Discoblog » The World According to Darwin

Self-Doubting Monkeys Know What They Don’t Know

Patrick Morgan — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:34:50 +0000

The number of traits chalked up as “distinctly human” seem to dwindle each year. And now, we can’t even say that we’re uniquely aware of the limits of our knowledge: It seems that some monkeys understand uncertainty too.

A team of researchers taught macaques how to maneuver a joystick to indicate whether the pixel density on a screen was sparse or dense. Given a pixel scenario, the monkeys would maneuver a joystick to a letter S (for sparse) or D (for dense). They were given a treat when they selected the correct answer, but when they were wrong, the game paused for a couple seconds. A third possible answer, though, allowed the monkeys to select a question mark, and thereby forgo the pause (and potentially get more treats).

And as John David Smith, a researcher at SUNY Buffalo, and Michael Beran, a researcher at Georgia State University, announced at the AAAS meeting this weekend, the macaques selected the question mark just as humans do when they encounter a mind-stumping question. As Smith told the BBC, “Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to ...

For Fruit Flies, There’s Such a Thing as “Too Sexy”

Patrick Morgan — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:02:01 +0000

Beauty doesn’t only fade within a lifetime–it also fades genetically over the course of several generations, according to new research. Scientists studying populations of sexually attractive male fruit flies have found that there’s a limit to their evolutionary success–and that there may actually be a disadvantage to being too sexy.

For the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers genetically modified male fruit flies, causing them to give off excessive amounts of attractive pheromones. The scientists then introduced a flock of these foxy fellows to a normal fruit fly population. They discovered that the female flies mated with these modified flies more often initially, and the proportion of super-sexy males increased for a while–but the proportions returned to normal after seven generations.

As The New York Times reports:

“Even though we were able to make males more attractive, there must have been a fitness cost,” said Katrina McGuigan, a biologist at the University of Queensland and one of the study’s authors. “While sexual selection is really powerful, there are consequences to nonsexual traits.”

It’s not yet clear what genetic disadvantage these fruit fly ladykillers ...

Mutant Mice Chirp Like Birds. So What Are They Saying?

Jennifer Welsh — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:55:19 +0000

It’s furry like a mouse but sings like a bird. What is it? It’s a mutant mouse developed by the genetic engineers at the University of Osaka that is able to tweet and chip like a bird, instead of a mouse’s normal squeak.

Like dog breeders, who actively select for certain traits (like size, hair color, or disposition) the researchers from the Evolved Mouse Project crossbred their mutant mice to select for various traits. When they find one they like, like this singing mouse or the one that looks like a miniature Dachshund, they breed them until they have a sizable breeding stock of animals to establish a new breed.

The research group currently has over a hundred singing mice (it must get noisy in those labs) and they are continuing to study how they use their chirps, researcher Arikuni Uchimura told the AFP:

“Mice are better than birds to study because they are mammals and much closer to humans in their brain structures and other biological aspects,” Uchimura said. “We are watching how a mouse that emits new sounds would ...

NASA Found Aliens! Or Not. The Worst Coverage of Arsenic-Loving Bacteria

Jennifer Welsh — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:42:04 +0000

While watching the science news for you here at Discover blogs, we’ve seen our share of bad science coverage. Most of the time, we let it slide. Most of the time, we write the truth and hope to overshadow the erroneous and exaggerated stories. But this time… this time we’re calling it out.

Last week’s coverage of the bacteria that live in Mono Lake, CA was over hyped because of a cryptic message in a NASA press release (namely, that the discovery would “impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life”). And even after all the build up, the early embargo break, and a long press conference, many news outlets STILL got the story wrong.

First, a quick recap of the important findings from DISCOVER blogger Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science, for those who were off-planet last week:

In California’s Mono Lake, Felisa Wolfe-Simon has discovered bacteria that not only shrug off arsenic’s toxic effects, but positively thrive on it. They can even incorporate the poisonous element into their proteins and ...

Guilt-Free Procrastination: This Online Game Could Cure Genetic Diseases

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:02:20 +0000

Have a brain for puzzles? What about ones that help advance science?

