Sunday, September 30, 2012

How Tribal Women Stop Witch Hunts

Indian village women, organized around a small, low-interest loan program, aren't just making money, they are helping prevent the fatal witch hunts that can target their neighbors, according to researchers who worked in the tea plantations of Jalpaiguir, India.

Tribal women here form support groups when they receive the loans. These groups typically of about eight to 10 women have protected other women from these hunts, according to Soma Chaudhuri, a sociologist at Michigan State University, who studied witch hunts in her native India for seven months.

Witch hunts are a long-standing practice here. The tribal plantation workers are poor and illiterate, and have a desperate need to make sense of rampant diseases in villages with no doctors or medical facilities, Chaudhuri said.

In 2003, for example, villagers accused five women of witchcraft that caused the death of a male villager from a stomach illness. They were tied up, tortured and killed.

But women's groups have intervened to stop potential attacks. In one case documented in Chaudhuri's study, a woman was accused of causing disease in livestock. Group members gathered in a vigil around her home and the home of the accuser. They stated their case to the accuser's wife, who intervened. The accuser's husband ultimately recanted his accusation and asked forgiveness.

The loan program in question gives women low-interest, collateral-free "microcredit" loans of about 750 rupees ($18) to start their own businesses, such as basket weaving, tailoring or selling eggs. The women support one another through these small groups.

The activists behind the loans have encouraged the women to address domestic abuse, alcoholism and the witch hunts. And collectively, the women are able to resist the tradition of witch hunts, Chaudhuri said.

"Why would they go against something so risky, something that breaks tradition?" she said in a statement. "They do it because they believe in the ideals of the microcredit group – in women's development, family development and gender equality."

Chaudhuri's work with Anuradha Chakravarty of the University of South Carolina was published in the June 2012 issue of the journal Mobilization.
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References:

Live Science. 2012. “How Tribal Women Stop Witch Hunts”. Live Science. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/22901-how-tribal-women-stop-witch-hunts.html

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Human Impact Felt On Black Sea Long Before Industrial Era

When WHOI geologist Liviu Giosan first reconstructed the history of how the Danube River built its delta, he was presented with a puzzle.

In the delta's early stages of development, the river deposited its sediment within a protected bay. As the delta expanded onto the Black Sea shelf in the late Holocene and was exposed to greater waves and currents, rather than seeing the decline in sediment storage that he expected, Giosan found the opposite. The delta continued to grow. In fact, it has tripled its storage rate.

If an increase in river runoff was responsible for the unusual rapid build up of sediment in the delta, says Giosan, the question is, "Was this extraordinary event in the Danube delta felt in the entire Black Sea basin? And if so, what caused it?"

In answering those questions, Giosan and an international team of collaborators including environmental engineers, modelers, paleogeographers, and paleobiologists pieced together a unique history of the region that ultimately provides evidence for a transformative impact of humans on the Black Sea over hundreds, if not thousands of years. The study was published on August 30 in Scientific Reports, a new online journal of the Nature Publishing Group.

The largest and longest river in the European Union, the Danube is the source of over 60 percent of the freshwater running into the Black Sea, and therefore is a dominant factor in the biogeochemistry of this basin. Because the Black Sea is nearly enclosed, changes in its hinterland provoked by climate or people should be readily reflected there.

The research team reconstructed a 9000-year record of the delta's growth, and through various scientific techniques, developed and mapped against it a record of changes in the Black Sea's salinity, nutrients, and relative abundance of its ecosystem's major phytoplankton groups. Finally, they also examined the history of land use in the greater Danube watershed.

To reconstruct the salinity, the WHOI team analyzed sediments containing highly resistant organic compounds called alkenones, which are uniquely produced by Emiliania huxleyi -- the same photosynthetic organism oceanographers study to determine past sea surface temperatures. By examining the ratio of two hydrogen isotopes in the alkenones, they were able to map the salinity trend in the Black Sea over the last 6,500 years.

"One of the isotopes, deuterium, is not very common in nature," explains WHOI marine paleoecologist Marco Coolen, "and it doesn't evaporate as easily as other isotopes. Higher ratios of deuterium are indicative of higher salinity."

Salinity began to rise in the Black Sea about 9000 years ago, when the ocean invaded the previously freshwater lake through the Straits of Bosporus, and continued to increase until approximately 3000 years ago, when the levels approached normal ocean values.

"But the trend since then is counter-intuitive," says Giosan. "The entire basin freshened, especially in the last 1,500 years." The likely explanation points to a increase in the river input combined with a reduced evaporation as the climate cooled at the time, he adds.

Such an influx of nutrient-rich river water would affect the composition of the ecosystem, and would be reflected by the ecological history of major phytoplankton groups in the Black Sea, such as diatoms and dinoflagellates.

Researchers traditionally conduct paleo studies of phytoplankton by using a microscope to count the fossil skeletons found in sediment cores. But, this method is limited because some phytoplankton leave no fossils, so, instead, Coolen looked for sedimentary genetic remains of the past inhabitants of the Black Sea water column.

"DNA offers the best opportunity to learn the past ecology of the Black Sea," says Coolen. "Calcareous and organic-walled dinocysts are frequently used to reconstruct past environmental conditions, but 90 percent of the dinoflagellate species do not produce such diagnostic resting stages, yet their DNA remains in the fossil record."

His analysis found that major phytoplankton groups in the Black Sea changed drastically over the last millennium. Beginning about 500 years ago, a rise in diatoms suggests there was more silicate available in the Black Sea. The team at WHOI also found an increase in the abundance of dinoflagellate DNA beginning about 650 years ago. Both of these changes are consistent with increased nutrient availability that would occur as a result of human activity -- the clearing of forests and increased agriculture. Interestingly, a significant drop in diatom DNA occurred in recent times when more recent human activity -- the damming of the rivers -- entered the scene.

The final piece of the picture comes from a model developed by Jed Kaplan, a scientist at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Kaplan looked at the expansion of lands cleared for agriculture in the Danube watershed as population grew and farming technology became more advanced over the last 7000 years ago. His findings agree very well with recently published studies of the relative abundance of grass pollen over tree pollen and the appearance of charcoal in the sediment record from clearing large swaths of trees by burning. All of these land signals point to human deforestation and increased agriculture.

The model suggests that deforestation of the lower basin of the Danube rapidly accelerated over the last millennium and especially in the last 500 years. In contrast in the western sector of the watershed, farther from the Black Sea, deforestation was already substantial as the Roman Empire expanded there.

"This story started by looking at how Danube River built its delta in the Black Sea," says Giosan. "But together these indicators tell a story of changing land use that ultimately changed the ecosystem of an entire sea."

The ability to define baselines and separate natural variability from human-induced changes is essential for understanding biogeochemical cycles and managing marine ecosystems, which ultimately depends on the detection and attribution of long term environmental trends, the authors write. "Our ancestors changed that baseline a long time ago in the Black Sea" says Giosan. "And they probably fertilized other coastal seas with nutrients inadvertently stripped from soils much earlier than we think."

Meanwhile, the Danube delta remains an extraordinarily lush, vibrant habitat, home to hundreds of species of birds and fish. "This is a unique piece of land -- the Danube delta -- blessed, productive, and important for countless forms of life," adds Giosan. "What is amazing to me is that we owe much of this biodiversity to our own history of changing Nature."
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References:

Science Daily. 2012. “Human Impact Felt On Black Sea Long Before Industrial Era”. Science Daily. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120904150102.htm

Friday, September 28, 2012

How language change sneaks in

Languages are continually changing, not just words but also grammar. A recent study examines how such changes happen and what the changes can tell us about how speakers' grammars work. The study, "The course of actualization", to be published in the September 2012 issue of the scholarly journal Language, is authored by Hendrik De Smet of the University of Leuven /Research Foundation Flanders. A preprint version is available online at: http://lsadc.org/info/documents/2012/press-releases/de-smet.pdf

Historical linguists, who document and study language change, have long noticed that language changes have a sneaky quality, starting small and unobtrusive and then gradually conquering more ground, a process termed 'actualization'. De Smet's study investigates how actualization proceeds by tracking and comparing different language changes, using large collections of digitized historical texts. This way, it is shown that any actualization process consists of a series of smaller changes with each new change building on and following from the previous ones, each time making only a minimal adjustment. A crucial role in this is played by similarity.

Consider the development of so-called downtoners – grammatical elements that minimize the force of the word they accompany. Nineteenth-century English saw the emergence of a new downtoner, all but, meaning 'almost'. All but started out being used only with adjectives, as in her escape was all but miraculous. But later it also began to turn up with verbs, as in until his clothes all but dropped from him. In grammatical terms, that is a fairly big leap, but when looked at closely the leap is found to go in smaller steps. Before all but spread to verbs, it appeared with past participles, which very much resemble both adjectives and verbs, as in her breath was all but gone. So, changes can sneak into a language and spread from context to context by exploiting the similarities between contexts.

The role of similarity in language change makes a number of predictions. For one thing, actualization processes will differ from item to item because in each case there will be different similarities to exploit. English is currently seeing some nouns developing into adjectives, such as fun or key. This again goes by small adjustments, but along different pathways. For fun, speakers started from expressions like that was really fun, which they would adjust to that was very fun, and from there they would go on to a very fun time and by now some have even gone on to expressions like the funnest time ever. For key, change started from expressions like a key player, which could be adjusted to an absolutely key player, and from there to a player who is absolutely key. When the changes are over, the eventual outcome will be the same – fun and key will have all the characteristics of any other English adjective – but the way that is coming about is different.

