Behavioral Biology
Category archives for Behavioral Biology
Does Our Paleolithic Past Shape Our Modern Survival Instinct?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 15, 2016 
The latest National Geographic Roundtable Question: Survivor-style television has grown increasingly popular over the years and done a great job of illustrating our brain’s fascinating built-in survival instinct. What role do you think our ancestral instincts play today in helping us survive, thrive and accomplish our goals? How much of our ancestral survival instincts are…
Aging: Even Opie. An evolutionary perspective
Posted by Greg Laden on November 23, 2015 
I’m not going to say that Ron Howard is old or anything, but he isn’t Opie any more. (And, in fact, it has been fascinating and inspiring to watch his career, by the way.) Anyway, Howard produced a new documentary with National Geographic called “Breakthrough: The Age of Aging, which premieres Sunday, November 29 at…
Crocodile Nomadism: Size Matters
Posted by Greg Laden on September 21, 2015 
Every now and then an animal shows up where it is unexpected. Why just the other day a black bear had to be coaxed out of a tree down by the middle school, a couple of blocks form here. Even though our marshes, woodlands, and small patches of prairie house cougars, coyotes, deer, and all…
When is the best time to give birth?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 15, 2015 
After, not before, you get to the hospital, I always say. But seriously, Robert Martin, the famous primatologist, has an interesting piece in Psychology Today exploring this question. Go read it. I’ve got a few thoughts spurred by this research I’ll list briefly here. First, it seems that wild primates give birth during their daily…
Tales of the Ex-Apes
Posted by Greg Laden on September 2, 2015 
Jonathan Marks’ new book is called “Tales of the Ex-Apes: How We Think about Human Evolution” I’ve got to tell you that when I first saw the title of this book, the letters played in my head a bit. Tails of the Ex-Apes. That would be funny because apes don’t have tails. Or Tales of…
A kiss is not a kiss…
Posted by Greg Laden on August 24, 2015 
The authors of a new paper note that “one of the principal ways in which we interact using our faces is kissing.” This reminds me of an old National Lampoon joke on how the French were famous for inventing sex acts with the face. But I digress. This paper looks at neural imaging responses of…
Bernie Sanders’ Essay
Posted by Greg Laden on June 1, 2015 
Bernie Sanders’ famous essay is below. I will reserve comment but I’d like your opinion on it. I will say that the press is handling this rather badly, at least at present, taking quotes with zero context, not addressing the meaning of the essay as a whole. Sanders says it was poorly written. Is it?…
Is my penis too small, too big, or just right?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 5, 2015 
And by “my” penis I mean “your” penis, of course. This is a perennial question. For some reason, which I do not understand, the feminist perspective (note: I’m a feminist) is often to belittle the question, but really, that isn’t fair. It is not that difficult to imagine how anyone would come to a question…
Do genes make you gay?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 18, 2014 
Of course they do. To the extent that genes make you anything in particular, though the role of genetics in human behavior is pretty limited. You’ve probably heard about the newly reported research in which a genetic link was found to homosexuality in a study of gay brothers. Kelly Servick has a good writeup on…
Baby Cries Cause Concern For Mothers Of Other Species
Posted by Greg Laden on September 20, 2014 
It has long been known by humans that female mammals can be attracted with the call of a young in distress. There is a famous documentary film of the Hadza, a foraging group in Tanzania, in which this method is used by young boys to trap Dasssies (rock Hyrax). First you catch a baby Dassie…