A new online game called Phylo is harnessing the power of idle brains on the Internet–asking any and all to help align genomic sequences. Human brain power is used instead of computer power because, as the researchers explain in the press release, humans are still better at some things than computers are:

“There are some calculations that the human brain does more efficiently than any computer can, such as recognizing a face,” explained lead researcher Dr. Jérôme Waldispuhl of the School of Computer Science. “Recognizing and sorting the patterns in the human genetic code falls in that category. Our new online game enables players to have fun while contributing to genetic research–players can even choose which genetic disease they want to help decode.”

When game players find the best arrangements of colorful little boxes, they’re really making the best matches they can between the genome sequences of different animals–like a human and a monkey, or a dog and a bat. The researchers, from the

Big Scientists Pick Big Science’s Biggest Mistakes

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:07:42 +0000

Earlier this week Richard H. Thaler posted a question to selected Edge contributors, asking them for their favorite examples of wrong scientific theories that were held for long periods of time. You know, little ideas like “the earth is flat.”

The contributor’s responses came from all different fields and thought processes, but there were a few recurring themes. One of the biggest hits was the theory that ulcers were caused by stress—this was discredited by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who proved that the bacteria H. pylori bring on the ulcers. Gregory Cochran explains:

One favorite is helicobacter pylori as the main cause of stomach ulcers. This was repeatedly discovered and then ignored and forgotten: doctors preferred ‘stress’ as the the cause, not least because it was undefinable. Medicine is particularly prone to such shared mistakes. I would say this is the case because human biology is complex, experiments are not always permitted, and MDs are not trained to be puzzle-solvers—instead, ...

The Fruit That Hit Newton’s Head Is Down With the Fruit of Darwin’s Head

Jennifer Welsh — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:23:12 +0000

Apple may not allow porn on its product line, but it has no problem with another source of controversy: evolution. A new, free iPad/iPhone application called Timetree, distributed by Arizona and Penn State Universities, allows users to map how long ago two living creatures separated on the tree of life, a subject that can get a bit sticky with creationists, says The Register:

Now, Apple has taken a stance which will upset a lot of Americans: it has allowed an app which specifies quite clearly that evolution is real and that humans and monkeys share a common ancestor some 30 million years in the past.

Querying the Timetree application accesses a vast database of data, the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s comprehensive taxonomy browser, which contains information on more than 160,000 organisms. Timetree even provides you with the publications relating to these connections, which can sometimes disagree with each other but, which The Register has discovered, all happily ignore creationism:

As far as our user tests have been able to determine, Timetree does not reveal one ...

Mexican Religious Rite Has Created Super Poison-Tolerant Cave Fish

Eliza Strickland — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:54:02 +0000

Any culture’s religious ceremonies can seem strange to outsiders: For example, take the indigenous Zoque people of southern Mexico. To ask their gods for bountiful rains during the growing season they head to a sulfur cave where molly fish swim in the subterranean lake. They then toss in leaf bundles that contain a paste made from the mashed-up root of the Barbasco plant, which has a powerful anesthetic effect.

When the stunned fish–which the Zoque people consider a gift from underworld gods–go belly-up, people scoop them from the water and bring them home for supper. This fishy protein helps them make it through until the harvest.

This ritual came to the attention of scientists studying the molly fish, who wondered how the toxic root might be affecting fish populations in the caves. So evolutionary ecologist Michael Tobler and his colleagues did a little field research.

From LiveScience:

“We learned about the ceremony, and actually attended it in 2007,” Tobler recalled. “The families each take a certain amount of the fish home. The way we had ours prepared was that they were just mixed with scrambled eggs, although I hear other families ...

Scientists Find Giant, 15-Pound Rat. (Don’t Worry, It’s Extinct.)

Allison Bond — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:23:57 +0000

The rats scuttling around the tracks of the New York City subway pale in comparison to a gargantuan species recently discovered in East Indonesia. In fact, the recently discovered rat tipped the scales at a somewhat frightening 13 pounds. That’s sizably heftier than today’s house rat (which averages 5 ounces) and burliest wild rats (which weigh about four-and-a-half pounds). This mega-rat lived in Timor until it went extinct between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago. It was one of 11 new species discovered at the excavation site–eight of which weighed more than two pounds, and only one of which survives today.

