There Is No Such Thing As "Not A Dog Person"

What I mean by that is that humans and dogs have a fundamental connection, like England and America's special relationship, that has been forged over the past 100,000 years. It is in our genes to live with dogs and them with us. Anyone who says they don't like dogs is simply expressing a learned emotion based on a bad experience.

Here's my hypothesis: genetic evidence indicates dogs began separating from wolves at least 100,000 years ago. Human DNA studies indicate there was a "population bottleneck" 50,000 to 100,000 years ago most likely after the Mt. Toba eruption 70,000 years ago. Therefore, I hypothesize that when humanity was down to its last few thousand families dogs had to be there, and it was because of dogs that humans survived. But what was the relationship? That is the PhD candidate question.

And these are the other questions I have (at this time):
Did dogs begin their morphological changes at this time?
Did humanity survive because dogs were with them?
Did only humans who could bond with canines survive?

Not sure any of this will be known with any certainty unless time travel is invented, but my educated guess is that we all have bred into us a connection to dogs that comes from a time when they saved us and we saved them.

For further reading, PBS's Nova program last night got me thinking about the time line. See: Dogs Decoded

And for information on the human DNA studies see Wikipedia's entry on human population bottlenecks which includes a link to the "Toba catastrophe".

Run Like A Persistence Hunter

I was riveted when I read an excerpt of 'Born To Run' in Denver's 5280 Magazine and afterward immediately added the book to my Amazon wishlist.

Now the NYT has taken up the paradox of if humans are made for running long distances then why are there so many injuries?

See: The Human Body Is Built for Distance

Running on only artificial surfaces and in high-tech shoes can change the biomechanics of running, increasing the risks of injury.

What’s the solution? Slower, easier training over a long period would most likely help; so would brief walk breaks, which mimic the behavior of the persistence hunter. And running on a variety of surfaces and in simpler shoes with less cushioning can restore natural running form.

Dr. Hart And Ardi

Dr. Hart has been studying the African rift valley for a long time and been a part of many hominid discoveries over the past 20 years.

The latest discovery is the oldest hominid yet.

See DaytonDailyNews: Miami geologists part of history-making ‘Ardi’ dig

The Sinful South

I wonder if their religiosity is some perverted way to absolve themselves - a form of cognitive dissonance?

TheAtlantic: Texas Leads the US in Thrice-Married Adults

Wired: American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins

Real Mayans Tell Westerners To Chill Out

Via NPR: 2012 Isn't The End Of The World, Mayans Insist

Dogs In Disarray

Update - SciAm has more on this topic: The Origin of Dogs

New genetic research indicates dogs may not have originated from the domestication of wolves in east Asia as originally believed. Now a massive worldwide collection of DNA from dogs is underway in order to better understand where dogs were first tamed.

See NYT: Research Undermines Dog Domestication Theory

Origins

New genetic research pinpoints the source of all humans to near the South African - Namibia border.

Via BBC: Experts unveil African gene study

The first humans most likely evolved near the South Africa-Namibia border, the team said, and migrated north out of the continent via the Red Sea.

Researchers had identified 14 ancestral population clusters "that correlated with ethnicity and shared cultural and/or linguistic properties", they said.

View Larger Map

Evidence For A Single Migration To The Americas

See PhysOrg: Native Americans descended from a single ancestral group, DNA study confirms

Unfortunately we may never know if the Clovis people were similar to Native Americans or had different genetics because they died out.

The Endurance Running Hypothesis

Via SeedMag: The Running Man

“Running an animal to heatstroke is something that most humans can do, and that other animals can’t,” says Lieberman. “It’s a compelling explanation for why these capabilities evolved, and frankly, nobody’s come up with a better idea yet.”

This article reminded me of The Legend of Cliff Young: The 61 Year Old Farmer Who Won the World’s Toughest Race

Take That Ice Age

Study: Did Early Climate Impact Divert A New Glacial Age?

Using three different climate models and removing the amount of greenhouse gases humans have injected into the atmosphere during the past 5,000 to 8,000 years, Vavrus and Kutzbach observed more permanent snow and ice cover in regions of Canada, Siberia, Greenland and the Rocky Mountains, all known to be seed regions for glaciers from previous ice ages. Vavrus notes: "With every feedback we've included, it seems to support the hypothesis (of a forestalled ice age) even more. We keep getting the same answer."

Update 1/7/2009
New World post-pandemic reforestation helped start Little Ice Age

Stanford University researchers have conducted a comprehensive analysis of data detailing the amount of charcoal contained in soils and lake sediments at the sites of both pre-Columbian population centers in the Americas and in sparsely populated surrounding regions. They concluded that reforestation of agricultural lands-abandoned as the population collapsed-pulled so much carbon out of the atmosphere that it helped trigger a period of global cooling, at its most intense from approximately 1500 to 1750, known as the Little Ice Age.

