As an undergraduate at MIT, I wrote a term paper for 9.20 (Animal Behavior) about carnivorous chimpanzee behavior. Many years earlier, I had watched a documentary on apes, and a single brief scene described the basics of male chimpanzee hunting parties. The majority of that scene was filled with ominous music and wild screams, with little or no footage of chimps engaging in true raids. When the topic of ape feeding behavior arose in 9.20, I was mystified by the absence of any mention of meat-eating chimps in the texts. Why so little discussion? My curiosity was further aroused, and it turned out to be a fine topic for a term paper.
Over the course of my research, I couldn't ignore the many papers on inter-species chimpanzee fighting, often because there were common authors such as John Mitani. One of the most interesting cases I came across in my research was an instance where a group of males encountered a female with a young baby at the edge of the group's territory. The female had not been seen in the area for at least a few months. Researchers believed she might have been with an adjacent group, among their males.
The males she encountered seemed to think so, or at very least knew that none of them had copulated with her anytime recently. Her baby was not of their group, so, they forcibly took it from her and tore it apart. This fit into my carnivorous behavior research because the males then ate some of the baby after it was assuredly dead.
Chimps take their borders quite seriously. Now, from more recent research by Mitani with the chimps of Ngogo in Uganda, it has been revealed that their wars are even more sophisticated.
Chimpanzee gangs kill for land, new study shows
ScienceDaily (2010-06-22) -- Bands of chimpanzees violently kill individuals from neighboring groups in order to expand their own territory, according to a 10-year study of a chimp community in Uganda that provides the first definitive evidence for this long-suspected function of this behavior. ... > read full article
Good read. Mitani concedes that they can't be sure if the territorial acquisition is aimed at increasing resources or mates. I like their take on cooperation: while these findings are incredibly violent, it is still worth noting the incredible level of group unity necessary for the success of such efforts. So much cooperation research emphasizes friendly or altruistic interactions, probably because the competitive and violent sorts are not pleasing for most audiences to hear about.
I like chimps a lot. Some people complain that they're too aggressive and unfriendly, unlike bonobos or gorillas. First of all, chimps aren't that aggressive; I think they have a bad rap. Secondly, yes, they are more aggressive than many other apes, but so are humans.
Showing posts with label MIT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MIT. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 23
Sunday, April 18
Human Ethology: MIT Housing Edition
I meant to post this the day it came out, but times be hectic.
I wrote an editorial for The Tech, MIT's Oldest and Largest Newspaper, briefly applying principles of human ethology and evolutionary psychology to dormitory housing in defense of MIT's current housing system. Newspaper spaces are a bit more constraining, forcing me to omit a more in depth explanation, but the ethology of living is important enough that I'll return to it, probably many times. The particular issue of dining plans is a recurring big issue, so that's a major focus of almost all discussions concerning MIT's housing system. But enough enough synopsis, go read the full article for your self.
That piece had been lying in wait for an opportune moment for some time, but these particular writing take quite a bit more time and energy to put together. However, I think I'll be having a little more time now, so I'm hoping to produce human ethology posts on a more regular basis.
I wrote an editorial for The Tech, MIT's Oldest and Largest Newspaper, briefly applying principles of human ethology and evolutionary psychology to dormitory housing in defense of MIT's current housing system. Newspaper spaces are a bit more constraining, forcing me to omit a more in depth explanation, but the ethology of living is important enough that I'll return to it, probably many times. The particular issue of dining plans is a recurring big issue, so that's a major focus of almost all discussions concerning MIT's housing system. But enough enough synopsis, go read the full article for your self.
That piece had been lying in wait for an opportune moment for some time, but these particular writing take quite a bit more time and energy to put together. However, I think I'll be having a little more time now, so I'm hoping to produce human ethology posts on a more regular basis.
Sunday, January 17
Map and Maze Puzzles
This past weekend was the annual MIT Mystery Hunt, and every year I say that I'm just not going to care that much, and when the hunt actually starts, I reneg on everything I've said and go peddle to the metal. Of course, I then forget this change of mind a year later and it all happens again. The exception was the 2008 hunt, which actually sucked enough for me not to do any meaningful work for it - I can't remember working on a single puzzle from that year.
