2012’s Cheap Thrills thru Evolution in Review
I sit in Highland, NY at my in-laws’ watching crappy bowl games (Rutgers v. Va Tech, can either of you find an offense?), reading a cool manuscript draft about psychoneuroimmunological disparity in...
View ArticleFireside Trance drives Selection for Enhanced Attention & Working Memory via...
Fireside hypnotizability Following up on a previous post tracking down the original sources for the December Smithsonian piece about hearth fires & cognitive evolution, evolutionary psychologist...
View ArticleMilking Gorillas
I will do a more thorough summary from the Human Biology Association & American Association of Physical Anthropology annual joint conferences in the near future based on my rabid tweeting from...
View ArticleThe Wrong Holy Ghost
Out this week in Ethos is a paper I wrote called “‘The Wrong Holy Ghost'” Discerning the Apostolic Gift of Discernment using a Signaling and Systems Theoretical Approach.” It’s about an incident I...
View ArticleUniversity Greek Systems are Natural Experiments for Multi-Level Selection...
I was talking with a UA EvoS student & member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority the other day about the current controversy here in Tuscaloosa. Last week, a municipal school board election was...
View ArticleOf Epigenetic Aggression & Silver Foxes
Originally posted on the “Biology, Culture, & Evolution” blog of the UA Anthropology Blog Network at http://anthropology.ua.edu/blogs/ant475/2013/09/24/of-epigenetic-aggression-silver-foxes/ ....
View ArticleWhat about a Lentil is Less Creative?
Catching up again on articles sent to me over the past few years, a 2010 Science summary by Ann Gibbons of a Current Biology piece by Philipp Gunz & colleagues (“Brain development after birth...
View ArticleMenstrual Huts Signal Paternal Certainty
An article from 2012 by Beverly Strassmann & colleagues is the first piece I think I’ve read that connects religious signaling to actual reproductive fitness, instead of merely group commitment...
View ArticleWe Need Neandertals or Some as Yet Unknown But Genetically Similar Population...
A couple years ago when I first started blogging here, my friend John Edvalson asked me right out of the gate my opinion on the Neandertal-sapiens interbreeding controversy. I think I skirted an answer...
View ArticleIs Cunnilingus an Adaptation to Increase Intercourse Length & Increase the...
Several years ago a student of mine (Christy McGee) in my “Anthropology of Sex” class was studying highly promiscuous women with the hypothesis that they would be averse to cunnilingus. She suggested...
View ArticleThe Endemicity & Pervasiveness of Sexual Harassment
I just came back from great presentation & networking conferences, as usual elated by the collaborative opportunities & feedback about my work & the performances of my students &...
View ArticleTattooing Primes the Immune System
…But First, a Test of the “Rap Guide to Evolution”… A few weeks ago I presented a poster at the Human Biology Association annual scientific meeting about the roles of emotions in learning about...
View ArticleA World Famous African-American Scientist Puts the Presidential Election in...
On Wednesday, the day after our 2017 presidential election, I dreaded having to put on my host face to go out to dinner with Dr. Joseph Graves, our ALLELE speaker for Thursday. I couldn’t really stand...
View ArticleSabbatical is Here!
Have I started relaxing yet? Everyone asks me this. Do y’all not know me? We just arrived at my in-laws for the holiday, & I’m already thinking about how to fill my days. I don’t relax well. But I...
View Article#2016Highlights Month-by-Month: Part 1
Though the end of 2016 was a miserable fucker of a bitch, most of the year was awesome, and it’s important that we have a little perspective. At my house, we have a dinner ritual called “Good Thing/Bad...
View Article#2016Highlights Month-by-Month: Part 2
Contrary to the sense of things at the end with the triumph of he-who-shall-not-be-named and the demise of so many beloved friends and celebrities, 2016 was actually a banner friggin’ year for some of...
View ArticleTattoo Talk, Haircut, and a Shave
I spent two weeks in Wilmington, NC to work on an article from our Family and the Field Study with Michaela Howells. Our data look fascinating. It’s not so much remarkable as confirmatory and solid. We...
View ArticleOf “Toxic” Tattooed Lymph Nodes and Public Relations
I was heartened this week by conversations with visiting ALLELE lecturer Nina Jablonski, one of the world’s foremost experts on skin biology and evolution. I was glad to see that she discussed...
View ArticleIs tattooing a costly honest signal of fitness?
Last year I published a book chapter synthesizing an evolutionary perspective on tattooing for our Evolution Education in the American South volume and concluded by wondering whether athletes,...
View ArticleMalu is Like a Golden Ticket (Pt. 1)
Please consider contributing supporting the Inking of Immunity 2018 field season at Experiment.com/InkingImmunity. Prologue Instead of syllabus day, I read this story on the first day of my Fall 2017...
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