi Plateau. They were also genetically similar to Neolithic Europeans, but distinct from Egyptian or Libyan populations.” see also dienekes.

Chinese project probes the genetics of genius – “Bid to unravel the secrets of brainpower faces scepticism.”

Dogs and Humans Evolved Together, Study Suggests – “[B]oth species underwent similar changes in genes responsible for digestion and metabolism, such as genes that code for cholesterol transport. Those changes could be due to a dramatic change in the proportion of animal versus plant-based foods that occurred in both at around the same time, the researchers said. The team also found co-evolution in several brain processes — for instance, in genes that affect the processing of the brain chemical serotonin. In humans, variations in these genes affect levels of aggression.”

How to spot a murderer’s brain – “Do your genes, rather than upbringing, determine whether you will become a criminal? Adrian Raine believed so – and breaking that taboo put him on collision course with the world of science.”

Clark/Frost Domestication – “Thinking about the response of the pacified and submission Roman population to barbarian invaders immediately brings to mind the response of contemporary North Americans and Atlantic Europeans to barbarian invaders. It reads just the same: ‘welcome new neighbor!’” – from henry harpending.

Ovulation and politics – “‘Ovulation led single women to become more liberal, less religious, and more likely to vote for Barack Obama. In contrast, ovulation led women in committed relationships to become more conservative, more religious, and more likely to vote for Mitt Romney.’” – from mr. mangan.

The Personality and Geography of the Entrepreneur – “German psychologists Martin Obschonka and colleagues…used Rentfrow’s [big five personality] data to create a measure of Entrepreneur-prone personality profile for the different states in America.” – another really cool post from staffan!

Linguists identify 15,000-year-old ‘ultraconserved words’ – “A team of researchers has come up with a list of two dozen ‘ultraconserved words’ that have survived 150 centuries. It includes some predictable entries: ‘mother,’ ‘not,’ ‘what,’ ‘to hear’ and ‘man.’ It also contains surprises: ‘to flow,’ ‘ashes’ and ‘worm.’ The existence of the long-lived words suggests there was a ‘proto-Eurasiatic’ language that was the common ancestor to about 700 contemporary languages that are the native tongues of more than half the world’s people.”

The Mating Advantage of Male Musicians: Women Find Guitars Sexy – “Studies from two countries suggest women are more attracted to a man if he’s holding a guitar.” – more science proving what everybody already knows! (~_^)

More men than women harassed in the military, often by other men – from the awesome epigone.

Redheads are at increased risk of skin cancer even if they DON’T spend time in the sun

Children with Autism Hypersensitive to Motion

Privacy protections: The genome hacker – “Yaniv Erlich shows how research participants can be identified from ‘anonymous’ DNA.”

Tajikistan to Ban Cousin Marriage – “Formal prohibition unlikely to stamp out widespread tradition.” – h/t anatoly!

Tutankhamun’s death and the birth of monotheism

bonus: USG Pushing Unconstitutional College Speech Codes – “The government which rules over Americans is trying to further reduce free speech on college campuses…. Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, author of The Mating Mind, sees this new federal mandate as a threat to the ability to teach the truth about human nature.” – from parapundit.

bonus bonus: Could Lighning Come from Space? – that would be FRIGGIN’ AWESOME!!

bonus bonus bonus: from the u.k. – Former minister admits Labour deliberately engineered mass immigration and A fifth of murder and rape suspects born abroad, shock survey finds.

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Immigrant workers undermine wage growth – “Immigrant workers, mainly from other Nordic countries, have a negative effect on the pay checks of Norwegian employees. Workers with minimal skills and little experience are the most vulnerable.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: First land animals kept their fish faces

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Genome shows macaw is one smart bird

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Study: Plants communicate with each other via underground fungi

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linkfest – 11/12/12

late again! pretty soon they’re gonna start docking my pay….

Working out who’s top dog – “A new study reveals how the brain interprets information about social hierarchy.” – woof.