This year was not an exception to the pattern, which is unfortunate since I am in Africa and remote solving from a netbook over a crappy ADSL connection is extremely frustrating. Plus I'm unable to access most of the puzzles. In spite of this, I've done what I seem to be a satisfactory amount of work and solving. Which is why I can now divert my attention to writing this post which I have been thinking about for a little while.
In the realm of puzzles, some people are specialists. There are the crossword freaks, sudoku nerds, anagram weirdos, cryptic punks to name a few. I'm a map puzzle specialist, as it turns out, and its generally my opinion that way too few people appreciate a good map puzzle. Consider the atrocities and monstrosities I've had to put up with in previous hunts.
My predilection towards map puzzles is a curious thing. One could easily attribute such a strength to one's puzzle upbringing; the title of this post is taken from the puzzle book which is my traditional all-time favorite (it is sort of like a little hunt unto itself, made up entirely of this sort of puzzle and without any need for the internet), thus we can surmise that my library was at least partially an influence.
However, in 9.10 - Cognitive Neuroscience, we spent a class discussion gender difference in cognitive capacities, which was the first time I encountered the literature behind such stipulations. Gender differences are everywhere in the brain, but what I found intriguing were the differences in spatial ability between the sexes. I dug up an old meta-analysis (Linn and Peterson, 1985) of various spatial tests to have a look at just what the data says.
I do mean, old, too - the review is from 25 years ago and more recent analyses have been published. However, publications in purist psychology journals tend to be more resistant to the Open Access revolution, so I couldn't obtain anything more current. This is unfortunate because I don't like this paper too much - its geared towards developmentalists, not... genderists? Sexists? In particular, it provides only a couple of highly lacking tables and figures for the gender comparison data, placing unwarranted emphasis on the age data. The name of your article is "Emergence and Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Ability..." Come on.
So, how does one approach evaluate an individuals ability to think spatially? Traditionally, there are different tests for the tree main types of spatial ability.
Rotational analysis refers to ones ability to visualize 3D objects and rotate them around and accurately revisualize them. This is the kind of skill one would find useful in games like Homeworld or X-Wing, and probably general path-finding.
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Very simply put, spatial visualization requires one take an image and alter it, usually in a fairly complex way, following multiple steps.
The bottom line:
Males are significantly better at mental rotation and in spatial perception, females are slightly more able than males at age 4, but at age 5 male ability accelerates and by adulthood, males well-outperform females. In spatial visualization, tests have not revealed significant differences.
I am inclined to attribute map puzzle skill to the one's ability in spatial visualization, due to the highly complex nature of both tasks. This would imply that gender has nothing to do with the matter, which doesn't exactly jive with the stereotypes. Gender stereotypes and bad and all, though usually contain a kernel of truth somewhere within. A small array of tests as we have examined only provides so much information on the big picture of how the brain processes spatial info across the genders. Map and maze puzzles themselves come in all shapes and sizes, thus further obscuring the question.
Which is why the real moral of this post is that one should not too earnestly mix sleep deprived marathon puzzling orgies with stuffy science literature.
Now that the males have a step up at least in the majority of spatial cognition, I'll have to eventually write a counterpoint to level the playing field with the females. Perhaps I'll write about that infuriating female aptitude for multitasking, which is very real. Be afraid.
References:
1. . Marcia C. Linn, Anne C. Petersen. Child Development, Vol. 56, No. 6 (Dec., 1985), pp. 1479-1498.
This year was not an exception to the pattern, which is unfortunate since I am in Africa and remote solving from a netbook over a crappy ADSL connection is extremely frustrating. Plus I'm unable to access most of the puzzles. In spite of this, I've done what I seem to be a satisfactory amount of work and solving. Which is why I can now divert my attention to writing this post which I have been thinking about for a little while.