But the now-extinct rats didn’t die off until well after humans first arrived, according to LiveScience:

“People have lived on the island of Timor for over 40,000 years and hunted and ate rats throughout this period, yet extinctions did not occur until quite recently,” said study researcher Ken Aplin… adding that the arrival of humans to an area doesn’t necessarily have to equate with extinctions… “Large-scale clearing of forest for agriculture probably caused the extinctions, and this may have only been possible following the introduction of metal tools.”

East Indonesia is a hotspot for rat evolution, ...

New Study: If a Dude Sounds Strong, He Probably Is

Joseph Calamia — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:47:16 +0000

It’s pretty clear that–in a fight–Darth Vader would crush Jar Jar Binks, Optimus Prime would beat Starscream, and Batman could pummel the Joker. Though some of these fictional characters don’t even look like humans, when it comes to strength, their voices give it all away. New research seems to confirm this: humans, like other animals, can accurately predict physical strength from voice alone.

In a study appearing today in The Proceedings of the Royal Society, researchers asked subjects to evaluate the upper-body strength of speakers from four distinct populations and language groups just by listening to their voices. Even when unfamiliar with a speaker’s language, listeners could tell which men might be good in a fight. The men they judged as sounding brawny were in fact physically stronger as measured by tests of hand grip, chest strength, shoulder strength, and bicep circumference.

As lead author Aaron Sell told Discovery News:

“Information about male formidability would have been important for both sexes over evolutionary time,” said ...

Evolution, With Dope Rhymes and a Funky Hip-Hop Beat

Eliza Strickland — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:43:08 +0000

Perhaps you’ve wished, while paging through a heavy textbook on evolutionary biology, that learning the subject could be a little more like an Eminem concert? If so, rush over to a New York theater where the rapper Baba Brinkman is ready to fill your brain with his one-man show, “The Rap Guide to Evolution.”

The project began when Brinkman got a call from evolutionary biologist Mark Pallen, who asked him to compose a rap in honor of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. Says Brinkman: “All winter I sent him copies of my rap lyrics, and he came back with corrections, which means my hip-hop show is peer reviewed.”

Here’s a segment of his show:

Olivia Judson, who praised the show in The New York Times, says she suspects this is “the only hip-hop show to talk of mitochondria, genetic drift, sexual selection or memes.” She continues:

[Brinkman] is a man on a mission to spread the word about evolution — how it works, what it means for our view of the world, and why it is something to be celebrated rather than feared.

Brinkman is performing his show through Saturday, ...

Darwin May’ve Had “Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome.” (It’s as Much Fun as It Sounds.)

Andrew Moseman — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:02:24 +0000

Charles Darwin lived to the ripe old age of 73 (which was pretty darn good for the 19th century), but despite his longevity, he spent many of the years of his life famously dogged by ill health. Today’s doctors have tried to apply what medical science has learned since Darwin’s time to diagnose the famous naturalist, and now another researcher has tossed out a suggestion: Darwin had cyclical vomiting syndrome (CVS).

Writing in the British Medical Journal, physician John Hayman argues that CVS was most likely responsible for Darwin‘s intermittent malaise. The disease, caused by a mitochondrial DNA mutation, shows up mainly in children, Hayman says, but can persist into adulthood. Its symptoms, including headaches, anxiety, and abdominal problems, match many of Darwin’s. From the Los Angeles Times:

In addition to the match in symptoms, research shows that Darwin’s mother, Susannah, suffered vomiting and boils and motion sickness as a child, as well as excessive sickness during pregnancies. She died with abdominal pain when Charles was 8. Her younger brother, Tom, had similar symptoms, and a sister, Sarah, said that ...

Worst Science Article of the Week: The “Dark Side” of Darwin

Andrew Moseman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:02:59 +0000

2009 represents a double-dip of Charles Darwin milestones. A plethora of Darwin stories in the press have marked his 200th birthday. And today, as 80beats has already noted, is the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, an occasion that sparked another round of Darwin fever.

TIME, however, observed the day by posting a Q&A with British author Dennis Sewell, who is selling a book on “how often — and how easily — Darwin’s big idea has been harnessed for sinister political ends.” Sewell isn’t an evolution denier, but rather among the crowd crowing that Darwin was a racist and responsible for inspiring eugenics.

