What If Humans Were Designed to Last?

In the eyes of evolution, individuals lose their purpose after they reach the end of their reproductive lives. After the creation of offspring, natural selection has no further role to play for the aging individual. If you've had kids and aren't going to have any more, your death has no effect on the genetics of your population anymore. 

Humans, though, do live past their reproductive prime, and more so than many other animals. Evolutionary biologists have argued that the potential for old age in humans has to do with two things. One, men never lose their reproductive potential, and two, post-menopausal women can serve to aid in the rearing of their children's children, thus facilitating their own biological fitness, albeit in a round about way. But this potential for old-age extensions of fitness was not strong enough as a selective pressure for our bodies to have evolved to maintain full functioning in old age. Young people in their prime who died early were still typically more fit than those individuals who survived to extreme old age. 

In this article, from a 2001 issue of Scientific American, the authors look at the human body from a mechanical perspective. They evaluate the most common issues associated with aging, such as arthritis, hearing loss, and vaso-constriction, and propose "fixes" inspired by comparative biology and engineering. It shows how evolution could have resulted in a completely different "human" if selective forces had favored long-life over early reproductive success.

If humans were built to last...

Facebook's New Gender Options

Just last week, Facebook rolled at the newest update to the popular social media platform. As Facebook often serves as the medium for social exchange, cultural development, and identity construction among many of its members, the decision to add more than fifty new gender options to the social platform is a fascinating case by which the interface between social reality and cyber space may be studied. 

Facebook's New Gender Options

Fashion, Age, and Identity

As a means of exploring fashion as a marker of age and identity, a photographer asks young people and their older relatives to swap clothes, with these results:

For more photos, visit Qozop

A Human Map: Interactive Genetic History

I hope that you all have kept your minds sharp over these past couple of snow days and are ready to delve back into some anthropology! As we move forward in our discussion of genetics and forces of evolution and anthropology, I found this following topic to be extremely interesting and relevant.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers detailed the genetic mixing between 95 populations across Europe, Africa, Asia and South America during 100 historical events over the last 4,000 years. They have analyzed the 95 groups across the globe, producing an interactive “atlas” of mixing dates, places and mixing populations.

The admixture process.

In summary, the way in which humans have spread around the globe produces distinct populations, and small genetic differences between separated populations arise (although most variation is still shared among groups). When groups come back together – for example due to migrations or invasions - and have children, this is called genetic admixture, and leaves a characteristic signature in DNA. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, Oxford's Dept. of Statistics, and the UCL Genetics Institute have used this DNA from people around the world to identify mixture events and find out who the groups were that mixed – often to the level of individual countries – and when the mixing occurred.

For example, if we take a look at the American Maya, their signal of mixing between multiple groups agrees with groups and timing for European (i.e. Spanish) settlers in the region, and West African migration to the Americas through European slavery. The reign of the Mongol empire seems to show particular influence, and with European colonialism, the Arab slave trade and European traders on the Silk Road mixing with people in China, even the collapse of vast empires such as this one and the end of ancient colonialism did not affect the genetic legacy of these events and people.

Take a minute to explore the map for yourself!

The Illusion of Skin Color

In our lectures on race, we've discussed how various phenotypes have been and are used to categorize people and populations. Skin color is, and has been, the most influential characteristic in this process. While many people think that skin color is attributable to biological "races," genetics has shown that there is less difference between groups and more similarity in the world-wise distributions of skin pigmentation. The video above is another TED talk. This time, by Nina Jablonski, a noted biological anthropologist and geneticist who speaks to these issues and presents the case for a geographical conception of skin color.

Breaking down Natural Selection

I found this little Youtube video on natural selection that I thought would be a good tool for reviewing and learning Darwin's theory of natural selection. This video does a great job of breaking down the theory and explaining how Darwin came to this understanding of nature.

Natural selection essentially states that environmental conditions select for specific traits over others, allowing individuals that possess those traits to produce more offspring than others in the population without those traits. Individuals within a population that have traits that are adapted well to their environmental conditions are considered to possess "fitness."

