scholarly journals An etiology of human modernity

2021 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-357
Author(s):  
Robert G. Bednarik
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Abrupt Change ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Domestication Syndrome ◽  
First Results ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Following the refutation of the replacement hypothesis, which had proposed that a ‘superior’ hominin species arose in Africa and replaced all other humans existing at the time, the auto-domestication hypothesis remains the only viable explanation for the relatively abrupt change from robust to gracile humans in the Late Pleistocene. It invokes the incidental institution of the domestication syndrome in humans, most probably by newly introduced cultural practices. It also postulates that the induction of exograms compensated for the atrophy of the brain caused by domestication. This new explanation of the origins of modernity in humans elucidates practically all its many aspects, in stark contrast to the superseded replacement hypothesis, which explained virtually nothing. The first results of the domestication syndrome’s genetic exploration have become available in recent years, and they endorse the human self-domestication hypothesis.

Sustainable Production of Honeydew and Muskmelon in Western Mexico

HortScience ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 495d-495
Author(s):  
J. Farias-Larios ◽  
A. Michel-Rosales
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Glomus Intraradices ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Bare Soil ◽  
Western Mexico ◽  
First Results ◽  
Legume Cover Crop ◽  
Banana Leaves ◽  
Research Show

In Western Mexico, melon production depends on high-input systems to maximize yield and product quality. Tillage, plasticulture, fumigation with methyl bromide, and fertigation, are the principal management practices in these systems. However, at present several problems has been found: pests as sweetpotato whitefly (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius), aphids (Myzus and Aphis), leafminer (Liryomiza sativae); diseases as Fusarium, Verticilium, and Pseudoperenospora, and weeds demand high pesticide utilization and labor. There is a growing demand for alternative cultural practices, with an emphasis on reducing off-farm input labor and chemicals. Our research is based on use of organic mulches, such as: rice straw, mature maize leaves, banana leaves, sugarcane bagasse, coconut leaves, and living mulches with annual legume cover crop in melons with crop rotation, such as: Canavalia, Stilozobium, Crotalaria, and Clitoria species. Also, inoculations with mycorrhizal arbuscular fungi for honeydew and cantaloupe melon seedlings production are been assayed in greenhouse conditions for a transplant system. The use of life barriers with sorghum, marigold, and other aromatic native plants in conjunction with a colored yellow systems traps for monitoring pests is being studied as well. While that the pest control is based in commercial formulations of Beauveria bassiana for biological control. The first results of this research show that the Glomus intraradices, G. fasciculatum, G. etunicatum, and G. mosseae reached 38.5%, 33.5%, 27.0%, and 31.0% of root infection levels, respectively. Honeydew melons production with rice and corn straw mulches shows an beneficial effect with 113.30 and 111.20 kg/plot of 10 m2 compared with bare soil with 100.20 kg. The proposed system likely also lowers production cost and is applicable to small- and large-scale melon production.

scholarly journals Language impairments in ASD resulting from a failed domestication of the human brain

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Benítez-Burraco ◽  
Wanda Lattanzi ◽  
Elliot Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Neural Crest ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Expression Profiles ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Altered Expression ◽  
Domestication Syndrome ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
The Brain

AbstractAutism spectrum disorders (ASD) are pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders entailing social and cognitive deficits, including marked problems with language. Numerous genes have been associated with ASD, but it is unclear how language deficits arise from gene mutation or dysregulation. It is also unclear why ASD shows such high prevalence within human populations. Interestingly, the emergence of a modern faculty of language has been hypothesised to be linked to changes in the human brain/skull, but also to the process of self-domestication of the human species. It is our intention to show that people with ASD exhibit less marked domesticated traits at the morphological, physiological, and behavioural levels. We also discuss many ASD candidates represented among the genes known to be involved in the domestication syndrome (the constellation of traits exhibited by domesticated mammals, which seemingly results from the hypofunction of the neural crest) and among the set of genes involved in language function closely connected to them. Moreover, many of these genes show altered expression profiles in the brain of autists. In addition, some candidates for domestication and language-readiness show the same expression profile in people with ASD and chimps in different brain areas involved in language processing. Similarities regarding the brain oscillatory behaviour of these areas can be expected too. We conclude that ASD may represent an abnormal ontogenetic itinerary for the human faculty of language resulting in part from changes in genes important for the domestication syndrome and, ultimately, from the normal functioning of the neural crest.

