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Sugar, tobacco, and alcohol have been demonized since the seventeenth century. Yet unlike tobacco and alcohol, there is indisputable scientific evidence that dietary sugars were essential for human evolution and are essential for human health and development. Therefore, the purpose of this analytic review and commentary is to demonstrate that anti-sugar rhetoric is divorced from established scientific facts and has led to politically expedient but ill-informed policies reminiscent of those enacted about alcohol a century ago in the United States. Herein, we present a large body of interdisciplinary research to illuminate several misconceptions, falsehoods, and facts about dietary sugars. We argue that anti-sugar policies and recommendations are not merely unscientific but are regressive and unjust because they harm the most vulnerable members of our society while providing no personal or public health benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the oldest and most entrenched goals of punishment is retribution, which is the idea that inflicting pain on someone who has committed a wrong is a worthwhile goal, regardless of any other benefits or harms that may result. Retribution has been the justification for increasingly punitive policies in the United States, the effect of which has decimated communities of color, strapped taxpayers with huge associated costs, and increased crime rates. It is difficult to understand why we perpetuate harmful policies based on "just deserts" until we consider that the foundation of these policies is moral outrage--a powerful, automatic, compelling response to witnessing social transgressions. Evidence from evolutionary biology, brain science, psychology, and anthropology has revealed the role of moral outrage in promoting social cooperation among early humans as social groups expanded. Moral outrage shares commonalities with other cognitive heuristics, or mental shortcuts that behavioral scientists have identified as leading humans to behave irrationally. While these automatic responses have historically served an adaptive function, they can lead to poor judgment in contemporary society. This Article employs scientific findings and theory from several disciplines to explore the origin and function of moral outrage, before examining the maladaptive consequences of retributivist objectives in modern times. Ultimately, all evidence suggests that retribution is an ancient artifact of human evolution only serving to create a foundation for harmful policies. As such, retribution should no longer be considered a legitimate punishment goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Over a decade ago, the first nationally representative probability survey concerning the teaching of evolution revealed disquieting facts about evolution education in the United States. This 2007 survey found that only about one in three public high school biology teachers presented evolution consistently with the recommendations of the nation's leading scientific authorities. And about 13% of the teachers emphasized to their students that creationism was a valid scientific alternative to modern evolutionary biology. In this paper, we investigate how the quality of evolution teaching, as measured by teachers' reports of their teaching practices with regard to evolution and creationism, has changed in the intervening 12 years. Results: We find substantial reductions in overtly creationist instruction and in the number of teachers who send mixed messages that legitimate creationism as a valid scientific alternative to evolutionary biology. We also report a substantial increase in the time that high school teachers devote to human evolution and general evolutionary processes. We show that these changes reflect both generational replacement—from teachers who are new to the profession—and changes in teaching practices among those who were teaching in the pre-Kitzmiller era. Conclusion: Adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards, along with improvements in pre-service teacher education and in-service teacher professional development, appears to have contributed to a large reduction in both creationist instruction and mixed messages that could lead students to think that creationism is a scientific perspective. Combined with teachers devoting more hours to evolution—including human evolution—instruction at the high school level has improved by these measures since the last national survey in 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For >50 y, dietary guidelines in the United States have focused on reducing intakes of saturated and total fat. However, rates of obesity and diabetes rose markedly throughout this period, with potentially catastrophic implications for public health and the economy. Recently, ketogenic diets have received substantial attention from the general public and nutrition research community. These very-low-carbohydrate diets, with fat comprising >70% of calories, have been dismissed as fads. However, they have a long history in clinical medicine and human evolution. Ketogenic diets appear to be more effective than low-fat diets for treatment of obesity and diabetes. In addition to the reductions in blood glucose and insulin achievable through carbohydrate restriction, chronic ketosis might confer unique metabolic benefits of relevance to cancer, neurodegenerative conditions, and other diseases associated with insulin resistance. Based on available evidence, a well-formulated ketogenic diet does not appear to have major safety concerns for the general public and can be considered a first-line approach for obesity and diabetes. High-quality clinical trials of ketogenic diets will be needed to assess important questions about their long-term effects and