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Remember this summer, when Miss America contestants were asked if evolution should be taught in our schools, and everyone except for the pinko commie blue state beauty queens responded as though they were being interviewed for the position of news anchor on Fox & Friends, hemming and hawing as though they'd been asked to describe their most recent sexual experience to their parents. (If you can get through the entire video without rolling your eyes once, you're made of stronger stuff than I). More »
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"What are friends for" is often posed as a rhetorical question. But a team of scientists believe they have an answer, and that answer is: to keep you from getting eaten. More »
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A new study claims that women care what side of the bed they sleep on, but men usually don't, so women often get their way. Of course, the reason is evolution: "Men are naturally designed to want to protect their female partner and that means, more often than not, they will allow her to call the shots over ‘disputed territories' like preference for a certain side of the bed." It's true — in prehistoric times, men who allowed women to pick which side of the cave they slept on were rewarded with sex and therefore offspring. Men who insisted on picking a side themselves were usually eaten by dire wolves. More »
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During their pre-pageant questioning, each of the potential Miss USAs were asked a simple question: "Should evolution be taught in schools?" Here are their trimmed-down, wishy washy answers. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5814161&view=rss&microfeed=true Some scientists have said that pigs wallow in mud because they lack sweat glands and need an alternate way to stay cool. However, one researcher thinks it may be the other way around: maybe they "did not evolve functional sweat glands like other ungulates because they liked wallowing so much." They may have retained the behavior from their water-loving relatives, such as whales. Also, here is an adorable pig who wears rubber boots because she is afraid of mud. More »
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With all the fighting over reproductive rights, unions, and healthcare, you've probably been thinking, let's fight about intelligent design again! Yes, the issue the nation already spent way too long discussing in the last decade is back, and poised to take up more time that could be spent debating real problems (though we'll probably just keep talking about where President Obama was born). More »
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Seems an unlikely agent of domesticity, but some scientists feel it's the advent of assisted combat that really changed everything. More »
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A study found 30% of high-school biology teachers weren't adamantly pro-evolution, and 13% advocated creationism in class. Researchers say these educators "lack the knowledge and confidence to teach evolution." Hm. Darwin might have something to say about those teachers' careers. More »
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Just kidding! Science still can't figure it out. More »
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In news that will be unsurprising to most non-jerks, a study shows that altruism may have evolved because people tend to choose mates who help out from time to time. More »
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This article about the magical qualities of semen is about to give many a douchey dude new fodder. Still, there are some fascinating tidbits. More »
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An anthropologist says that penises are "designed by natural selection to work as a retraction device, removing competing males' sperm from your female partner's vaginal tract. So if you keep [thrusting after orgasm], you're basically disadvantaging your own reproductive success." More »
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Says Holly Hill of infidelity: "This is what every man already knows and I think what every woman deep down already knows." More »
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Four adults dressed in bee costumes appeared yesterday outside the Grand Hyatt where the Scripps National Spelling Bee is being held. They were, oddly enough, there to protest words. More »
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Last night, viewers got their first glimpse of Miley's new video for the single "Can't Be Tamed." The video, deemed the "next step in the evolution of Miley," is chock full o'symbolism. Let's break it down. More »
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No one's sure why men love breasts, but Psychology Today says one theory is that when humans began walking upright, males' sexual focus shifted from the rear end to the front, and females developed larger breasts. [Psychology Today, Andrew Sullivan] More »
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An over-the-counter paternity test inspires Intelligent Life to ask: What percentage of kids are "not the child of the man assumed to be their father?" And does human cuckolding actually have an evolutionary purpose? More »
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A Cambridge University team of scientists has theorized that men are more evolutionarily susceptible to infection than women, perhaps due to higher testosterone levels. However, the "man-flu" theory is controversial. That they are terrible patients, is not. [BBC] More »
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It's apparently all in the genes. Cue "Manohlos" joke right about now. Or better yet, don't: More »
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• Hundreds of Muslim pilgrims have lined up to catch a glimpse of this Russian baby, who supposedly has verses from the Koran inscribed on his leg, which appear and fade every few days. • More »
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Some evolutionary biologists are predicting that "women of the future are likely to be slightly shorter and plumper, have healthier hearts and longer reproductive windows." Karl Lagerfeld respectfully disagrees. Especially about the hearts. [NewScientist] More »
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Heidi Montag guest co-hosted The View today, where she opined about creationism, evolution, the need for God in higher education, and told the gals that she and Spencer—who have been married for four months—are in couples counseling. More »
