2007 November » The Thinking Meat Project

Homo georgicus?

Human origins and evolution Comments Off

Nov 302007

If you’d like a little background on the oldest hominid fossils discovered outside of Africa, you might enjoy this article from the Chicago Tribune. It describes the work of paleoanthropologist David Lordkipanidze at the archaeological site at Dmanisi in the country of Georgia.

Dmanisi is a rare and rich site; workers there have found five hominid skulls in an area about the size of a large classroom, whereas in Africa you’d likely have to cover a hundred square miles to find that many. The skulls and other bones date back to around 1.8 million years ago, and represent the earliest known hominids to have left Africa. When these bones were first dated, they aroused a great deal of interest because no one at the time thought that there were any hominds outside of Africa that long ago. These relatively small-brained early humans called into question the idea that having a bigger brain was linked to the first migration out of Africa. Sorting out their place in the evolution of humankind has been and will likely continue to be interesting. They might represent a new species, tentatively dubbed Homo georgicus, or maybe a subspecies of Homo erectus.

This news article from the Leakey Foundation, written in 2002 about one of the newly discovered skulls, has more info and a photo.

Genes, environment, and depression

Brain and mind, Male/female Comments Off

Nov 292007

This press release from Duke has some surprising news about a common variant of a gene that affects the availability of serotonin in the brain. Women who had experienced significant stress at some time in their lives and carried a shorter form of the gene showed more signs of depression than women who had the longer variant or were not stressed, but for men it was the long variant that was associated with more symptoms of depression, and the short variant was linked to fewer symptoms. The two sources of stress the study looked at were growing up poor, or caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of advanced dementia. (I.e., they didn’t necessarily have to be current stressors.) I’m assuming the gene in question is SLC6A4, which encodes for the serotonin transporter (SERT) protein. (If you’ve heard earlier news about a gene related to serotonin transport being linked with depression, that’s the one.) This story gives an interesting twist to the fact that genes by themselves do not tell the whole story of who we are and how we work; environmental factors are also part of the story.

E.O. Wilson on science and religion

Being human 2 Responses »

Nov 282007

This essay by biologist E.O. Wilson, published on the New Scientist site, is an excerpt from his afterword to an edition of four books by Darwin that was published a couple of years ago. The essay describes three viewpoints on humans and their place in the universe: a religious view that sees us as created by a deity; political behaviorism, which sees us as more or less perfectible blank slates that can be shaped to the culture’s needs; and scientific humanism, which is the bedrock of my own worldview. Scientific humanism sees us as products of evolution, and scientific humanism alone really sees us as what I call thinking meat–intelligent animals whose nature is a unique and complicated blend of animal necessity and mental activity. Wilson goes on to predict that religion and scientific humanism are likely to go on butting heads, finding neither agreement nor accommodation, because the differences between the two are increasing as we learn more and more about biology.

He says that there’s something about religion that “divides people and amplifies societal conflict”. This brings to mind something that a friend of mine pointed out once. Science tends to hone in on an answer to a particular question; alternatives are pared away by peer-reviewed experimentation and replication of results. At its best, scientific discoveries can not only narrow down the possible answers to a question, but unite disparate facts and observations by finding the underlying order. Religion, on the other hand, is a much more fragmented thing. I doubt there ever was a single religion or deity that everyone on the planet knew, and even religions that have dominated huge segments of the Earth’s population have been characterized by sects and divisions. I’m not sure why this is so, but I think it has to do with the purposes of religion and science. Religion is much more shaped to the needs of a particular community or mindset, whereas science is tuned to the objective facts to be observed in the world. Wilson points out that religion harms as well as benefits humankind, and closes his essay by wondering if scientific humanism might be able to provide the benefits without the social costs of religion. I guess first we have to wait and see if it ever becomes more than a minority viewpoint, and then see how it does.