Another prediction is that actualization processes will differ from language to language, because grammatical contexts that are similar in one language may not be in another. Comparing the development of another English downtoner, far from (as in far from perfect), to its Dutch equivalent, verre van, it is found that, even though they started out quite similar, the two downtoners went on to develop differently due to differences in the overall structure of English and Dutch. Importantly, this is one way in which even small changes may reinforce and gradually increase existing differences between languages.

Finally, this research can say something about how language works in general. Similarity is so important to how changes unfold precisely because it is important to how speakers subconsciously use language all the time. Presumably, whenever a speaker thinks up a new sentence and decides it is acceptable, they do so by evaluating its resemblance to previous sentences. In this respect, actualization processes are giving us a unique window on how similarity works in organizing and reorganizing speakers' internal grammars, showing just how sensitive speakers are to all sorts of similarities. Strikingly, then, the same similarity judgments that speakers make to form acceptable and intelligible sentences allow their grammars to gradually change over time.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “How language change sneaks in”. EurekAlert. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/lsoa-hlc083012.php

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Syrian obsidian discovery opens new chapter in Middle Eastern studies

An archaeologist from the University of Sheffield has revealed the origin and trading routes of razor-sharp stone tools 4,200 years ago in Syria.

Ancient sites and cultural heritage are under threat in Syria due to the current conflict. An interdisciplinary research team hopes this new discovery, which has major implications for understanding the world's first empire, will help to highlight the importance of protecting Syria's heritage.

Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, is smooth, hard, and far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making it a highly desired raw material for crafting stone tools for most of human history. In fact, obsidian tools continued to be used throughout the ancient Middle East for millennia beyond the introduction of metals, and obsidian blades are still used today as scalpels in specialised medical procedures.

In an interdisciplinary collaboration, researchers from social and earth sciences studied obsidian tools excavated from the archaeological site of Tell Mozan, located in Syria near the borders with Turkey and Iraq. Using novel methods and technologies, the team successfully uncovered the hitherto unknown origins and movements of the coveted raw material during the Bronze Age, more than four millennia ago.

Most of the obsidian at Tell Mozan (and surrounding archaeological sites) originated from volcanoes 200km away in what is now eastern Turkey, as expected from models of ancient trade developed by archaeologists over the last five decades. However, the team discovered a set of exotic obsidian artefacts originating from a volcano in central Turkey, three times farther away. Just as important as their distant origin is where the artefacts were found: a royal palace courtyard. The artefacts were left there during the height of the world's first empire, the Akkadian Empire, which invaded Syria in the Bronze Age. The find has exciting implications for understanding links between resources and empires in the Middle East.

Dr Ellery Frahm, Marie Curie Experienced Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology, led the research. He said: "This is a rare, if not unique, discovery in Northern Mesopotamia that enables new insights into changing Bronze-Age economics and geopolitics. We can identify where an obsidian artefact originated because each volcanic source has a distinctive 'fingerprint'. This is why obsidian sourcing is a powerful means of reconstructing past trade routes, social boundaries, and other information that allows us to engage in major social science debates."

Not only did Frahm and his collaborators identify the particular volcano where the artefacts originated, they were able to pinpoint the exact flank of the volcano where the obsidian was collected and determine that the raw material was gathered from two different spots on its slopes. Such specificity was possible using a combination of scientific techniques, including a portable X-ray analyser that can be brought to archaeological sites and instruments that measure weak magnetic signals within rocks.

The earliest techniques of matching Middle East obsidian artefacts to their volcanic origins were developed partly at the University of Sheffield by famed archaeologist Colin Renfrew, Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology from 1965 to 1972. Frahm said: "Decades later, we are continuing to refine their original techniques. New technologies allow us to try new approaches. Powerful analytical tools can now be brought with us to sites, and sensitive magnetic instruments enable us to distinguish quarries, a level of specificity not previously possible. Our findings at Tell Mozan reveal that, even in the Middle East, the birthplace of obsidian sourcing, there are still surprises."

Frahm points out: "Studying the use and origin of obsidian reveals some compelling parallels with modern-day Middle East and has resonance with issues that the region faces today. For example, we think that invading powers, intent on controlling access to valuable resources, would have faced resistance to occupation from small states across the region ruled by peoples who were ethnic minorities elsewhere in the Middle East.

"A mountain insurgency could have resulted in a blockade of natural resources, and the colonisers may have been forced to instead seek resources from more distant sources and forge alliances with other regional powers to raise their status. This was 4,200 years ago during the Bronze Age – the parallels to the recent history of the area are extraordinary."

Dr Frahm is also interested in the relationship between humanitarian and archaeological work in the region. He added: "I went to Syria as an American after the US had called Syria part of the 'Axis of Evil', and I only had positive experiences there. The degree of hospitality that I encountered was extraordinary. Perfect strangers took me into their home during my journey from Damascus to the site, which involved a nine-hour bus ride through the Syrian Desert. I was welcomed, fed, offered a shower and change of clothes, introduced to family and friends, and shown around town. Family members argued over whose house had the better accommodations for me to spend the night.

"The current situation in Syria is tragic and precarious. Because of both professional and personal interests, I follow developments in Syria closely. It can be so overwhelming and heartbreaking that I have to take a break from it, which, unlike the people who are living through the fighting, I have the luxury of doing. Whatever the future holds, there will be a lot of work to do there, both humanitarian and archaeological, and I'm very much interested in the interfaces between them. How can archaeology perhaps help Syria recover from this?"

His next study with Syrian obsidian artefacts explores what happened to trade and social networks when Bronze-Age cities were abandoned in the wake of a regional government collapse and increasing droughts due to climate changes.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “Syrian obsidian discovery opens new chapter in Middle Eastern studies”. EurekAlert. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/uos-sod090412.php

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Venezuela: 'No evidence' of Yanomami killing

Venezuelan officials investigating a reported mass killing of Yanomami indigenous people say the have found no evidence of the alleged attack.

On Wednesday, a group representing the Yanomami had said that up to 80 of their members had been killed by illegal gold miners.

Minister of Indigenous Peoples Nicia Maldonado said a team had travelled to the area by helicopter.

She said they had failed to located the bodies witnesses had described finding.

"No evidence of any death was found," Ms Maldonado told state television.

Gen Jose Eliecer Pinto of the National Guard told the Ultimas Noticias newspaper that he had visited four indigenous communities along with other officials and that "everything is fine there".

A statement from a network of Yanomami groups had described how illegal gold miners had allegedly set fire to a communal house, and how witnesses reported finding burnt bodies.

Indigenous rights campaigners say the Venezuelan officials may have failed to find the community in question, which is based in a remote jungle location.
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References:

BBC News. 2012. “Venezuela: 'No evidence' of Yanomami killing”. BBC News. Posted: September 2, 2012. Available online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19460663

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Beyond a joke: the truth about why we laugh

Plato and Aristotle saw it as a tool to topple the mighty. It often accompanies gruesome acts of cruelty. Most of us will use it more routinely – to win friendship and love. So what lies behind the apparent spontaneity of laughter?

Consider the bizarre events of the 1962 outbreak of contagious laughter in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). What began as an isolated fit of laughter in a group of 12-to 18-year-old schoolgirls rapidly rose to epidemic proportions. Contagious laughter propagated from one individual to the next, eventually infecting adjacent communities. Like an influenza outbreak, the laughter epidemic was so severe that it required the closing of at least 14 schools and afflicted about 1,000 people. Fluctuating in intensity, it lasted for around two and a half years. A psychogenic, hysterical origin of the epidemic was established after excluding alternatives such as toxic reaction and encephalitis.

Laughter epidemics, big and small, are universal. Contagious laughter in some Pentecostal and related charismatic Christian churches is a kind of speaking in tongues (glossolalia), a sign that worshippers have been filled with the Holy Spirit. Before looking askance at this practice, consider that it was present at the historic Cane Ridge revival of 1801, in Kentucky, and part of an exuberant religious tradition in which the Shakers actually shook and the Quakers quaked. Even John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, did some of his own quaking and shaking. Those experiencing the blessing of holy laughter spread it back to their home congregations, creating a national and international wave of contagious laughter. Contrast, now, the similarity between the propagation of such religious anointings and what was called the "laughing malady puzzle in Africa". They are strikingly similar, tap the same social trait, and are an extreme form of the commonplace, not pathology.

Laughter yoga, an innovation of Madan Kataria of Mumbai, taps contagious laughter for his secular Laughing Clubs International. The laugh clubbers gather in public places to engage in laughter exercises, seeking better fitness and a good time. Kataria's revelation was that only laughter is needed to stimulate laughter – no jokes are necessary. Meetings start with unison laughter exercises, moving on to more unusual variants. This self-described "laughing for no reason" produces real, contagious laughter and is fun for the self-selected participants, but its claimed medicinal benefits remain a matter of conjecture.

The Tanganyikan and holy laughter epidemics, and laughter yoga, are dramatic examples of the infectious power of laughter, something that most of us may have experienced in more modest measure. Many readers will be familiar with the difficulty of extinguishing their own "laugh jags", fits of nearly uncontrollable laughter. We also share yuks with friends and join the communal chorus of audience laughter. Rather than dismissing contagious laughter as a behavioural curiosity, we should recognise it (and other laugh-related phenomena) as clues to broader and deeper issues. When we hear laughter, we become beasts of the herd, mindlessly laughing in turn, producing a behavioural chain reaction that sweeps through our group, creating a crescendo of jocularity or ridicule.

The use of laughter to evoke laughter is familiar to viewers of television sitcoms. Laugh tracks (dubbed-in sounds of laughter) have accompanied many sitcoms since 9 September 1950. On that evening, The Hank McCune Show – a comedy about "a likable blunderer, a devilish fellow who tries to cut corners only to find himself the sucker" – first used a laugh track to compensate for the absence of a live studio audience. Although the show was short-lived, the television industry discovered the power of canned laughter to evoke audience laughter.

