This week, we decided to take a look at the genetic basis for some of the theories revolving around attractiveness that we’ve been discussing. The 2004 study we chose focuses on the theory that the reason one person is attracted has its basis in the immune system. It is well established that disease has been [...]
I didn’t even have to put “like” in the search box, and look what comes up.
I don’t know how indicative this is of how people think, but it certainly feels that way.
A question brought more clearly into focus recently and one that has been bothering us recently deserves to be aired. How should we measure “mating success” when we are doing studies about human sexual selection? The article discussed in the previous post defined this as the number of sexual partners a male had had in [...]
Men have deep voices, women less so. This is a pretty basic fact that most small children will be able to tell you, but what we don’t often think about is that this is a very clear sexual dimorphism (and therefore likely evidence for sexual selection)! This vocal dimorphism is not just further evidence for [...]
Do you like your boyfriend because he looks like your father? This is the (somewhat disconcerting) question that we tackled in class this week. Similarity in mate partners, or homogamy, has been well documented in human sex partners. Choosing a mate with genetic similarity would mean that you would be more likely to share genes [...]
A couple of weeks ago, I shared Reinius and colleagues’ 2008 article, “An Evolutionarily Conserved Sexual Signature in the Primate Brain” with our group. The study compared gene expression in the occipital cortex of males and females from three primate species. The species were selected for their morphological sexual dimorphism: humans (Homo sapiens) and cynomolgus [...]
A lighthearted take on the issues: Evolution Blues Like a Human Clone (Demo)
This has caught fire on the interwebs. I think it’s pretty funny.