I am sure many of you have heard the phrase "survival of the fittest," which was coined not by Darwin, but his one of his contemporaries, Herbert Spencer. Another article, Why survival of the fittest is wrong, explains why this phrase does not accurately describe the theory of natural selection. It is not that you have to be the BEST to be fit, you just have to be able to survive long enough to reproduce and ensure the survival of your offspring. So, in other words, its not that you have to be the fastest to escape a hungry bear, you just need to NOT be the slowest!

You Inherit More Than Just Genes...

DNA is not the whole story of how we inherit genetic information from our parents (and grandparents). In fact, researchers are finding that environmental factors during the lifetime of our parents and grandparents influence how and when our DNA is expressed. So, you might be wondering how is this possible?

Epigenetics attempts to identify the mechanisms by which heritable information is transferred between generations that is not caused by changes in DNA. Though the processes and mechanisms associated with epigenetics are complicated, the TED talk that I have linked does a really good job of breaking down the known mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance.

Race Remixed: The Changing Face of America

Jordan Spencer, 18 and Celeste Seda, 26 for National Geographic.

We've been talking about the social constructions of race ethnicity in class, and these are issues that we've all experienced day to day. Our nation is growing by the minute and we have to take time to come to terms with the new face of our nation and issues that it brings up. Diversity drives innovation and expands consumer bases, and affects us politically, socially, and economically. As this article details, the number of Americans who consider themselves multiracial grew faster than those who identify as a single race.

This may be explained by a February 2012 Pew Research report that used Census data to show that the number of intermarriages has more than doubled since 1980, from 6.7 percent of new marriages then to 15 percent in 2010. It credited growing public acceptance of mixed-race relationships as one reason for the rise. For generations, there had been a taboo surrounding the issue of intermarriage, especially here in the Deep South, but the times have been changing. This is particularly evident in the story of Sonia Cherail Peeples and Michael Peeples, married with two sons, who met as students at the University of Southern Mississippi. They have faced criticism as well as acceptance.

Despite gains socially for people of mixed race and intermarriage, there are still issues with the way race and ethnicity are classified in our nation. Specifically, many Latinos argue that the country’s race categories — indeed, the government’s very conception of identity — do not fit them. Here is an excerpt from a recent NY Times article in 2012 on this issue:

Latinos, who make up close to 20 percent of the American population, generally hold a fundamentally different view of race. Many Latinos say they are too racially mixed to settle on one of the government-sanctioned standard races — white, black, American Indian, Alaska native, native Hawaiian, and a collection of Asian and Pacific Island backgrounds.

Increasingly, this issue has become more than just confusion over identity, but also a political battle. With Census numbers determining various government decisions, accurate numbers are becoming more important than ever. The question is now, how do we deal with Americans' new and ever-changing sense of self?

Julie Weiss, 33 and Maximillian Suguira, 29 for National Geographic.

How do you define yourself and the people around you?

What's in a Name? NFL Team Name Controversy.

Many Native American groups have posed that the Washington "Redskins" team name is offensive. (Read a little about it here!) Posted here is a recent commercial ad created by multiple Native American groups with their reasoning behind opposing the NFL team's name. 

The video is beautifully made and packs a powerful message.

Watch for yourself, definitely food for thought!

Let Me Introduce You To My Cousins, Lupita Nyong'o And Louis C.K.

Just out today is a great little NPR piece that tackles the question of why the racial and ethnic identification of media stars matters to the average American consumer, as well as why racial and ethnic typologies are so confounding and illusive. To do so, it considers numerous celebrities including well-known comedians Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K. (whose parodies of the topic are embedded as links in the article). Here's a little taste of the article:

Claiming a public figure lets us highlight important aspects of that person that cannot be immediately discerned by looking at their name, their face or hearing them speak. One association we believe is self-evident, that's to the long history of the "one-drop rule" in the U.S., is Blackness, though projects like (1)one Drop ask us to rethink that category's supposed obviousness. But Latinos - and other non-white, non-black categories - notoriously confound. And one common response to being hidden in plain sight is the now clichéd listicle "20 celebrities you didn't know were Latino/Arab/Asian."

Want more food for thought, make sure to check out the informative (and in some cases funny) links embedded in the article: Let Me Introduce You To My Cousins, Lupita Nyong'o and Louis C.K.

The Anthropology of BRAINSSSssss....

