Not such a bright guy? Neither are his little guys.
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Okay, that’s taking it a little too far. But a study from the UK Institute of Psychiatry published in the journal Intelligence claims to have found direct correlations between a man’s mental aptitude and the cleverness of his sperm.
Working with data from 425 U.S. servicemen in the Vietnam War, the research team found that, “independently of age and lifestyle, intelligence was correlated with all three measures of sperm quality – numbers, concentration, and ability to move.”
Other than making themselves feel better, the scientists are interested in the genetics of intelligence and how they might be related to other measures of fitness and health, such as sperminess. While the statistical links found are small, the researchers say they are valid and telling and cannot be the result of lifestyle factors; it’s not going to make a great difference in their ability to conceive, but men of above-average intelligence definitely tend to produce above-average sperm, the study says.
From BBC News:
Lead researcher Dr Rosalind Arden said: “This does not mean that men who prefer Play-Doh to Plato always have poor sperm: the relationship we found was marginal.
“But our results do support the theoretically important ‘fitness factor’ idea.
“We look forward to seeing if the results can be replicated in other data sets, with other measures of intelligence and other measures of physical health that are also strongly related to evolutionary fitness.”
Dr Allan Pacey is an expert in fertility at the University of Sheffield.
He said: “The fact that it’s possible to detect a statistical relationship between intelligence and semen quality in adult men probably says more about the co-development of brain and testicles when the man was in his mother’s womb, and therefore how well they both function in adult life, rather than suggesting that playing Sudoku can somehow stimulate more sperm to be produced.
“The improvement in semen quality with intelligence observed in this paper is small and therefore it is unlikely to have a big impact on the ability of men of different intelligences to conceive.”
Schizophrenia: An Unpleasant Side Effect of Natural Selection?
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Recent studies indicate that schizophrenic conditions may stem from a genetically-triggered maladaptation involving the gene DISC1, which, according to research, has been selected for in evolution even though it contributes to schizophrenia. Compare this with sickle-cell anemia: it is caused by having two mutated copies of a certain gene, while those with just one copy of the mutation are naturally protected against malaria.
One of the key tenets of Darwinism is that adaptations that work against the survival of a species are destined to disappear. So why does schizophrenia continue to linger on? Could it be that it confers some advantage?
For years, scientists struggled to identify an adaptive advantage that might explain schizophrenia’s persistence. Researchers from various disciplines volleyed ideas back and forth. Some argued that the genes implicated in the disease promoted creativity; others believed that schizophrenics were frustrated cult leaders—unorthodox thinkers constitutionally “engineered” to lead segments of humanity to break off from the herd, but who lacked the charisma to effect much change. None of the theories gained much traction.
New research is pointing to a different possibility: There may be no adaptive advantage provided by schizophrenia in and of itself, but rather from some genes that contribute to the disease. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, there is evidence that some of the gene variants associated with schizophrenia—especially a mutation in a gene called disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1)—have been selected for by evolution. This supports the idea that the disease may be a maladaptive combination of mutations that individually have the potential to enhance fitness. It could be a more complicated version of the familiar case of sickle cell anemia: having two mutant copies of a certain gene causes the disease, whereas having only one mutant copy provides protection against malaria.
A recent study headed up by Johns Hopkins University neuroscientists may have found what kind of process goes awry in schizophrenic brains. Researchers found that DISC1 regulates the migration of new neurons in the adult brain. When the levels of DISC1 were reduced in mice during adult neurogenesis, the newborn neurons sped up and overshot their intended targets within the hippocampus, says Xin Duan, a study collaborator. When the neurons finally reached their destinations, they forged an unusual number of connections with neighboring cells, a series of events that might give rise to the abnormal—and quite crippling—brain functions associated with schizophrenia, according to Hongjun Song, a Johns Hopkins neurologist who also worked on the study. It is possible, Song says, that further research will lead to a drug that treats schizophrenia by restoring normal neurogenesis.
So what evolutionary advantage could schizophrenia-related genes bring to people who have some of the genes but not the disease? For now, this remains one of the many open questions about this puzzling condition.
Keepin’ it in the Family
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Biologists from Canada’s McMaster University have published a study which shows that at least some plants, though they of course lack cognitive abilities, are nonetheless capable of exhibiting what humans might interpret as social behaviors. The subjects of the study showed a strong preference towards being planted with sibling specimens; the scientists say they did not get along so well with ‘strangers.’
From Press Esc:
Plants are able to recognise their siblings, according to a study appearing today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they’re accommodating when potted with their siblings. . .
Biology and Morality
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An interesting article from the New York Times by Nicholas Wade, mirrored from RichardDawkins.net. Here’s a peek:
Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.
Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are. . .
. . .Dr. de Waal, who is director of the Living Links Center at Emory University, argues that all social animals have had to constrain or alter their behavior in various ways for group living to be worthwhile. These constraints, evident in monkeys and even more so in chimpanzees, are part of human inheritance, too, and in his view form the set of behaviors from which human morality has been shaped.
Many philosophers find it hard to think of animals as moral beings, and indeed Dr. de Waal does not contend that even chimpanzees possess morality. But he argues that human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks that are clearly at work in chimp and monkey societies.