In the realm of puzzles, some people are specialists. There are the crossword freaks, sudoku nerds, anagram weirdos, cryptic punks to name a few. I'm a map puzzle specialist, as it turns out, and its generally my opinion that way too few people appreciate a good map puzzle. Consider the atrocities and monstrosities I've had to put up with in previous hunts.
My predilection towards map puzzles is a curious thing. One could easily attribute such a strength to one's puzzle upbringing; the title of this post is taken from the puzzle book which is my traditional all-time favorite (it is sort of like a little hunt unto itself, made up entirely of this sort of puzzle and without any need for the internet), thus we can surmise that my library was at least partially an influence.
However, in 9.10 - Cognitive Neuroscience, we spent a class discussion gender difference in cognitive capacities, which was the first time I encountered the literature behind such stipulations. Gender differences are everywhere in the brain, but what I found intriguing were the differences in spatial ability between the sexes. I dug up an old meta-analysis (Linn and Peterson, 1985) of various spatial tests to have a look at just what the data says.
I do mean, old, too - the review is from 25 years ago and more recent analyses have been published. However, publications in purist psychology journals tend to be more resistant to the Open Access revolution, so I couldn't obtain anything more current. This is unfortunate because I don't like this paper too much - its geared towards developmentalists, not... genderists? Sexists? In particular, it provides only a couple of highly lacking tables and figures for the gender comparison data, placing unwarranted emphasis on the age data. The name of your article is "Emergence and Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Ability..." Come on.
So, how does one approach evaluate an individuals ability to think spatially? Traditionally, there are different tests for the tree main types of spatial ability.
The bottom line:
Males are significantly better at mental rotation and in spatial perception, females are slightly more able than males at age 4, but at age 5 male ability accelerates and by adulthood, males well-outperform females. In spatial visualization, tests have not revealed significant differences.
I am inclined to attribute map puzzle skill to the one's ability in spatial visualization, due to the highly complex nature of both tasks. This would imply that gender has nothing to do with the matter, which doesn't exactly jive with the stereotypes. Gender stereotypes and bad and all, though usually contain a kernel of truth somewhere within. A small array of tests as we have examined only provides so much information on the big picture of how the brain processes spatial info across the genders. Map and maze puzzles themselves come in all shapes and sizes, thus further obscuring the question.
Which is why the real moral of this post is that one should not too earnestly mix sleep deprived marathon puzzling orgies with stuffy science literature.
Now that the males have a step up at least in the majority of spatial cognition, I'll have to eventually write a counterpoint to level the playing field with the females. Perhaps I'll write about that infuriating female aptitude for multitasking, which is very real. Be afraid.
References:
1. . Marcia C. Linn, Anne C. Petersen. Child Development, Vol. 56, No. 6 (Dec., 1985), pp. 1479-1498.
Friday, January 1
Repeat: That was a weird book
This post is borrowed from my old journal of years past. I liked/wanted the content enough to carry it over and bring it up to date.
I picked up a copy of "The Cognitive Neurosciences" Third Edition from the MIT Press garage sale by chance, which was a damn nice find (its a fatty and probably would cost about a hundred bucks new - I paid ten); one of those texts I see often on the shelves of grad students, post-docs, and profs in Course 9. When glancing through it, I found that Sapolsky contributed a section for it called "Stress and Cognition," which sums up much of his own academic research, plus that of others, and is pretty much exactly the research I am talking about when I attack MIT student life circumstances. Plus, its quite a well written piece. It unfortunately isn't available for public consumption on the web, but here are a few articles that talk about the same issue to a less complete degree.
However, my desire is to talk about an entirely different book. My 9.20 professor urged me to try reading a book he had mentioned to me entitled "Sperm Wars." Its about the underlying science (I can't stress this enough, the author is a professor of Biology at Manchester, and has spent years running carefully regulated studies involving thousands upon thousands of samples) of human sexual behavior. So I'm interested in this sort of stuff, and the book seemed pretty cool (and if you examine the back cover, already mildly shocking), so I gave it a read.
