As if it weren’t hard enough. Being assessed and judged all the time, on our looks, our deeds, our works, the contents of our refrigerators. We are also judged by the company we keep, and in ways that…
- Scientia Professor of Evolution, UNSW
Have you ever wondered what real scientists think of science fiction? Here’s a selection of top pics from those in the know.
Author and ecologist Paul Ehrlich told Q&A that humans, on average, have associated with only about 150 other people for millions of years. Is that right?
That most confected of artificial television spectacles, the MTV Video Music Awards has mercifully passed for another year. Miley Cyrus returned as host to the scene of her infamous 2013 performance where…
Today, millions of very nervous adults are furtively checking sites like “Have I been Pwned” to check if their account details at Ashley Madison have been leaked. Others are checking if their partners…
What gets you out of bed in the morning? Before morning has broken, and some time before blackbird has spoken, songbirds rise for sex. And a clever new experiment reveals just how important it is for male…
By any metric, Garrett Hardin’s The Tragedy of the Commons article in Science, a copy of his address as 1968 president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, rates among the most important…
Is alcohol-fuelled violence caused by the booze itself or by the macho culture in which the drinking occurs? If we are to believe a recent study commissioned by the alcohol company Lion, it’s the culture…
Is there an ideal body shape that is universally attractive? A recent study shows that beauty is more complex, and diverse, than that.
Are people naturally monogamous, polygamous or promiscuous? It’s one of those questions that most people feel quite confident in answering. Ask a few people and you’re likely to receive a variety of contradictory…
“Heredity”, opined the pioneering cultural anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber in 1915, “cannot be allowed to have acted any part in history”. I have yet to encounter a crisper expression of the view that…
How will the Ebola crisis influence next week’s mid-term elections in the USA? One might expect that an epidemic limited almost entirely to West Africa should be way, way down on the list of factors likely…
Settle in for a long read. Over the coming weeks you will be bombarded by shorter, snappier pieces about a controversy inflaming the front where evolutionary and social psychology meet. I’ve touched on…
My social media accounts today are cluttered with stories about “mutating” Ebola viruses. The usually excellent ScienceAlert, for example, rather breathlessly informs us “The Ebola virus is mutating faster…
Are video games societal microcosms wherein deviant behaviour flourishes and spills into “real life”? Or are they just harmless fun in which nobody really gets hurt? This endless debate usually concerns…
Marriage, according to those who habitually preface the word with “traditional”, is a collaboration. With complementary roles, filled as predictably by one woman and one man as peanut butter fills the…
Fifty years ago this month, evolutionary biologist William Donald Hamilton published a solution to one of biology’s most enduring mysteries: why does altruism exist? Altruistic behaviours are those where…
About a month ago, I stumbled across a paper that left me with the warm reinforcing glow that comes with being right. The rather artificial experiment played female subjects two pieces of music varying…
The soccer World Cup (yes, I persist in calling it “soccer”) is the one time in every four years I pay any sustained attention to the round-ball game. There is so much to love about the world’s most popular…
What separates humans from other animals, including our closest relatives? It’s one of those big questions perennially posed by the evo-curious public. But until recently I seldom gave it much thought…
When Jack was young, he began inflicting harm on animals. It started with just pulling the wings off flies, but eventually progressed to torturing squirrels and stray cats in his neighbourhood. As an adult…
Workers of the world can have their International Labour Day, or Workers Day or whatever. But the month of May belongs to an equally fundamental dignity: masturbation. The fact that a whole month is devoted…
If you haven’t been outdoors in a few years, you might not have noticed that beards are back. Back in such a big way that apparently many New York hipsters are paying north of US$8,000 for “facial hair…
How confident are you that the man you call dad is really your biological father? If you believe some of the most commonly-quoted figures, you could be forgiven for not being very confident at all. But…
How does alcohol consumption affect romantic life? Let me count the ways. If popular advertising is to be believed, the consumption of high-end spirits almost guarantees a steady variety of glamorous amour…
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