Brain-to-body ratios and time of maturation of the mouse brain

1963 ◽  
Vol 204 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsukasa Kobayashi
Keyword(s):  
Body Weight ◽  
Short Duration ◽  
Mouse Brain ◽  
Abrupt Change ◽  
Brain Weight ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Phase ◽  
The Brain

Studies on the relationships of brain weight to body weight during development were conducted in 218 mice, and revealed three distinct phases. During the first phase, the ratios are relatively constant. The second phase of short duration is characterized by abrupt reductions. In the third phase, which is the most enduring, the ratios again assume more constant values. The abrupt change in the ratios took place around 14 days of age. It is suggested that the abrupt change in the ratio is, in general, an indicator of the maturation of the brain, because there are several other parameters which approach mature levels around the 15th day. A review of the data on other species supports this suggestion.

scholarly journals Interrogating the Notion of Self, ‘Mind’ and Personhood in Tangkhul Naga Tradition

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-75
Author(s):  
Yuimirin Kapai
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Models ◽  
The Self ◽  
Internal Organs ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
Mental Faculty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
The Brain

The article attempts to examine the conceptual foundation of the self, mind and personhood in the traditional thoughts of the Tangkhul Nagas and the social implications and cultural models that shaped these conceptualisations. Partly constrained by the scarcity of written accounts, I have closely looked at the language usage, etymology of words and cultural practices of the community. Ning (‘mind’) is the central concept. Rich embodied expressions associate thoughts and emotions with certain internal organs of human body. The soul resides in the liver, luck in the brain and feelings in the heart. Ning is said to be acquired. This raises the question of whether the acquisition of ‘mind’ strictly refers to an acquisition of the mental faculty or does it include social norms and other skills. Drawing from the philosophy of Mead, the central argument is that the self, mind and ‘significant symbols’ conflated in the idea of personhood.

The First Results of Tephrochronological Study of Late Pleistocene–Holocene Volcanic Eruptions in the Zhom–Bolok River Valley (Eastern Sayan)

2019 ◽  
Vol 486 (1) ◽  
pp. 503-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. A. Shchetnikov ◽  
E. V. Bezrukova ◽  
E. V. Kerber ◽  
O. Yu. Belozerova ◽  
M. I. Kuzmin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
River Valley ◽  
First Results ◽  
Eastern Sayan

scholarly journals Measuring different oxygenation levels in a blood perfusion model simulating the human head using NIRS

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 371-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Rackebrandt ◽  
H. Gehring
Keyword(s):  
Venous Blood ◽  
Blood Perfusion ◽  
Human Head ◽  
Target Region ◽  
Property Variation ◽  
Perfusion Model ◽  
Reflected Light ◽  
First Results ◽  
Measurement Cell ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe oxygenation, perfusion and metabolism of the brain - segmented in both hemispheres - can be estimated from the oxygenation and hemoglobin levels of the venous blood in the cerebral efferent vessels.We present a phantom based model to simulate the anatomical target region which was connected to hemodynamic perfusion circuit to provide different oxygenation rates inside of the simulated target vessel (measurement cell) reproducible. A triple-wavelength (770, 808 and 850 nm) multi-distance NIRS sensor (6 photodiodes, linearly arranged, separated 6 mm each) was used to detect these different saturation levels.The results illustrate the capability to measure the optical property variation of hemoglobin due to oxygenation and deoxygenation processes in a specific vessel. Based on these first results a series of measurements is introduced to correlate the amount of reflected light to the actual oxygen saturation of the blood.

Enactivist Interventions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Mathematical Reasoning ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Close Coupling ◽  
Affective Processes ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Enactivist Interventions explores central issues in the contemporary debates about embodied cognition, addressing interdisciplinary questions about intentionality, representation, affordances, the role of affect, and the problems of perception and cognitive penetration, action and free will, higher-order cognition, and intersubjectivity. It argues for a rethinking of the concept of mind, drawing on pragmatism, phenomenology, and cognitive science. It interprets enactivism as a philosophy of nature that has significant methodological and theoretical implications for the scientific investigation of the mind. Enactivist Interventions argues that, like the basic phenomena of perception and action, sophisticated cognitive phenomena like reflection, imagining, and mathematical reasoning are best explained in terms of an affordance-based skilled coping. It thus argues for a continuity that runs between basic action, affectivity, and a rationality that in every case remains embodied. It also discusses recent predictive models of brain function and outlines an alternative, enactivist interpretation that emphasizes the close coupling of brain, body, and environment rather than a strong boundary that isolates the brain in its internal processes. The extensive relational dynamics that integrates the brain with the extra-neural body opens into an environment that is physical, social, and cultural and that recycles back into the enactive process. Cognitive processes are in the world, situated in affordance spaces defined across evolutionary, developmental, and individual histories, and are constrained by affective processes and normative dimensions of social and cultural practices.

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