Tag: biology

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The outer limits…of humans

Beth Kelley

I’ve been collecting some weird stuff that doesn’t necessarily correlate directly to humans and culture, but they all do in a roundabout, sideways, too-cool-to-not-mention sort of way.

For starters, some researchers have found evidence that humans have taste buds for calcium. I wonder if there is a difference between cultures who practically live off milk compared to those who don’t.

Also, there is a cool YouTube video about parasitic worms that can actually recreate or at least mimic the genes of their host insect to the extent that they can send messages to the insect’s “brain” and make the insects do what they want, including commit suicide by jumping into a body of water so the worm can escape, essentially turning the bug into a zombie. As the researcher mentions in the video, this has implications for human parasitic diseases (which I can’t remember right now but if you watch the video he will explain it better).

Getting back into the traditional “Anthropology” stuff, German anthropologists have been able to genetically trace bones from the Bronze Age to a pair of men living in a village nearby the cave where the bones were found, making this the longest family tree in history.

As a cool example of the power of motherhood and how much dogs have evolved to be co-habitants of humans, a dog in Argentina rescued a newborn baby abandoned in the ghettos/favelas. The dog was a new mother herself, and after the dog’s owner discovered the baby cuddled in with the pups, he alerted authorities and the baby’s 14-year-old mother came forward. Unfortunately the media attention is actually freaking the dog out a bit, so leave her alone!

Also, for all you star gazers out there, a Top 10 of ancient astronomy observatories throughout the world (interestingly, the Mayan pyramids made it on there, the Egyptian pyramids did not).

Finally, for all you visual or historical anthropologists, a cool article on the history of the daguerrotype, and links to other articles about cool photographic inventions.

smell

Women on pill choose mates too close to home

Beth Kelley

A study, which is supported by research in the 90s, finds that women on the birth control pill will choose mates that have a similar smell make-up to themselves, which evolutionarily is a bad thing; in a normal hormonal stage, women choose guys with contrasting smells (major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene-produced odor to be more precise) because essentially it means that the woman is not procreating with a distant relative and her offspring is more genetically fit, and will also recognize more smells as familiar and be more open to people. Once women go off the pill, apparently they are more likely to leave or cheat on the similarly-smelling partner.

At first this totally blew my mind! I knew that smell played a MAJOR role in mate selection, but the fact that the pill can mess with one’s sense of smell and ability to smell others to the point of evolutionary malfunction is amazing. Although upon further analysis it makes perfect sense, since the pill is a hormone replacement, and there is already plenty of evidence that a woman’s hormonal cycle affects her sense of smell. Women have a hard time becoming sommeliers (wine tasters) because their sense of smell (and therefore taste) changes throughout her menstrual cycle so they are considered not as reliable tasters as men. Many women I know couldn’t walk down the soap or seafood aisle at a grocery store when they were pregnant because their sense of smell was just too sensitive.

It makes me wonder what this means for women who have been on the pill from the time they were teenagers until they decide to have their first kid. Obviously this doesn’t mean that every woman who meets her mate on the pill will dump him as soon as she’s off (I’ve been with my guy for five terrific years), but the implications of this are fascinating.

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Bombardment of Anthro News

Beth Kelley

July has been busy and I’ve been storing them up, so here goes:

In 2007, thai police officers had to start wearing Hello Kitty armbands if they were caught doing something against the law. I want to know if they’re still forced to do that (my suspicion is no). Anyone with the answer to that gets a brownie (point)!

Mexican mummies were stressed out too; ulcer bacteria found in mummy tummies.

90% of people can sing, really, according to this study.

If there are more male lemurs than female lemurs in a troop, female lemurs have a better chance of being the dominant leader of the whole group.

An interesting study of normal, middle-class people who live frugally, including by dumpster diving.

Archaeologists in Jerusalem and Korea have both found sites that have the tuberculosis bacterium and hope to use this ancient specimen (thousands of years old, we’re talking) to help fight modern TB.

And finally, just for kicks, a study has found that guys’ fertility drops off at a certain age, not just in women, so men too could be susceptible to a biological clock.

health · mental health

Worshiping what’s wrong with us

Beth Kelley

A baby girl was born in India with two faces, and is not only surprisingly healthy, but is being worshiped as a Hindu deity.
Another little girl from India who had been born with multiple limbs is doing well after surgery to remove the extra limbs and repair internal organs.
And then just because my Professor Joan Stevenson has resparked my interest in this subject, I wanted to post a couple of articles about having a “disorder”
The benefits of ADD
Some good characteristics associated with dyslexia
Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle with depression

psychology

Guys are clueless, and we’re cool with that.

Beth Kelley

This study done by Indiana University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences says that guys are clueless when it comes to women’s visual cues when trying to determine whether the woman is being friendly, sexual, sad, or rejecting.
Traditionally the argument has been that guys interpret every cue from women as a sexual advance. The researchers say that guys misinterpreted both friendly and sexual cues, so therefore they’re just clueless or less able to communicate all around.
I’m still not convinced. I still think there’s a biological advantage for men who misinterpret cues as sexual, whether the cues are or not. Maybe these college age kids weren’t as sexually aggressive as others. Maybe men are intimidated by women in this new age of political correctness. I also imagine it has to do with the context. If a woman flashes a man a small at the bar versus the library, what is he going to think?

In another study, researchers found that people who are socially awkward make the best long-term mates (score one for the nerds!).

behavior

Hot people unite!

