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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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POPSMind & Life Modern physics is perhaps where this second meeting ground is most visible. Physics is in the middle of a conceptual revolution pursuing the so-called unification efforts, in order to relate the minute universe of quantum mechanism to that of macrophysics and gravitation. As is well known, such research has opened numerous gaping epistemological questions; for example non-locality, the origin of the universe, and the role of the observer.
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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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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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