Got that? You’re sure to graduate in evolutionary psychology: From a computer model from the University of Waterloo: The study, by Professor Bauch and Richard McElreath from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, found that when population sizes become large, the presence of STIs decreases fertility rates more among males with multiple partners, therefore changing which mating behaviour proves to be most beneficial to individuals and groups. Reality: The only consistent enforcer of monogamy has been the relatively equal number of boys and girls born. In early hunter-gatherer populations, it was common for a few males to monopolize mating with multiple females in order to increase their number of offspring. In these small societies where there is a maximum Read More ›

Remember when neurohype was supposed to replace thinking about thinking? Neuroskeptic offers a spring cleaning tip: … take this sentence about stress and the benefits of meditation. “Stress activates your amygdala, creates a red alert, activates your flight-or-fight symptoms, and heats up your system. Your thinking brain gets totally frozen and completely hijacked by your emotional brain.” Impressive – but what happens if we take out the word “brain”, and the other neuroscientific terms like “amygdala”? Then we’re left with “Stress creates a red alert, activates your flight-or-fight symptoms, and heats up your system. Your thoughts get totally frozen and completely hijacked by your emotions.” More. A normal sentence in English. If technical terms don’t tell us anything new, they’re Read More ›

For the delight of programmers here at UD, I include this post. Over at the “Reference Frame,” a blog by Lubos Motl, string theorist, and physicist extraordinaire, he has this post on a new game for “gamers” calledQuantum Moves. I don’t have time for any in-depth comment; however, for the programmers among us, here is a titillating quote from Motl’s blog: In the paper, the authors remarkably demonstrated that using their intuition and heuristic approaches, the human players were able to find solutions to tasks in which the well-known classical optimization algorithms don’t work well – but the quantum computers would. The well-known classical optimization algorithms fail especially near the “quantum speed limit”, when the shortest process duration is combined Read More ›

Flying Spaghetti Monster not a religion. (pick self up off floor) From Newsweek: Worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster call their faith FSMism or Pastafarianism, a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarianism. One such worshipper, Stephen Cavanaugh, a prisoner in a Nebraska state penitentiary, sued the state in 2014 over the right to practice his faith. Cavanaugh argued that his religion requires him to wear special religious clothing in the form of “full pirate regalia,” but that prison officials refused to allow him to do so, despite allowing members of other, recognized religions to purchase and wear special clothing and other items. Cavanaugh also argued that prison officials kept him from meeting and holding religious services with other members of his Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Key gene in development of celiac disease has been found in ‘junk’ DNA 40% of the population carry the main risk factor for celiac disease but only 1% develop the disease. A newly found gene that influences its development has been found in what until recently has been known as ‘junk’ DNA. Celiac disease is a chronic, immunological disease that is manifested as intolerance to gluten proteins present in wheats to an inflammatory reaction in the small intestine that hampers the absorption of nutrients. The only treatment is a strict, life-long, gluten-free diet. … This study confirms the importance of the regions of the genome previously regarded as ‘junk’ in the development of common complaints such as celiac Read More ›

From ScienceNordic: There may be a whole invisible galaxy in the middle of the Milky Way, with dark suns and planets, and maybe even dark life. … Perhaps galaxies are full of a substance that is invisible, but that still has gravity? This, in fact, is what the majority of today’s physicists believe. They believe 80 per cent of the fabric of the universe is made of dark matter. If galaxies are located inside spherical clouds of invisible dark matter, this explains why they can spin as fast as they do without sending all their stars flying off into the universe. And in recent years, observations have confirmed the existence of dark matter. For example, we can see traces of Read More ›

Random Darwinian processes originate a variety of different programs for getting rid of cells no longer needed. From ScienceDaily: Some cells are meant to live, and some are meant to die. The linker cell of Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny worm that is a favored model organism for biologists, is among those destined for termination. This cell helps determine the shape of the gonad in male worms–and then it dies, after two days, just as the worms are transitioning from larvae into adults. This programmed cell death is a normal part of the animal’s development, yet the genetic and molecular mechanisms underpinning it have not been worked out. Scientists in Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Developmental Genetics, headed by Shai Shaham, had Read More ›