Their Right Stuff – “The Grant study has … made the bizarre discovery that subjects’ late-life mental health is strongly associated with the longevity of maternal grandfathers. That indicates a link to both traits somewhere on the X chromosome…. Just as communism, according to an old Hungarian joke, was the long road from capitalism to capitalism, psychiatry now looks like the long road that led from Darwinism to Darwinism.” – heh.

If you are a perfectionist – blame your parents: Aiming to be the best is determined by your genes – “Perfectionists are born – not made – scientists claim”

The genetics of stupidity – from greg cochran.

Research suggests that humans are slowly but surely losing intellectual and emotional abilities – “With the development of agriculture, came urbanization, which may have weakened the power of selection to weed out mutations leading to intellectual disabilities. Based on calculations of the frequency with which deleterious mutations appear in the human genome and the assumption that 2000 to 5000 genes are required for intellectual ability, Dr. Crabtree estimates that within 3000 years (about 120 generations) we have all sustained two or more mutations harmful to our intellectual or emotional stability.”

Some guys get all the babes – not exactly – from jayman. (luv the photo! (~_^) )

Mongolia and the Altai Mountains: Origins of genetic blending between Europeans and Asians – “[T]his blending was not due to an eastward migration of Europeans, but to a demographic expansion of local Central Asian populations, thanks to the technological improvements the Scythian culture brought with them.”

How Do You Raise a Prodigy?

Children suffer effects of parents’ divorce into adult life – “The children of divorced parents can suffer the effects of the break-up well into their adult life, a report has found.”

Culture: Diverse diagnostics – “Perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of this is a study of more than 55,000 children in South Korea, which estimated autism prevalence at 2.64%. That’s more than twice the autism prevalence in the United States estimated by the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, and more than 50 times higher than the South Korean government’s figure for autism prevalence of 0.046%. One reason for that higher estimate may be that the researchers screened children in the general population for autism symptoms, rather than recruiting them only from clinics for autism and other developmental disorders.”

Does cloudy weather make you ginger? – “Provisional statistics indicate that between two and six per cent of northwest Europeans are redheads, compared to an average of one or two per cent in the world population. But in the UK the numbers are much higher, with 13 per cent of Scots, 10 per cent of the Irish, and six per cent of individuals in England having read hair.”

Hacking the President’s DNA – “The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama…. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide … the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace.”

Childhood obesity more likely to affect children in poorer neighborhoods

India’s dwindling Parsi population to be boosted with fertility clinics – “The Indian government is to fund new fertility clinics to help save its dwindling Parsi population which is now under threat of extinction.”

bonus: ‘Super-Earth’ exoplanet spotted 42 light-years away – when are we leaving?

bonus bonus: Fungus that controls zombie-ants has own fungal stalker – hyperparasites!

bonus bonus bonus: New carnivorous harp sponge discovered in deep sea

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linkfest – 03/18/12

Investing Practices Significantly Heritable – from dennis mangan.

Fifty-seven Years of Darkness – @the loom.

Recent generations focus more on fame, money than giving back – “Young adults less interested in community issues, politics and environment, finds new research”

Why do wealthy white conservative women have more children? – “Because they are more religious and less educated than liberal women.” – from the inductivist.

Why are redheads less common than blondes? – from peter frost.

Epigenetics and epidemiology — hip, hype and science – “Given the huge range of epigenetic variation and the relatively small effect size of environmental influences on the epigenome, investigation at the level of the individual may produce little but random noise. However … studied at the population level, epigenetics has much to offer to the understanding of disease aetiology and epidemiology has much to offer the field of epigenetics.”

Evan Charney’s Critique of Genopolitics and the Genetic Paradigm – “Human genetics constrains but does not determine human cultures and human judgments.” – from larry arnhart.

bonus: Write Your Own Academic Sentence – e.g.: The construction of history as such functions as the conceptual frame for the culture of power/knowledge. – heh. (^_^)

bonus bonus: Women and Children First – wow. how can you have NO memory of childhood?

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