Ouroboros is hosting the latest brain/mind Encephalon carnival. Damaged learning, former voodoo, informed consent, emotional expressions, and bad moods… Enough to make your mind run in circles.
Cultural Evolution in Full Text
I’ve managed to round up a bunch of pdf or full text links for recent papers on cultural evolution and on the evolution of language.
Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater (2008), Language as Shaped by the Brain
Simon Kirby, Mike Dowman & Thomas Griffiths (2007), Innateness and Culture in the Evolution of Language
Simon Kirby, Hannah Cornish & Kenny Smith (2008), Cumulative Cultural Evolution in the Laboratory: An Experimental Approach to the Origins of Structure in Human Language
Christine Caldwell & Ailsa Millen (2008), Studying Cumulative Cultural Evolution in the Laboratory
Kenny Smith, Michael Kalish, Thomas Griffiths & Stephan Lewandowsky (2008), Introduction: Cultural Evolution and the Transmission of Human Behaviour
Andrew Whiten & Alex Mesoudi (2008), Establishing an Experimental Science of Culture: Animal Social Diffusion Experiments
Alex Mesoudi & Andrew Whiten (2008), The Multiple Roles of Cultural Transmission Experiments in Understanding Human Cultural Evolution
Thomas Griffiths, Michael Kalish & Stephan Lewandowsky (2008), Theoretical and Empirical Evidence for the Impact of Inductive Biases on Cultural Evolution
Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd & Peter Richerson (2008), Five Misunderstandings about Cultural Evolution
Tim Lewens (2007), Cultural Evolution (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Esther Hermann, colleagues & Michael Tomasello (2007), Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition:The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis
Robert Boyd & Peter Richerson (2008), Gene-Culture Coevolution and the Evolution of Social Institutions
Anthro Hits the Links
Open Anthropology has put together a great collection entitled Economics Blogs in a Time of Crisis: Policy, Development, Globalization, and Transformation. From neuroeconomics to bonobo land and political economy, you can find something to fit your taste (ah, capitalism) in Max’s list.
Somatosphere gives us Teaching Anthropology of the Body. You can get Eugene’s syllabus, other syllabi he finds useful, links to readings, and even some reviews. As a bonus, Eugene’s summarizes some new stuff available over at LSE’s BIOS focusing on interdisciplinary approaches to biomedicine and technology.
Over at Savage Minds Rex has given us a list of useful syllabi on virtual worlds and technology. A lot of great reading, including Tom Boellstorff’s courses on culture and power in cyberspace. Over at Digital Ethnography Michael Wesch got his students to summarize 94 articles that explored anonmity online.
Rex also outlined the books for his ethnographic methods class. Some great recommendations, and since it’s Savage Minds the large community there also provides more suggestions.
Kerim gave us YouTube EDU, describing some online video resources for academia at youtube and elsewhere. He laments the conspicuous absence of anthropology. Something that Pamthropologist also does with Academic Earth’s video collection. But that’s something Max Forte is trying to rectify all on his own. He has been building an online collection of open video, much of it revolving around economics, critical theory, globalization, and the like. So go explore!
The Bleeding Heart Show gives us a few links on Pakistan and Afghanistan, definitely stuff that is worthwhile but outside mainstream media. Elsewhere Erkan gives us a round-up of journalism coverage of Obama’s trip to Europe and Turkey.
Poverty and the Brain: Becoming Critical
Poverty Poisons the Brain was one of our most popular posts last year. Recent research has brought that topic back into public light. It’s good research, but today I will get critical about what really matters in our emerging realization that social disadvantage results in neurological disadvantage.
Gary Evans and Michelle Shamberg recently published a PNAS paper, Childhood Poverty, Chronic Stress and Working Memory (pdf). Here’s the abstract:
The income–achievement gap is a formidable societal problem, but little is known about either neurocognitive or biological mechanisms that might account for income-related deficits in academic achievement. We show that childhood poverty is inversely related to working memory in young adults. Furthermore, this prospective relationship is mediated by elevated chronic stress during childhood. Chronic stress is measured by allostatic load, a biological marker of cumulative wear and tear on the body that is caused by the mobilization of multiple physiological systems in response to chronic environmental demands.
The Evans and Shamberg paper has gotten prominent media attention. Over at Wired, Poverty Goes Straight to the Brain got an enormous number of diggs. Brandon Keim’s opening lines are, “Growing up poor isn’t merely hard on kids. It might also be bad for their brains. A long-term study of cognitive development in lower- and middle-class students found strong links between childhood poverty, physiological stress and adult memory.”
Stone Sport
Two carnivals out this week.
Four Stone Hearth, the best of anthro blogging, is out at Quiche Moraine. Shamans, animal models of human sociality, pelvis sexing, lego archaeology, and much more!
The Athletic Alley is hosting its weekly sports carnival. From amateur to pro, adult fitness to youth sports, there’s a bit of everything for the sports aficionado.
Wednesday Round Up #58
Yeah, no anarchy this week, just the top, anthro, brain and some other interesting stuff.
Top of the List
Emily Singer, Brain Cells’ Long Migration
Complete with video! Neurons follow blood vessels. Very cool.
Deric Bownds, Language Shapes Fundamental Unconscious Visual Perception
New PNAS paper – Sapir-Whorf in action!
Bill Moyers Journal, Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman
Alternative news through Slate and Democracy Now covered on the popular PBS program
Joao Biehl, Social Innovation in Global Health: When People Come First
The Princeton anthropologist and rising star gives a lecture that summarizes a lot of his ideas
Life of Wiley, Hilarious
The ninja cat stalks!
Anthropology
immanence, Cultural Studies’ Biosemiotic Turn?
Coverage of some recent books within a broad bio-cultural framework. See a follow-up post on other types of biocultural studies.
Neuroanthropology 