full potential in clinical medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the value of interdisciplinarity by attempting to integrate an evolutionary theory of human ontogeny with psychodynamic perspectives to explain the origins of an American cultural schema of marriage. Specifically, I draw on the work of evolutionary psychologist Michael Tomasello to propose that key features of the American "cultural" schema for marriage—commitment to it and the expectations it be shared, mutually beneficial, and lasting—are understandings that arise largely out of young human children's capabilities for emotional alignment or attunement and, thereafter, for fully developed joint intentionality. This focus of the American marital relationship on joint intentionality, and on even earlier beginnings of shared intentionality, I interpret as evidence—drawing on psychodynamic theory—that marriage as an American institution is largely a defense, a regression, that allows a return or "retreat" to feelings of dependency never fully resolved in adulthood because of the extreme emphasis on independence and self‐reliance in American child‐rearing. [cultural schemas, defense mechanisms, evolutionary psychology, marriage] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigations at Happisburgh, UK, have revealed the oldest known hominin footprint surface outside Africa at between ca. 1 million and 0.78 million years ago. The site has long been recognised for the preservation of sediments containing Early Pleistocene fauna and flora, but since 2005 has also yielded humanly made flint artefacts, extending the record of human occupation of northern Europe by at least 350,000 years. The sediments consist of sands, gravels and laminated silts laid down by a large river within the upper reaches of its estuary. In May 2013 extensive areas of the laminated sediments were exposed on the foreshore. On the surface of one of the laminated silt horizons a series of hollows was revealed in an area of ca. 12 m2. The surface was recorded using multi-image photogrammetry which showed that the hollows are distinctly elongated and the majority fall within the range of juvenile to adult hominin foot sizes. In many cases the arch and front/back of the foot can be identified and in one case the impression of toes can be seen. Using foot length to stature ratios, the hominins are estimated to have been between ca. 0.93 and 1.73 m in height, suggestive of a group of mixed ages. The orientation of the prints indicates movement in a southerly direction on mud-flats along the river edge. Early Pleistocene human fossils are extremely rare in Europe, with no evidence from the UK. The only known species in western Europe of a similar age is Homo antecessor, whose fossil remains have been found at Atapuerca, Spain. The foot sizes and estimated stature of the hominins from Happisburgh fall within the range derived from the fossil evidence of Homo antecessor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When thinking about human evolution across the disciplines, terms such as "anthropological genetics" or "genetic anthropology" that brazenly defy the existence of the two-cultures divide seem to promise important insights. They refer to the application of genetic techniques to the past of humankind and human groups, a fact emphasized most strongly by the expression "genetic history." Such daring linguistic alliances have been forming since 1962 when the name "molecular anthropology" was introduced in the American context. This was an opportune moment for biochemists and physical chemists to enter anthropology, because in the U.S. a rapprochement between the fields was aimed for. However, a belief in and a discourse of a hierarchy of disciplines structured along the lines of methodology and epistemic object worked as an obstacle to the achievement of transdisciplinarity. Especially the DNA-sequence, initially approached through the proxy of the protein, was regarded as the most informative historical document due to its distance from the environment and its amenability to rigorous scientific techniques. These notions had a particular power at a time when anthropology was confronted with its legacy of race science. For some, the perceived objectivity of the new molecular approaches and the neutrality of molecules would render anthropology more natural-scientific and by inference less culturally contaminated. Others, to the contrary, believed that this legacy demanded a holistic and ethically reflexive anthropology. The different perceptions thus went along with different understandings of such crucial terms as "anthropology" and "history." In the paper, I revisit interfaces between different anthropological fields in the U.S. context and suggest that the beliefs in a hierarchy of approaches as well as in a nature free from culture embodied in the DNA-sequence has worked as one of the primary obstacles to an integration of these fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many physical anthropologists and nearly all of those studying primatology today can trace their academic genealogy to Sherwood Lamed Washburn. His New Physical Anthropology, fully articulated in a 1951 paper, proposed that the study of hominid evolution must link understandings of form, function, and behavior along with the environment in order most accurately to reconstruct the evolution of our ancestors. This shift of concentration from strictly analyzing fossil remains to what Washburn termed adaptive complexes challenged not only Washburn's predecessors, but also led Washburn to critique the very system of academia within which he worked. Collaboration across multiple disciplines, linking the four fields of anthropology in order to understand humans and application of our understandings of human evolution to the betterment