The music recording industry recognised the seductive power of laughter with the distribution of The Okeh Laughing Record, which consisted of trumpet playing intermittently interrupted by highly infectious laughter. Released shortly after the first world war, it remains one of the most successful novelty records of all time. Acknowledging the commercial potential of this novelty market, jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Woody Herman, as well as virtuoso of funny music Spike Jones, all attempted to cash in with laugh records of their own. Classicists may add that performers in the Athenian Theatre of Dionysus scooped everyone by more than 2,000 years, when they hired people to cheer or jeer to influence the audience and judges of their tragedy and comedy contests.

The innovation of laugh tracks in early television shows kindled the fears of some cold war-era politicians that the pinko media was trying to surreptitiously control the masses.

Psychology researchers jumped on the new phenomenon of "canned" laughter, confirming that laugh tracks do indeed increase audience laughter and the audience's rating of the humorousness of the comedy material, attributing the effect to sometimes baroque mechanisms (deindividuation; release restraint mediated by imitation; social facilitation; emergence of social norms, etc). Decades later, we learned that the naked sound of laughter itself can evoke laughter – that you don't need a joke.

Recorded laughter produced by a "laugh box", a small, battery-operated record player from a novelty store, was sufficient to trigger real laughter among my undergraduate students in a classroom setting. On their first exposure to the laughter, nearly half of the students reported that they responded with laughter themselves. (More than 90% reported smiling on first exposure.) However, the effectiveness of the stimulus declined with repetition. By the 10th exposure, about 75% of the students rated the laugh stimulus as "obnoxious", a reminder of the sometimes derisive nature of laughter, especially when repetitive and invariable. With repeated exposure, I also grew to hate the sound of the canned laughter, wincing when curious students pushed the "On" button of one of the boxes in my office. Only disarmed boxes with batteries removed are now found on my desk.

It is unpleasant to be the recipient of a scornful "ha". Court fools, presidential aides and corporate administrative assistants learn early in their careers that it is safer to laugh with the boss than at him or her. Plato and Aristotle correctly feared the power of laughter to undermine authority and lead to the overthrow of the state. Then, as now, politicians' days are numbered when they become regular fare in comedy.

In our politically correct, feel-good, be-happy time we are shielded from – and underestimate – the dark side of laughter that was better known to the ancients. If you think laughter is benign, be aware that laughter is present during the worst atrocities, from murder, rape and pillage in antiquity to the present. Laughter has been present at the entertainments of public executions and torture. On street corners around the world, laughing at the wrong person or at the wrong time can get you killed. The publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper triggered calls for the death of the cartoonists and a worldwide murderous rampage that left many dead and injured. Although radical Islam is most in the news, all monotheistic religions ruthlessly suppress humorous challenges to their spiritual franchise. The killers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, were laughing as they strolled through classrooms murdering their classmates. Laughter accompanies ethnic violence and insult, from Kosovo to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Laughing with brings the pleasure of acceptance, in-group feeling, and bonding. But laughing at is jeering and ridicule, targeting outsiders who look or act differently, pounding down the nail that sticks up, shaping them up, or driving them away. Being laughed at can be a very serious, even dangerous business.

Laughter is a rich source of information about complex social relationships, if you know where to look. Learning to "read" laughter is particularly valuable because laughter is involuntary and hard to fake, providing an uncensored, honest account about what people really think about each other, and you.

Laughter is a decidedly social signal, not an egocentric expression of emotion. The social context of laughter was established by 72 student volunteers in my classes, who recorded their own laughter, its time of occurrence and social circumstance in small notebooks (laugh logs) during a one-week period. Smiling and talking were also recorded to provide contrasts with laughter and with each other. The presence of media (television, radio, reading material, etc) was noted because it serves as vicarious social stimulation. The sociality of laughter was striking. My logbook keepers laughed about 30 times more when they were around others than when they were alone – laughter almost disappeared among solitary subjects not exposed to media stimulation.

People are much more likely to smile or talk to themselves than they are to laugh when they are alone. Although we probably laugh or smile more when we are happy than sad, these acts are performed primarily in response to face-to-face encounters. You are least likely to laugh, smile or talk immediately before bedtime and after waking, circumstances with reduced opportunities for social interaction. These data provide solid grounds for a behavioural prescription: if you want more laughter in your life, spend more time with other people. If no friends are physically present, you can dial them up on your phone. Even solitary television viewing may not be as socially impoverished as suggested by its detractors, and has something to offer the recluse: the people in the box.

Further clues about the social context of laughter came from the surreptitious observation of 1,200 instances of conversational laughter by anonymous people in public places. My colleagues and I noted the gender of the speaker and audience (listener), whether the speaker or the audience laughed, and what was said immediately before laughter occurred.

Contrary to expectation, most conversational laughter was not a response to jokes or humorous stories. Fewer than 20% of pre-laugh comments were remotely joke-like or humorous. Most laughter followed banal remarks such as "Look, it's Andre", "Are you sure?" and "It was nice meeting you too". Even our "greatest hits" – the funniest of the 1,200 pre-laugh comments – were not necessarily howlers: "You don't have to drink, just buy us drinks", "She's got a sex disorder – she doesn't like sex", and "Do you date within your species?" Your life is filled with a laugh track to what must be the world's worst situation comedy. Mutual playfulness, in-group feeling and positive emotional tone – not comedy – mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter. Laughter is more about relationships than humour.

Another counterintuitive discovery was that the average speaker laughs about 46% more often than the audience. This contrasts with the scenario of stand-up comedy in which a non-laughing speaker presents jokes to a laughing audience. Comedy performance proves an inadequate model for everyday conversational laughter. Analyses that focus only on audience behaviour (a common approach) are obviously limited because they neglect the social nature of the laughing relationship.

The story became more provocative when we identified the gender of participants in laughing relationships. Gender determines the proportion of speaker and audience laughter. Whether they are speaker or audience (in mixed-sex groups), women laugh more often than men. In our sample of 1,200 cases, female speakers laughed 127% more than their male audience. Neither males nor females laugh as much with female speakers as they do with male speakers, helping to explain the paucity of female comedians.

On average, men are the best laugh getters. These differences are already present by the time joking first appears, around six years of age. Based on this evidence, it is no surprise that your school clown was probably a male, a worldwide pattern. Laughter is sexy. Women laughing at men are responding to more than their prowess in comedy. Women are attracted to men who make them laugh (ie, "have a good sense of humour"), and men like women who laugh in their presence.

The next time you are at a party, use laughter as a guide to what people really feel about each other – and you. Laughter is a particularly informative measure of relationships because it is largely unplanned, uncensored and hard to fake. Men and women mindlessly and predictably act out our species' biological script. A man surrounded by attentive, laughing females is obviously doing something right, and he will comply by continuing to feed his admirers whatever triggers their laughter. Such good-humoured fellows don't need a big supply of jokes – their charisma carries the day. Laughter is not, however, a win-win signal for males and females; if it is used carelessly, you can laugh your way out of a relationship or a job.

The asymmetrical power of laughter and comedy for men and women is noted by comedian Susan Prekel, who bemoans that men in her audience will "find me repulsive, at least as a sexual being". In contrast, "male comics do very well with women".

Personal ads provide a direct approach to the value of laughter, because people spell out their virtues and desires in black and white. Laughter and humour are highly valued in the sexual marketplace. In 3,745 personal ads published by heterosexual males and females in eight US national newspapers on 28 April 1996, men offered "sense of humour" (or "humorous") and women requested it. Women couldn't care less whether their ideal male partner laughs or not – they want a male who makes them laugh. Women sought humour more than twice as often as they offered it. The behavioural economics of such bids and offers is consistent with the finding that men are attracted to women who laugh in their presence. Without such a balance between bids and offers, there would be no market for laughter and humour, and the currency of these behaviours would decline.

Amazingly, we somehow navigate society, laughing at just the right times, while not consciously knowing what we are doing. Consider the placement of laughter in the speech stream. Laughter does not occur randomly. In our sample of 1,200 laughter episodes, the speaker and the audience seldom interrupted the phrase structure of speech with a ha-ha. Thus, a speaker may say "You are wearing that? Ha-ha," but rarely "You are wearing… ha-ha… that?" The occurrence of laughter during pauses, at the end of phrases, and before and after statements and questions suggests that a lawful and probably neurologically based process governs the placement of laughter in speech. Speech is dominant over laughter because it has priority access to the single vocalisation channel, and laughter does not violate the integrity of phrase structure.

The relationship between laughter and speech is akin to punctuation in written communication. I call it the punctuation effect. The orderliness of the punctuation effect is striking because it's involuntary (we cannot laugh on command). If punctuation of speech by laughter seems unlikely, consider that breathing and coughing also punctuate speech. Better yet, test the proposition of punctuation by examining the placement of laughter in conversation around you, focusing on the placement of ha-ha laughs.

It's a good thing that time sharing by these airway manoeuvres is neurologically orchestrated. How complicated would our lives be if we had to plan when to breathe, talk and laugh.
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References:

Provine, Robert. 2012. “Beyond a joke: the truth about why we laugh”. The Guardian. Posted: September 2, 2012. Available online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/02/why-we-laugh-psychology-provine

Monday, September 24, 2012

Machu Picchu: Facts & History

Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Incan site located on a ridge between the Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu mountains in Peru. It sits 7,970 feet (2,430 meters) above sea level on the eastern slope of the Andes and overlooks the Urubamba River hundreds of feet below.