The stuff in there is really weird. Downright boggling. Also fascinating, for a number of reasons. For example, one of the scientific findings highlighted in the book is that 10% of all children born to married couples do not possess the genes of their "father." Another: male and female homosexuality exists as a genetic balanced polymorphism. Because of the very real reproductive advantages given by bisexual genes, homophobia probably developed in heterosexuals because the others were a threat to reproductive fitness, plus there is that unfortunate problem of the spreading disease. Its worse in industrial societies; secluded populations with less disease exhibit much higher rates of bisexual behavior and little taboo exists. There's a lot more where that came from, too.
The primary goal of the book is to discuss the anatomy and physiology of human reproduction, leaving all aspects of societal influences out of it. The anatomy and physiology is certainly enough to fill the book since there is some weird weird shit that does make sense from an animal behavior perspective, but is stuff I would not dream of on my own. It is a strange strange thing we've got going for ourselves. I'm not sure I always agree with his uses of "scenes" to illustrate examples of behaviors. Some of it is pretty shocking, which is probably the author's intention, since without presenting the reader with realistic shock value, the legitimate points he is trying to get across simply wouldn't set in.
Perhaps the author's primary takeaway point is that naturally, human reproduction is not innately cooperative. To our Freudian Id (Actuality: Hypothalamus, lower brain areas, endocrine organs, etc.), tis an everlasting conflict against the opposing gender. The male "shotgun" approach is often viewed derisively as crude and stupid, but there is a lot more intelligence in these behaviors than it appears. Its quite unsettling how much simple hormones and unconscious planning/scheming are able to manipulate our actions without our conscious understanding. Due to the drastic difference in "how stuff works down there," the science says males should spread their genes to as many people as possible, minimizing personal risk, and women should try to collect the strongest genes possible (again minimizing risk) while maintaining supportive relationships with at least one male. What does it mean to be the strongest? Well, that's always changing and fluctuating, but that unconscious machine happens to know damn well what's "best," and its often not what our minds are seeing.
In one of Sapolsky's published essay collections, he wrote a little piece about the neurophysiology of escalating arguments amongst people: where they come from, why the develop, how they end up exploding, and at the very end of the piece, what we can consciously do to take advantage of our own physiology and stop ourselves from being stupid. This book is not that. To the author's credit, he explains that he wanted to present the bare facts, unclouded by bias or agenda. To alleviate small arguments is easy, but to take a stance on what people should or shouldn't do sexually involves many questions of morality and ethics, issues we've been seriously debating for hundreds of years. To delve into that would needlessly distort what the book means to do.
Which is to provide fair and balanced view of both genders and the various behaviors and structures involved. He does a relatively good job. After all, the guy knows his ethology and sociobiology, and he's in no way just pulling this out of his ass. I'd have liked to see more data, but that's not what this book is for. Hundreds of additional articles exist for that purpose. Plus, the book really does only touch on one side of human behavior. If we were talking about dogs, bears, monkeys, or any other animal, then this would be it. But, we're not that, and the author recognizes this from the outset.
I'm not sure if this a book that I really think everyone ought to read. The information contained within is important, but its presentation is perhaps not ideal, which is unfortunate because people really should be aware of how we actually work. Some stuff in the book should probably be viewed with skepticism, but many of the results have been shown to be reproducible... Ha. Ha ha.
I think what it really boils down too is, as those silly G.I. Joe cartoons used to say, "knowing is half the battle."
I picked up a copy of "The Cognitive Neurosciences" Third Edition from the MIT Press garage sale by chance, which was a damn nice find (its a fatty and probably would cost about a hundred bucks new - I paid ten); one of those texts I see often on the shelves of grad students, post-docs, and profs in Course 9. When glancing through it, I found that Sapolsky contributed a section for it called "Stress and Cognition," which sums up much of his own academic research, plus that of others, and is pretty much exactly the research I am talking about when I attack MIT student life circumstances. Plus, its quite a well written piece. It unfortunately isn't available for public consumption on the web, but here are a few articles that talk about the same issue to a less complete degree.