of society, are the hallmarks of Washburnian anthropology. In this paper I will explore how Washburn's New Physical Anthropology led him to not only change the research direction in physical anthropology, but also to challenge the academia within which he worked. I will conclude by reflecting on the prospects of continuing to practice Washburnian Anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses acceptance of evolution and its relevance for measuring scientific literacy. The author analyzes the National Science Foundation knowledge quiz in relation to theoretical, methodological, and moral arguments, proposing a distinction between quiet and animated scientific constructs. When a public learns of evolution as an animated construct, its acceptance is a poor indicator in a reflective model of scientific literacy. Acceptance of evolution may constitute a valuable indicator in reflective models of science knowledge for publics that engage with it disinterestedly, as well as in formative models of scientifically shaped worldviews, and it may also be studied in itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite its relative neglect by most emotion theorists, excitement has been found to be an important motive for criminal, and particularly violent, offending in young men. Exceptionally, reversal theory (Apter, M.J. (2007b). Reversal theory: The dynamics of motivation, emotion and personality (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oneworld Publications.) regards the quest for excitement as a powerful motive for human behaviour, including antisocial behaviour. The quest for excitement, manifesting as a desire to inflict harm and suffering on others, is prevalent in the dissocial domain of personality disorders and is arguably most prominent in those showing traits of ‘meanness’ and ‘disinhibition’ (Patrick, C. (2010). Conceptualizing the psychopathic personality: Disinhibited, bold…or just plain mean? In D.R. Lynam & R.J. Salekin (Eds.), Handbook of child and adolescent psychopathy (pp. 15–48). New York: Guilford Press.). Violence motivated by the desire for excitement is often facilitated by drug or alcohol use, overrides whatever feelings of empathy individuals might have for their victims, and represents a failure of emotion regulation characterised by an inability to down-regulate positive emotional states such as excitement and exhilaration. A quadripartite typology of violence is described which is intended as a working hypothesis and a framework to guide future research focusing on motivations for violent offending. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Y-SNP haplogroup G (hgG), defined by Y-SNP marker M201, is relatively uncommon in the United States general population, with only 8 additional sub-markers characterized. Many of the previously described eight sub-markers are either very rare (2-4%) or do not distinguish between major populations within this hg. In fact, prior to the current study, only 2% of our reference Caucasian population belonged to hgG and all of these individuals were in sub-haplogroup G2a, defined by P15. Additional Y-SNPs are needed in order to differentiate between individuals within this haplogroup. Principal Findings: In this work we have investigated whether we could differentiate between a population of 63 hgG individuals using previously uncharacterized Y-SNPs. We have designed assays to test these individuals using all known hgG SNPs (n = 9) and an additional 16 unreported/undefined Y-SNPS. Using a combination of DNA sequence and genetic genealogy databases, we have uncovered a total of 15 new hgG SNPs that had been previously reported but not phylogenetically characterized. Ten of the new Y-SNPs are phylogenetically equivalent to M201, one is equivalent to P15 and, interestingly, four create new, separate haplogroups. Three of the latter are more common than many of the previously defined Y-SNPs. Y-STR data from these individuals show that DYS385*12 is present in (70%) of G2a3b1-U13 individuals while only 4% of non-G2a3b1-U13 individuals posses the DYS385*12 allele. Conclusions: This study uncovered several previously undefined Y-SNPs by using data from several database sources. The new Y-SNPs revealed in this paper will be of importance to those with research interests in population biology and human evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the developed world, the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) has skyrocketed since 1988, when Prozac was first released in the United States. Biomedical psychiatry's explanation for their success is an unsubstantiated hypothesis that claims SSRIs treat a chemical imbalance in people who suffer from low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Using social evolutionary theory, this article provides an alternative hypothesis for why SSRIs work for some people. SSRIs' success is attributed to their capacity to adapt people to the increased status anxiety occurring in developed nations grappling with the effects of unprecedented global competition. Biomedical psychiatry is depicted as adjusting patients to prevailing social norms rather than contributing to mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the debate on the origins of the human race in the U.S. The despite began with the publication of the book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," by Charles Darwin. Even the courts have been involved in the debate related to the teaching of evolution in public schools. Supporters of divine creation can be classified into two distinct sides. One group supports the traditional creation science, the belief that humans are created in accord with the Biblical account in Genesis. Others support the intelligent design, a theory which maintains that an intelligent designer like God created humans.

