238 posts · 320,259 views
Biological Anthropologist, Science Blogger.
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- November 28, 2008
- 09:01 PM
- 2,085 views
The Political Gender Gap
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
A new study published by Chiao et al. in the journal PLoS ONE explores the gendered nature of American voting behavior. Subjects were asked to rank politicians -- based only on photographs of each politician's face -- along different quality scales, and also to choose among these photographs who should be President. The study concludes that male and female candidates are evaluated on distinctly different terms, and that male and female voters do this evaluation in somewhat (but not dramaticall........ Read more »
Joan Y. Chiao, Nicholas E. Bowman, & Harleen Gill. (2008) The Political Gender Gap: Gender Bias in Facial Inferences that Predict Voting Behavior. PLoS ONE, 3(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003666
- November 23, 2008
- 02:15 PM
- 1,600 views
Mammoth DNA Sequence
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The genome of the extinct woolley mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) has been sequenced, and reported in Nature. This confirms that elephant genomes are large, like the elephants themselves. It confirms previously proposed relationships amongst the elephants (see phylogeny below) and refines the known phylogeny. Interpopulation differences among mammoths were also demonstrated.
Here's the phylogeny:
Comparison of phylogenies of elephants and hominoids. "We show estimated divergence times, th........ Read more »
Webb Miller, Daniela I. Drautz, Aakrosh Ratan, Barbara Pusey, Ji Qi, Arthur M. Lesk, Lynn P. Tomsho, Michael D. Packard, Fangqing Zhao, Andrei Sher.... (2008) Sequencing the nuclear genome of the extinct woolly mammoth. Nature, 456(7220), 387-390. DOI: 10.1038/nature07446
- November 22, 2008
- 06:27 PM
- 1,633 views
Giant Gromia (amoebas) may account for ancient sea floor tracks
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
A protist is a single celled eukaryotic organism, and they are usually pretty small. You can often see them, though! Before you put that sample of pond water under the microscope, take a close look: Many protists are at the boundary of visibility for humans.
Then, there are the giant protists, grape size, living on the bottom of the sea where they roll around in the mud. It has been known for some time that there are giant deep sea protazoans that are not mobile. Here, though, is a bit o........ Read more »
M MATZ, T FRANK, N MARSHALL, E WIDDER, & S JOHNSEN. (2008) Giant Deep-Sea Protist Produces Bilaterian-like Traces. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.10.028
- November 15, 2008
- 06:03 PM
- 799 views
Losing the Big Picture: How Religion May Control Visual Attention
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Atheists are smarter than Calvinists in Dutch Study. But, the Calvinists are quicker at identifying small shapes than the Atheists.
Despite the abundance of evidence that human perception is penetrated by beliefs and expectations, scientific research so far has entirely neglected the possible impact of religious background on attention. Here we show that Dutch Calvinists and atheists, brought up in the same country and culture and controlled for race, intelligence, sex, and age, differ with ........ Read more »
Lorenza S. Colzato, Wery P. M. van den Wildenberg, & Bernhard Hommel. (2008) Losing the Big Picture: How Religion May Control Visual Attention. PLoS ONE, 3(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003679
- November 14, 2008
- 08:20 PM
- 1,807 views
Can Evolution "Learn" From Past Environments?
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The paper I'm about to discuss is a minefield of potential misconceptions that arise from the way we often use language do describe natural phenomena. This is a situation where it would be easier to start with a disclaimer ... a big giant obvious quotation mark ... and then use the usual misleading, often anthropomorphic language. But I don't think I should do that. We'll address this research the hard way, but the result will be worth the extra work.
Here is the basic hypothesis. The null m........ Read more »
Merav Parter, Nadav Kashtan, & Uri Alon. (2008) Facilitated Variation: How Evolution Learns from Past Environments To Generalize to New Environments. PLoS Computational Biology, 4(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000206
- November 14, 2008
- 10:16 AM
- 1,600 views
When the corn weevil knocks, we are all doomed.
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais [usda] ... or the corn rust or the corn root cutter or whatever pathogen that comes along that cannot be fought off with a cleverly concocted combination of chemicals. This is because all we eat is corn, or so it seems.