Sigh. While it’s probably true that Darwin was influenced by the racial attitudes of his time and place—Victorian England–DISCOVER has covered the other side of that coin: that the scientist was an abolitionist and rather progressive for his day. Even Ray Comfort, in his rambling, Darwin-bashing introduction to a “new edition” of Origin that creationists passed around college campuses recently, concedes: “However, after much research, I do concede that you won’t find anything in ...

What Head (and Other) Lice Tell Us About Evolution

Sam Lowry — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:51:07 +0000

The second episode of NOVA’s big evolution special “Becoming Human” premieres tomorrow night at 8 PM ET/PT on PBS. Tuesday night’s show focuses on Homo erectus, the ancestor who became “basically us” almost 2 million years ago, developing the first human societies.

Much of what we know about Homo erectus comes from “Turkana Boy,” the famous skeleton found by the Leakey team in Kenya in the early 1980′s. An important part of what we know, though, comes from the genetic study of lice. And not just head lice.

Using “paleoartists,” digital filmmaking and the work done with Turkana Boy over the past two decades, the NOVA producers are able to paint a vivid portrait of Homo erectus’s role in key innovations – like using fire and developing social bonds – that make us human.

The real action in the documentary starts about halfway through, when scientists tackle the question of how Homo erectus was able to obtain the protein necessary to support brain growth. Of course, stone tools played a huge role in making sure that the humans “went home for dinner and weren’t the meal.”

Per NOVA, “most predators rely on strength or speed to kill their prey, and our ...

Will the Super Rich Evolve Into a Separate Species?

Brett Israel — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:25:52 +0000

As medicine becomes super advanced, and super expensive, the super rich may evolve into a completely different species from everyone else, according to American futurologist Paul Saffo. He thinks medical technology such as replacement organs, specially tailored drugs, and genetic research tools to alert the moneybags of any possible hereditary health dangers, could all lead to a new class of rich, elite, and longer-living humans.

Here are Saffo’s thoughts on the advantages this would give the rich, as reported in the Guardian:

“I sometimes wonder if the very rich can live, on average, 20 years longer than the poor. That’s 20 more years of earning and saving. Think about wealth and power and the advantages that you pass on to your children.”

At the very least, they’ll be able to afford health care—and keep opposing it for the rest of is.

Image: iStockphoto

Sneak Preview of Darwin: The Musical

Brett Israel — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:23:19 +0000

It seems people can’t get enough of songs about science. Scientists can’t stop making them, and we can’t stop watching them. David Haines loves science and he loves songs, so he’s putting on a concert called Tremendous Journey to celebrate his love.

Haines gives the deets to New Scientist:

The concert will feature 15 songs about the science of life and evolution. It’s a shorter version of my “science oratorio”, Lifetime. We open with a song called Mr Darwin, which tells the story of his historic voyage aboard the Beagle. Then there is Selfish Gene, a song referring to Richard Dawkins’s work, and Living Light, Queen Bee, Bacteria and Taxonomy.

Check out his song, Mister Darwin, below:

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Video: YouTube / greatplanthunt

Like Humans, Plants Fare Better When They’re Among “Family”

Boonsri Dickinson — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:27:34 +0000

In 2007, Canadian researchers amazed us with the discovery that plants can distinguish whether nearby plants are their siblings —in other words, if they’ve grown from seeds from the same source.

Now, University of Delaware professor Harsh Bais has identified just how plants do this: by secreting chemical signals to other plants.

Plants grow more horizontal roots when they’re in the presence of “strangers,” better enabling them to compete for necessary nutrients. However, when plants are near their “siblings,” they grew fewer roots—leaving researchers to think that plants don’t need to grow as many roots to survive when they know they’re among “kin.”

In a series of experiments, the researchers exposed young seedlings of Arabidopsis thaliana to the root secretions from their “siblings” as well as to those of “strangers.” When exposed to unfamiliar root secretions, the test plants grew more roots. However, when the plants were around kin, they “knew” that they would be competing for nutrients, so their roots didn’t grow as much. Additionally, when the researchers treated the first group of plants (the ones next to strangers) with sodium orthovanadate—a chemical that stops secretion but doesn’t stop roots from ...

Growing Pains Star Wages War on Darwin, Vandalizes Books

Melissa Lafsky — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:50:04 +0000

Forgive them, Darwin, for they know not what they do. Former child star Kirk Cameron, known for his role on the incurably bubbly ’80s sitcom Growing Pains, has announced via Youtube a plan to subvert the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. His brilliant plan? He wants to deliver 50,000 copies of an “altered version” of the book to students at dozens of U.S. universities. In other words, he wants to commit mass vandalism.

