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May 9, 2008

Justice in the brain
May 9, 2008
Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share?   

Regulating evolution: How gene switches make life
May 9, 2008
Switches within DNA that govern when and where genes are turned on enable genomes to generate the great diversity of animal forms from very similar sets of genes.   

The truth about juice
May 8, 2008
Science is cruel. Reports about the benefits of healthy foods should be treated with great caution.   

Gut hormone makes food look even yummier
May 7, 2008
A gut hormone that causes people to eat more does so by making food appear more desirable.   

Why face symmetry is sexy across cultures and species
May 7, 2008
Measurements of symmetry and sexual dimorphism from faces are related in humans, both in Europeans and African hunter-gatherers, and in a non-human primate.   

Appeasing the gods, with insurance
May 6, 2008
Prior to getting on the plane, which of these precautions is most likely to prevent your plane from crashing? A) Sacrificing a gilt-horned bull on an altar. B) Sacrificing two goats on the tarmac. C) Buying flight insurance.   

Nature's bounty: booty marks
May 6, 2008
Getting the best for our brains and bodies—antioxidants are just the start of it—means selecting scraggly and scarred produce over their supersized cousins.   

Researchers explore altruism's unexpected ally—selfishness
May 5, 2008
Just as religions dwell upon the eternal battle between good and evil, angels and devils, evolutionary theorists dwell upon the eternal battle between altruistic and selfish behaviors in the Darwinian struggle for existence.   

Continental rift
May 2, 2008
It is generally accepted that early man began colonising the planet from Africa, but how were those first settlers replaced: by evolution or invasion?   

Religion a figment of human imagination
May 1, 2008
Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.   

'Sexy' voice gives fertile women away
May 1, 2008
A woman's voice becomes more attractive when she is most fertile.   

Before the exodus
April 29, 2008
For two-thirds of its history, Homo sapiens lived exclusively in Africa. Only now are the details of that period becoming clear.   

Lying? The face betrays deceiver's true emotions
April 28, 2008
How can we tell who’s lying, who’s not? New research determines the face will betray the deceiver’s true emotion, but not in the stereotypical ways we think.   

Professor Happiness: The interview
April 25, 2008
A conversation with Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness   

Human brain appears “hard-wired” for hierarchy
April 24, 2008
Human imaging studies have for the first time identified brain circuitry associated with social status.   

You are what your mother eats
April 23, 2008
New research provides the first evidence that a child’s sex is associated with the mother’s diet. The study shows a clear link between higher energy intake around the time of conception and the birth of sons.   

You walk wrong
April 22, 2008
It took 4 million years of evolution to perfect the human foot. But we’re wrecking it with every step we take.   

Case closed for free will?
April 21, 2008
Your mind might be made up before you know it. Researchers have found patterns of brain activity that predict people's decisions up to 10 seconds before they're aware they've made a choice.   

Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions
April 18, 2008
If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it.   

Are we hardwired for fairness?
April 18, 2008
Is fairness simply a ruse, something we adopt only when we secretly see an advantage in it for ourselves? And do we expect no more than self-interest of others? Or is there such a thing as fairness for fairness’ sake?   

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution drafts go online
April 17, 2008
The first drafts of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which have never before been seen in public, are being published online for the first time today. The papers, now published by Darwin Online, include early calculations on his theory of evolution, thousands of drafts of his scientific writings, records of his experiments, and even arguments in favour of a wife.   

A little anxiety pays sometimes
April 16, 2008
Anxiety gets a lot of bad press. Dwelling on the negative can lead to chronic stress and anxiety disorders and phobias, but evolutionarily speaking, anxiety holds some functional value.   

Parents and children at odds in defining Mr. or Mrs. Right
April 15, 2008
Do young people and their parents really disagree about the qualities of a suitable mate? Yes.   

Why beautiful women marry less attractive men
April 15, 2008
New research reveals couples in which the wife is better looking than her husband are more positive and supportive than other match-ups.   

Wag the dog
April 14, 2008
Emotions are as much a product of our evolutionary heritage as they are our environmental circumstances.   

Just like other animals, people trade sex for resources
April 11, 2008
Female penguins mate with males who bring them pebbles to build egg nests. Hummingbirds mate to gain access to the most productive flowers guarded by larger males. New research shows that even affluent college students who don't need resources will still attempt to trade sexual currency for provisions   

You can blame the bugs
April 10, 2008
The reason a society falls where it does on the individualism-collectivism spectrum has been pretty much a mystery. Now a team of researchers has come up with a surprising explanation: disease-causing microbes.   

Face values applied to love game
April 9, 2008
People's attitudes to relationships could be given away by just the look of their face, it has been claimed—with men and women often after the opposite.   

Male monkeys prefer boys' toys
April 8, 2008
It's thought of as a sexual stereotype: boys tend to play with toy cars and diggers, while girls like dolls. But male monkeys, suggests research, are no different.   

Sex and financial risk linked in brain
April 7, 2008
A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles—sex.   

The debut of The Bio-Rational Forum
January 31, 2003
The debut of The Bio-Rational Forum was held on March 1-2, 2003, at the Grand Pacific Palisades Resort Hotel in Carlsbad, California. The Forum provided a comprehensive introduction to the evolution of the brain, and the five primal instincts that influence human behavior.   


 

 

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