Another Myth Is Busted

PhysOrg reports that sites that were originally referred to as "Forts" by William Henry Harrison were actually water works designed to cope with post-glacial climate change.

See: Revising and re-sizing history: New work shows Ohio site to be an ancient water works, not a fort

The site known as Miami Fort is no fort at all, and it is also much larger than previously believed – so large, in fact, that its berms stretch to almost six kilometers in length, making it twice as large as any other Native American earthworks in Ohio, and one of the largest in the nation.

New Evidence Pushes Back Arrival Of First Americans

NatGeo - Earliest Known American Settlers Harvested Seaweed

...support the theory that the first Americans spread through the New World along a coastal route after walking across a land bridge from Asia to Alaska at least 15,000 years ago.

CSMon - Chile or Bust: Tracing the path of the first Americans

Half-chewed seaweed in southern Chile and fossilized feces unearthed in an Oregon cave are helping scientists build a case for the arrival of the first migrants in the Americas thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

These archaeological finds – unveiled within the past month – contribute to an evolving story in which the first migrants arrived in the Americas from Siberia between 15,000 and 16,000 years ago. They then appear to have trekked south along the west coasts of North and South America.

New statistical method throws up ancestry surprises

The study also shed light on the peopling of the Americas, as the results suggest that the native populations of north and south America have different origins. The researchers explain this by suggesting a scenario involving multiple waves of migration. In their proposed scenario, the population which first colonised North East Asia also crossed the Bering Strait and eventually made it to South America. This population was subsequently replaced by a population more closely related to modern East Asians. These people also successfully crossed the Bering Strait and contributed to the ancestry of the native North Americans.

Are You A Good Wife?

I gave Megan a pre-dating quiz that she barely passed but this is a real gem via BoingBoing- 1939 Marital Rating Scale For Wives

Skipping Breakfast Also Makes More Girls

Via PhysOrg - You are what your mother eats: First evidence that mother's diet influences infant sex

“Potentially, males of most species can father more offspring than females, but this can be strongly influenced by the size or social status of the male, with poor quality males failing to breed at all. Females, on the other hand, reproduce more consistently. If a mother has plentiful resources then it can make sense to invest in producing a son because he is likely to produce more grandchildren than would a daughter. However, in leaner times having a daughter is a safer bet.”

Men Are Awesome

LAT Op - Men who explain things

"I Have Got A Pretty Finely Tuned Internal Clock"

"Which is actually why I'm such a good natural percussionist." -George Michael Bluth

PhysOrg - Intelligence and rhythmic accuracy go hand in hand: People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning.

It Isn't Prositution, It's 'Reproductive Currency'

Startling new research shows people trade sex for other things - Just like penguins and other primates, people trade sex for resources

An Unknown Homo Species?

Discover Magazine - The Extinct Human Species That Was Smarter Than Us: The superintelligent Boskops had small, childlike faces and huge melon heads.

This sounded suspicious to me. A simple Google search confirmed it.
See: The "amazing" Boskops

12 Shia Imams

As demonstration of my ignorance, today I learned on the Diane Rehm show that there are 12 Shia Imams. Twelve. That reminded me of Battlestar Galactica and some Google searching turned up this interesting forum thread detailing how often 12 is used in culture.

Why only 12 Cylon models?

News Quake - This Time The Settling Woman

Last year sushi was in the hipster news, now it is the single woman and marriage. It appears to have started with Lori Gottlieb's 'Marry Him!' in the March, 2008 Atlantic.

Then it got on NPR's All Things Considered, Slate.com had a story about the evolutionary advantage for women who cheat, and The Claremont Institure posted A review of Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age, by Kay S. Hymowitz and The Future of Marriage, by David Blankenhorn.

And while women may like to settle for a guy who doesn't do everything for them what they may not realize about guys is as ALL's song 'Net' says, "the truth is that I feel better being miserable without than happy with someone else", so ladies, you have to watch out for that.

I have a long-held belief that many college seniors marry each other out of fear of being alone in the world post-college.

I also think that relationships are like stoves and you need to decide if you want to cook with electricity or gas? An electric cook-top is a practical partner but it heats unevenly and slowly; it doesn't get hot enough for some techniques; and when the electricity is out after a storm you can't cook. On the other hand there are many ways to generate electricity and it is a renewable resource. But there's always a flame with a natural gas range; it gets hot enough and is versatile enough for any kind of cooking; and even when the electricity is out there's still a spark. But it is also easy to burn yourself, you have to watch for flare-ups, and eventually natural gas will be depleted.

A dual-fuel model would be ideal for a lot of people.