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In celebration of The Origin of Species' 150th birthday, Mike Seaver holds forth on Chas's "undeniable connection with Hitler" and the importance of hearing both sides of the argument: superstitious, polemical pseudoscience - and Creationism. [YouTube via ScienceBlogs] More »
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Perhaps in response to all the recent talk about the female imperative for mate-poaching - or perhaps coincidentally - today's "Science Times" brings a piece by Natalie Angier suggesting that women are also prone to serial marriage. More »
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Norwegian scientists have found that those who abstain from drinking are at a higher risk of suffering from depression than the "moderate drinkers." Lushes, we assume, must be thrilled at the news. More »
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Recently, the British Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, a popular attraction that attracts 120,000 visitors per year, is indoctrinating visitors with Creationist propaganda and "threatening public understanding". More »
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A researcher at Tel Aviv University has found evidence, in a study on the evolutionary imperative for crying, that tears have the benefits of helping "build and strengthen personal relationships" amongst people. Related: It also feels good! [Eurekalert] More »
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A new study suggests that prehistoric cats domesticated themselves, rather than being bred by humans, which is why they "do not perform directed tasks." No word yet on the evolutionary source of lolz. (pic via icanhascheezburger.com) [NYT] More »
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It's become fashionable lately to examine the evolutionary purpose of art. Salon's review of a book called On the Origin of Stories gives this practice a much-needed critique. More »
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The idea that men try to impregnate as many women as possible while women try to hold on to a provider is derived from fruit fly behavior. Its applicability to humans is becoming increasingly questionable. More »
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In Newsweek, Jeremy McCarter tackles an interesting claim: that the arts serve an evolutionary purpose. More »
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Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy says that while most scholars believe our evolution was driven by the need to fight, she believes that a human baby's need for attention is what separates us from animals. More »
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Greg Laden at Science Blogs tests the theory that men only want to spread their seed, and questions why it is that there's no male birth control pill. More »
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The brains of men and women respond differently to beautiful objects. Read: we're better at it. More »
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Many a recalcitrant student has asked, "What's the point of reading?" Now science has an answer — but you might not like it. More »
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Women just can't win. While for years we've heard that the hourglass figure — that is, a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 or lower — was the Western ideal of fertility and beauty, now Elizabeth Cashdan of the University of Utah claims that a "more cylindrical" shape indicates a body is "physically stronger, more competitive and better able to deal with stress." Androgen hormones, which result in increased visceral fat around the waist, are also responsible for the strength that may make this more common body type an evolutionary boon. Of course, since we can't change our body types, we prefer to think of it this way: anthropology's fascinating, but if it gets you from A to B, you're good. [LiveScience] More »
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Withdrawal creeps up on you slowly, like, say a huntress in a helicopter when you're a slightly deaf wolf, and then all of a sudden, BAM!, something hits you square between the eyes and you howl in pain. That was what this Palin-less week was like for us. No more Wardrobe-gate! No more race-baiting! No more refusing to answer questions and then blaming the media for asking them! But then we caught Katie Couric's appearance on Letterman last night and she talked about all the questions she'd asked Palin, and we got to thinking... hey, wait a minute: We still have some! And naturally, they're after the jump. More »
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Hot on the heels of the revelation that gentlemen do, indeed, prefer blondes comes the latest from the Cosmo Institute of Science (okay, it's actually the University of Rochester in this case): men are attracted to the color red! The men who participated in a study overwhelmingly found they were more attracted to a woman sporting a red shirt than a blue — although they denied that color had an impact on their choices. It's subliminal, you see, having to do with ovulation and baboons. It might also interest you to know that, according to the BBC, red "has traditionally been linked with romantic and sexual matters, from red hearts on Valentine's Day, to red-light districts." So, what have we learned lately? To get a man, we need to dye our hair blonde, don a red dress, go off the pill, and stop wearing deodorant. I'm feeling think-y and here's a study I want to see: how much of an impact do these studies have on our behavior? More »
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As you may have heard, having a baby hurts. Natural childbirth advocates have long argued for the lemonade benefits of labor pain, claiming that it adds to the experience and can even result in sexual pleasure and aid in the hormone release that helps a mother bond with her baby. However, a new study, discussed in Salon, suggests that in fact the excrutiating hours of pain are really a vestigial response that serve no actual function. Great; let's go tell that to Milla Jovovich, who just spoke about her 72-hour labor! So why does everybody still hurt? More »
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Primates — they're just like us! Following a very thorough and kinda weird study, German scientists report that female monkeys shout and make lots of noise during sex in order help male monkeys climax more quickly. It would seem as though we haven't evolved that much, huh? [Live Science] More »
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