The origins and purpose of art

Being human, Human origins and evolution, Psychology Comments Off

Nov 272007

Following up on yesterday’s post about beauty and the brain, here’s an article from the New York Times about why humans create art. Natalie Angier writes about a symposium on art and evolution that took place recently. Among the theories that attempt to explain why we have art and how we began creating it, she mentions one I hadn’t heard before: Perhaps the roots of art lie in the interactions of mothers and babies. Independent scholar Ellen Dissanayake argues that the special use of language (motherese) and the reciprocal gestures and other interactions between mother and child may represent the building blocks from which art was created. It’s an intriguing hypothesis, and obviously I need to read some of Dissanakaye’s work. (It’s always good to see such a successful independent scholar.)

Beauty and the brain

Being human, Brain and mind, Psychology 1 Response »

Nov 262007

What makes a work of art beautiful? When people judge the beauty of a piece of sculpture, for example, are they simply expressing a personal opinion conditioned by their own experiences and personality, or are they responding to something intrinsic to the artwork that evokes the same response in all viewers? A recent brain imaging study indicates that the answer is: A little of both.

Italian researchers used fMRI to examine the brains of volunteers who were viewing images of classical and Renaissance art. Some images were true to the originals, while others had been tweaked a bit so that they no longer conformed to the golden ratio, a proportion long believed to be aesthetically appealing. The study revealed that when participants simply viewed the images, the original images sparked more brain activity in specific areas, including the insula (a brain structure that mediates emotional responses), than the manipulated images. However, when the participants rated the sculptures as beautiful or ugly, the right amygdala (an important emotional center in the brain) was active when they were viewing the beautiful ones.

This indicates that there are two distinct but not mutually exclusive processes at work in determining our response to art, giving rise to an objective evaluation based on the properties of the art itself, and a subjective evaluation based on personal experience. This story from Science Daily has more information, and if you really want to get into the details, here’s the original paper in PLoS One, one of the Public Library of Science open access journals.

A related story is this one from the Telegraph about a professor who’s studying neuroaesthetics, the ways that art interacts with our brain and trips our neural triggers. (He found, by the way, that when a viewer looked at paintings he or she registered as beautiful, there was more activity in the orbito-frontal cortex.)

Heroes and villains

Psychology Comments Off

Nov 252007

Good guys and bad guys–we all have to deal with them. It turns out that even babies appear to prefer the good guys, an indication that picking the right people to associate with might be an innate or at least easily learned skill. In a recent set of experiments, 6-month-old and 10-month-old babies were presented with a puppet show featuring wooden blocks of different shapes that acted out little stories of a character trying to climb a hill and being either helped or hindered. When the babies were allowed to grab for either the helpful or the obstructive shape, they preferred to reach for the helper. When a character was introduced who neither helped nor hindered, they preferred the helper to the neutral character, and the neutral character to the one who hindered the climber.

This study suggests that even very young children can identify and react to differences in behavior, and that the essential social skill of associating with the good guys and avoiding the bad guys is perhaps inherent or at least very easily developed. This article from Live Science and this press release posted on EurekAlert have more details.

Thinking Meat holiday gift list

General 1 Response »

Nov 232007

The season of gift-giving is upon us, and if you’d rather surf the ether than fight the crowds to do your shopping, here are some ideas to please the Thinking Meat types on your list.

Disclaimer: As far as I can tell, the vendors I link to are all reputable, but as with all mail order purchases, you should exercise due caution with your private information and your hard-earned dollars. Amazon is the only vendor listed below who pays me to sell stuff for them.

