All posts; Tags Include "Evolutionary Anthropology"
- February 6, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 2,380 views
Sex Sells - But I Do Not Buy All Evolutionary Explanations
by Stijn Ruiter in Your Sixth Degree
Review of The association between men's ratings of women as desirable long-term mates and individual differences in women's sexual attitudes and behavior.... Read more »
L CAMPBELL, L CRONK, J SIMPSON, A MILROY, C WILSON, & B DUNHAM. (2009) The association between men’s ratings of women as desirable long-term mates and individual differences in women’s sexual attitudes and behaviors. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(4), 509-513. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.12.001
- February 5, 2009
- 12:58 PM
- 1,137 views
Draft Neanderthal genome next week
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Nature News reports that the first complete genome sequence for a Neanderthal will be released, appropriately enough, on next Thursday, the 12th of February, and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. It's the same group at the Max Planck Institute that released the first million bases of Neanderthal nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequence [$-a] back in 2006. As in the earlier work, the... Read more »
R.E. Green, J.Krause, S.E. Ptak, A.W. Briggs, M.T. Ronan, J.F. Simons, L. Du, M. Egholm, J.M. Rothberg, M. Paunovic.... (2006) Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA. Nature, 444(7117), 330-6. DOI: 10.1038/nature05336
- January 24, 2009
- 02:21 PM
- 1,925 views
ASPM, Microcephalin and Tone
by Wintz in A Replicated Typo
Disclaimer: I know this post is on a paper released over a year ago; however, I’m still going to write about it for three reasons: 1) I did a presentation about it earlier this week (20/01/08); 2) I think it relates to a recent buzz around gene-culture co-evolution; and, 3) It’s a bloody awesome [...]... Read more »
D. Dediu, & D. R. Ladd. (2007) From the Cover: Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and Microcephalin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(26), 10944-10949. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610848104
- January 7, 2009
- 07:00 AM
- 2,139 views
Orangutans - probably more interesting than you
by Wintz in A Replicated Typo
In the past few years there has been a recent spate of articles concerning orangutan intelligence. So, as I’m fairly bored, and in need of a break from university work, I’ve decided to write a bit of an essay on some of these finds.
Orangutans… They’re orange, right?
Correct; but Pongo pygmaeus abelii are so much more [...]... Read more »
M Nakamichi. (2004) Tool-use and tool-making by captive, group-living orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus abelii) at an artificial termite mound. Behavioural Processes, 65(1), 87-93. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2003.07.002
V. Dufour, M. Pelé, M. Neumann, B. Thierry, & J. Call. (2009) Calculated reciprocity after all: computation behind token transfers in orang-utans. Biology Letters, -1(-1), -1--1. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0644
Serge A. Wich, Karyl B. Swartz, Madeleine E. Hardus, Adriano R. Lameira, Erin Stromberg, & Robert W. Shumaker. (2008) A case of spontaneous acquisition of a human sound by an orangutan. Primates. DOI: 10.1007/s10329-008-0117-y
- January 7, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 2,297 views
Schizophrenia and brain evolution (plus bold adjectives)
by Wintz in A Replicated Typo
When exploring the etiology of schizophrenia, a feat that has mostly eluded understanding for over 100 years, a common denominator emerges in that associated deficiencies are rooted in cognitively demanding tasks. One suggestion is that, where schizophrenic individuals are involved, disorganised thoughts, abnormal speech, auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions are symptomatic consequences of [...]... Read more »
Philipp Khaitovich, Helen E Lockstone, Matthew T Wayland, Tsz M Tsang, Samantha D Jayatilaka, Arfu J Guo, Jie Zhou, Mehmet Somel, Laura W Harris, Elaine Holmes.... (2008) Metabolic changes in schizophrenia and human brain evolution. Genome Biology, 9(8). DOI: 10.1186/gb-2008-9-8-r124
- January 1, 2009
- 01:42 PM
- 1,433 views
The Sacrifice of Admetus
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
How the evolution of altruism reveals our noblest qualities. The researchers set up identical conditions by which their Pan and Homo subjects observed an unfamiliar person stretching to reach an object just beyond their grasp. In multiple individual trials the researchers recorded the frequency at which each group of 36 subjects would offer their assistance by retrieving the desired object and handing it to the stranger. Contradicting previous studies of chimpanzee altruism, the researchers f........ Read more »
Felix Warneken, Brian Hare, Alicia P. Melis, Daniel Hanus, & Michael Tomasello. (2007) Spontaneous Altruism by Chimpanzees and Young Children. PLoS Biology, 5(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050184
Claudia Rutte, & Michael Taborsky. (2007) Generalized Reciprocity in Rats. PLoS Biology, 5(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050196
- December 26, 2008
- 02:23 PM
- 1,522 views
Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) and the evolution of human bipedalism