According to the Huffington Post:

Cameron explains that this “very special” edition of the “Origin of Species” will include an introduction explaining “Adolf Hitler’s undeniable connection” to the theory of evolution, and highlighting “Darwin’s racism” and “his disdain for women.” Cameron’s edition also exposes the “many hoaxes” of evolutionary theory, while presenting a “balanced view of Creationism.”

Watch the video here:

And for an excellent play-by-play response, watch this:

For more of the story, see HuffPo.

Sad News For the Vertically Challenged: Tall Men Are Happier And Richer, Study Says

Boonsri Dickinson — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:39:46 +0000

So size does matter: Taller men are happier than shorter men. They’re also blessed with fewer worries and don’t get as sad or angry.

If this upsets you, don’t blame the messenger: These results are based on a study out of Princeton University published in the journal of Economics and Human Biology. Angus Deaton, a professor of economics and international affairs, interviewed 454,000 people on the phone and asked them to judge their life on a scale of one to ten, with one being the “worst possible life for you” and ten the “best possible life for you.” Wouldn’t you know it, the researchers also noted each person’s height.

Based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, the team found that the taller respondents were happier, more educated, and richer. BBC reports:

Men who were above average height 5ft 10in (177.8cm) reported that they were standing higher on the ladder than men who were below average height.

They had an average ladder score of 6.55 compared to the shorter men who scored 6.41.

Women scored higher overall than men on the ladder scale and there was less difference between the taller and shorter women.

But psychologist Colin Gill makes ...

Study: Talking to Hot Women Makes Men Lose Brain Function

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:11:25 +0000

Breaking news! Men become less intelligent when they’re trying to impress women they’d like to sleep with! A new study in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology found that “men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function” than men who talked to women they didn’t want to, er, mate with.

The Telegraph reports that the study, which consisted of 40 male heterosexual students, proceeded as follows:

Each one performed a standard memory test where they had to observe a stream of letters and say, as fast as possible, if each one was the same as the one before last.

The volunteers then spent seven minutes chatting to male or female members of the research team before repeating the test.

The results showed men were slower and less accurate after trying to impress the women. The more they fancied them, the worse their score.

And how did the other sex fare? When the test was repeated with a group of female volunteers, ...

No Time to Pray? No Problem! Your Computer Can Do It For You

Rachel Cernansky — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:23:26 +0000

Are you religious, but find yourself with no time to pray? Then Information Age Prayer has the solution you need. For just $4.95 a month, this online service will have your prayers said for you.

The program uses text-to-speech synthesizers to say prayers in a voice designed to emulate the volume and speed of an average praying person. Choose from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and if you’re unaffiliated, no problem! They’ve got options for you as well.

Prices for the prayers vary, depending on the length. You can subscribe to daily prayers, mourning prayers, prayers for the sick, and for children (the cheapest). There’s even a prayer for economic stability, which “asks God to improve the economy and to enable us to support ourselves ‘in honor but not in disgrace’”—this one is offered at a discount rate. And, ever so responsibly, the site reminds you: “Take care, this prayer is not an alternative to fiscal responsibility!”

The company seeks to strengthen subscribers’ connections with God, but makes the disclaimer: “As with all prayer, the final results are up to God as everything follows His will. We make no claims regarding the efficacy of the service.”

Go ahead—”Make ...

Creationist Vacations: Adventures in Anti-Science

Boonsri Dickinson — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:52:47 +0000

David DeWitt takes his educational duties seriously. Each year, the biology “professor” and director of the Center for Creation Studies at Liberty University takes his class on a field trip. Their destination is the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, where the students in his Advanced Creation Studies course can bolster their “biblical view of natural history” by viewing a “temple of evolution.” In other words, they’re going to check out the enemy.

Adding to the ludicrous quotient even more, DeWitt’s trips are part of a recent trend: Plenty of adult creationists are reportedly taking these so-called “creation vacations” too. While scientists and science-lovers everywhere were celebrating Darwin’s 200th birthday, creationists saw the event as a chance to visit natural history museums, aquariums, geologic sites, and dinosaur parks to challenge evolution.

