Why Grandmothers Even Exist

It’s been over half century since researchers dreamt up the idea that grandmothers exist chiefly to enable their children to have their own children, thereby increasing the genetic fitness of the family lineage.  In the 1980s, Kristen Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Utah, bolstered this so-called “grandmother hypothesis” with her studies of the Hadza […]

Sick, Tired and Tyrannical

In 2016 America, fitness status was strongly correlated with presidential voting preferences.  Citizens of counties with high rates of Type 2 diabetes and obesity tended to vote for Donald Trump, regardless of their race or education level.  Citizens of counties with low rates of Type 2 diabetes and obesity tended not to vote for Donald […]

Guest Post: Flexible Flying

In recent months, I’ve spent most of my time in Bremen, a coastal fishing village just down the peninsula from Damariscotta, Maine.  Often my husband joins me. Bremen is Maine the way you think of it–our neighbors haul lobsters, dredge clams, pull kelp, and farm oysters.  There’s an emergency doc who doubles as a vet […]