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POPSMale monkeys prefer boys' toys To try and tease out the effects of nature over those of nurture, Wallen and his colleagues studied a group of captive rhesus monkeys. His team reasoned that the choices of the monkeys wouldn't be determined by social pressures. Video on source.
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POPSThe end of Men? A surprising number of animals can reproduce without male involvement if there is no other option. Sharks and lizards have demonstrated this ability in captivity. It was previously believed that the process was impossible in mammals such as humans because male sperm cells and female egg cells undergo a process called imprinting. In imprinting, sections of each cell’s genome are silenced to allow the set of genes from the other parent to be expressed, so that when the egg and sperm cells combine, the genes in the resulting embryo are not competing with each other. It has now been discovered that it is possible to interrupt this process by deleting just two sections of genetic material on the genomes of female mice – animals very similar, for reproductive purposes, to humans.
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POPS Does Smart Equal Liberal? Instead, it appears to be something about the intelligent brain itself: Smart people may have a different emotional makeup, a personality that is more open to experience. Or it may be that high IQ at age ten eventually leads to more complex moral reasoning: In short, smart people alone may have the cognitive machinery that’s needed for more flexible analysis of political and moral quandaries.
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POPSGirls power on rise in Asia - hope The most important factor in changing attitudes toward girls was the radical shift in the country’s economy that opened the doors to women in the work force as never before and dismantled long-held traditions, which so devalued daughters that mothers would often apologize for giving birth to a girl.
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POPSBattlestar Galactica - intelligence rare on TV As Homo sapiens and Cylons perpetrate atrocities upon one another throughout the season, as consequences overwhelm the antagonists, humanity becomes a rare quality found in unlikely places. It is a poignant, telling reminder of possibility for a divided world.
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POPSIn Hollywood Hives, the Males Rule “It’s a pity they tell so much nonsense,” said Bert Hölldobler of Arizona State University, one of the world’s leading ant authorities, “when real insect societies are so full of little dramas.”
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POPSThe face of life I love watching this face; seems as life almost managed to erase the lines that set apart ethnicity, gender, era and such, leaving in their rigid stead a unique expression of life itself.