However, my desire is to talk about an entirely different book. My 9.20 professor urged me to try reading a book he had mentioned to me entitled "Sperm Wars." Its about the underlying science (I can't stress this enough, the author is a professor of Biology at Manchester, and has spent years running carefully regulated studies involving thousands upon thousands of samples) of human sexual behavior. So I'm interested in this sort of stuff, and the book seemed pretty cool (and if you examine the back cover, already mildly shocking), so I gave it a read.
The stuff in there is really weird. Downright boggling. Also fascinating, for a number of reasons. For example, one of the scientific findings highlighted in the book is that 10% of all children born to married couples do not possess the genes of their "father." Another: male and female homosexuality exists as a genetic balanced polymorphism. Because of the very real reproductive advantages given by bisexual genes, homophobia probably developed in heterosexuals because the others were a threat to reproductive fitness, plus there is that unfortunate problem of the spreading disease. Its worse in industrial societies; secluded populations with less disease exhibit much higher rates of bisexual behavior and little taboo exists. There's a lot more where that came from, too.
The primary goal of the book is to discuss the anatomy and physiology of human reproduction, leaving all aspects of societal influences out of it. The anatomy and physiology is certainly enough to fill the book since there is some weird weird shit that does make sense from an animal behavior perspective, but is stuff I would not dream of on my own. It is a strange strange thing we've got going for ourselves. I'm not sure I always agree with his uses of "scenes" to illustrate examples of behaviors. Some of it is pretty shocking, which is probably the author's intention, since without presenting the reader with realistic shock value, the legitimate points he is trying to get across simply wouldn't set in.
Perhaps the author's primary takeaway point is that naturally, human reproduction is not innately cooperative. To our Freudian Id (Actuality: Hypothalamus, lower brain areas, endocrine organs, etc.), tis an everlasting conflict against the opposing gender. The male "shotgun" approach is often viewed derisively as crude and stupid, but there is a lot more intelligence in these behaviors than it appears. Its quite unsettling how much simple hormones and unconscious planning/scheming are able to manipulate our actions without our conscious understanding. Due to the drastic difference in "how stuff works down there," the science says males should spread their genes to as many people as possible, minimizing personal risk, and women should try to collect the strongest genes possible (again minimizing risk) while maintaining supportive relationships with at least one male. What does it mean to be the strongest? Well, that's always changing and fluctuating, but that unconscious machine happens to know damn well what's "best," and its often not what our minds are seeing.
In one of Sapolsky's published essay collections, he wrote a little piece about the neurophysiology of escalating arguments amongst people: where they come from, why the develop, how they end up exploding, and at the very end of the piece, what we can consciously do to take advantage of our own physiology and stop ourselves from being stupid. This book is not that. To the author's credit, he explains that he wanted to present the bare facts, unclouded by bias or agenda. To alleviate small arguments is easy, but to take a stance on what people should or shouldn't do sexually involves many questions of morality and ethics, issues we've been seriously debating for hundreds of years. To delve into that would needlessly distort what the book means to do.
Which is to provide fair and balanced view of both genders and the various behaviors and structures involved. He does a relatively good job. After all, the guy knows his ethology and sociobiology, and he's in no way just pulling this out of his ass. I'd have liked to see more data, but that's not what this book is for. Hundreds of additional articles exist for that purpose. Plus, the book really does only touch on one side of human behavior. If we were talking about dogs, bears, monkeys, or any other animal, then this would be it. But, we're not that, and the author recognizes this from the outset.
I'm not sure if this a book that I really think everyone ought to read. The information contained within is important, but its presentation is perhaps not ideal, which is unfortunate because people really should be aware of how we actually work. Some stuff in the book should probably be viewed with skepticism, but many of the results have been shown to be reproducible... Ha. Ha ha.
I think what it really boils down too is, as those silly G.I. Joe cartoons used to say, "knowing is half the battle."
Wednesday, November 11
The True Meaning of Multi-Ethnic
When the results of a collaborative project between MIT and Stellenbosch studying the population genetics of a unique South African racial group shows up on PubMed, I really have no choice but to give it some attention.
