Article: The association between intelligence and lifespan is mostly genetic

Background: Several studies in the new field of cognitive epidemiology have shown that higher intelligence predicts longer lifespan. This positive correlation might arise from socioeconomic status influencing both intelligence and health; intelligence leading to better health behaviours; and/or some shared genetic factors influencing both intelligence and health. Distinguishing among these hypotheses is crucial for medicine and public health, but can only be accomplished by studying a genetically informative sample.

A long standing, and powerful, assumption among many people is that human beings are born as a "blank slate" and that any differences in outcomes among individuals or various socioeconomic groups must be due to disadvantages and oppression. This is another nail in the coffin of that pernicious paradigm.

Key Messages

• It has been reported that brighter people live longer; we asked ‘why?'.
• We found, using data from three studies, that the small association between being brighter and living longer was mostly genetic in origin.
• This is a key finding in cognitive epidemiology; it is a further indication that intelligence is not just ‘school-smarts'.

I like this also because it shows the scientific method in operation.

Observation: Brighter people live longer.
Problem: Why do brighter people live longer?
Hypotheses: This positive correlation might arise from
1. socioeconomic status influencing both intelligence and health;
2. intelligence leading to better health behaviours;
3. and/or some shared genetic factors influencing both intelligence and health.
Experiment: retrospective analysis of three, long-term twin studies
Results: a small association between intelligence and living longer is mostly genetic in origin.
Conclusion: "intelligence is not just ‘school-smarts'."

Hypothesis falsification:
Factoring in socioeconomic factors, and health behaviors, using data from Sweden, seems to indicate that these factors do not influence lifespan.

In other word, environmental factors have a smaller effect on life span than genetic factors, such as intelligence.

Article: When the Cat Comes Back, With Prey

Another British study on the ecological effects of cats, considered a "predatory, non-native species."  Previous studies have attempted to determine how much of an impact cats had. This one is more about the attitudes and actions of the cat's owners.

Take aways:

• cats are predators, good predators
• their owners allow their cats to roam during prime hunting hours.
• their owners know they hunt, and catch, other animals.
• their owners underestimate how many prey animals their cats catch.
• their owners do not want to contain their cats to protect wildlife

Addtionally, at then end of the article there is a discussion about cats avoiding parks and public lands in the US. Turns out that they are apparently avoiding coyotes.

That was even true of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., which is surrounded by residences and likely thousands of pet cats. Yet in six months, researchers caught coyotes on camera 125 times in the park, but photographed a cat only once.

Article: How your brain reacts to emotional information is influenced by your genes

One long standing cultural conflict is between the idea that humans are a blank slate and the idea that humans have a recognizable "human nature."

The "blank slate" idea is the idea, more common on the political left, that humans have no single basic nature and that any evil they do is because they have been corrupted by (usually Western) culture. 

The "human nature" idea is the idea, more common on the political right, that humans have a "hard-wired" nature that can only be modified by upbringing and that has both good and evil aspects. 

Orthodox Christianity holds that all humans have a "fallen" nature that is less than perfect and is corrupt by nature, even if all humans are capable of good. 

Marism explicitly accepts the blank slate idea. One of the outworkings of this idea is that there are no inherent differences between classes, sexes, races, or ethnic groups. Therefore, any apparent differences are due to oppression by the dominant group. For example, a lack of female scientists is soley due to the dominant group, men, keeping women out, rather than a lack of women trying to get in. 

Your genes may influence how sensitive you are to emotional information, according to new research by a neuroscientist. The study found that carriers of a certain genetic variation perceived positive and negative images more vividly, and had heightened activity in certain brain regions.

Or, paraphrased, your genes influence how much empathy you show. People who have a specific gene react more strongly to emotions and that this reaction is hard-wired into your brain. 

"People really do see the world differently," says lead author Rebecca Todd, a professor in UBC's Department of Psychology. "For people with this gene variation, the emotionally relevant things in the world stand out much more." 

[snip] 

Todd believes this may help explain why some people are more susceptible to PTSD and intrusive memories following trauma. 

[snip] 

The ADRA2b deletion variant appears in varying degrees across different ethnicities. Although roughly 50 per cent of the Caucasian population studied by these researchers in Canada carry the genetic variation, it has been found to be prevalent in other ethnicities. For example, one study found that just 10 per cent of Rwandans carried the ADRA2b gene variant.

In other words, Caucasians are much more likely to be attuned to the emotional states of others than Rwandans. This raises the question how common is this gene variant in other populations? 

Other implications: 

ADRA2b insertion variant appears to be correlated with hypertention, but inversersely correlated with type 2 diabetes in ethnic Han Chinese men.