Dr. de Waal’s views are based on years of observing nonhuman primates, starting with work on aggression in the 1960s. He noticed then that after fights between two combatants, other chimpanzees would console the loser. But he was waylaid in battles with psychologists over imputing emotional states to animals, and it took him 20 years to come back to the subject.
He found that consolation was universal among the great apes but generally absent from monkeys — among macaques, mothers will not even reassure an injured infant. To console another, Dr. de Waal argues, requires empathy and a level of self-awareness that only apes and humans seem to possess. And consideration of empathy quickly led him to explore the conditions for morality.
So . . .there was some form of morality before the New Testament. How very novel!! If only we enlightened human beings could learn to extend the ‘golden rule’ to other species . . .perhaps that’s the next stage in the evolution of mind?
The Swami Speaks
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Posted at the wondrous Reclaiming Space—in case, like me, you missed it—is the 2007 State of the Universe Address from the great and inexorable Swami Beyondananda (alias: humorist Steve Bhaerman.) Full of cogent observations, welcome encouragement, and hilariously punny, the Swami’s address poses interesting questions about the Endangering Species List, television versus tell-a-vision, Humanifest Destiny, and the true meaning of counterintelligence as it lays the foundation for a brighter, more sensible future.
Under the Sea
For some of the most impressive deep-sea original photography on the web (and a very cool site design otherwise), visit the website of Andrej Belic. Truly amazing work.
The Moomans are Coming! The Moomans are Coming!
Just when we were getting used to a spherical planet, this from my good pal, BBC News (Health):
UK scientists have applied for permission to create embryos by fusing human DNA with cow eggs…
…The hybrid human-bovine embryos would be used for stem cell research and would not be allowed to develop for more than a few days.
But critics say it is unethical and potentially dangerous.
You know what this critic says?
“Aww, Mom…just a few days? Can’t he stay and play for at least a few years?!?”
So, seriously (mWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….ahem): human eggs can be hard to come by for research purposes. That’s why these scientists from Newcastle U. and King’s College, London have applied for a license to substitute cow eggs in research towards better treatments for Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, and even the common stroke.
But, says Callum McKellar of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics: “In this kind of procedure…you may begin to undermine the whole distinction between humans and animals.” Except, instead of you, he might have said ye. And there was probably a goodly amount of r-trilling in the word procedure. We musn’t undermine the differences between Scotsmen and Englishmen.
Well, in the first place, “human bioethics” seems at least a bit of an OXymoron these days, what with all the deforestation and American Idol crap going on. Secondly, it’s udderly ridiculous to suggest that cross-species stem cell research is going to disturb the relationship between me and my Holstein.
Nothing comes between us.
This is genetic research, not freaking Ice-Nine.
If we’re going to talk about ethics in genetic research, then, pray tell, shouldn’t we be discussing the peddling of self-terminating subscription seeds to third-world subsistence farmers? Or the corporatocratic race to patent the human genome? Or the longstanding use of supermarket shoppers as unwitting test subjects in the development of genetically MOOOOOOOOOOdified—excuse me—foods?
This is just another example of backwards, hyperconservative flat-earthers delighting in the noise of their own cattle calls. They’ll stampede over any kind of novel research so long as it enables them to feel they’ve imposed their own Old Testament worldviews on the fate of mankind. This argument sounds suspiciously to me like the gibberish about same-sex marriage somehow undermining the “sanctity” of that institution. I might have fallen for that one in the second grade. These dorks read too many ancient texts and watch too much television.
Of course, this is a free society (yuk, yuk) and I suppose there’s no need to be cowed by mere talk.
Besides, if ever these diabolical half-breeds should seriously rise up to threaten Lord Cthulhu, I’ve no doubt that they’ll be dealt with most speedily. Glub glub!
The greatest pretender: Australia’s Superb Lyrebird
Ann at Reclaiming Space is eventually going to get on to me for copping off her blog so much, but this morning I really could not resist: this video is one of the most amazing things you’ll see today, I’d be willing to wager.
The Superb Lyrebird, or menura novaehollandiae, is a large Australian songbird so named because the plumage of the male, when fully displayed, resembles the shape of an ancient Greek harp or lyre. The male has a complex courtship ritual which includes vocal imitations of the sounds of the forest that are nothing short of stunning.
The species, thankfully, is not currently considered threatened. It has been featured on Australia’s 10-cent piece.
Volvox is Rad
Volvox is a genus of green algae (chlorophyta) found chiefly in puddles and ponds where rainwater is abundant. These algae form spectacular spherical colonies, composed of many individual algae, each of which has a light-sensitive eyespot and two flagella with which it can swim. The cells are connected to one another by strands of cytoplasm so that they can work together to propel the colony towards light.
These tiny swimming globes (only very large colonies exceed 1 mm in diameter) can sometimes be seen with the naked eye, but of course it’s under the microscope where things get interesting. The colonies have anteriors, where eyespots are more developed in the cells, and posteriors, in which reproductive cells are prominent.
In reproduction, daughter colonies are developed inside the parent colony through cell division. Eventually the parent disintegrates, setting its offspring free.
It is generally accepted that early land plants evolved from green algae. Many species of seaweed are classified as chlorophytes.
Wikipedia on Volvox
Wim van Egmond’s article in Microscopy UK
Mindscape Magazine on Volvox
can't see the forest 
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