Category Archives: Development

Do our brains require endurance activity in order to function?

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Chris Jensen

The New York Times “Exercise and the Ever-Smarter Human Brain” While I think that the finding that brain size and capacity for endurance are linked is interesting and important, I am a bit baffled by this article’s take on the … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Brain size, Development, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Mismatch Theory, Neuroscience, Phenotypic Plasticity | Leave a comment

Barash not so enlightening on the paradox of human homosexuality

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Chris Jensen

The Chronicle of Higher Education “The Evolutionary Mystery of Homosexuality” It is interesting that Barash focuses so heavily in this article on traditional population genetic explanations for the “paradox” of homosexuality, especially when it is becoming so clear that single-gene … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Articles, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Group Selection, Kin Selection, Natural Selection, Population Genetics, Reproductive Fitness, Sex and Reproduction | Tagged | Leave a comment

Multiple Intelligences theory gets some neuroscientific support

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Neuron “Fractionating Human Intelligence” What is crazy about these findings is that they are novel. Is this really the first time that anyone decided to tackle the question of what different “intelligence tests” measure? The first time that anyone has … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Development, Epigenetics, Evolutionary Psychology, Fluidity of Knowledge, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Human Evolution, Intelligences, Neuroscience, Phenotypic Plasticity | Leave a comment

Does American faith in genetic determinism limit the achievement of our students?

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Chris Jensen

National Public Radio Shots “Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning” This piece went in a direction that I just did not expect. There is so much focus on the role of rote learning versus problem solving … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Belief, Cultural Evolution, Development, Fluidity of Knowledge, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Human Nature, Memetic Fitness, Philosophy, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Teaching | Leave a comment

Ready for eugenics 2.0?

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Reinventing Ourselves” This article is — in a word — scary. After dangling a couple of vague promises to engineer our susceptibility to viruses out of our collective genome (7 billion visits to the DNA … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Articles, Development, Epigenetics, Ethics, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Homo species, Human Evolution | Leave a comment

On becoming a psychopath

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Psychopathy’s Double Edge” There are so many fascinating elements to this article and what it says about human behavior. First, there is the fact that most people walk around with a very potent regulatory of … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Behavior, Emotion, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Gene by Environment Interactions, Human Evolution, Neuroscience, Psychology | Tagged , | Leave a comment

New PNAS special issue explores the developmental effects of early social environment

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Biological Embedding of Early Social Adversity: From Fruit Flies to Kindergartners Sackler Colloquium“

Posted in A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Development, Gene by Environment Interactions, Phenotypic Plasticity, Psychology, Sociology | Leave a comment

Think that the DNA transfer is only from parents to offspring? Think again!

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Science Now “Bearing Sons Can Alter Your Mind” Once again, epigenetic effects complicate our understanding of biological evolution! Two interesting omissions in this article: The fail to point out that female fetuses might also be donating DNA to mom: it … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Epigenetics, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Health & Medicine, Human Evolution, Phenotypic Plasticity, Sex and Reproduction, Web | Leave a comment

Can playing games make the world a better place?

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Chris Jensen

One of the very talented students I work with in the Envirolutions club, Rhett Bradbury, pointed me towards the work of Jane McGonigal, a game designer and evangelist for the idea that games can save the world. For Rhett, her work is … Continue reading →

Posted in A Major Post, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Development, Emotion, Evolutionary Psychology, Happiness, Health & Medicine, Human Evolution, Mismatch Theory, Phenotypic Plasticity, Play, Psychological Adaptation, Psychology, Radio & Podcasts, Social Networks, Subsistence, Web | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Epigenetics on Leonard Lopate

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Chris Jensen

If you read my blog regularly you know that issue of how genes and environment interact to produce traits is a topic near and dear to my heart. Generally the media misrepresent this subject as “nature versus nurture”, and even … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Epigenetics, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Radio & Podcasts | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“DNA” by James D. Watson

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Chris Jensen

I just finished reading James Watson’s 2003 book “DNA”. Throughout the Spring semester I have been working with Mishele Lesser, a graduate MFA student here at Pratt, on an independent study focused on what produces human phenotypes. We both read … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, DNA Barcoding, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Homo species, Human Evolution, Phylogenetics | Tagged , | 1 Comment

NY Times way behind the times on Nature versus Nurture

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Chris Jensen

Two recent articles [1, 2] in the New York Times took on the old “Nature versus Nurture debate” in the context of the new “parent wars” spurred by Amy Chua‘s book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother“. Too bad no … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Development, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Human Nature, Web | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Delayed Development and Human Evolution

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Chris Jensen

For hundreds of thousands of years, Homo neanderthalensis was the dominant hominid species of Europe and the Middle East. Then, somewhere in the range of 80,000 to 50,000 years ago, modern humans (Homo sapiens) expanded out of Africa and came … Continue reading →

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