Dr. Saguy, a sociologist at U.C.L.A., methodically teases out all the overtones of the loaded words we use to describe big bodies in her book, “What’s Wrong with Fat”. These bodies are, after all, neither good nor bad, just big. But “fat” often implies the coexistence of sloth, gluttony and self-indulgence. “Obesity” equals disease to medical professionals, while in the…
Discover magazine responds to a paper co-authored by ISG faculty Jessica Lynch Alfaro, Michael Alfaro and former ISG postdoctoral fellow, Sharlene Santana, in its most recent article on human evolution. The research describes the link between the complexity of a monkey species’ facial color pattern and certain social systems. Species that live in larger groups tend to have plainer faces…
In a recent paper in the journal Current Anthropology former ISG postdoctoral fellow, Jennifer E. Smith, along with Eli M. Swanson, Daphna Reed and Kay E. Holekamp suggest that the spotted hyena is an under-appreciated source of information about human evolution. NPR has the full story here Evolution of Cooperation among Mammalian Carnivores and Its Relevance to Hominin Evolution. Jennifer E. Smith, Eli…
Robert W. Sussman, a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, says that science has struggled to understand the mysteries of “less-than-human” beings since the late 1400s when the Spanish Inquisition first formalized state persecution of Jews and Muslims. And while the horrors of Nazi Germany exposed fatal flaws in science’s quest to build the master race, the…
A new kind of testing is proving particularly helpful in diagnosing mysterious neurological illnesses in children. Scientists sequence all of a patient’s genes, systematically searching for disease-causing mutations. A few years ago, this sort of test was so difficult and expensive that it was generally only available to participants in research projects like those sponsored by the National Institutes of…
Cancer Voices Australia brought the case as it believed Myriad Genetics Inc, which owns the patent on the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 linked to breast and ovarian cancer had an unfair monopoly on a naturally occurring gene. It’s the first time the validity of genetic patents has been tested in an Australian court. Cancer Voices sought to void the genetic…