Zombies are every-where. Zombies have lept from the folklore of cultures around the world and are now invading popular culture. They are in movies, on TV, and are reimagined in an almost endless number of video games. And they don't stop there. Zombies are invading art and marketing. Zombies are well known for eating brains, but in reality its our brains that can't stop consuming zombies!

Where did this modern zombie craze come from and why? That's the topic of these two articles. The first takes a look at the biological basis for zombies in Haiti, a country well known anthropologically for its rich folklore and its history of revolution and poverty. What are Haitian "zombies" and are they real?

A Medical Study of the Haitian Zombie

The second article discusses the explosion of zombies in American pop culture. There's more to America's zombie craze than all of us wanting a good scare.

The American Fascination With Zombies

Cultural Heritage and Development in the Balance: Prehistoric Village Found in Downtown Miami

Archaeological sites are depositories of cultural heritage that can only be accessed through meticulous archaeological exploration and analysis. Yet, "Since time immemorial, archaeological sites have been exploited for knowledge and for treasure, looted for objects, destroyed out of idle curiosity, and plundered for material for new construction" (Getty Conservation Institute website). However, in a world where humans inhabit most of the globe, and where a majority of sites are located in multi-use areas, the "looting" of archaeological sites is only one of many causes of site destruction. Wars, human recreational activities, anthropogenic fires, vandalism, and a host of other human activities cause site damage or loss. As a result, preserving sites has become a significant challenge within the field of archaeology today. Increasingly the battle for site conservation is occurring in urban areas. 

Urbanization and urban development, in the form of building construction, is a major threat to archaeological sites. A case in point is the "extremely important" prehistoric village recently found in downtown Miami. Last Monday, the Miami Herald reported that this site is "likely one of the most significant prehistoric sites in the United States."Yet, the finds "have placed public officials and a big downtown developer in a major quandary. The Tequesta village site covers roughly half of a long, vacant, two-acre city block on the north side of the river where the developer, MDM Development Group, plans to build movie theaters, restaurants and a 34-story hotel. The project would cover most of the block, including the full archaeological site." To find out just what is so special about this site, and what developers, city officials, and preservationists are planning to do about the development that threatens it, read on at: Prehistoric Village Found in Downtown Miami. 

As you can see, while real world archaeology may not play out as it does in the Indiana Jones blockbuster movies, there can be significant drama surrounding archaeology. The Archaeological Institute of America  website insists that "preserving the world's archaeological resources and cultural heritage for the benefit of people in the present and in the future" is imperative. Yet, in a climate of rapid and expansive development, it seems that archaeologists cannot dig fast enough. At the same time, most leaders in government are far more focused on economic growth through development than on the cultural heritage to be found at archaeological sites. In such an environment, what is to be done?

The Mask You Live In

Now that you've seen Miss Representation, you are probably extremely curious to know more about the social construction of masculinity. Luckily, the makers of Miss Representation are now producing a sequel that explores just that. It is entitled, "The Mask You Live In." Here's a preview:

For more information also check out: "The Mask You Live In."

‘Williams,’ the Princess and the Gender Pay Gap

Image from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAiZZCu51LdIuVNkEReR6Kf6msk24BM2qRFC2LBBOYainYXk7X1noixzybLYFsIWdA8CbuVSmwJhImPwkjBLAWmDOo95YzelxYjvzoovZCMvaurP0Vg2Dq5ZKpHyeXRUx9_Kviot80i0EF/s1600/princess.png

A few days ago, New York Times columnist Charles B. Blow tackled the issue of the gender pay gap as informed by gender stereotypes and gender bias. Here's a quote:

A 2012 study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that, while the pay gap varied by occupation, "Women's median earnings are lower than men's in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women."

For more, read: 'Williams,' the Princess and the Gender Pay Gap

Reconciling Race in Forensic Anthropology

As a biological anthropologist, I find the topic of race to be rather compelling since it, at best, is a poor indicator of human variation. Race's relationship with forensic anthropology is particularly interesting since forensic anthropologists are often expected to be able to determine the race of deceased individuals looking only at skeletal material. As we have already discussed in class, race is not based on biological categorizations, so how exactly are forensic anthropologists able to determine race?