Books

OK, not everyone likes getting books as presents. Personally I love it, and if you have someone on your list who shares my passion for the printed word, I’d suggest the following:

The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans. This beautiful “family photo album” is full of information about our hominid forebears, including reconstructions of their faces (based on casts of fossil skulls) and descriptions of what their daily lives might have been like.
The Owner’s Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research 3rd Edition, by Pierce Howard. Applied thinking meat, basically— a compilation of information from recent brain research, and ways you can use the information in your everyday life.
The Atlas of Languages: The Origin and Development of Languages Throughout the World (Facts on File Library of Language and Literature Series). This atlas provides lots of information about the languages of the world, where they are spoken, and the relationships between them. The presentation is far from perfect, but this is, as far as I can tell, the only atlas of languages for a non-specialist audience that’s currently available, and it’s not bad.
The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. A reference work that covers all the ways thinking meat has found to get through life without a belief in a supernatural deity.
Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins, by Carl Zimmer. A beautiful and well-written account of human origins and evolution.
Monkey Portraits, by Jill Greenberg and Paul Weitz. Greenberg’s photographs of monkeys and apes capture facial expressions that express a range of moods and emotions.

Brain treats

For those who entertain a lot, the brain gelatin mold from the NeuroMart might be just the thing. Certainly anyone who serves up a gelatin brain would have to be the hostess (or host) with the mostest, wouldn’t you think? The NeuroMart also offers such delicacies as gummy brains.
Pushindaisies.com sells chocolate brain treats, little milk chocolate brains that each contain a cherry inside. The description says they’re anatomically accurate, but at that size I don’t know how accurate they can be (not to mention the cherry). A dozen of these gems weigh in at only six ounces and cost $14.95, which is pretty steep, but if chocolate brains are your way of saying “I love you”, maybe this is the gift you’re looking for. You can also get a one-pound milk chocolate brain, also billed as anatomically correct.

Brain models and charts

The Anatomical Chart Company offers a variety of posters and models depicting the brain. These really are anatomically correct.

Brain jewelry and trinkets

Made With Molecules offers a variety of necklaces, earrings, keychains, and the like based on the shapes of some of everybody’s favorite molecules (for example, serotonin, dopamine, estrogen, testosterone, and caffeine).
The NeuroMart has all kinds of gift possibilities, including brain earrings and other wearable goodies.

Donations

For those who have everything, you might consider a donation in their name to a cause they believe in. This list is not intended to be inclusive; it just offers a few possibilities for supporting research on Thinking Meat topics.

This first one involves both a donation and a gift: you contribute data to a worthy cause and you also get some information about your own genetic history. If you buy a kit from the Genographic Project, you can do a simple cheek swab test and have your DNA analyzed to find out your deep ancestry–essentially, the route your long-ago ancestors followed out of Africa and where they wound up. You can contribute your results to the database, furthering the research of the project. (The project will know your DNA only by a code that is not linked to your name or any other personal information, so your privacy is protected. The value of the project lies in the aggregation of data from many contributors.)
The Alex Foundation supports Irene Pepperberg’s work with African grey parrots.
The National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression funds research into brain and behavioral disorders.
The Leakey Foundation is dedicated to increasing “scientific knowledge and public understanding of human origins, evolution, behavior, and survival.”
The Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation supports mental health education and research.
Terralingua supports research and educational projects aimed at protecting the “future of the world’s biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity”.
The Alzheimer’s Association supports research and provides information and help aimed at improving the care of those with Alzheimer’s and improving brain health.
The Brain Research Foundation funds education and research into brain science and brain health.
The Dana Foundation supports research and education and sponsors events in brain science, immunology, and arts education.
The Children’s Brain Research Foundation works to support “the prevention, early diagnosis, effective treatment and cure of brain disorders in children and adolescents”.
The Great Ape Trust supports conservation efforts and research into the intelligence of great apes, as well as providing sanctuary for these primates.
The International Brain Research Foundation supports research and education in the neurosciences.

In denial

Psychology Comments Off

Nov 222007

Here’s another good article from The New York Times, this one about the social uses of denial. Taking no notice of bad behavior on the part of ourselves or those we love, or actively recasting behavior in more palatable terms, is often seen as dishonest or gutless. However, maybe it’s not always a bad thing. This article describes some recent research that suggests that a certain level of thick-skinned inattention appears to be vital for keeping relationships intact. As with so many things in life, figuring out when to ignore and when to address bad behavior is a question of balance.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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