The site’s excellent preservation, the quality of its architecture, and the breathtaking mountain vista it occupies has made Machu Picchu one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world today. The site covers 80,000 acres (32,500 hectares). Terraced fields on the edge of the site were once used for growing crops, likely maize and potatoes.

In 1911, explorer Hiram Bingham III, a professor at Yale University, visited the site and published its existence for the first time. He found it covered with vegetation, much of which has now been removed. The buildings were made without mortar (typical of the Inca), their granite stones quarried and precisely cut.

When Bingham discovered the site he was actually searching for Vilcabamba, the last capital of the Inca before their final defeat at the hands of the Spanish in 1572.

The explorer found Machu Picchu largely intact, having apparently never been visited by the Spanish conquistadors. In fact, the only reference to the site at all in Spanish documents is a mention of the word “Picchu” in a 1568 document, the text implying that it belonged to the Incan emperor.

An emperor’s abode

Machu Picchu is believed to have been built by Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the ninth ruler of the Inca, in the mid-1400s. An empire builder, Pachacuti initiated a series of conquests that would eventually see the Inca grow into a South American realm that stretched from Ecuador to Chile.

Many archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as a royal estate of sorts, the presence of elite residences in the northeast sector of the site backing that idea up. It would have been used by the emperor and his family as a temporary respite, the site supporting a small number of year-round caretakers. Other examples of Inca royal estates are known in Peru.

Interestingly, the dwelling of the emperor himself appears to be in the southwest part of the site, away from the other elite residences. A building known today as the “Temple of the Sun” is adjacent to it.

A staircase running beside the royal compound leads to a plaza below, and the emperor was afforded a garden, a private bath and even a private toilet area — the only private one on site.

Although Machu Picchu has a wall, modest gateway and dry moat (likely used for collecting rainwater) it doesn’t appear to have been set up with military purposes in mind, and there is no evidence that a battle of any sort was fought there.

Temple of the Sun

Machu Picchu has a number of structures that would have enhanced the spiritual significance of the site.

One of them, the “Temple of the Sun,” or Torreón, has an elliptical design similar to a sun temple found at the Inca capital of Cuzco. It is located near where the Inca emperor is believed to have resided at Machu Picchu.

A rock inside the temple could have served as an altar. During the June solstice the rising sun shines directly into one of the temple’s windows, and this indicates an alignment between the window, rock and solstice sun.

Beneath the temple lies a cave, naturally formed, which the explorer Bingham referred to as a “royal mausoleum,” although there’s little evidence that it was used as such. A boulder carved into a stairway lies near the cave entrance and the underground chamber likely served a religious function of some form.

Principal temple & Intihuatana

A series of religious structures is located on the northwest of the site, bordering the plaza.

One of the buildings, dubbed the “Principal Temple,” contains a carved stone altar. When it was excavated by Bingham he found that it has a layer of white sand, something seen in temples at Cuzco, the Incan capital.

A building adjacent to the “Principal Temple” is known as the “Temple of the Three Windows” and contains a large amount of broken pottery, ritually smashed it appears.

But perhaps the biggest puzzle at Machu Picchu is a giant rock, named “the Intihuatana” by Bingham, after other carved stones found in the Incan empire. The stone at Machu Picchu is situated on a raised platform that towers above the plaza. Its purpose is a mystery, with recent research disproving the idea that it acted as a sundial. It may have been used for astronomical observations of some form. It may also be connected with the mountains that surround Machu Picchu.

Abandonment of Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu did not survive the collapse of the Inca.

In the 16th century the Spanish appeared in South America, plagues afflicting the Inca along with military campaigns waged by conquistadors. In 1572, with the fall of the last Incan capital, their line of rulers came to end. Machu Picchu, a royal estate once visited by great emperors, fell into ruin. Today, the site is on the United Nations' list of World Heritage sites.
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References:

Jarus, Owen. 2012. “Machu Picchu: Facts & History”. Live Science. Posted: August 31, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/22869-machu-picchu.html

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Gangster Anthropologist

What’s her deal? Jorja Leap immersed herself in the culture of Los Angeles’ notorious street gangs for over 10 years, interviewing and working with hundreds of active and former gang members.

Isn’t that dangerous? “I started out in the late 1970s as this skinny little white social worker going into the projects.” When she returned to the streets years later as an anthropologist, former gang members she knew accompanied and vouched for her. “I’ve been in dangerous situations, but always felt very protected.”

Complicating personal detail: Husband is a former LAPD deputy chief. “He wanted me to stop my work because he felt it wasn’t safe. And gang members would plant stories with me to see if I would take them back to him.” It took time to get everyone’s trust. “Things got better after he retired.”

Surprising research finding #1: The further up someone is in the gang hierarchy the better their chances of going straight. “A shot caller in a gang has a much greater chance to be a leader in mainstream life. They may be semiliterate high school dropouts, but a lot of them are very smart. The same skills that elevated them in the neighborhood will help them succeed elsewhere. The neighborhood recognizes talent, make no mistake.”

Surprising research finding #2: “There’s an emerging group of lesbians integrated into gang structure. Gangs do abuse women—there’s trafficking, there’s domestic violence, there’s rape. But in addition to that, women are taking increasingly active roles, especially lesbians. They’re often very active and engaged in violence. What’s amazing is that the homophobia does not extend to them.”

The bottom line? “Keep kids out of gangs with after-school and evening programs, and keep former members getting out of prison from going back to gang life by providing mental health services and jobs. And interwoven with all of that is relationships. People aren’t going to change because you tell them to. They’ll change because you give them a mentor, a role model, a friend to guide them in another way.”
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References:

Beiser, Vince. 2012. “Gangster Anthropologist”. Pacific Standard. Posted: September 11, 2012. Available online: http://www.psmag.com/education/gangster-anthropologist-46354/

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Ancient Mayan Theater Was Political Tool

A unique Mayan theater has been unearthed in Mexico, according to researchers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Found at the archaeological site of Plan de Ayutla, in Ocosingo, Chiapas, the 1,200-year-old theater did not seem to be a place for art and culture, but was rather used by Mayan elite to legitimize their power and subjugate local minority groups.

"It was a unique theater, since it was found in an acropolis, 137 feet above the other plazas. The stage lay within a palace complex," Luis Alberto Martos López, director of the research project, said in a statement.

Located near the North Acropolis, the theater was enclosed by buildings dating to 250-550 B.C. on all sides. A 26-foot-long façade of one of these buildings was torn down around 850 A.D. to create the forum and make it work as an acoustic shell.

According to Martos López, the unusual architecture makes the theater stand out.

"It's different from all the other theaters that have already been studied. These theaters were usually located in plazas and were built to entertain the crowds," Martos López said.

In contrast, the newly unearthed theater seated 120 people at the most.

Near the amphiteater, Martos López's team found whistles, ocarinas and sculptures depicting Mayan deities. They most likely decorated the frieze below the building.

The scene probably represented the brutal ceremony of humiliation of prisoners, often ending in torture and decapitation.

Indeed, subjugation was the running theme at the theater. According to Martos López, around 850 A.D. a "multepal" or shared governance ruled in Plan de Ayutla and used political plays at the theater to impose their ideologies on local minority groups.

The theater might have also housed some sort of political rallies.

"We found that a temple northeast of the stage was dismantled to leave space to a small podium for an orator," Martos López said.
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References:

Lorenzi, Rossella. 2012. “Ancient Mayan Theater Was Political Tool”. Discovery News. Posted: September 5, 2012. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/history/mayan-theater-120905.html

Friday, September 21, 2012

Stereotypes 'evolve like language', say researchers

Stereotypes evolve in a similar way to language, according to research presented at the British Science Festival in Aberdeen.

These generalised perceptions of groups of individuals are an unintentional consequence of information sharing, the scientists claim.

And far from being fixed, they evolve and strengthen as they pass from person to person.

The work was carried out by a team at the University of Aberdeen.

Stereotyping represents a view of other people based on perceptions of a social group and the shared attributes that people within that group are considered to possess.

For example, a typical stereotypical view of salesmen is that they are "confident, talkative and pushy".

To address the genesis of such stereotypes, Dr Doug Martin and colleagues from the University of Aberdeen's Person Perception Lab designed an experiment using aliens - an approach previously used to study the origins and evolution of language.

The aliens they invented each had a different colour, shape and set of personality traits; such as arrogance, pushiness or selfishness.

The team then asked a volunteer to learn the characteristics assigned to each one. The information retained by the volunteer was then fed down a communication chain.

What started out as jumbled and complex individual characteristics and traits ended up encompassed in sets of stereotypes.

Character traits became inextricably linked with form and colour - for example, blue aliens might be perceived as arrogant, pushy and untrusting.

As Dr Martin explained: "Information becomes simpler, more structured and more learnable over time" - so much so that the people at the end of the chain were far more knowledgeable than those at the start.

"It's essentially what stereotypes are - massively over-simplified but easily learnable associations between social groups and bits of information," Dr Martin told BBC News.

As the stereotypes evolved, the attributes associated with each group became increasingly polarised.

"It's almost as if at the end of a chain you have the good guys and you have the bad guys", he said.

But are stereotypes fixed? Dr Martin doesn't think so.

"To consider them fixed certainly doesn't represent them fully because stereotypes clearly have changed over time," he said.

According to Dr Martin, the June 1918 edition of Ladies' Home Journal points out "The generally accepted rule is pink for boys and blue for girls…" If true, this is one stereotype that hasn't stood the test of time.

So what will Dr Martin and his team of volunteers - both human and alien - be doing in the future?

"Now we've established that stereotypes can form and change over time via social transmission we now want to see if we can manipulate these," he said.

