There have been a lot of studies in the news lately about how humans make connections, with humans and the outside world.
First is an interesting study about how there is a correlation between moms’ mental states and what side of their bodies they hold their kids on. What was really interesting to me is according to the study the mom’s dominant side (left-handed vs. right-handed), didn’t matter.
Speaking of kids, another study showed that kids are able to think abstractly, or “use their imaginations” as the study put it, by age 2, which is earlier than originally thought.
Another study found that college age guys surveyed say they will choose romantic partners over career goals. This survey is actually horribly done, as author of the article points out, because it doesn’t specify whether the college age dudes thought of “partner” as a hook-up or as a long-term partner. As also stated in the article, men usually work for prestige and career goals so they can have high status in society and have better luck with chicks; however, if they can skip all that and get a chick anyway, most would. Interestingly, most college-aged women surveyed chose career and education over romantic partner. Smart women.

And finally, though this has nothing to do with the subject at hand, scientists have found a so-called “skinny gene.”
What worries me about this is that many people immediately are jumping on the idea that now all we have to do is turn on that gene and it will make everyone skinny, forgetting that gene therapy is still in its infancy (like pre-natal), this gene is everywhere in the body so we don’t know what other affects it has (as some clever scientist states in the article), and would be really expensive to do.
All the effort seems a lot harder than just exercising regularly and eating more vegetables. Yes, I know this study proves that some people have to work a lot harder than others at staying slim, but I’m sticking by my guns when I say that the American diet is extremely unhealthy (note the study about an increase of cancer in Chinese women who have adopted a western diet), and if we all just ate more fruits and veggies and less Doritos and Coca-Cola we’d be a lot better off.

Fascinating study out of switzerland, showing yet another possible genetic influence on behavior

“There is convergent evidence from adoption, family, geographical, immigrant, molecular genetic, twin and, most recently, surname studies of suicide for genetic contributions to suicide risk. Surnames carry information about genetic relatedness or distance and, in patrilineal surname systems, are a close substitute for Y-chromosome markers and haplotypes, since surname transmission is similar to the transmission of the nonrecombining part of the Y chromosome. This study investigated whether differences in regional suicide rates correspond to the genetic structure of the Austrian population. METHODS: Differences in district-level standardized suicide rates 1988-94 between the five major surname regions identified for Austria were analyzed. The surname regions used in the analysis reflect the contemporary population structure and closely follow the natural borders found in the topography of Austria, less so its administrative division into nine states. RESULTS: Surname region accounted for a significant (P < 0.001) and substantial (38%) portion of the variance in district-level suicide rates. Adjusting the suicide rates for a set of five social and economic indicators that are established ecological correlates of suicide prevalence (income, and rates of the divorced, unemployed, elderly and Roman Catholics) left the results essentially unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: Regional differences in suicide rates within Austria correspond to the genetic structure of the population. The present evidence adds to related findings from geographical and surname studies of suicide that suggest a role for genetic risk factors for suicidal behavior. Genetic differences between subpopulations may partially account for the geography of suicide. Study limitations and directions for future research are discussed."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?tmpl=NoSidebarfile&db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=17634893&dopt=Abstract

This is an article about an anthropologist that contends American parents don’t need to spend as much one on one time as they do, and if anything it’s pretty weird: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/07/14/leave_those_kids_alone/?p1=MEWell_Pos4

My reaction to his hypothesis, and he actually acknowledges this with his Inuit exception, is that Americans are really isolated and we don’t have a lot of friends or other kids for our kids to play with, so they’re not going to get the same interaction that a kid growing up on the Serengeti might get with others. As a personal opinion, I do feel the whole “Baby Einstein” syndrome thing has gotten WAAAY out of hand.

The second one is about an anthropologist in Finland who is looking at genealogy and birth, death, and marriage records and is finding some really interesting stuff. For example: the girl in a set of mixed-gender twins will have less kids overall. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=C0D3CD91-E7F2-99DF-3D5399013D3691D5&chanId=sa011

What’s nice is she acknowledges the combination of biology vs. culture, like with the farmland moms versus the “wilderness” moms. I would really like to see this kind of study done in other regions too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/6587377.stm

I guess if you break it down that way, what they’re doing is in a sense culture, but it’s an odd way to go about it. It seems like no more than a 3D computer simulation to me.

I’m at the conference. I’m about to present my paper. That is all.

Boy I’m nervous.

By popular demand: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17281240/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6387611.stm
Female and juvenile chimps in a certain troop have figured out how to hunt bush-babies with spears. They will shape a stick and sharpen it with their teeth, and then stab the stick into holes they know bush-babies live in. If the stick comes back bloody…score!
A)This is incredible!
B)Reseachers bring up the interesting point that it’s females and juveniles, not typically hunters, that are doing this practice. One theory is because they weren’t getting enough meat from the males, so they went out and got their own.
C)Ooh, ooh, I just thought of a horrible headline: Female Chimps Empower Themselves! Yay Chimp feminism!

I stumbled upon THE exact/perfect Master’s program that I want to/should have applied to, the only major problem being it’s in London: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/anthropology/mscantleacog.htm. But then, staying close to home is probably better for getting a job right out of school, which is important.

A study was released recently that says small schools are better for students than big schools, which is a total “DUH!” to me, but I’m glad some bigwigs are saying it too. http://www.sfu.ca/mediapr/news_releases/archives/news02120702.htm. Just think, I might be a bigwig someday too! The horror! 😉