Efforts to eliminate or neutralize the coverage of evolution in high school biology textbooks in the United States have persisted with varying degrees of intensity and success since the 1920s. In particular, the coverage of human evolution has been impacted by these efforts. Evidence of the success of these efforts can be chronicled by the emphasis given to human evolution in secondary biology textbooks historically and in the current state science standards. Prior to the 1960s, biology textbooks provided little emphasis to human evolution. In the 1970s and early 1980s textbooks reduced the coverage of human evolution. However, in the 1990s the coverage became quite comprehensive again. In 2004, the state science frameworks of only three states had standards concerned with human evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND. Citizens of the United States are less likely than are citizens of Europe and several non- European nations to believe that humans evolved from an earlier species. Several theories have been proposed to explain Americans' disbelief in human evolution, but empirical investigation has been sparse. METHODS. Data on belief in evolution, on scientific knowledge unrelated to evolution, on socioeconomic status, on Christian religiosity, and on political polarity were identified in the General Social Surveys (GSSs) for 1993, 1994, and 2000. These data were then analyzed in bivariate and multivariate tests of theories about evolutionary and anti-evolutionary views. FINDINGS. Christian religiosity was the strongest correlate of disbelief in evolution. Low educational attainment was another positive, but weaker, correlate, though disbelief in evolution was not related to general measures of scientific knowledge. Political liberalism and political conservatism predicted evolutionary belief even after controlling for religiosity, education, and other potential confounders. Subcultural differences in belief — those between blacks and whites, rural dwellers and urban dwellers, Southerners and non- Southerners, dogmatists and non-dogmatists — became insignificant under appropriate controls. CONCLUSION. Christian religiosity, especially in a fundamentalist variety, was the primary correlate of disbelief in evolution. Lack of education was an important but lesser factor. Independent of religiosity and education, political conservatism predicted disbelief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the critique of evolutionary psychology (EP) presented by Gannon. It argues that while it proved problematic to develop an effective multidisciplinary approach to understanding human evolution, EP need not have turned out to have such a narrow remit. Contemporary EP emerged on the socio-biology-psychology borderline rapidly disconnecting from the palæodisciplines. This is attributed to the cultural pre-occupations in the US with gender-relations, sexual behaviour and male aggression. This paper is a plea for the reinstatement of palaepsychology and the discovery of how psychology might contribute to that multidisciplinary endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses that though the United States has undergone revolutionary changes in science and engineering, institutions and customs dealing with man-to-man relationships have not been greatly modified. Law in the United States is based upon ancient and medieval practices upon Roman law and the early English common law. The effective way of speeding up human evolution is through education based upon scientific research into human relations, and the appropriate use of such research. Science and the adaptable man and woman are essential to a better order of things. Adaptable individuals should be able to take a "fresh look" upon the local and the world scene. Social science and its various ramifications, called upon to provide the scientific basis for determining the rules under which the game of civilization is to be played. Rules of action and legislation should be the result of scientific determination instead of the arbitrary action of leaders looking to political preferment.

The article discusses a study which investigates whether the first cooked meals help fuel the evolutionary expansion of the human brain in the U.S. Richard Wrangham, a Harvard University primatologists who studied wild chimpanzees in Africa asserted that cooking gave way to expansion of the human brain and fueled cerebral accomplishments like cave painting and inventing the Internet. In addition he regarded cooking as one of the answers to where humans get the extra energy to support their large brains. Carel van Schaik of the University of Zurich supported the study and thought that cooking may have played an important role along with other adapdations to expand human brainpower.

The article focuses on the development of the publication in the U.S. It notes that the company is a combination of the two serial publications, National Center for Science Education (NCSE) Reports and Creation/Evolution which was originally published by the American Humanist Association and acquired by NCSE. The board of directors later decided to launch a new type of publication for its members which combines the two publication into one. With the new publication format, it allows writers to present reviews in areas of scientific research such as human evolution and microbial genomes, that would interest and update the readers of the various areas of evolution. Also discussed are the details of the evolution of the publication.