When asked if stereotypes were an inevitable consequence of society and communication, Dr Martin opined: "We structure the world in a categorical way - it seems our brains are set up to do that.

"People who want to eliminate stereotypes are missing the point."
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References:

Ball, Jonathan. 2012. “Stereotypes 'evolve like language', say researchers”. BBC News. Posted: September 5, 2012. Available online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19487021

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Dog Archaeologist Digs for Bones (Not That Kind)

Meet Migaloo, the world's first dog trained to dig up ancient human bones.

A three-year-old female black labrador cross named Migaloo has become the world's first trained archaeology dog. Working with Brisbane dog expert Gary Jackson, she is expected to help archaeologists uncover ancient grave sites across Australia. And looking to the future, it's expected that Migaloo and other archaeology dogs will work on excavations at ancient civilization sites in Egypt, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

And it's all because of the nose. Dogs have a sense of smell that's thousands of times more sensitive than a human's, allowing them to detect even the faintest of odors lying beneath the surface. For archaeology dogs, this means looking for bones. To that end, Migaloo was trained for six months, completing a curriculum that included field trials and a final search test in which she was expected to uncover a 250-year-old skeletal remain from a native burial site.

More impressively, Migaloo recently set a world record for the oldest bone discovered by a dog -- a 600-year-old human bone buried 2 meters (6.6 feet) underground. Her accomplishment beat the previous record by 425 years -- a remarkable achievement that also demonstrated the potential for dogs to locate very old bones at fairly reasonable depths.

Peter Michael of the Courier-Mail reports: "Dogs are known to have such sophisticated olfactory senses they can detect cancer or smell seizures in people, sniff out mobile phones in prisons, or help in therapy, find lost children, criminals, explosives, drugs or people buried under an avalanche of snow, he said.

"We can all see the potential commercial applications in finding animal or human remains going back hundreds and thousands of years, it is just astounding.

"Look at the money that goes into archaeological digs and native title claims.

"SA Museum archaeology researcher Keryn Walshe, who observed the latest search, said the dog found the first of four burial sites within a minute.

"She is an extremely clever little dog, quite amazing, she is certainly on her way to fame and fortune "We gave absolutely no cues, the dog sniffed around and went stood over it, she was spot on.

"We've never heard of fossil dogs, nobody ever thought there would be any scent left on these old bones, nobody thought it could be done."

Her reward, rather than a juicy bone, is a game of catch-and-chase with a tennis ball.
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References:

Dvorsky, George. 2012. “Dog Archaeologist Digs for Bones (Not That Kind)”. Discovery News. Posted: September 5, 2012. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/animals/migaloo-dog-archaeologist-120905.html

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

When do we lie? When we're short on time and long on reasons

Almost all of us have been tempted to lie at some point, whether about our GPA, our annual income, or our age. But what makes us actually do it?

In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Shaul Shalvi of the University of Amsterdam and Ori Eldar and Yoella Bereby-Meyer of Ben Gurion University investigated what factors influence dishonest behavior.

Previous research shows that a person's first instinct is to serve his or her own self-interest. And research also shows that people are more likely to lie when they can justify such lies to themselves. With these findings in mind, Shalvi and colleagues hypothesized that, when under time pressure, having to make a decision that could yield financial reward would make people more likely to lie. They also hypothesized that, when people are not under time pressure, they are unlikely to lie if there is no opportunity to rationalize their behavior.

"According to our theory, people first act upon their self-serving instincts, and only with time do they consider what socially acceptable behavior is," says Shalvi. "When people act quickly, they may attempt to do all they can to secure a profit—including bending ethical rules and lying. Having more time to deliberate leads people to restrict the amount of lying and refrain from cheating."

The researchers first tested participants' tendency to lie when doing so could be easily justified: Approximately 70 adult participants rolled a die three times such that the result was hidden from the experimenter's view. The participants were told to report the first roll, and they earned more money for a higher reported roll.

Seeing the outcomes of the second and third rolls provided the participants with the opportunity to justify reporting the highest number that they rolled, even if it was not the first – after all, they had rolled that number, just not the first time they rolled the die. Some of the participants were under time pressure, and were instructed to report their answer within 20 seconds. The others were not under time pressure, and had an unlimited amount of time to provide a response.

The experimenters were not able to see the actual die rolls of the participants, to ensure all rolls were private. Instead, in order to determine whether or not the participants had lied about the numbers they rolled, Shalvi and colleagues compared their responses to those that would be expected from fair rolls. They found that both groups of participants lied, but those who were given less time to report their numbers were more likely to lie than those who weren't under a time constraint.

The second experiment followed a similar procedure, except that the participants were not given information that could help them justify their lies: instead of rolling their die three times, they only rolled it once and then reported the outcome. In this experiment, the researchers found that participants who were under time pressure lied, while those without a time constraint did not.

Together, the two experiments suggest that, in general, people are more likely to lie when time is short. When time isn't a concern, people may only lie when they have justifications for doing so.

One implication of the current findings is that to increase the likelihood of honest behavior in business or personal settings, it is important not push a person into a corner but rather to give him or her time," explains Shalvi. "People usually know it is wrong to lie, they just need time to do the right thing."
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “When do we lie? When we're short on time and long on reasons”. EurekAlert. Posted: September 5, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/afps-wdw090512.php

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Gender equality influences how people choose their partners

Men and women clearly have different strategies for picking sexual partners, but the reason why differences exist is less clear. The classic explanation for these differences has been that men's and women's brains have evolved to make certain choices, but a new study in Psychological Science, a publication of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that evolution is only part of the answer.

To be a 'success' in evolutionary terms, women need to have access to resources for raising offspring, and men need to have access to fertile females. Researchers have argued that women tend to prefer partners who have an ability to invest resources in their children (i.e., wealthy men), and men tend to prefer partners who appear fertile (i.e., young women) because evolutionary adaptations have programmed these preferences in our brains.

But in the modern world, 'success' is not necessarily tied to offspring, so researchers Marcel Zentner and Klaudia Mitura of the University of York in the UK hypothesized that the influence of evolutionary biases on mate choice would decline proportionally with nations' gender parity, or the equality between men and women.

"There was accumulating evidence that gender differences in mental abilities, such as math performance, vanish in gender-equal societies," said Zentner. But he and his fellow researchers wanted to see if they could observe the same trend for selecting sexual partners.

Zentner and Mitura had 3,177 respondents complete an online mate preference survey from 10 countries ranking from a low (Finland) to a high (Turkey) gender gap in terms of the Global Gender Gap Index (GGI) – a measure that was recently introduced by World Economic Forum to iron out shortcomings of earlier gender parity measures. The participants were asked in their native language whether certain criteria – such as as financial prospects and being a good cook – were important considerations when choosing a mate.

They found that the gender difference in mate preferences predicted by evolutionary psychology models "is highest in gender-unequal societies, and smallest in the most gender-equal societies," according to Zentner.

These results were confirmed in a second study based on mate preferences reported by 8,953 volunteers from 31 nations. Again, Zentner and Mitura found that there were fewer differences between men and women's preferences in more gender-equal nations compared to less gender-equal nations.

Because increasing gender equality reduces gender differences in mate selection, these studies indicate that the strategies men and women use to choose mates may not be as hardwired as scientists originally thought.

"These findings challenge the idea proposed by some evolutionary psychologists that gender differences in mate-preferences are determined by evolved adaptations that became biologically embedded in the male and female brain," says Zentner. But he also adds evolutionary roots shouldn't be ruled out entirely.

"Indeed, the capacity to change behaviors and attitudes relatively quickly in response to societal changes may itself be driven by an evolutionary program that rewards flexibility over rigidity."
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “Gender equality influences how people choose their partners”. EurekAlert. Posted: September 5, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/afps-gei090512.php

Monday, September 17, 2012

Decoding the Black Death: Anthropologist Finds Clues in Medieval Skeletons

Each time Sharon DeWitte takes a 3-foot by 1-foot archival box off the shelf at the Museum of London she hopes it will be heavy.

"Heavy means you know you have a relatively complete skeleton," said DeWitte, an anthropologist at the University of South Carolina who has spent summers examining hundreds of Medieval skeletons, each time shedding new light on the dark subject of the Black Death.

Since 2003, DeWitte has been studying the medieval mass killer that wiped out 30 percent of Europeans and nearly half of Londoners from 1347-1351. She is among a small group of scientists devoted to decoding the ancient plague and the person researchers turn to for providing evidence from skeletal remains.

Her findings may provide clues about the effects of disease on human evolution.

"It can tell us something about the nature of human variation today and whether there is an artifact of diseases we have faced in the past. Knowing how strongly these diseases can actually shape human biology can give us tools to work with in the future to understand disease and how it might affect us," she said.

Having previously analyzed more than 600 skeletons of people who died during and after the Black Death, DeWitte turned her attention this summer to studying the remains of some 300 people who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries before the Black Death. Comparing the life span of people who lived before and after the blight, she expected to see a post-Black Death population that lived longer. The more complete the skeletons she studies, the more information she has about the people and their health at the time they died.

"I found that a significantly higher number of people were living to really old ages after the Black Death. Many people lived beyond the age of 50 and particularly above the age of 70," DeWitte said. "I honestly was surprised by how dramatic the difference was in their survival. I've analyzed risks of mortality within the pre-and post-Black Death populations, and the preliminary results suggest lower overall risks of mortality after the Black Death."

DeWitte attributes the longevity of the population to two things: The Black Death's selectivity in targeting people who were frail and in poor health and a rise in living standards after the Black Death that resulted in better diet and improved housing.

