Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

On becoming a psychopath

Posted 24 Oct 2012 / 0

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 behavior, one that suppresses both impulses that would put oneself at risk and drives that Read More

A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Behavior, Emotion, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Gene by Environment Interactions, Human Evolution, Neuroscience, Psychology

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

Posted 17 Oct 2012 / 0

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

A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Development, Gene by Environment Interactions, Phenotypic Plasticity, Psychology, Sociology

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

Posted 27 Sep 2012 / 0

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 is just easier to detect the male DNA unequivocally; and The real implication here is Read More

A Minor Post, Epigenetics, Evolution, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Health & Medicine, Human Evolution, Phenotypic Plasticity, Sex and Reproduction, Web

Epigenetics on Leonard Lopate

Posted 11 Jul 2011 / 0

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 many scientists fail to properly explain modern scientific understanding in this area. When I learned Read More

Development, Epigenetics, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Radio & Podcasts

“DNA” by James D. Watson

Posted 10 May 2011 / 1

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 the book as part of our collaboration. As one of the two people credited with Read More

Books, DNA Barcoding, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Homo species, Human Evolution, Phylogenetics

NY Times way behind the times on Nature versus Nurture

Posted 18 Apr 2011 / 0

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 one told the authors of these articles that the “Nature versus Nurture debate” was over Read More

Articles, Development, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Human Nature, Web