In a paper just published in PNAS, scientists use stable isotopes to estimate the contribution of corn to the standard American diet of meat and fries from fast food. They sampled a disgustingly large number of not so happy meals from Burge........ Read more »
A. H. Jahren, & R. A. Kraft. (2008) Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in fast food: Signatures of corn and confinement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0809870105
- November 12, 2008
- 07:54 AM
- 2,112 views
The Emergence of Treatment-Resistant Fungus
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
It is hard to kill fungus. Well, not really. They can't handle being burned and chlorine does them in and lots of other chemicals are bad for hem. But when a fungus infects a person ... like with Aspergillos, an infection with Aspergillus in the lungs, fungi are tricky. To kill an infectious agent, one typically poisons it somehow, but to ingest, inject, inhale, or even topically apply a chemical may also affect the person. The reason it is relatively easy to kill an infecting bacterium than........ Read more »
Eveline Snelders, Henrich A. L. van der Lee, Judith Kuijpers, Anthonius J. M. M. Rijs, János Varga, Robert A. Samson, Emilia Mellado, A. Rogier T. Donders, Willem J. G. Melchers, & Paul E. Verweij. (2008) Emergence of Azole Resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus and Spread of a Single Resistance Mechanism. PLoS Medicine, 5(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0050219
- November 10, 2008
- 06:47 PM
- 1,582 views
The Evolutionary Dynamics of the Lion Panthera leo Revealed by Host and Viral Population Genomics
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Cute baby lions. When they grow up, they will want to eat you. I'll never forget the first wild lion I ever saw. It was a pitch black night, on the savanna in the Western Rift Valley. I had climbed on top of the hood of the Land Rover, engine off, but headlights on. My plan was to search the horizon for lights indicating the presence of the research camp I was trying to find. Once I was on the hood, I was about to tell my colleague, still in the vehicle, to cut the headlights so I could s........ Read more »
Agostinho Antunes, Jennifer L. Troyer, Melody E. Roelke, Jill Pecon-Slattery, Craig Packer, Christiaan Winterbach, Hanlie Winterbach, Graham Hemson, Laurence Frank, Philip Stander.... (2008) The Evolutionary Dynamics of the Lion Panthera leo Revealed by Host and Viral Population Genomics. PLoS Genetics, 4(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000251
- October 19, 2008
- 06:24 PM
- 1,832 views
When Do Immigrants Learn English? Likely, not when you think.
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The North End, Boston, Massachusetts I'm standing outside Luigi's restaurant having a smoke, and Luigi's doorman had joined me. Across the street yellow stingray is parked, as usual, to block the alley. The word is, the fire escape down into that alley leads directly from Baronelli's office. The stingray is an escape pod.
Almost every restaurant on Hanover street and the dozen side streets is like Luigi's: owned by a family from a particular part of Italy or Sicily, with a local cuisine........ Read more »
M. E. Wilkerson, & J. Salmons. (2008) "GOOD OLD IMMIGRANTS OF YESTERYEAR," WHO DIDN'T LEARN ENGLISH: GERMANS IN WISCONSIN. American Speech, 83(3), 259-283. DOI: 10.1215/00031283-2008-020
- October 13, 2008
- 11:06 PM
- 1,787 views
Cultural Evolution from Mosquitos to Worm Grunting
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
A very good day of grunting worms. Credit: Ken Catania So-called Gene-Culture Co-Evolution can be very obvious and direct or it can be very subtle and complex. In almost all cases, the details defy the usual presumptions people make about the utility of culture, the nature of human-managed knowledge, race, and technology. I would like to examine two cases of gene-culture interaction: One of the earliest post-Darwinian Synthesis examples addressing malaria and sickle-cell disease, and the mo........ Read more »
Kenneth C. Catania, & Sarah Frances Brosnan. (2008) Worm Grunting, Fiddling, and Charming—Humans Unknowingly Mimic a Predator to Harvest Bait. PLoS ONE, 3(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003472
Linvingstone, Frank. (1959) Anthropological Implications of Sickle Cell Gene Distribution in West AFrica. American Anthropologist, 60(3), 533-562. DOI: http://www.jstor.org/stable/666341
- October 7, 2008
- 09:05 AM
- 1,267 views
Review of SMM Exhibit on Race and Racism
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The Science Museum of Minnesota recently developed an exhibit called "Race: Are we so different?" This exhibit is now at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and will be in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kalamazoo, Boston and Washington DC between now and June 2011.
If you get a chance, go see it.
In the meantime, a review of this exhibit has just been published in the current issue of Museum Anthropology, authored by Mischa Penn, Gil Tostevin, and your........ Read more »
Mischa Penn, Gregory Laden, & Gilbert Tostevin. (2008) Review Essay: RACE: Are We So Different?. Museum Anthropology, 31(2), 148-156. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1379.2008.00015.x
- October 4, 2008
- 01:07 PM
- 1,717 views
Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Constructivism. Determinism. It is all a bunch of hooey.
A recent paper published by PLoS (Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces) throws a sopping wet blanket on widely held deterministic models of human behavior. In addition, the work underscores the sometimes spooky cultural differences that can emerge in how people see things, even how people think. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Caroline Blais, Rachael E. Jack, Christoph Scheepers, Daniel Fiset, Roberto Caldara, & Alex O. Holcombe. (2008) Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces. PLoS ONE, 3(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003022
- September 29, 2008
- 04:25 PM
- 1,781 views
Effective Polygyny in Humans: Turns out it is for real
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Human societies tend to be at least a little polygynous. This finding, recently reported in PLoS genetics, does not surprise us but is nonetheless important. This important in two ways: 1) This study uncovers numerical details of human genetic variation that are necessary to understand change across populations and over time; and 2) the variation across populations are interesting and, in fact, seem to conform to expectations (in a "we don't' really care about statistical significance" sort o........ Read more »
Michael F. Hammer, Fernando L. Mendez, Murray P. Cox, August E. Woerner, Jeffrey D. Wall, & Dmitri A. Petrov. (2008) Sex-Biased Evolutionary Forces Shape Genomic Patterns of Human Diversity. PLoS Genetics, 4(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000202
- September 26, 2008
- 06:26 PM
- 1,704 views
Effective dishonesty in pharmaceutical research revealed by new study
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The file drawer effect works like this: Numerous studies are done and the results are random. But because they are random, a small number have, randomly, strong effects that are interesting and that in isolation support some interesting hypothesis. All the results that fail to confirm the interesting (or fund able) expectation are filed away .... in the file drawer. Only the results that seem to show what the researchers want to show are made public.