"We see this pattern in modern populations. With improvements in diet, medical care and hygiene, you tend to see decreases in death from infectious disease," DeWitte said. "Many people who survived the Black Death did so because they were basically healthier and their descendants were probably healthier. Because so many people died from the Black Death, wages increased for the people who survived. People of all social classes were eating better food, which would have had strong effects on health."

DeWitte, an assistant professor in USC's College of Arts and Sciences, spent five weeks in London gathering data, checking out 12 to 16 boxes each day from the museum's holdings. In each box, under a thin layer of foam, are parts of a skeleton arranged in separate and clear bags and marked with a cemetery code, burial number and excavation date.

"I look for the parts of the skeleton that are going to tell me about age at death and sex, and then I look for a suite of skeletal stress markers that give me a general idea of how healthy people were," DeWitte said.

DeWitte says where the two halves of the pelvis meet in the front and join in the rear provide consistent signs of adult aging. For children, teeth and the fusing of certain bones are among the best indicators of age. To determine sex, she looks for a wider pelvis in women and a squared jaw and skull made rugged along the forehead and back by testosterone in men.

A trio of skeletal markers provides DeWitte with clues about general health.

She looks for porous lesions that form on the top inside of the eye socket and the top of the skull. The sponge-like appearance of the lesion indicates diseases such as anemia, the result of a common response by the body to redirect iron sources when fighting infection, or scurvy.

She also examines for linear enamel hypoplasia, or little horizontal grooves that form on the teeth of children whose enamel formation was interrupted by malnutrition or infectious disease. Visible to the naked eye, these defects remain through adulthood and tell DeWitte the ages of when the health disturbances would have occurred.

"These markers are an indication of stress to the body's health," she said.

DeWitte's research in London this summer was funded by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the American Association for Physical Anthropologists. After collecting the data, she headed to Santa Fe, N.M., for a residential fellowship at the School for Advanced Research to analyze it.

She said she plans to return to London next summer to investigate skeletons excavated from London's Spitalfields cemetery, which was excavated in the 1990s and includes mass graves.

"I want to look at a series of people over time who died right before the Black Death -- from 1000 to 1200 and then from 1200 to 1300 -- to see the general trends in health and to understand essentially how sick people were before the Black Death," DeWitte said.

"Historical documents suggest there were repeated crop famines and huge die-offs of cattle and sheep. I want to look at carefully whether people increasingly were becoming less healthy right before the Black Death to get at the question of why the Black Death emerged when it did."

This year she also will begin collaborating with DNA experts at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario to look at human genetic variation before and after the Black Death.

"The survivors were either tremendously lucky or there was something about them that made them better able to resist the Black Death or mount a really strong immune response to disease," DeWitte said.
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References:

Science Daily. 2012. “Decoding the Black Death: Anthropologist Finds Clues in Medieval Skeletons”. Science Daily. Posted: September 5, 2012. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905134826.htm

Sunday, September 16, 2012

How Tribal Women Stop Witch Hunts

Indian village women, organized around a small, low-interest loan program, aren't just making money, they are helping prevent the fatal witch hunts that can target their neighbors, according to researchers who worked in the tea plantations of Jalpaiguir, India.  Tribal women here form support groups when they receive the loans. These groups typically of about eight to 10 women have protected other women from these hunts, according to Soma Chaudhuri, a sociologist at Michigan State University, who studied witch hunts in her native India for seven months.

Witch hunts are a long-standing practice here. The tribal plantation workers are poor and illiterate, and have a desperate need to make sense of rampant diseases in villages with no doctors or medical facilities, Chaudhuri said.

In 2003, for example, villagers accused five women of witchcraft that caused the death of a male villager from a stomach illness. They were tied up, tortured and killed.

But women's groups have intervened to stop potential attacks. In one case documented in Chaudhuri's study, a woman was accused of causing disease in livestock. Group members gathered in a vigil around her home and the home of the accuser. They stated their case to the accuser's wife, who intervened. The accuser's husband ultimately recanted his accusation and asked forgiveness.

The loan program in question gives women low-interest, collateral-free "microcredit" loans of about 750 rupees ($18) to start their own businesses, such as basket weaving, tailoring or selling eggs. The women support one another through these small groups.

The activists behind the loans have encouraged the women to address domestic abuse, alcoholism and the witch hunts. And collectively, the women are able to resist the tradition of witch hunts, Chaudhuri said.

"Why would they go against something so risky, something that breaks tradition?" she said in a statement. "They do it because they believe in the ideals of the microcredit group – in women's development, family development and gender equality."

Chaudhuri's work with Anuradha Chakravarty of the University of South Carolina was published in the June 2012 issue of the journal Mobilization.
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References:

Live Science. 2012. “How Tribal Women Stop Witch Hunts”. Live Science. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/22901-how-tribal-women-stop-witch-hunts.html

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Human Impact Felt On Black Sea Long Before Industrial Era

When WHOI geologist Liviu Giosan first reconstructed the history of how the Danube River built its delta, he was presented with a puzzle.

In the delta's early stages of development, the river deposited its sediment within a protected bay. As the delta expanded onto the Black Sea shelf in the late Holocene and was exposed to greater waves and currents, rather than seeing the decline in sediment storage that he expected, Giosan found the opposite. The delta continued to grow. In fact, it has tripled its storage rate.

If an increase in river runoff was responsible for the unusual rapid build up of sediment in the delta, says Giosan, the question is, "Was this extraordinary event in the Danube delta felt in the entire Black Sea basin? And if so, what caused it?"

In answering those questions, Giosan and an international team of collaborators including environmental engineers, modelers, paleogeographers, and paleobiologists pieced together a unique history of the region that ultimately provides evidence for a transformative impact of humans on the Black Sea over hundreds, if not thousands of years. The study was published on August 30 in Scientific Reports, a new online journal of the Nature Publishing Group.

The largest and longest river in the European Union, the Danube is the source of over 60 percent of the freshwater running into the Black Sea, and therefore is a dominant factor in the biogeochemistry of this basin. Because the Black Sea is nearly enclosed, changes in its hinterland provoked by climate or people should be readily reflected there.

The research team reconstructed a 9000-year record of the delta's growth, and through various scientific techniques, developed and mapped against it a record of changes in the Black Sea's salinity, nutrients, and relative abundance of its ecosystem's major phytoplankton groups. Finally, they also examined the history of land use in the greater Danube watershed.

To reconstruct the salinity, the WHOI team analyzed sediments containing highly resistant organic compounds called alkenones, which are uniquely produced by Emiliania huxleyi -- the same photosynthetic organism oceanographers study to determine past sea surface temperatures. By examining the ratio of two hydrogen isotopes in the alkenones, they were able to map the salinity trend in the Black Sea over the last 6,500 years.

"One of the isotopes, deuterium, is not very common in nature," explains WHOI marine paleoecologist Marco Coolen, "and it doesn't evaporate as easily as other isotopes. Higher ratios of deuterium are indicative of higher salinity." Salinity began to rise in the Black Sea about 9000 years ago, when the ocean invaded the previously freshwater lake through the Straits of Bosporus, and continued to increase until approximately 3000 years ago, when the levels approached normal ocean values.

"But the trend since then is counter-intuitive," says Giosan. "The entire basin freshened, especially in the last 1,500 years." The likely explanation points to a increase in the river input combined with a reduced evaporation as the climate cooled at the time, he adds.

Such an influx of nutrient-rich river water would affect the composition of the ecosystem, and would be reflected by the ecological history of major phytoplankton groups in the Black Sea, such as diatoms and dinoflagellates.

Researchers traditionally conduct paleo studies of phytoplankton by using a microscope to count the fossil skeletons found in sediment cores. But, this method is limited because some phytoplankton leave no fossils, so, instead, Coolen looked for sedimentary genetic remains of the past inhabitants of the Black Sea water column.

"DNA offers the best opportunity to learn the past ecology of the Black Sea," says Coolen. "Calcareous and organic-walled dinocysts are frequently used to reconstruct past environmental conditions, but 90 percent of the dinoflagellate species do not produce such diagnostic resting stages, yet their DNA remains in the fossil record."

His analysis found that major phytoplankton groups in the Black Sea changed drastically over the last millennium. Beginning about 500 years ago, a rise in diatoms suggests there was more silicate available in the Black Sea. The team at WHOI also found an increase in the abundance of dinoflagellate DNA beginning about 650 years ago. Both of these changes are consistent with increased nutrient availability that would occur as a result of human activity -- the clearing of forests and increased agriculture. Interestingly, a significant drop in diatom DNA occurred in recent times when more recent human activity -- the damming of the rivers -- entered the scene.

The final piece of the picture comes from a model developed by Jed Kaplan, a scientist at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Kaplan looked at the expansion of lands cleared for agriculture in the Danube watershed as population grew and farming technology became more advanced over the last 7000 years ago. His findings agree very well with recently published studies of the relative abundance of grass pollen over tree pollen and the appearance of charcoal in the sediment record from clearing large swaths of trees by burning. All of these land signals point to human deforestation and increased agriculture.

The model suggests that deforestation of the lower basin of the Danube rapidly accelerated over the last millennium and especially in the last 500 years. In contrast in the western sector of the watershed, farther from the Black Sea, deforestation was already substantial as the Roman Empire expanded there.

"This story started by looking at how Danube River built its delta in the Black Sea," says Giosan. "But together these indicators tell a story of changing land use that ultimately changed the ecosystem of an entire sea."

The ability to define baselines and separate natural variability from human-induced changes is essential for understanding biogeochemical cycles and managing marine ecosystems, which ultimately depends on the detection and attribution of long term environmental trends, the authors write. "Our ancestors changed that baseline a long time ago in the Black Sea" says Giosan. "And they probably fertilized other coastal seas with nutrients inadvertently stripped from soils much earlier than we think."