So what’s a trip to a museum like with a creationist? First, DeWitt’s class went through the fossil exhibit. His only complaint was that one of the films shown failed to discuss DNA, and only talked about amoeba. He bashed the film for being too ’80s, and called it “embarrassing” [ed. note: Oh the rich irony in that word choice].

When ...

On the Darwinian Fast-Track: Lizards Evolve Away Limbs

Nina Bai — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:40:03 +0000

Though some believe humans have reached the dead-end of our evolutionary journey, small skink lizards (Lerista) seem to still be in the thick of it. Skink lizards already have elongated, snake-like bodies with relatively small, shrunken legs. Now, new research [pdf] finds that the lizards are giving up walking for good, and have been rapidly evolving away their limbs.

Adam Skinner of the University of Adelaide performed a genetic analysis on several species of skink lizards with different sized limbs. He found that there have been at least ten independent reductions in limbs throughout the lizards’ evolution, without any signs of reversal. Some species now have fewer digits (lizard fingers) while others have lost whole limbs. Complete loss of limbs could have occurred in as little as 3.6 millions years—a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.

Unlike certain sushi-worthy fish species that are rapidly evolving to survive overfishing, the skinks appear to be evolving for their own convenience (and for the inconvenience of creationists). At the end of the day, not much beats a svelte limb-less body if you’re trying to ...

Religion: A Tool to Keep the Parasites Away?

Nina Bai — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:19:45 +0000

Religion has a funny way of dividing people. But religious fervor and intolerance may also keep you from getting sick, according to evolutionary biologists Corey Fincher and Randy Thornhill of the University of New Mexico. They propose a theory that says religious diversity was an evolutionary adaptation to keep groups of people separate and prevent them from infecting each other with diseases.

The researchers noted that religious diversity varies significantly across the globe. Why does Brazil have 159 religions while Canada only has 15? Fincher and Thornhill believe there is a relationship between geography, climate, and religious diversity. Since warmer locales harbor more infectious diseases, it was a good survival strategy to keep to yourself and religion enforced isolation.

The researchers used the World Christian Encyclopedia and the Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology Network to compare infectious diseases and religions across 219 countries. Even after taking other factors into account, such as democratization and colonization, they found a correlation between religious diversity and the number of infectious parasites in a given place.

Their research falls into the realm of sociobiology, a field pioneered by ...

Criminals, Beware: Your Name Might Be in Your DNA

Nina Bai — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:13:46 +0000

Attention criminals: You might want to consider changing your last name to Smith, the most common—and least traceable—last name in both Britain and the U.S. Why? Because men may be carrying a name tag in their genes.

The Y chromosome is passed from father to son with little variation, and in many cultures, so are last names. Researchers at Leicester University in the U.K. seized on this coincidence to study the genetic linkages among British surnames. She found that men who share the same last name, especially the less common ones, are likely to share a common ancestor. This means your Googlegänger is probably a long lost relative after all.

Over 2,500 men (who were not close relatives) with over 500 different surnames contributed cheek swabs to the study. Based on similarities in the DNA of their Y chromosomes, the men were grouped together and arranged on a “family tree.” Adoptions, name-changes and illegitimate paternities can break the connection between genes and last names—plus, the more common last names may have had several original owners.

Overall, men with the same last ...

No More Evolution for You, Says British Scientist

Nina Bai — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:14:21 +0000

This is it. The evolution of Homo sapiens is complete, says British geneticist Steve Jones—not because we’ve reached some pinnacle of perfection, but because we’ve run ourselves into an evolutionary dead end. Jones argues that the structures of contemporary society have jammed the three main drivers of evolution: natural selection, mutations, and random change.

He spoke yesterday at the University College London, delivering a lecture entitled “Human Evolution is Over” (in case you had any doubts as to his hypothesis). Here are his three main points:

1) Fewer early deaths. If everyone lives to reproductive maturity (in the developed world, nearly 98 percent of people survive to the age of 21), natural selection can do little work.

2) Fewer elderly fathers. As a man ages, the likelihood of genetic mutations in his sperm increases dramatically. It used to be common for men to father many children with many different women well into old age, but this is less acceptable in today’s society.

3) Too many people. Because of agriculture, there are 10,000 times as many humans as there should be.Small isolated populations allow random change because some ...