First set of background info: in South Africa, there is a group of people known as "Coloreds" who make up about 9% of the total population, but in Cape Town, Coloreds make up a whopping 48% of the population. They are by far the largest demographic group here - second place goes to Blacks with 31%, and third is won by Whites, with 19%. The Coloreds are the result of hundreds of years of interbreeding between the whites who lived here (mostly Afrikaners), their slaves, and other random Africans who just happened to be hanging around. During Apartheid, the Coloreds were given more rights than the Blacks, but their lives were still made to suck.
So you've got this odd ethnic group which has developed over the past half millennium. I already described which groups historians think contributed to the Colored ethnicity, but it isn't a very satisfactory explanation when one wishes to ask such question as to just how much each progenitor race contributed to the formation of the Colored ethnicity.
Since creating a new race is not a particularly common phenomenon, it is an interesting thing to study. Understanding the genetic breakdown of colored South African DNA would arguably be helpful for understanding their medical conditions. Also, I think its a great case study which will become more and more relevant as mixed race breeding grows.
This was a descriptive study, and I like those because unless they're just flat out wrong (unlikely) they're just observations about how things are that we didn't know yet. All around useful stuff. Now that we know that the main contributors to the Colored race are (very very likely) Europeans, South Asians, Indonesians, and IsiXhosa relatives, one can make use of this information for medical purposes, cultural investigations, further racial foundation analyzes; all kinds of stuff.
Unless the methodology is severely flawed, and I haven't taken the time or obtained the expertise to check, then this is a solid paper.
Thanks to Dienekes over at his own genetics and anthropology blog for the link on this one.
First set of background info: in South Africa, there is a group of people known as "Coloreds" who make up about 9% of the total population, but in Cape Town, Coloreds make up a whopping 48% of the population. They are by far the largest demographic group here - second place goes to Blacks with 31%, and third is won by Whites, with 19%. The Coloreds are the result of hundreds of years of interbreeding between the whites who lived here (mostly Afrikaners), their slaves, and other random Africans who just happened to be hanging around. During Apartheid, the Coloreds were given more rights than the Blacks, but their lives were still made to suck.
So you've got this odd ethnic group which has developed over the past half millennium. I already described which groups historians think contributed to the Colored ethnicity, but it isn't a very satisfactory explanation when one wishes to ask such question as to just how much each progenitor race contributed to the formation of the Colored ethnicity.
Since creating a new race is not a particularly common phenomenon, it is an interesting thing to study. Understanding the genetic breakdown of colored South African DNA would arguably be helpful for understanding their medical conditions. Also, I think its a great case study which will become more and more relevant as mixed race breeding grows.
This was a descriptive study, and I like those because unless they're just flat out wrong (unlikely) they're just observations about how things are that we didn't know yet. All around useful stuff. Now that we know that the main contributors to the Colored race are (very very likely) Europeans, South Asians, Indonesians, and IsiXhosa relatives, one can make use of this information for medical purposes, cultural investigations, further racial foundation analyzes; all kinds of stuff.
Unless the methodology is severely flawed, and I haven't taken the time or obtained the expertise to check, then this is a solid paper.
Thanks to Dienekes over at his own genetics and anthropology blog for the link on this one.
Friday, November 6
Extra notice
I recently was checking my statistics and found that my writings has been noticed by a South African bloke who I had the pleasure of seeing perform recently. His name is Warren Robertson, and he is was one of the guys doing stand-up at the Daisies festival. He noticed what I wrote about the comedy parts of the festival, and since I didn't have the presence of mind to mention it in the original post, I'll do it here.
I stopped by to see most of the improv portion which Warren talks about in his own Daisies Festival summary. It was a real pleasure to watch. Now being able to put the name to the face, I can verify that he (and all of them, honestly) was on fire. During the "Famous Last Words" segment I almost felt bad for the other comics since Warren was nailing the lines one after another. Great stuff.
I think I'll diverge onto a tangent, briefly. To me, improv (if it really isn't planned like they say...) seems to be one of the most impressive forms of comedy. I have seen some amazing improv shows and when they go well, I can't help but be amazed. This is a big reason why I kept coming back for more of Roadkill Buffet but not so much Plush Daddy Fly.