Meanwhile, the Danube delta remains an extraordinarily lush, vibrant habitat, home to hundreds of species of birds and fish. "This is a unique piece of land -- the Danube delta -- blessed, productive, and important for countless forms of life," adds Giosan. "What is amazing to me is that we owe much of this biodiversity to our own history of changing Nature."
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References:

Science Daily. 2012. “Human Impact Felt On Black Sea Long Before Industrial Era”. Science Daily. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120904150102.htm

Friday, September 14, 2012

How language change sneaks in

Languages are continually changing, not just words but also grammar. A recent study examines how such changes happen and what the changes can tell us about how speakers' grammars work. The study, "The course of actualization", to be published in the September 2012 issue of the scholarly journal Language, is authored by Hendrik De Smet of the University of Leuven /Research Foundation Flanders. A preprint version is available online at: http://lsadc.org/info/documents/2012/press-releases/de-smet.pdf Historical linguists, who document and study language change, have long noticed that language changes have a sneaky quality, starting small and unobtrusive and then gradually conquering more ground, a process termed 'actualization'. De Smet's study investigates how actualization proceeds by tracking and comparing different language changes, using large collections of digitized historical texts. This way, it is shown that any actualization process consists of a series of smaller changes with each new change building on and following from the previous ones, each time making only a minimal adjustment. A crucial role in this is played by similarity.

Consider the development of so-called downtoners – grammatical elements that minimize the force of the word they accompany. Nineteenth-century English saw the emergence of a new downtoner, all but, meaning 'almost'. All but started out being used only with adjectives, as in her escape was all but miraculous. But later it also began to turn up with verbs, as in until his clothes all but dropped from him. In grammatical terms, that is a fairly big leap, but when looked at closely the leap is found to go in smaller steps. Before all but spread to verbs, it appeared with past participles, which very much resemble both adjectives and verbs, as in her breath was all but gone. So, changes can sneak into a language and spread from context to context by exploiting the similarities between contexts.

The role of similarity in language change makes a number of predictions. For one thing, actualization processes will differ from item to item because in each case there will be different similarities to exploit. English is currently seeing some nouns developing into adjectives, such as fun or key. This again goes by small adjustments, but along different pathways. For fun, speakers started from expressions like that was really fun, which they would adjust to that was very fun, and from there they would go on to a very fun time and by now some have even gone on to expressions like the funnest time ever. For key, change started from expressions like a key player, which could be adjusted to an absolutely key player, and from there to a player who is absolutely key. When the changes are over, the eventual outcome will be the same – fun and key will have all the characteristics of any other English adjective – but the way that is coming about is different.

Another prediction is that actualization processes will differ from language to language, because grammatical contexts that are similar in one language may not be in another. Comparing the development of another English downtoner, far from (as in far from perfect), to its Dutch equivalent, verre van, it is found that, even though they started out quite similar, the two downtoners went on to develop differently due to differences in the overall structure of English and Dutch. Importantly, this is one way in which even small changes may reinforce and gradually increase existing differences between languages.

Finally, this research can say something about how language works in general. Similarity is so important to how changes unfold precisely because it is important to how speakers subconsciously use language all the time. Presumably, whenever a speaker thinks up a new sentence and decides it is acceptable, they do so by evaluating its resemblance to previous sentences. In this respect, actualization processes are giving us a unique window on how similarity works in organizing and reorganizing speakers' internal grammars, showing just how sensitive speakers are to all sorts of similarities. Strikingly, then, the same similarity judgments that speakers make to form acceptable and intelligible sentences allow their grammars to gradually change over time.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “How language change sneaks in”. EurekAlert. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/lsoa-hlc083012.php

Thursday, September 13, 2012

EurekAlert. 2012. “Syrian obsidian discovery opens new chapter in Middle Eastern studies

An archaeologist from the University of Sheffield has revealed the origin and trading routes of razor-sharp stone tools 4,200 years ago in Syria.

Ancient sites and cultural heritage are under threat in Syria due to the current conflict. An interdisciplinary research team hopes this new discovery, which has major implications for understanding the world's first empire, will help to highlight the importance of protecting Syria's heritage.

Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, is smooth, hard, and far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making it a highly desired raw material for crafting stone tools for most of human history. In fact, obsidian tools continued to be used throughout the ancient Middle East for millennia beyond the introduction of metals, and obsidian blades are still used today as scalpels in specialised medical procedures.

In an interdisciplinary collaboration, researchers from social and earth sciences studied obsidian tools excavated from the archaeological site of Tell Mozan, located in Syria near the borders with Turkey and Iraq. Using novel methods and technologies, the team successfully uncovered the hitherto unknown origins and movements of the coveted raw material during the Bronze Age, more than four millennia ago.

Most of the obsidian at Tell Mozan (and surrounding archaeological sites) originated from volcanoes 200km away in what is now eastern Turkey, as expected from models of ancient trade developed by archaeologists over the last five decades. However, the team discovered a set of exotic obsidian artefacts originating from a volcano in central Turkey, three times farther away. Just as important as their distant origin is where the artefacts were found: a royal palace courtyard. The artefacts were left there during the height of the world's first empire, the Akkadian Empire, which invaded Syria in the Bronze Age. The find has exciting implications for understanding links between resources and empires in the Middle East.

Dr Ellery Frahm, Marie Curie Experienced Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology, led the research. He said: "This is a rare, if not unique, discovery in Northern Mesopotamia that enables new insights into changing Bronze-Age economics and geopolitics. We can identify where an obsidian artefact originated because each volcanic source has a distinctive 'fingerprint'. This is why obsidian sourcing is a powerful means of reconstructing past trade routes, social boundaries, and other information that allows us to engage in major social science debates."

Not only did Frahm and his collaborators identify the particular volcano where the artefacts originated, they were able to pinpoint the exact flank of the volcano where the obsidian was collected and determine that the raw material was gathered from two different spots on its slopes. Such specificity was possible using a combination of scientific techniques, including a portable X-ray analyser that can be brought to archaeological sites and instruments that measure weak magnetic signals within rocks.

The earliest techniques of matching Middle East obsidian artefacts to their volcanic origins were developed partly at the University of Sheffield by famed archaeologist Colin Renfrew, Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology from 1965 to 1972. Frahm said: "Decades later, we are continuing to refine their original techniques. New technologies allow us to try new approaches. Powerful analytical tools can now be brought with us to sites, and sensitive magnetic instruments enable us to distinguish quarries, a level of specificity not previously possible. Our findings at Tell Mozan reveal that, even in the Middle East, the birthplace of obsidian sourcing, there are still surprises."

Frahm points out: "Studying the use and origin of obsidian reveals some compelling parallels with modern-day Middle East and has resonance with issues that the region faces today. For example, we think that invading powers, intent on controlling access to valuable resources, would have faced resistance to occupation from small states across the region ruled by peoples who were ethnic minorities elsewhere in the Middle East.

"A mountain insurgency could have resulted in a blockade of natural resources, and the colonisers may have been forced to instead seek resources from more distant sources and forge alliances with other regional powers to raise their status. This was 4,200 years ago during the Bronze Age – the parallels to the recent history of the area are extraordinary."

Dr Frahm is also interested in the relationship between humanitarian and archaeological work in the region. He added: "I went to Syria as an American after the US had called Syria part of the 'Axis of Evil', and I only had positive experiences there. The degree of hospitality that I encountered was extraordinary. Perfect strangers took me into their home during my journey from Damascus to the site, which involved a nine-hour bus ride through the Syrian Desert. I was welcomed, fed, offered a shower and change of clothes, introduced to family and friends, and shown around town. Family members argued over whose house had the better accommodations for me to spend the night.

"The current situation in Syria is tragic and precarious. Because of both professional and personal interests, I follow developments in Syria closely. It can be so overwhelming and heartbreaking that I have to take a break from it, which, unlike the people who are living through the fighting, I have the luxury of doing. Whatever the future holds, there will be a lot of work to do there, both humanitarian and archaeological, and I'm very much interested in the interfaces between them. How can archaeology perhaps help Syria recover from this?"

His next study with Syrian obsidian artefacts explores what happened to trade and social networks when Bronze-Age cities were abandoned in the wake of a regional government collapse and increasing droughts due to climate changes.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “Syrian obsidian discovery opens new chapter in Middle Eastern studies”. EurekAlert. Posted: September 4, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/uos-sod090412.php

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Extinct Human Genome Reveals Brown-Eyed Girl

Genetic analysis of a fossil up to 80,000 years old reveals it belonged to a little girl with dark skin, brown hair and brown eyes.

The genome of a recently discovered branch of extinct humans known as the Denisovans that once interbred with us has been sequenced, scientists said today.

Genetic analysis of the fossil revealed it apparently belonged to a little girl with dark skin, brown hair and brown eyes, researchers said. All in all, the scientists discovered about 100,000 recent changes in our genome that occurred after the split from the Denisovans. A number of these changes influence genes linked with brain function and nervous system development, leading to speculation that we may think differently from the Denisovans. Other changes are linked with the skin, eyes and teeth.

"This research will help [in] determining how it was that modern human populations came to expand dramatically in size as well as cultural complexity, while archaic humans eventually dwindled in numbers and became physically extinct," said researcher Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Future research may turn up other groups of extinct humans in Asia "in addition to Neanderthals and Denisovans," Pääbo told LiveScience.

Although our species comprises the only humans left alive, our planet was once home to a variety of other human species. The Neanderthals were apparently our closest relatives, and the last of the other human lineages to vanish.