Superstitions Aren’t Silly; They’re Evolutionary.

Boonsri Dickinson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:17:28 +0000

Break a mirror and you’re stuck with bad luck. Walk under a ladder and you’re tempting fate. Sound ridiculous? Scientists believe such beliefs may be genetic, part of adaptive behaviors passed on to create an evolutionary advantage to surviving impeding danger.

Boiled down, a superstition is the belief that one event caused another event, without any evidence of the link. “All animals will display behaviors that imply a causal relationship that isn’t there,” says Kevin Foster, evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. Foster uses a pigeon as an example: The pigeon will take flight if it hears a hand clap, the same way it would react if it heard a gun shot.

Foster collaborated with Hanna Kokko of the University of Helsinki to build computer models to create simulations of what happens when an animal links a cause-and-effect event to avoid danger. The team compared real dangers, like the sound of rustling grass when a predator approaches, to the sound of rustling grass caused by something innocuous, like the wind. The researchers presumed that even though the animal might be overreacting to the harmless sounds, when a predator is actually approaching, the superstitious behavior could save its ...

Dating a Dud? Blame It on Biology

Boonsri Dickinson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:32:11 +0000

We know that women can look at a man’s face and judge whether he has the potential to be a good father. But looks can only go so far—it’s really your genes that matter. In the latest study on love and attraction, a group of scientists found that people in Europe and the U.S. choose partners with dissimilar immune cells, ultimately leading to children with stronger immune systems.

The researchers measured the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)—a large region of the genome linked to the immune system and body odor—of 30 European American couples, and compared them to 30 Nigerian couples.

The Americans picked mates that had noticeably different MHC genes. The Nigerians however, didn’t appear to pick mates based on MHC at all.

While previous experiments on fish, lizards and birds back up the finding that mate selection is affected by genetic factors/preferences, mate selection in humans isn’t as clear-cut. In a separate study, for example, researchers reported that women were more attracted to the smell of sweaty T-shirts worn by men who have similar MHC genes.

And to further complicate things, we recently covered how women on birth control can be falling for the “wrong” ...

Archaeological Surprise: Grave Site Full of Phallic Figurines

Andrew Moseman — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:24:05 +0000

Archaeologists excavating a burial site near Nazareth dating back to between 6750 and 8500 B.C. found the area littered with shells, axes, and other artifacts—no surprise there. But something else also caught their attention: a high number of phallic figurines.

It’s not unusual to find reproductive-themed artifacts in grave sites from this period, says study leader Nigel Goring-Morris of the Hebrew University. But this period of history, not so long after the agricultural revolution, typically produced more female figurines, associated with the fertility of the land. Even though most of the 65 people buried in this 10 meters by 20 meters plot were young men, he says, the finding is an odd one.

Goring-Morris speculates that these guys were trying to reclaim their manhood. With societies at the time moving from being hunter-gatherers to farmers, he says, men lost some of the macho feeling: Let’s face it, plowing a field just doesn’t get the testosterone flowing as much as killing a gazelle. There’s no real evidence that these men felt that way, but the possible alternative explanations for carving a bunch of phalluses are perhaps more unsavory.

In any case, farming—and female fertility ...

Europe Could Have Been More HIV Resistant, If Not for the Romans

Andrew Moseman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:34:06 +0000

A millennium and a half after the fall of their empire, ancient Romans might still be wreaking havoc on the European continent.

On average, Northern Europeans are more resistant to HIV infection and take longer to develop AIDS than Southern Europeans, and French researcher Eric Faure thinks that represents the legacy of the Roman Empire, strangely enough. There’s a gene variant in question, called CCR5-Delta32, which produces proteins that the HIV virus has trouble attaching to. But while in some areas of Northern Europe 15 percent of people carry this gene variant, only 4 percent of Greeks have it. In fact, if you look at the distribution of places where few people carry the gene, Faure says, the map looks suspiciously like that of the extent of Roman rule.

But Romans didn’t necessarily intermix with their colonists that much, according to Faure, so how did their lack of CCR5-Delta32 spread across Southern Europe? He says it’s possible that Romans introduced a disease that hit people who carried the HIV-resistant gene variation especially hard and reduced their numbers. The conquerors also introduced domesticated animals like cats and donkeys across their territory, and those ...