by moneduloides in Moneduloides
Human bipedal locomotion is arguably the most defining adaptation in the narrative of human evolution. It has altered the way our bodies dissipate heat, the way we give birth, and even the way we use our hands - to some extent it has influenced the function/morphology of every element of our anatomy. Of course, when such a bauplan altering adaptation evolves there are certain to be a few kinks along the way. Some of these kinks are much more than just minor flaws in function and morphology, and,........ Read more »
Jan-Willem M. Kouwenhoven, & René M. Castelein. (2008) The Pathogenesis of Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis. Spine, 33(26), 2898-2908. DOI: 10.1097/BRS.0b013e3181891751
- December 26, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 2,860 views
Neanderthals outcompeted by humans?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Wouldn't you love it if the Neanderthals hadn't gone extinct, but were still living with us today? I'd give my right arm to see that (but then again, I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous). It is still hotly debated how they went extinct, but a paper in PLoS ONE [1] concludes that Homo neanderthalensis were outcompeted by humans.... Read more »
William E. Banks, Francesco d'Errico, A. Townsend Peterson, Masa Kageyama, Adriana Sima, & Maria-Fernanda Sánchez-Goñi. (2008) Neanderthal Extinction by Competitive Exclusion. PLoS ONE, 3(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003972
R GREEN, A MALASPINAS, J KRAUSE, A BRIGGS, P JOHNSON, C UHLER, M MEYER, J GOOD, T MARICIC, & U STENZEL. (2008) A Complete Neandertal Mitochondrial Genome Sequence Determined by High-Throughput Sequencing. Cell, 134(3), 416-426. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2008.06.021
- December 19, 2008
- 08:00 PM
- 1,661 views
What gibbons might teach us about the evolution of human bipedalism
by moneduloides in Moneduloides
Recently, I posted a bit of news regarding an article that appeared in The Journal of Experimental Biology. Well, I promised I would look into that matter further, and so here I am. The article, authored by Evie Vereecke and Peter Aerts, analyzes the mechanics of the gibbon foot in hopes of better understanding the [...]... Read more »
E. E. Vereecke, & P. Aerts. (2008) The mechanics of the gibbon foot and its potential for elastic energy storage during bipedalism. Journal of Experimental Biology, 211(23), 3661-3670. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.018754
- December 18, 2008
- 08:41 AM
- 1,382 views
Small-Bodied Humans on Palau - A Disagreement
by Tangled Up in Blue Guy in Tangled Up In Blue Guy
Checking Your Work and Coming to Conclusions
Scott M. Fitzpatrick, Greg C. Nelson, Geoffrey Clark (2008). Small Scattered Fragments Do Not a Dwarf Make: Biological and Archaeological Data Indicate that Prehistoric Inhabitants of Palau Were Normal Sized PLoS ONE, 3 (8) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003015
Open-Access scientific publishing serves many purposes, not the least of which is that people such as myself with no subscription access to major journals can read original articles. We are........ Read more »
Scott M. Fitzpatrick, Greg C. Nelson, & Geoffrey Clark. (2008) Small Scattered Fragments Do Not a Dwarf Make: Biological and Archaeological Data Indicate that Prehistoric Inhabitants of Palau Were Normal Sized. PLoS ONE, 3(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003015
- December 5, 2008
- 06:21 PM
- 2,749 views
Allen's Rule, Phenotypic Plasticity, and The Nature of Evolution
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Allen's Rule. One of those things you learn in graduate school along with Bergmann's Rule and Cope's Rule. It is all about body size. Cope's Rule ... which is a rule of thumb and not an absolute ... says that over time the species in a given lineage tend to be larger and larger. Bergmann's Rule says that mammals get larger in colder environments. Allen's Rule has mammals getting rounder in colder climates, by decreasing length of appendages such as limbs, tails and ears.
All three rules ........ Read more »
M. A. Serrat, D. King, & C. O. Lovejoy. (2008) Temperature regulates limb length in homeotherms by directly modulating cartilage growth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803319105
- November 28, 2008
- 09:01 PM
- 2,714 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
- September 9, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 2,009 views
Which hand is right? Mouse lemurs and the evolution of handedness
by moneduloides in Moneduloides
Although certainly not the most invested-in of questions in the quest for uncovering primate origins, the understanding of manual lateralization has certainly proved to be interesting (and, arguably, important). As are many topics in primate origins research, the evolutionary path of manual lateralization (handedness, or right versus left handed) is not clear. Many attempts have [...]... Read more »
Lisette M.C. Leliveld, Marina Scheumann, & Elke Zimmermann. (2008) Manual lateralization in early primates: A comparison of two mouse lemur species. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 137(2), 156-163. DOI/10.1002/ajpa.20852
- August 28, 2008
- 09:14 PM
- 873 views
Counting Your Chickens….
