Sociobiology

The Real Power of Putin

Edit The New York Review of Books 18 Sep 2016

Vladimir Putin; drawing by James Ferguson ... Through that same window, he could see the bodies of officers of the Hungarian secret police swaying from streetlights ... During his decade as a zek (prisoner) in the Gulag, he became a keen observer of human relations in the primordial setting of the camps, developing categories of analysis that we would now recognize as belonging to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology ... ....

Wandering Pathways, Scrabbling Claws

Edit Slate 08 Sep 2016

Adapted from The Poem Is You ... Used by permission. All rights reserved. Epigraph ... He touted the discipline of sociobiology (which claimed that genes and natural selection could explain much of human behavior) along with the notion of “consilience,” which meant that one unified mode of explanation (presumably mathematical and empirical) would eventually tell us all we wanted to know about everything from photons to philanthropists ... --- ... ....

First rule of cuttlefish fight club: Always tell the truth (Macquarie University)

Edit Public Technologies 29 Jul 2016

(Source. Macquarie University) ... Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, male cuttlefish appear to use a specific set of rules when battling with other male cuttlefish, and they perform a discrete sequence of visual displays to communicate a hierarchy, or sequence, of threats to rivals ... Schnell, A.K. et al ... Cuttlefish perform multiple agonistic displays to communicate a hierarchy of threats, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology....

Peter Tyack: Marine Mammal Communications

Edit The Scientist 01 Jul 2016

In 1974, during the spring semester of his junior year at Harvard University, Peter Tyack noticed a summer job posting tacked up on the bulletin board of the undergraduate biology office ... Tyack’s answer was an emphatic yes ... That summer job was fortuitous because it led Tyack to study marine mammal communication ... Wilson, who was studying sociobiology and evolution at the time, he decided to major in biological anthropology....

Internal Compass Guides Deer Fleeing From Carnivores

Edit IFL Science 09 Jun 2016

When a group of grazing deer are startled by a predator, they bolt. That’s multiple deer fleeing at the same time. How do they not run into each other and cause a massive leggy tangle? According to new findings published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, an internal compass helps them follow a certain direction in order to make collision-free escapes. Escape behavior is well studied in animals ... ....

Edward O Wilson's plan to save the planet

Edit The National 10 May 2016

Even at 86, Edward O Wilson still thinks boldly. The renowned biologist, emeritus professor at Harvard University, path-breaking evolutionary theorist, and author of more than two-dozen books, is gravely worried about the future of the planet, which he argues, has reached a tipping point ... In Half-Earth ... Wilson doesn't do modest. In the seventies, his evolutionary theories, which he advanced in one of his major works, Sociobiology ... ....

Three New Species Of Primates Have Been Discovered

Edit IFL Science 18 Apr 2016

Madagascar is a veritable wonderland of unique species of plant and animal life ... “By using new, objective methods to assess genetic differences between individuals, we were able to find independent evidence that these three mouse lemurs represent new species,” Peter Kappeler, head of the behavioral ecology and sociobiology unit at the German Primate Center and a co-author of the study, said in a statement ... They’re decidedly cryptic ... ....

Bees Diversify Diet to Take the Sting Out of Nutritional Deficiencies (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Edit Public Technologies 13 Apr 2016

(Source. Hebrew University of Jerusalem). While pesticides and pathogens pose clear threats to honey bee health, the need of bee colonies for balanced nutrition is gaining increasing appreciation ... In new research reported in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, they found that bees can shift their foraging effort towards resources that complement nutritional deficits ... Harmen Hendriksma ... Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology....

Fiddler Crabs Bluff Their Way Through Fights

Edit IFL Science 06 Apr 2016

Like a bank robber armed with nothing but a banana inside a paper bag, male fiddler crabs often exaggerate the potency of their weaponry in order to bluff their opponents into submission when engaging in combat. However, according to a new study in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, this poker-faced sham does not always work, as smaller crabs often call the bluff of their larger adversaries, forcing them to back off ... ....

The Long And The Short Of It: Eight Reasons Why Short Men Come Up Short

Edit IFL Science 26 Mar 2016

Spurned by women, more likely to end up in jail, doomed to earn less, destined to languish in poorly paid jobs, plagued by feelings of inferiority and coming up short where coming up matters most, you’d think life had dealt the short straw to short men. And maybe it has. Short Men Tend To Be Poorer ... We See Short Men As Less Powerful ... Tall men also have ... There are probably sociobiological reasons behind women’s preference for tall men ... ....

Fish bond when they eat the same food (University of Lincoln)

Edit Public Technologies 22 Mar 2016

(Source ... Published in the scientific journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, the research found that for some fish it makes more sense to swim around with those that share their taste in food - and smell similar in the process - than to shoal with members of their own species. The findings highlight the role that chemical cues might play in creating familiarity and group bonds between members of different species ... Tanja explained....

A Wild Way to Save the Planet

Edit The New Republic 07 Mar 2016

... extends well beyond the core of Wilson’s scientific work—for many decades he has been a leading authority on ants—but since he published two sweepingly ambitious books in the late 1970s, Sociobiology and On Human Nature (the latter the occasion of his first Pulitzer), Wilson has dedicated much of his energy to arguments about what, exactly, we are....

Richard Levins: Scientist, Activist and Friend

Edit CounterPunch 24 Feb 2016

American scientist Richard Levins, philosopher of science, titan of ecology, forebear of agroecology, renowned authority on the social and ecological dimensions of disease, and friend of Puerto Rico, has passed away ... Levins led the battle against biological determinism and reductionist conceptions in evolutionary biology ... Wilson’s sociobiology, which he viewed as a pseudoscience that justified imperialism and class hierarchies ...   ....