Sex Differences
Category archives for Sex Differences
Effective Polygyny in Humans: Turns out it is for real
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 Human societies tend to be at least a little polygynous. This finding, recently reported in PLoS genetics, does not surprise us but is nonetheless important. This important in two ways: 1) This study uncovers numerical details of human genetic variation that are necessary to understand change across populations and over time; and 2) the variation…
Precarious Pettiness of Sexual Politics In the Blogosphere: An uppity response to the perspicacious Dr. Isis and an appeal to get serious about sexual aggression and exploitation
Posted by Greg Laden on September 11, 2008 Dr. Isis the Scientist at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess, has written an open letter to our sister, Zuska, regarding (in part) the exchanges between my Sbling and myself. Dr. Isis points out that she has had a long term academic interests in breasts, which is primarily political and pragmatic as it turns…
The Male Boob Gaze
Posted by Greg Laden on September 10, 2008 The Sexy Hawt Bodies discussion is back, and Zuska is in full iconic form, hypocrisies included. Well, maybe hypocrisy is too strong a word. Let’s just say bending the truth when not really necessary to make her point, and shutting out allies and reasonable voices by being, well, sexist. Zuska: I puke on your shoes.…
The Evolution of Imprinting
Posted by Greg Laden on July 23, 2008 The phrase “genomic imprinting” has come to refer the turning off of a gene (a particular instance of a gene on a particular chromosome duplicated across the cells in a body) so that the gene is not expressed at all, with the turning off of the gene not caused in the body in question, but…
Sex Ratio Bias in India
Posted by Greg Laden on June 24, 2008 Sometimes boys are worth more, sometimes girls are worth more. In an evolutionary sense. Or, more correctly, the value of a certain sex … as an offspring … can be measured in fitness terms. Fisher noted this and hypothesized this was the explanation for the 50-50 sex ratio we usually see. As one sex becomes…
Female Coders Do It With Consideration
Posted by Greg Laden on June 17, 2008 Check it out: Emma McGrattan, the senior vice-president of engineering for computer-database company Ingres-and one of Silicon Valley’s highest-ranking female programmers-insists that men and women write code differently. Women are more touchy-feely and considerate of those who will use the code later, she says. They’ll intersperse their code-those strings of instructions that result in nifty…
The Phalarope: Not just another polyandrous bird…
Posted by Greg Laden on May 17, 2008 MIT researchers found that phalaropes depend on a surface interaction known as contact angle hysteresis to propel drops of water containing prey upward to their throats. Photo by Robert Lewis The Phalarope starts out as an interesting bird because of its “reversed” sex-role mating behavior. For at least some species of Phalarope, females dominate males,…
Proof that Noah’s Ark was Real
Posted by Greg Laden on February 12, 2008 One of the most compelling argument that the story of Noah’s Ark is made up is the implausibility of having animals like tigers and lions together with animals like lambs and deer on the same boat for very long. The big carnivores would eventually eat the little cute furry things. The bunnies would be the…
Good news: The Second Coming has Arrived!!
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2008 Bad News: It’s a Big Lizard!! According to a report noted in Evolving in Kansas, Komodo Dragons have been hatched in Sedgwick County without fertilization by a male. There are two of them, both males. (Isn’t that interesting?) … I think they should name them Jesus and Brian.
The Modes of Natural Selection
Posted by Greg Laden on February 3, 2008 There many ways of dividing up and categorizing Natural Selection. For example, there are the Natural Selection, Sexual Selection and Artificial Selection, and then there is the Modes of Selection (Stabilizing, Directional, and Disruptive) trichotomy. We sense that these are good because they are “threes” and “three” is a magic number. Here, I’m focusing on…
The Buttocks is not an excretory organ
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2008 … but it might be a sexual organ… The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $1.4 million fine against 52 ABC Television Network stations over a 2003 broadcast of cop drama NYPD Blue….The fine is for a scene where a boy surprises a woman as she prepares to take a shower. The scene depicted “multiple,…
Chimpanzee Food Sharing
Posted by Greg Laden on January 21, 2008 Is chimpanzee food sharing an example of food for sex? One of the most important transitions in human evolution may have been the incorporation of regular food sharing into the day to day ecology of our species or our ancestors. Although this has been recognized as potentially significant for some time, it was probably the…
Why is There no Birth Control Pill for Men?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 10, 2008 Why is there no Birth Control Pill for men? This latest “Ask a ScienceBlogger” question will certainly engender a wide range of responses from the Scienceblogs.com team. Answers may address physiology, endocrinology, pharmacology, economics, and other areas of scientific thinking and practice. The answer I’d like to propose can be summed up in two closely…
Alcohol, Sexual Attraction, Sexual Behavior, and Sexual Performance
Posted by Greg Laden on January 3, 2008 Daily alcohol use by males has been shown to increase sexual arousal and decrease sexual inhibition.
Personal Violence Against Women Seen as Normal
Posted by Greg Laden on December 13, 2007 173 medical staff from the emergency department of a Turkish university hospital responded to a questionnaire about domestic violence. 69.0% of the female and 84.7% of the male respondents declared that they agreed or partially agreed to at least one reason to justify physical violence. [source] This research is published in an open access paper…
Topi or not Topi …
Posted by Greg Laden on December 4, 2007 Go to any bar and you’ll see a lot of males standing and sitting around not mating. I’ll bet you would have guessed that the reason they are not mating is that no females will mate with them for one reason or another. But there is the distinct possibility that they are very inconspicuously resisting…
Girls Smash Glass Ceiling
Posted by Greg Laden on December 4, 2007 NEW YORK – Girls swept a prestigious high school science competition for the first time Monday, winning top prizes of $100,000 scholarships for their work on potential tuberculosis cures and bone growth in zebrafish. It was the first time girls had ever won the grand prizes in both the team and individual divisions of the…
This is your brain. This is your brain on video games…
Posted by Greg Laden on December 3, 2007 Sex differences in certain abilities, which have persisted for decades in various psychological tests, are now widely believed to be the result of conditioning that is in turn shaped by cultural factors. This applies to math abilities, spatial skills, and a range of other activities. Neural plasticity is key, and widely misunderstood or ignored. (Indeed,…
Sex Difference in Sex Drive
Posted by Greg Laden on November 25, 2007 According to a story in the last issue of Psychological Science: … for most women, high sex drive is associated with increased sexual attraction to both men and women. For men, however, high sex drive is associated with increased sexual attraction to only one sex or the other, depending on the individual’s sexual orientation. These…
Male vs. Female Brains
Posted by Greg Laden on November 21, 2007 The male and female human brains are different. Some of the better documented differences are similar to differences seen in other mammals. They are hard to find, very small, and may or may not be of great significance. Obviously, some are very important because they probably relate to such things as the ability … or…
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