Online social media have become one of the main communication platforms for political discussion. The online ecosystem, however, does not only include human users but has given a space to an increasing number of automated accounts, referred to as bots, extensively used to spread messages and manipulate the narratives others are exposed to. Although social media service providers put increasing efforts to protect their platforms, malicious bot accounts continuously evolve to escape detection. In this work, we monitored the activity of almost 245K accounts engaged in the Twitter political discussion during the last two U.S. voting events. We identified approximately 31K bots and characterized their activity in contrast with humans. We show that, in the 2018 midterms, bots changed the volume and the temporal dynamics of their online activity to better mimic humans and avoid detection. Our findings highlight the mutable nature of bots and illustrate the challenges to forecast their evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how one of the most typically hyper-masculine cultural arenas in Britain and America has evolved over the past 30 years, as rap artists decide to reject the stoicism of toxic masculinity in favour of promoting healthier conversations surrounding men's mental health and associated coping mechanisms. Though rap has always been vocal about mental distress, its dominant narratives have evolved over the past 30 years to talk more specifically and positively about mental health issues. Over time rap has begun promoting therapy, medication, self-care and treatment, rather than self-medication via drugs and alcohol, or violence against the self or others. This is symbiotically informing and being informed by society's changing ideas about masculinity and the construct of gender. In order to explore the evolution in discussions around men's mental health from the 1990s to the present day, this article is split into three sections, each focusing on a different decade. I closely analyse the lyrics of one rap song in each chapter, which has been selected to represent rap's general trends regarding discussions of mental health from that decade. I also briefly explore other songs that prove the decade's trends. This article draws upon academic research as well as personal interviews undertaken with Solomon OB (2016's National Poetry Slam champion), and Elias Williams, founder of MANDEM.com (an online media platform engaging with social issues and shining a light on young men of colour). I posit that rap culture is often wrongly overlooked as a forum for progressive social change, explaining why it is crucial that academia further appreciates and examines rap's potential for changing cultural perceptions of masculinity and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern humans have more fragile skeletons than other hominins, which may result from physical inactivity. Here, we test whether reproductive effort also compromises bone strength, by measuring using computed tomography thoracic vertebral bone mineral density (BMD) and fracture prevalence among physically active Tsimane forager-horticulturalists. Earlier onset of reproduction and shorter interbirth intervals are associated with reduced BMD for women. Tsimane BMD is lower versus Americans, but only for women, contrary to simple predictions relying on inactivity to explain skeletal fragility. Minimal BMD differences exist between Tsimane and American men, suggesting that systemic factors other than fertility (e.g. diet) do not easily explain Tsimane women's lower BMD. Tsimane fracture prevalence is also higher versus Americans. Lower BMD increases Tsimane fracture risk, but only for women, suggesting a role of weak bone in women's fracture etiology. Our results highlight the role of sex-specific mechanisms underlying skeletal fragility that operate long before menopause., Competing Interests: BT, CF, DL, MB, HK No competing interests declared, (© 2019, Stieglitz et al.)

We present a new method, Fine-Mapping of Adaptive Variation (FineMAV), which combines population differentiation, derived allele frequency, and molecular functionality to prioritize positively selected candidate variants for functional follow-up. We calibrate and test FineMAV using eight experimentally validated "gold standard" positively selected variants and simulations. FineMAV has good sensitivity and a low false discovery rate. Applying FineMAV to the 1000 Genomes Project Phase 3 SNP dataset, we report many novel selected variants, including ones in TGM3 and PRSS53 associated with hair phenotypes that we validate using available independent data. FineMAV is widely applicable to sequence data from both human and other species.

The author discusses teaching students biological evolution through the use of examples that pertain to human beings. Such examples include the adaptation of pathological microbes, phenotypic variation in human populations, and forensic science used on television shows. This approach is said to effectively confront popular resistance to the notion of evolution among the U.S. public, student misconceptions about complex topics, and a Lamarckian view of evolutionary change.

As a boundary-straddling branch of knowledge, anthropology is a classically dangerous academic domain. But it is only 'anti-science' if one conceptualizes 'science' perversely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the public acceptance of human evolution. It has been stressed that the concept of human evolution from the earlier forms of life is unacceptable to biblical literalists as well as the causes that concern among the holders of less conservative religious perceptions. A cross-national study of the U.S. and nine European nations in 2002-2003 confirm that a lower proportion of American adults that evolution is absolutely true than the European adults. It was found out that the acceptance of evolution tends to be lower in the U.S. than in Japan or Europe. This could be attributed to widespread fundamentalism and science politization in the U.S.

Questions about our origin as a species are universal and compelling. Evolution-and in particular human evolution-is a subject that generates intense interest across the world, evidenced by the fact that fossil and DNA discoveries grace the covers of major science journals and magazines as well as other popular print and online media. However, virtually all national polls indicate that the majority of Americans strongly reject biological evolution as a fact-based, well-tested, and robust understanding of the history of life. In the popular mind, no topic in all of science is more contentious or polarizing than evolution and media sources often only serve to magnify this polarization by covering challenges to the teaching of evolution. In the realm of teaching, debates about evolution have shaped textbooks, curricula, standards, and policy. Challenges to accepting and understanding evolution include mistrust and denial of science, cognitive obstacles and misconceptions, language and terminology, and a religious worldview, among others. Teachers, who are on the front lines of these challenges, must be armed with the tools and techniques to teach evolution in formal education settings across grades K-16 in a straightforward, thorough, and sensitive way. Despite the potentially controversial topic of human evolution, growing research is demonstrating that a pedagogical focus on human examples is an effective and engaging way to teach core concepts of evolutionary biology., (© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)