Anyway, Comedia put on just such a stellar improv show at Daisies. Kudos to Warren and the rest. I hope I'll get a chance to catch one of his shows the next time he comes down to the Cape. But enough gushing.
Related links:
I stopped by to see most of the improv portion which Warren talks about in his own Daisies Festival summary. It was a real pleasure to watch. Now being able to put the name to the face, I can verify that he (and all of them, honestly) was on fire. During the "Famous Last Words" segment I almost felt bad for the other comics since Warren was nailing the lines one after another. Great stuff.
I think I'll diverge onto a tangent, briefly. To me, improv (if it really isn't planned like they say...) seems to be one of the most impressive forms of comedy. I have seen some amazing improv shows and when they go well, I can't help but be amazed. This is a big reason why I kept coming back for more of Roadkill Buffet but not so much Plush Daddy Fly.
Anyway, Comedia put on just such a stellar improv show at Daisies. Kudos to Warren and the rest. I hope I'll get a chance to catch one of his shows the next time he comes down to the Cape. But enough gushing.
Related links:
Wednesday, September 16
So it begins
When I started graduate school, I made a sort of pact with myself that I wouldn't cut my hair until my next big life shift. I was going to let it grow out and remain in a long fashion till the time when it seemed right.
Then I decided to take a leave of absence and go to Africa to study wild monkey behavior. It definitely felt like the right time for a trim, and I was getting damn tired of the annoyances of long hair.
Most of you who will come across this blog probably know a little to a lot about me, but I'd hate to be unkind to the newcomers, since I'm trying to develop some readership and all. I was born in Oregon, and spent pretty much my entire life there until leaving for college. While I was there, I played the violin in one of the best orchestras in the state, won some speech and debate competitions, played soccer, ran track, and spent plenty of weekends preserving natural Oregon prairieland with the Nature Conservancy.
College turned out to be in Boston, at a place called MIT. MIT was my favored choice during my college selections, though one could say my ultimate decision was made easier by the fact that my dad and brother both attended MIT as undergraduates and graduate students. We're one of those families, even though MIT doesn't really make many allowances for legacies.
My major was in what MIT calls "Brain and Cognitive Sciences," (or BCS, as people tend to call it) which to an uninitiated undergrad just sounds cool. MIT changed the department name from Psychology to BCS in the 80's, before the field of Neuroscience had its own spin-off in the Nature publication catalog. In truth, the BCS department is a lot of neuroscientists, ranging from the Molecular to the Cognitive, with a sprinkling of real cognitive scientists and linguistics hanging around the huge new building MIT gave the department.
I have long styled myself as a "Systems" neuroscientist, taking all the relevant classes, and backing it up by spending a couple years working in a high-profile monkey physiology lab. Those were good times, and gave me my first exposure to monkeys. I'm sure that some classic stories from these years will be retold...
My most fundamental understanding of primates doesn't come from my MIT monkey research, but rather from the innocuously named class "Animal Behavior." It would be unwise to say too much about that class right now, given its impact and subject matter is arguably the dominant foundation for this blog. However, in short, Animal Behavior was the best class I've ever taken. I even had the fortune to TA the class the year after I took it. The amount of knowledge and inspiration I drew from that class over the two years I was involved with it can pretty much never be understated.
So then I left MIT. Not exactly by choice, mind you, but I happened to graduate on time so I didn't have a whole lot of ways around that. I've watched MIT create interesting effects in many people, and I'm certainly one of them. There's still a lot I could have learned at MIT; its an addictive place for a certain kind of person. Some of them continue as PhD or Masters students at MIT, some of them get jobs and just hang around MIT all the time, some of them don't get jobs and just hang around MIT all the time.
I decided to go to graduate school in neuroscience, though at the recommendation of pretty much everyone I've spoken with, I chose to not pursue graduate school at MIT. "Its a good idea to go to a different graduate institution than your undergrad institution." So, I went to Brandeis, another top-notch biology school, just up the river a few miles.