In areas where research is cheap and o........ Read more »
Kirby Lee, Peter Bacchetti, Ida Sim, & Mike Clarke. (2008) Publication of Clinical Trials Supporting Successful New Drug Applications: A Literature Analysis. PLoS Medicine, 5(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0050191
- September 12, 2008
- 11:10 AM
- 1,522 views
Major Blunder in Science Reporting will Fuel Creationist Claims
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Life Science Teachers: Take special note!
This is not yet an error in the mainstream press, but there is an error afoot, currently represented in the widely read slashdot, which I imagine will propagate. The purpose of this post is to alert you to this problem and prepare you for the occasion when you run into a wackaloon creationist waving their arms around and screaming "Carbon dating does not work! It's been proven." This story also has a Global Warming Denialism component.
What I'm g........ Read more »
P. K. Swart. (2008) Global synchronous changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonate sediments unrelated to changes in the global carbon cycle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0802841105
- September 5, 2008
- 04:24 PM
- 1,665 views
What is the sound of one hypothesis clapping?
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Read the following text. As you read it, try to empty your mind. When you encounter grammatical errors or jargon that is impossible to understand, do not try to translate what you are reading. Rather, become one with the obscurity. Read slowly, thoughtlessly, with emptiness of purpose, as though the words were entering your eyes, traveling through your head, and leaving through your ears. The ultimate understanding will be achieved when you reach the end of the abstract and have understood ........ Read more »
Giuseppe Pagnoni, Milos Cekic, Ying Guo, & Sheng He. (2008) “Thinking about Not-Thinking”: Neural Correlates of Conceptual Processing during Zen Meditation. PLoS ONE, 3(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003083
- September 2, 2008
- 12:46 PM
- 965 views
In the Long Run, Exertion Regulation Wins the Day for Marathon Runners
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
How do athletes in Olympic level endurance completions do it? Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Jonathan Esteve-Lanao, Alejandro Lucia, Jos J. deKoning, Carl Foster, & Conrad P. Earnest. (2008) How Do Humans Control Physiological Strain during Strenuous Endurance Exercise?. PLoS ONE, 3(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002943
- July 30, 2008
- 11:03 AM
- 1,784 views
The Evolution of Cats: Sabertooth vs. Regular
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
 Sabertooth cat skull There are two kinds of cats. Cat experts call one type feline or "modern" partly because they are the ones that did not go extinct. If you have a pet cat, it's a modern/feine cat. This also includes the lions, tigers, leopards, etc. The other kind are called "sabercats" because this group includes the saber tooth. It is generally believed but not at all certain that these two groups of cats are different phylogenetic line........ Read more »
Per Christiansen. (2008) Evolution of Skull and Mandible Shape in Cats (Carnivora: Felidae) . PLoS One, 3(7).
- July 29, 2008
- 09:01 PM
- 1,801 views
The seductive siren of soft tissue preservation: Ancient dinosaur flesh wasn't ancient. Or dinosaur flesh.
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
An ugly fact killing a beautiful hypothesis I'm not mentioning any names, and don't ask me any details. In fact, don't repeat this story.
Some years ago, when I was a mere graduate student, a fellow student working in an unnamed country in Africa discovered a very very old stone artifact. To this day, this bit of chipped stone debris, representing the activities of an ancient very pre-human hominid, is one of the oldest well dated, in situ objects of its kind known.
The ........ Read more »
Thomas Kaye, Gary Gaugler, Zbigniew Sawlowicz, & Anna Stepanova. (2008) Dinosaurian Soft Tissues Interpreted as Bacterial Biofilms. PLoS ONE, 3(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002808
- July 29, 2008
- 07:01 PM
- 2,109 views
Re-examining the cause of speciation and species diversity in the tropics
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Did Past Climate Changes Promote Speciation in the Amazon?
Any time you've got a whopping big river like the Amazon (or a mountain chain like the Andes, or an ocean, or whatever), you've gotta figure that it will be a biogeographical barrier. Depending on the kind of organisms, big rivers, high mountains, oceans, forests, deserts, and so on can provide a habitat or a barrier, and when there is a barrier, populations may end up splitting across that barrier and diverging to become n........ Read more »
Scott Solomon, Mauricio Bacci, Joaquim Martins, Giovanna Gonçalves Vinha, Ulrich G Mueller, & Peter M Bennett. (2008) Paleodistributions and Comparative Molecular Phylogeography of Leafcutter Ants (Atta spp.) Provide New Insight into the Origins of Amazonian Diversity. PLoS ONE, 3(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002738
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