To answer that question, "Race-Reconciled" Re-Debunks Race is a blog post that draws from a recent article in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology that explains in detail how forensic anthropologists determine "race" using statistical programs such as FORDISC:

"Wow. Forensic anthropologists do not determine race from bones. What actually happens is forensic anthropologists match bones probabilistically against known existing assortments. These assortments can be anything socially relevant. Changing the context of bone discovery could lead to different predictive classifications-of the same bones."

So, if forensic anthropologists are not really determining race from bones, then why do they continue to perpetuate the 'race' myth?

Pragmatically, forensic anthropologists are expected to be able to determine race. Race is an important social construction in our society. Therefore, it is often required to be able to accurately identify individuals in a legal context. Consequently, it is an assessment that cannot be ignored by professional forensic anthropologists. This situation is essentially a catch-22; attempting to identify 'race' perpetuates the assumption that race is biological, but not attempting to identify 'race' may delay or deny justice for the deceased.

Language Extinction and the Spread of Esperanto

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimate that, "if nothing is changes, half of the 6,000 plus languages spoken today will disappear by the end of this century. With the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented languages, humanity would lose not only a cultural wealth but also important ancestral knowledge, embedded, in particular, in indigenous languages"(http://www.unesco.org/ new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/). To help offset massive language extinction in the coming century, linguists interested in language preservation are doing all they can to document languages while their last living speakers are still alive. To discover what languages are in danger and where their speakers are located, see the Endangered Languages Project interactive map. Then browse their video collection and check out their "Knowledge and Sharing" links to learn about what they are doing to preserve these endangered languages. 

While it might be depressing to think about massive language death, there are those who embrace the idea of shedding languages and the linguistic diversity they embody. They advocate instead that we should all embrace one transnational language. Esperanto is the most widely spoken "constructed, international, auxiliary language" in the world. It was invented by L.L. Zamenhof, aka. Doktoro Esperanto ("esperanto" = "one who hopes") and introduced in the 1887 publication, Unua Libro. The purpose of the new language was to provide an easy to learn, politically neutral, transnational language of peace and world unity. It is estimated that Esperanto is spoken by one hundred thousand to two million speakers worldwide today, with approximately one thousand native speakers. Lean more from One Show: 

What do you think? Is linguistic diversity something priceless, a phenomenon to be embraced and protected? Is it something that only creates divisions and discord, a phenomenon to be discarded as quickly as possible? Is there some in-between position, one that embraces diversity and unity simultaneously? 

Universal Grammar or Linguistic Relativity?

In class we discussed Chomsky's concept of Universal Grammar and contrasted it with the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, otherwise known as the principle of linguistic relativity. Whereas the universal grammar hypothesis posits that the underlying structure of the human brain determines (or at least constrains) the human capacity for language, which is why all languages share a set of characteristics that are true of all languages, extreme linguistic relativity suggests that language itself limits (or at least influences) the ways in which language speakers conceptualize their world and this affects their cognitive processes.  

We examined the evidence for both hypothesis and tried to determine which one best characterizes the human capacity for language. Much of this evidence rested on the analysis of variation across languages. Through the comparison and contrast of various studies, we found that there are in actually two variants of the linguistic relativity hypothesis, the "strong" variant and the "weak" variant, which can be encapsulated as follows: 

1. Strong: language determines thought and linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories
2. Weak: linguistic categories and usage influence thought and behavior, both linguistic and non-linguistic

As you know, linguists have tested the various hypotheses by analyzing comparisons of color terms across multiple languages as well as folk taxonomies. More recently, they have moved beyond the analysis of color terminology and are now seeking to understand the implications of linguistic differences in spatial terminology. How does language affect people's conception of space? Linguists have found that in cultures that use geographic features or cardinal directions to define space, space is conceptualized differently than in "left-right" cultures. This is fascinating, but dare we stop there? Linguists are also currently exploring how differences in numerical terminology across languages might affect thought, as well as the capacity for thought. This is all explained wonderfully by Stanford University Professor, Dr. Robert Sapolsky: 

These are compelling arguments. All in all, however, given the evidence for both hypotheses, it might be prudent to surmise that our human linguistic reality falls somewhere inbetween linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism; The anatomy, physiology, and genetic structure of the human brain structures thought which is then acted upon by culture to create various language systems that then influence/constrain thought. 