And right now, I'm taking a leave of absence so I can try something that I've always wanted to do - go out into the field and do field research with wild animals. That's why I found myself a nice little temporary field research position, and am going to travel to Cape Town, South Africa to study the vocal behaviors of wild Baboons.
So, that's my life in a nutshell. I'm still in Boston right now, and the end of one of the more interesting months of my life is coming to an end, and then I'll be off to South Africa. I'm going to write about all the primates I'll be working with, the baboons, the researchers, the South Africans, and I'm sure I'll recount some old tales of other primates I've met and lived among.
Right now, I need to go back to packing and trying to be sure that I won't forget something vital, which I'll be half the world away from.
Then I decided to take a leave of absence and go to Africa to study wild monkey behavior. It definitely felt like the right time for a trim, and I was getting damn tired of the annoyances of long hair.
Most of you who will come across this blog probably know a little to a lot about me, but I'd hate to be unkind to the newcomers, since I'm trying to develop some readership and all. I was born in Oregon, and spent pretty much my entire life there until leaving for college. While I was there, I played the violin in one of the best orchestras in the state, won some speech and debate competitions, played soccer, ran track, and spent plenty of weekends preserving natural Oregon prairieland with the Nature Conservancy.
College turned out to be in Boston, at a place called MIT. MIT was my favored choice during my college selections, though one could say my ultimate decision was made easier by the fact that my dad and brother both attended MIT as undergraduates and graduate students. We're one of those families, even though MIT doesn't really make many allowances for legacies.
My major was in what MIT calls "Brain and Cognitive Sciences," (or BCS, as people tend to call it) which to an uninitiated undergrad just sounds cool. MIT changed the department name from Psychology to BCS in the 80's, before the field of Neuroscience had its own spin-off in the Nature publication catalog. In truth, the BCS department is a lot of neuroscientists, ranging from the Molecular to the Cognitive, with a sprinkling of real cognitive scientists and linguistics hanging around the huge new building MIT gave the department.
I have long styled myself as a "Systems" neuroscientist, taking all the relevant classes, and backing it up by spending a couple years working in a high-profile monkey physiology lab. Those were good times, and gave me my first exposure to monkeys. I'm sure that some classic stories from these years will be retold...
My most fundamental understanding of primates doesn't come from my MIT monkey research, but rather from the innocuously named class "Animal Behavior." It would be unwise to say too much about that class right now, given its impact and subject matter is arguably the dominant foundation for this blog. However, in short, Animal Behavior was the best class I've ever taken. I even had the fortune to TA the class the year after I took it. The amount of knowledge and inspiration I drew from that class over the two years I was involved with it can pretty much never be understated.
So then I left MIT. Not exactly by choice, mind you, but I happened to graduate on time so I didn't have a whole lot of ways around that. I've watched MIT create interesting effects in many people, and I'm certainly one of them. There's still a lot I could have learned at MIT; its an addictive place for a certain kind of person. Some of them continue as PhD or Masters students at MIT, some of them get jobs and just hang around MIT all the time, some of them don't get jobs and just hang around MIT all the time.
I decided to go to graduate school in neuroscience, though at the recommendation of pretty much everyone I've spoken with, I chose to not pursue graduate school at MIT. "Its a good idea to go to a different graduate institution than your undergrad institution." So, I went to Brandeis, another top-notch biology school, just up the river a few miles.
And right now, I'm taking a leave of absence so I can try something that I've always wanted to do - go out into the field and do field research with wild animals. That's why I found myself a nice little temporary field research position, and am going to travel to Cape Town, South Africa to study the vocal behaviors of wild Baboons.
So, that's my life in a nutshell. I'm still in Boston right now, and the end of one of the more interesting months of my life is coming to an end, and then I'll be off to South Africa. I'm going to write about all the primates I'll be working with, the baboons, the researchers, the South Africans, and I'm sure I'll recount some old tales of other primates I've met and lived among.
Right now, I need to go back to packing and trying to be sure that I won't forget something vital, which I'll be half the world away from.
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