Beth Kelley

This study is nothing new, but the article discusses the phenomenon of how people of equal levels of attractiveness will typically pair off as mates. There are some interesting observations tucked within the article.

community · environment · psychology

Communities and Brains

Beth Kelley

This was interesting article about how living in larger households, or in this specific study living as a couple versus living separately after a divorce, consumes less resources overall and is better for the environment. Communes for the environment!

Speaking of groups, I found this an interesting use of group loyalty and playing with America’s usual perceptions of two supposedly polar opposite institutions, or just a cheap way for the military to get some publicity: Miss Utah, who is also an active member of the military, will be competing for the title of Miss America. What’s interesting is the military is actually paying for her training and travel to the competition.

On to brains.

One study has found that a high fever ( > 100.4) reduces symptoms of autism in children. Apparently the fever connects or stimulates nerve cells in the child’s brain. I’m curious why they only studied children (2-18) and not grown-ups. Perhaps because grown-ups don’t go to the hospital when they have a high fever.

And finally, 5-year-old chimps have better short term memories than college students, according to one study series done by researchers at Kyoto University. What was amazing to me was that the chimps were memorizing things in less than 3/10 of a second sometimes. That seems a) impossible for a human brain, and b) an adaptation to living in a setting of constant potential predation (baby chimps are tasty!). However, and even the researchers admit this, the real test would be to see how the young chimps fare against human kids.

Uncategorized

Hooray for remote sensing

Beth Kelley

British archaeologists have discovered an 8000-year-old settlement in the British Channel. The silt deposits have preserved wood and other organic matter: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20215343/
This discovery just reminds me how maritime archaeology really has great potential here in the Pacific Northwest, either looking at shipwrecks or even hunting for similar stone-age civilizations, and it’s a shame it hasn’t really taken off yet. I am aware of a lot of cutting edge remote sensing technology and technicians at my current job, and I almost want to develop a match-making service for the archaeologists and the remote sensing scientists. They could make beautiful imagery together! Just look at what they found outside of Angkor:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20252929/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070813-angkor-wat.html
Apparently the area covers over 1000 square kilometers, or 1000 square miles depending which article you read. The smaller estimate is like saying they found the ruins of the entire L.A. basin. And that’s on land, where it’s relatively easy to do sensing. What else is out there, people?
Another example of successful maritime archaeology and where remote sensing came in/could have come in handy: A city off the coast of ancient Alexandria was recently discovered: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070731-alexandria-city.html

There is also a load of anth and arch news I’ve missed out on, but I will try my best to give the top-of-the-hour news report:
There have been several tombs recently discovered all over the lower Americas:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070809-aztec-tomb.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070806-pyramid-tomb.html

In culture, plants known for having medicinal powers in Uganda are being destroyed by overuse by locals, and by a bid to cut down the rainforest and put in a sugar plantation: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070803-sex-tree.html.
U.S. men are experiencing a backlash of the “metrosexual” and are having operations done to look more manly and rugged: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20218432/site/newsweek/?gt1=10252
Researchers in the U.K. are finding a correlation between invading marauders from the north and a rise in demon possessions, and not just a thousand years ago: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070726-devil-england.html

On the evolutionary front, speaking of the U.K., England is more genetically homogenous today than it was 1000 years ago, according to Rus Hoelzel: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070808-england-dna.html.
An odd neanderthal skull is adding fuel to the cross-breeding fire: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070802-neanderthals.html
And, some scientists are saying that teeth found in Asia show that Europeans came from there instead of Africa: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070806-humans-asia.html
Plus, Rafe was supposed to write some commentary about the latest Leaky skull found, but in the meantime here’s a quick article about it: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070813093132.htm.
Just as a personal comment, I find it hilarious that for the 15 years or so before I was in college there was nothing going on in the field of physical anthropology, and now it seems like they can’t stop finding bones.

Uncategorized

Women want girly men?

Beth Kelley

Lynda Boothroyd came out with a study that finds that women think more feminine-featured men make better dads: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20167786/.

While this is nothing new, the conclusion that she makes, that women don’t like macho men at all, is a bit overstated. She even goes on to say that we shouldn’t look at masculinity as an indicator of genetic fitness. The article doesn’t state whether a certain question was asked of the study participants, but it is an important question: Just because these people in the study think the more feminine-looking man would make a better father, which type of man are they more likely to want to have sex with? One is not exclusive to the other. It is entirely likely that women would want to mate with a masculine man but have a feminine man help raise the kid, if they could get away with it. There are cultures where women mate with their husbands but their brothers help raise the kids, so these women don’t need to worry about whether their husband will be a good dad, they just have to make sure he’s got strong swimmers (so to speak), and a powerful position in society.

I think that she needed to go deeper than she did and not frame her conclusions with such a Western frame of mind.

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For the Orangutans, it’s all a charade

Beth Kelley

Doctoral student Erica Cartmill found that Orangutans communicate with each other using gestures, and when their point isn’t getting across, they’ll adapt their gestures to try and better explain themselves:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=235E35E5-E7F2-99DF-30F52F9AB9A93BB3
Orangutans have been taught sign language before, but Cartmill showed that this is how Orangutans normally speak to each other, or at least to humans who have a tasty-looking banana. These Orangutans had not been taught sign language, and two separate case studies were done at different zoos, so this was really Orangutan improv.
My first thought upon reading this was, “this is is a great demonstration of ape intelligence and how they function together in ape culture.”
My second thought was, “I would have loved to do this study if I wasn’t so worried about getting my arm ripped off if I didn’t give them the banana.”