However, scientists recently revealed another group of extinct humans once lived at the same time as ours. DNA from fossils unearthed in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia in 2008 revealed a lineage unlike us and closely related to Neanderthals. The precise age of the Denisovan material remains uncertain — anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 years of age.

"The Denisovan genome is particularly close to my heart, because it was the first time that a new group of extinct humans was discovered and defined just from DNA sequence evidence and not from the morphology of bones," Pääbo said.

Denisovan genes unzipped

Now, based on only a tiny sample of genetic material from a finger bone, scientists have sequenced the complete genome of the Denisovans (pronounced deh-NEESE-so-vans), as they are now called.

To make the most of what little genetic material they had, the researchers developed a technique that unzipped the double strands of DNA in the bone, doubling the amount of DNA they could analyze. This enabled them to sequence each position in the genome about 30 times over, generating an extremely thorough genome sequence.

"We have very few errors in the sequences, even less errors than we often have when you sequence a person today," Pääbo said. "With just a few technical reservations, there is actually today then no difference in what we can learn genetically about a person that lived 50,000 years ago and from a person today, provided that we have well-enough preserved bones."

Comparing the Denisovan genome with ours confirmed past research suggesting the extinct lineage once interbred with ours and lived in a vast range from Siberia to Southeast Asia. The Denisovans share more genes with people from Papua New Guinea than any other modern population studied.

In addition, more Denisovan genetic variants were found in Asia and South America than in European populations. However, this likely reflects interbreeding between modern humans and the Denisovans' close relatives, the Neanderthals, rather than direct interbreeding with the Denisovans, researchers said.

Denisovans began to diverge from modern humans in terms of DNA sequences about 800,000 years ago. Among the genetic differences between Denisovans and modern humans are likely changes that "are essential for what made modern human history possible, the very rapid development of human technology and culture that allowed our species to become so numerous, spread around the whole world, and actually dominate large parts of the biosphere," Pääbo said.

Eight of these genetic changes have to do with brain function and brain development, "the connectivity in the brain of synapses between nerve cells function, and some of them have to do with genes that, for example, can cause autism when these genes are mutated," Pääbo added.

What makes humans special?

It makes a lot of sense to speculate that what makes us special in the world relative to the Denisovans and Neanderthals "is about connectivity in the brain," Pääbo said. "Neanderthals had just as large brains as modern humans had — relative to body size, they even had a bit larger brains. Yet there is, of course, something special in my mind that happens with modern humans. It's sort of this extremely rapid technological cultural development that comes, large societal systems, and so on. So it makes sense that, well, what pops up is sort of connectivity in the brain."

The fact that differences are seen between modern humans and Denisovans in terms of autism-linked genes is especially interesting, because whole books have been written "suggesting that autism may affect sort of a trait in human cognition that is also crucial for modern humans, for how we put ourselves in the shoes of others, manipulate others, lie, develop politics and big societies and so on," Pääbo said.

The genetic diversity suggested by this Denisovan sample was apparently quite low. This was probably not due to inbreeding, the researchers say — rather, their vast range suggests their population was initially quite small but grew quickly, without time for genetic diversity to increase as well.

"If future research of the Neanderthal genome shows that their population size changed over time in similar ways, it may well be that a single population expanding out of Africa gave rise to both the Denisovans and the Neanderthals," Pääbo said.

Intriguingly, comparing the X chromosome, which is passed down by females, to the rest of the genome, which is passed down equally in males and females, revealed "there is substantially less Denisovan genetic material in New Guinea on the X chromosome than there is on the rest of the genome,"researcher David Reich at Harvard Medical School in Boston told LiveScience.

One possible explanation "is that the Denisovan gene flow into modern humans was mediated primarily by male Denisovans mixing with female modern humans," Reich said. "Another possible explanation is that actually there was natural selection to remove genetic material on the X chromosome that came from Denisovans once that entered the modern human population, perhaps because it caused problems for the people who carried it."

These current Denisovan findings have allowed the researchers to re-evaluate past analysis of the Neanderthal genome. They discovered modern humans in the eastern parts of Eurasia and Native Americans actually carry more Neanderthal genetic material than people in Europe, "even though the Neanderthals mostly lived in Europe, which is really, really interesting," Reich said.

The researchers would now like to upgrade the Neanderthal genome to the quality seen with the Denisovan genome. The genetic techniques they used could also be employed in forensic investigations, and in analyzing other fossil DNA, said researcher Matthias Meyer, also at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
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References:

Choi, Charles. 2012. “Extinct Human Genome Reveals Brown-Eyed Girl”. Discovery News. Posted: August 30, 2012. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/human/mysterious-extinct-human-fossil-120830.html

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Does wisdom really come with age? It depends on the culture

"Wisdom comes with winters," Oscar Wilde once said. And it's certainly comforting to think that aging benefits the mind, if not the body. But do we really get wiser as time passes?

There are many way to define what exactly wisdom is, but previous literature suggests that having wisdom means that you are also good at resolving conflict. But conflict is not handled the same way across cultures. Americans have been shown to emphasize individuality and solve conflict in a direct manner, such as by using direct persuasion. In contrast, the Japanese place a greater emphasis on social cohesion, and tend to settle conflict more indirectly, using avoidance strategies or relying on mediation through another person.

In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientist Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo, Canada and his colleagues investigated how the resolution of conflict and, by extension, wisdom differ between Japanese and American cultures.

The researchers hypothesized that Japanese individuals, who tend to be socialized to value interpersonal harmony, would be better at resolving conflict and show more wisdom earlier in life. Americans, on the other hand, experience more conflict over time and the researchers hypothesized that this would result in continued learning about conflict resolution across the lifespan and greater wisdom later in life.

Japanese participants and American participants, ranging in age from 25 to 75, were asked to read newspaper articles that described a conflict between two groups and respond to several questions, including "What do you think will happen after that?" and "Why do you think it will happen this way?" Next, they read stories about conflict between individuals – including siblings, friends, and spouses – and answered the same questions.

The researchers measured the extent to which participants' responses illustrated six previously established characteristics of wise reasoning: (1) considering the perspectives of others, (2) recognizing the likelihood of change, (3) recognizing multiple possibilities, (4) recognizing the limits of one's own knowledge, (5) attempting to compromise, and (6) predicting the resolution of the conflict.

As Grossmann and his colleagues predicted, young and middle-aged Japanese participants showed higher wisdom scores than same-aged Americans for conflicts between groups. For conflicts between people, older Japanese still scored higher than older Americans, though this cultural difference was much smaller than the difference observed between the younger adults.

Interestingly, while older age was associated with higher wisdom scores for the American participants, there was no such relationship for the Japanese participants.

These findings underscore the point that culture continues to be important for human development, even into old age. While wisdom may come with winters for Americans, the same may not be true for other cultures.

"Cross-cultural researchers have been very good at situating their results in a cultural context, but don't often consider how lifespan development may contribute to cultural differences (or lack thereof)," says Grossmann. This study is one of the few extensive cross-cultural studies in psychology that includes people of different ages and different socio-economic backgrounds.

This research also shows that some abilities – specifically those involved in resolving social conflicts – remain intact into old age. Grossmann hopes that the study may act as an antidote to the detrimental ageism stereotypes in both Western and East Asian societies.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “Does wisdom really come with age? It depends on the culture”. EurekAlert. Posted: August 30, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/afps-dwr083012.php

Monday, September 10, 2012

People merge supernatural and scientific beliefs when reasoning with the unknown, study shows

Reliance on supernatural explanations for major life events, such as death and illness, often increases rather than declines with age, according to a new psychology study from The University of Texas at Austin.

The study, published in the June issue of Child Development, offers new insight into developmental learning.

"As children assimilate cultural concepts into their intuitive belief systems — from God to atoms to evolution — they engage in coexistence thinking," said Cristine Legare, assistant professor of psychology and lead author of the study.

"When they merge supernatural and scientific explanations, they integrate them in a variety of predictable and universal ways."

Legare and her colleagues reviewed more than 30 studies on how people (ages 5-75) from various countries reason with three major existential questions: the origin of life, illness and death.

They also conducted a study with 366 respondents in South Africa, where biomedical and traditional healing practices are both widely available.

As part of the study, Legare presented the respondents with a variety of stories about people who had AIDS. They were then asked to endorse or reject several biological and supernatural explanations for why the characters in the stories contracted the virus.

According to the findings, participants of all age groups agreed with biological explanations for at least one event. Yet supernatural explanations such as witchcraft were also frequently supported among children (ages 5 and up) and universally among adults.

Among the adult participants, only 26 percent believed the illness could be caused by either biology or witchcraft. And 38 percent split biological and scientific explanations into one theory. For example: "Witchcraft, which is mixed with evil spirits, and unprotected sex caused AIDS." However, 57 percent combined both witchcraft and biological explanations. For example: "A witch can put an HIV-infected person in your path." Legare said the findings contradict the common assumption that supernatural beliefs dissipate with age and knowledge.

"The findings show supernatural explanations for topics of core concern to humans are pervasive across cultures," Legare said. "If anything, in both industrialized and developing countries, supernatural explanations are frequently endorsed more often among adults than younger children."

The results provide evidence that reasoning about supernatural phenomena is a fundamental and enduring aspect of human thinking, Legare said.

"The standard assumption that scientific and religious explanations compete should be re-evaluated in light of substantial psychological evidence," Legare said. "The data, which spans diverse cultural contexts across the lifespan, shows supernatural reasoning is not necessarily replaced with scientific explanations following gains in knowledge, education or technology."
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. “People merge supernatural and scientific beliefs when reasoning with the unknown, study shows”. EurekAlert. Posted: August 30, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/uota-pms083012.php