In high school I remember somewhat regularly arguing, with unfounded certainty, that by coddling the weak (and everyone else), civilization had broken evolution. Some scientists are now offering the inverse: that culture is shaping the course of our evolution.

The best evidence available to Dr. Boyd and Dr. Richerson for culture being a selective force was the lactose tolerance found in many northern Europeans. Most people switch off the gene that digests the lactose in milk shortly after they are weaned, but in northern Europeans — the descendants of an ancient cattle-rearing culture that emerged in the region some 6,000 years ago — the gene is kept switched on in adulthood. Lactose tolerance is now well recognized as a case in which a cultural practice — drinking raw milk — has caused an evolutionary change in the human genome.

(via ALD)

As an eighth-rate historian who wrote twenty-some poorly-researched pages about the Chicano movement as an undergrad, this examination of what America’s most famous historical Mexican-American means caught my eye. I suspect you could enjoy it without that relation to the material, however.

When Cesar Chavez died in his sleep in 1993, not yet a very old man at 66, he died—as he had so often portrayed himself in life—as a loser. The United Farm Workers (UFW) union he had co­founded was in decline; the union had  5,000 members, equivalent to the population of one very small Central Valley town. The labor in California’s agricultural fields was largely taken up by Mexican migrant workers—the very workers Chavez had been unable to reconcile to his American union, whom he had branded “scabs” and wanted reported to immigration authorities.

(via A&L Daily)

I’ve heard of alternatives to the dominant diatonic scale — the one with “octaves” — but as someone who, at best, has a passing knowledge of music theory, it was mostly Greek to me. This article, with the corresponding samples, is the first time I felt some comprehension of how such an alternate scale would work.

The unusual scale she played ended on a high note that was triple, not double, the frequency of the low note, and the interval was divided into 13 equal steps. This new system, called Bohlen-Pierce, was independently invented in the 1970s and 1980s by two engineers and a computer scientist as an alternative to the traditional musical system. Initially a mixture of math, music, and theory, Bohlen-Pierce has now grown into a living art, as people around the world have begun building instruments, composing pieces, and developing a music theory, all using notes that most people have never heard.

And for those looking for more, the Wikipedia page is always a good place to start.

An amateur historian takes on this mystery:

But here was a Royal Navy surgeon in 1911 apparently ignorant of what caused the disease, or how to cure it. Somehow a highly-trained group of scientists at the start of the 20th century knew less about scurvy than the average sea captain in Napoleonic times. Scott left a base abundantly stocked with fresh meat, fruits, apples, and lime juice, and headed out on the ice for five months with no protection against scurvy, all the while confident he was not at risk. What happened?

(via Waxy Links)

In mice, evidence is growing that the flora of your digestive tract play an important role in maintaining a healthy weight:

When transplanted, their gut bugs turned other mice obese, suggesting that altered bacteria were not only an effect of weight gain, but a cause. The Science findings complement those, but also emphasize the immune system’s role and the possibility of appetite change.

Ever since I watched this episode of “the show” over three years ago (wow) it’s stayed in the back of my mind. And since Firefox (or user error) busted my cycle of having 40+ tabs open persistently — some were from September — it’s been at the forefront. So whether you’ve seen it before or you haven’t go watch zefrank explain something that could change your life.

This story — provoked by and about an event mostly unknown outside of Britain — isn’t for the faint-hearted, but the conclusion’s useful for all:

[I]ndignation is relatively easy to satisfy, and demands no sacrifice, no exposure to horrid experience, no damage to the soul. To continue feeding indignation against a 10-year-old boy who glimpsed Hell, and who knew it, is at best unworthy, and at worst is itself a manifestation of wickedness.

(via Lloyd, who calls it “Best & worst thing I’ve read in a very long time.”)

A great essay about what that means.

Foreignness is intrinsically stimulating. Like a good game of bridge, the condition of being foreign engages the mind constantly without ever tiring it. John Lechte, an Australian professor of social theory, characterises foreignness as “an escape from the boredom and banality of the everyday”. The mundane becomes “super-real”, and experienced “with an intensity evocative of the events of a true biography”.

(via Marco)

Everything about this article feels obvious, but I’ve never seen it articulated so well:

Being intelligent is like having a knife. If you train every day in using the knife, you will be invincible. If you think that just having a knife will make you win any battle you fight, then you will fail.

(via @scrivs)

I had no idea. (via mLG)