Nov 20, 2019 03:50 PM
(This post was last modified: Nov 20, 2019 03:58 PM by C C.)
Women who have given birth have younger brains (competitive youth retention sports)
https://sciencenorway.no/brain-childbirt...ns/1595402
INTRO: Tired toddler mums may finally be able to take some comfort in their exhaustion. It turns out they may have been through a rejuvenation cure by having a baby. At least this is what several Norwegian and international researchers have found in a recent study. The brains of mothers appeared to be on average between five and six months younger than the brains of their peers with no children. Advanced brain image analyses enable researchers to calculate brain age with high precision. This technology can provide information about the brain's condition and health. The brain differences emerged when the researchers examined the brain structure of more than 12 000 British women between the ages of 40 and 70, based on images in a biobank... (MORE)
Were animal ancestors bisexual? (cost/benefits game)
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/were-...s-bisexual
EXCERPT: The paradox of same-sex relations in animals and humans has long confounded evolutionary scientists because it produces no offspring and, by their reasoning, should thus have been snuffed out through the laws of natural selection. [...] Perhaps we’ve been looking at it all wrong, suggest Julia Monk, from Yale University, US, and colleagues ... in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution ... They propose an alternative notion that, “through a subtle shift in perspective, moves away from the expectation that the origin and maintenance of SSB [same-sex sexual behaviour] is a problem in need of a solution”.
[...] Logically, when a trait is so prevalent, Monk and co-authors argue, it’s reasonable to presume it arose in a clade’s roots. Yet this likely explanation has been neglected in evolutionary studies of homosexual behaviour. In challenging previous assumptions, they develop a complex model drawing on ecological, evolutionary and developmental factors that influence same sex relations in the same way as they do other traits. This extends how costs and benefits can be perceived and how they “vary with factors such as levels of sexual selection, sexual polymorphism and sex recognition as well as encounter rate and social complexity, in addition to individual plasticity”.
[...] the authors note that the dominating heterosexual, patriarchal culture has biased evolutionary biology’s underlying, culturally acceptable assumptions. ... “The notion that SSB is a recently evolved and distinct phenomenon from ‘heterosexual’ sex... is symptomatic of the kinds of binary essentialism that hinder not only social liberation and equity, but also scientific discovery.” (MORE - details)
https://sciencenorway.no/brain-childbirt...ns/1595402
INTRO: Tired toddler mums may finally be able to take some comfort in their exhaustion. It turns out they may have been through a rejuvenation cure by having a baby. At least this is what several Norwegian and international researchers have found in a recent study. The brains of mothers appeared to be on average between five and six months younger than the brains of their peers with no children. Advanced brain image analyses enable researchers to calculate brain age with high precision. This technology can provide information about the brain's condition and health. The brain differences emerged when the researchers examined the brain structure of more than 12 000 British women between the ages of 40 and 70, based on images in a biobank... (MORE)
Were animal ancestors bisexual? (cost/benefits game)
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/were-...s-bisexual
EXCERPT: The paradox of same-sex relations in animals and humans has long confounded evolutionary scientists because it produces no offspring and, by their reasoning, should thus have been snuffed out through the laws of natural selection. [...] Perhaps we’ve been looking at it all wrong, suggest Julia Monk, from Yale University, US, and colleagues ... in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution ... They propose an alternative notion that, “through a subtle shift in perspective, moves away from the expectation that the origin and maintenance of SSB [same-sex sexual behaviour] is a problem in need of a solution”.
[...] Logically, when a trait is so prevalent, Monk and co-authors argue, it’s reasonable to presume it arose in a clade’s roots. Yet this likely explanation has been neglected in evolutionary studies of homosexual behaviour. In challenging previous assumptions, they develop a complex model drawing on ecological, evolutionary and developmental factors that influence same sex relations in the same way as they do other traits. This extends how costs and benefits can be perceived and how they “vary with factors such as levels of sexual selection, sexual polymorphism and sex recognition as well as encounter rate and social complexity, in addition to individual plasticity”.
[...] the authors note that the dominating heterosexual, patriarchal culture has biased evolutionary biology’s underlying, culturally acceptable assumptions. ... “The notion that SSB is a recently evolved and distinct phenomenon from ‘heterosexual’ sex... is symptomatic of the kinds of binary essentialism that hinder not only social liberation and equity, but also scientific discovery.” (MORE - details)