by Kris in Ge·knit·ics
Last summer, I wrote this post on the possible Polynesian origin of South American chickens. In July, Gongora et al published a response to that study, titled “Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA.” The authors sequenced the HVS-I region of 41 modern Chilean chickens, and compared their data to [...]... Read more »
Gongora J, Rawlence NJ, Mobegi VA, Jianlin H, Alcalde JA, Matus JT, Hanotte O, Moran C, Austin JJ, Ulm S.... (2008) Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(30), 10308-13. PMID: 18663216
- July 24, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 2,321 views
Frontal Fusion
by moneduloides in Moneduloides
The article I’m focusing on in this post is one recently published in The Anatomical Record by Alfred Rosenberger @ City University New York and Anthony Pagano @ the American Museum of Natural History. In the article the authors are asking the important question of whether or not a fused metopic (often called ‘frontal’) suture is a synapomorphic (shared derived) character of anthropoid primates.... Read more »
Alfred L. Rosenberger, & Anthony S. Pagano. (2008) Frontal Fusion: Collapse of Another Anthropoid Synapomorphy. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 291(3), 308-317. DOI: 10.1002/ar.20647
- March 18, 2008
- 08:37 PM
- 1,553 views
Phylogeny of Native American mtDNA
by Kris in Ge·knit·ics
PLoS ONE has a article this month titled The Phylogeny of the Four Pan-American mtDNA Haplogroups: Implications for Evolutionary and Disease Studies. There are several points of interest: The authors make use of data that is publicly available, either through GenBank or other DNA databases. Complete mtDNA sequences (ie., all 16568 bases) were used for [...]... Read more »
Achilli A, Perego UA, Bravi CM, Coble MD, Kong QP, Woodward SR, Salas A, Torroni A, & Bandelt HJ. (2008) The phylogeny of the four pan-American MtDNA haplogroups: implications for evolutionary and disease studies. PloS one, 3(3). PMID: 18335039
- February 9, 2008
- 03:07 PM
- 1,116 views
Genetics of Pacific Islanders
by Kris in Ge·knit·ics
Friedlaender et al. have a recent article in PLos Genetics. Titled The Genetic Structure of Pacific Islanders, the study used 687 microsatellite and 203 indel loci in nearly 1000 individuals from 41 populations in and around Oceania, in order to determine the genetic origins of these populations. The researchers found only a modest association between [...]... Read more »
Friedlaender JS, Friedlaender FR, Reed FA, Kidd KK, Kidd JR, Chambers GK, Lea RA, Loo JH, Koki G, Hodgson JA.... (2008) The genetic structure of Pacific Islanders. PLoS genetics, 4(1). PMID: 18208337
- September 21, 2007
- 01:41 PM
- 2,039 views
Homo floresiensis – Human or Not?
by Kris in Ge·knit·ics
There’s a retelling of old fable called The Seven Blind Mice, which I’ve enjoyed reading to my kids over the years. In the story, seven blind mice encounter an object and try to determine what it is. One thinks it’s a pillar, another a fan, one a snake, and one a rope. The last mouse [...]... Read more »
Tocheri, M., Orr, C., Larson, S., Sutikna, T., Jatmiko, ., Saptomo, E., Due, R., Djubiantono, T., Morwood, M., & Jungers, W. (2007) The Primitive Wrist of Homo floresiensis and Its Implications for Hominin Evolution. Science, 317(5845), 1743-1745. DOI: 10.1126/science.1147143
- September 20, 2007
- 05:02 PM
- 1,977 views
Phylogeography of the Human X Chromosome
by Kris in Ge·knit·ics
Catching up on some reading from this summer, I ran across an article by Santos-Lopes et al. from PLoS ONE. A Worldwide Phylogeography for the Human X Chromosome attempts to analyze the phylogenetic distribution of X chromosome haplotypes. Recall that in humans, females have two X chromosomes, while males have one X and one Y. [...]... Read more »
Santos-Lopes SS, Pereira RW, Wilson IJ, & Pena SD. (2007) A worldwide phylogeography for the human X chromosome. PloS one, 2(6). PMID: 17593958
- November 30, 1999
- 12:00 AM
- 856 views
Early Human Diet Went Grassy, Early
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
A series of studies from the University of Utah found that our ancestors expanded their culinary tastes to grasses and grains, as much as 3.5 million years ago.... Read more »
Cerling TE, Manthi FK, Mbua EN, Leakey LN, Leakey MG, Leakey RE, Brown FH, Grine FE, Hart JA, Kaleme P.... (2013) Stable isotope-based diet reconstructions of Turkana Basin hominins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 23733966
Wynn JG, Sponheimer M, Kimbel WH, Alemseged Z, Reed K, Bedaso ZK, & Wilson JN. (2013) Diet of Australopithecus afarensis from the Pliocene Hadar Formation, Ethiopia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 23733965
Sponheimer M, Alemseged Z, Cerling TE, Grine FE, Kimbel WH, Leakey MG, Lee-Thorp JA, Manthi FK, Reed KE, Wood BA.... (2013) Isotopic evidence of early hominin diets. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 23733964
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
Research Blogging is powered by SMG Technology.
To learn more, visit seedmediagroup.com.