To discover more about the newest research language and cognition see: 

How Language Seems to Shape One's View of the Word.

The Truth About Gender Inequality In Film

Controversy has recently been swirling around the new, critically acclaimed film "Saving Mr. Banks," starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson. The film ostensibly centers around a charming Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and his courtship of an irascible P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), not for love, but for the film rights to her book, Mary Poppins. (Disclaimer: having not yet seen the film, these comments are based solely on published responses to it). But why all the controversy? Some critics and children's book aficionados object to the film's negative portrayal of P.L. Travers, a women who fights against the misappropriation, or "Disney-ification" of her literary creation. These critics especially take offense at the film's uneven portrayal of Travers in light of its simultaneous erasure of  Disney's well-documented, yet unpalatable anti-Semitic, anti-labor past. Responding to this critique, some have pointed out that by all biographical accounts, P.L. Travers was in actuality a "frustrating and unkind" person (See Is Mr. Banks Too Hard on 'Mary Poppins' Creator?). Yet, is whether or not she was in fact a difficult individual relevant? As Amy Nicholson points out in her opinion piece, 

Why does it matter that Saving Mr. Banks sabotages its supposed heroine? Because in a Holly wood where men still pen 85 percent of all films, there's something sour in a movie that roots against a woman who asserted her artistic control by asking to be a co-screenwriter. (Another battle she lost - Mary Poppins' opening credits list Travers as merely a "consultant.") Just as slimy is the sense that this film, made by a studio conglomerate in a Hollywood dominated by studio con-glomerates, is tricking us into cheering for the corporation over the creator. We take sides because we can't imagine living in a world without the songs the Sherman brothers wrote for the film: "Let's Go Fly a Kite," "Feed the Birds," "Chim Chim Cher-ee." We wouldn't have had to either way; if Mary Poppins had collapsed, Walt planned to package up the songs wholesale for Bedknobs and Broomsticks. (http://www.laweekly.com/2013-12-12/film-tv/saving-mr-banks-mary-poppins/)

To me, what is interesting about this conflict is that it exhibits rising concern over the interpretation and representation of film history. Thinking about this made me wonder, just what is the social and historic context of the debate? Although the answer undeniably complex, I just came across a new and enlightening infographic created by the New York Film Academy (NYFA) that might be a suitable starting point for considering the problem: Gender Inequality in Film.

It may be a widely known fact that throughout film history very few women have been film directors and producers. Yet, aren't we all just a little surprised to find that today women are still so little represented at every level across the industry? In this sense, isn't P.L Travers just one casualty among many, in the sense that we all lose when women are absent from a globalizing industry that produces our most pervasive images of ourselves? The NYFA stated that, 

By shedding light on gender inequality in film, we hope to start a discussion about what can be done to increase women's exposure and power in big-budget films. 

What do you think? Is it up to those in the film industry to decrease the gap, or are we viewers also somehow implicated in the widespread gender inequality found across the film industry today? What do you think are the reasons of this phenomenon, and what can be done about it?


The above image of Julie Andrews (actress who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Mary Poppins in the 1964 Disney hit classic Mary Poppins), Walt Disney, and P.L. Travers was taken from: http://dancelines.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Scan089-e1382354206827.jpg

Las Cholitas

http://joaowainer.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/cholas0241.jpg

Las Cholitas, the female lucha libre wrestlers of El Alto, Bolivia regularly attract over a thousand spectators a their sold out fighting matches. The subject of an award wining 2006 documentary entitled the Fighting Cholitas (directed by Mariam Jobrani and available for viewing through Amazon Prime), the story of these remarkable indigenous Bolivian female wrestlers provides a case study for examining the ways in which gender roles, gender stereotypes, gender bias, gender stratification, and resulting gender gaps constrain women's access to participation in the public sphere, an arena of life traditionally reserved for men. It also documents how shifting gender roles can help increase women's social and economic mobility. See it for yourself on Dateline: 

Wrestling Women

For more information on the place of fighting matches in highland Bolivian society, also check out the 2005 New York Times feature on Las Cholitas: 

In This Corner, in the Founcy Skirt and Bowler Hat...