Over at PowerlineBlog, there’s a post about the newly released analysis of the diet proposed 40 years ago as the one to lead us to good health. But guess what? It turns out it wasn’t all that good for us. And the data pointing this out didn’t appear until just recently, but, instead, appeared years ago. But why publish data that conflicts with your beloved theory? They include these quotes from the Washington Post: “Incomplete publication has contributed to the overestimation of benefits and underestimation of potential risks” of the special diet, they wrote. But Broste suggested that at least part of the reason for the incomplete publication of the data might have been human nature. The Minnesota investigators had Read More ›

This is an online conference, so anyone can attend from anywhere in the world. Convert time zones.

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Time Magazine, December 4, 1995 “Evolution’s Big Bang”: What I like to ask my biologist friends is, How fast can evolution get before they start feeling uncomfortable?” – Samuel Bowring [Geologist], M.I.T (p. 74) Over 20 years now. So long ago, one had forgotten… Too many “just keep moving, folks, nothing to see here,” moments have intervened. And then there were the Ediacaran jellyfish, who are much older but not precursors and the sophisticated Cambrian eyes. Keep moving, folks, keep moving… Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1 in Books > Science & Math > Evolution > Organic #3 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Theology > Creationism #3 in Books > Science Read More ›

In the original Star Trek pilot entitled “The Cage,” the Enterprise receives a distress signal from a long lost exploration vessel. The signal was transmitted 20 years ago, and the Enterprise responds hoping to find survivors. The landing party arrives at the planet’s surface and, indeed, they find elderly crew members who have carved out a living for themselves on the distant planet. It is a futuristic version of “The Swiss Family Robinson,” but there’s just one problem: It is all an illusion.  Read more

Biophysicist Kirk Durston of Contemplations writes, re Tree of life morphs into … leaf?: I studied that new tree of life for a while. It leaves me wondering how much is empirical observation and how much is conjecture. I would much rather see the imaginary parts removed and only the dots plotted. As one involved in bioinformatics, I know that one must be very careful to avoid ‘fitting’ the dots into a pre-conceived pattern. Would could just as easily (perhaps even more easily) fit the dots into clusters representing the various ‘kinds’ of life. My own perspective is that life should be mapped out in clusters of dots; leave out everything else for which there is no empirical evidence for. Read More ›

From Ansel Payne at Nautilus: Why Do Taxonomists Write the Meanest Obituaries? The open nature of the science of classification virtually guarantees fights. Well, “speciation” has been a mess forever. No one can define it but it is the basis of Darwinian evolution. On the other hand, maybe that works. Still, one wouldn’t have expected this, necessarily: For starters, there’s the problem of classification itself. Ever since Darwin gave us a framework for understanding common descent, the search has been on for a natural classification, an arrangement of nested groups, or taxa, that accurately reflects evolutionary relationships. In this scheme, a classification functions as an explicit evolutionary hypothesis—to say that five species form a genus is also to say that Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Scientists have dramatically expanded the tree of life, which depicts the variety and evolution of life on Earth, to account for thousands of new microscopic life forms discovered over the past 15 years. The expanded view finally gives bacteria and Archaea their due, showing that about two-thirds of all diversity on Earth is bacterial — half bacteria that cannot be isolated and grown in the lab — while nearly one-third is Archaeal. This is great but no way is it a tree. Readers, what would you call it? One striking aspect of the new tree of life is that a group of bacteria described as the “candidate phyla radiation” forms a very major branch. Only recognized recently, and Read More ›

DNA samples show that outer Hebrides deer are not likely tro have come from the mainland, and it’s suggested that Neolithic peoples imported them. From Jonathan Webb at BBC News: Red deer, the largest of modern British land animals, were banished from most of western Europe and restricted to southern Spain during the last Ice Age. When the ice retreated about 10,000 years ago, these and other beasts – including humans – gradually repopulated northern regions. But red deer didn’t make it to these outer Scottish isles until about 5,000 years ago. Humans, which were increasingly adopting domestication during this period, are thought to be responsible for the deer’s arrival – but the new study casts doubt on the obvious idea Read More ›