Cats and Human Migration

Cats slowly domesticated themselves starting about 10,000 years ago. Unlike other domesticated animals who mostly live in herds and eat plants, cats are solitary and eat meat (Driscoll, Clutton-Brock, Kichener, & O’Brien, 2009). They found that “domestic cats arose in a single locale, the Middle East” (p. 71). On Cyprus, an island in the eastern Mediterranean, archeologists discovered the body of an eight-month-old cat intentionally buried near a person. The two burials were dated as being9,500 years old (Vigne, Guilaine, Debue, & Gerard, 2004). Unlike dogs, cats more closely resemble their wild ancestors, can survive without human help, and resist human efforts to limit their breeding opportunities. Left alone, cats tend not to wander far from where they were born. Cats, Lloyd (1986) suggests, migrate slowly “less than one mile per generation” (p. 51). Despite their tendency to not move much on their own, cats are found everywhere around the world either because their owners took them with them as they moved from place toplace or because the cats stowed away on ships. Thus, the study of cat genetics, interesting for its own sake, also reveals much about the migration of humans over the last 10,000 years from the earliest civilizations in western Asia (see chapter 2) to the rest of Europe and East Asia, and eventually, to the entire world.

            The genetic key opening the rest of this story began when Searle (1947) first observed and calculated gene frequencies for wild type and mutant cat coat colors and patterns (e.g., wild or tabby, nonagouti or black, blotched tabby, sex linked orange, and others) in London. Since then hundreds of similar surveys have been conducted around the world and have been used to infer the historical patterns of human migration. In Europe, the pattern of nonagoutimutation, as measured by gene frequency analysis, may point to early human dispersals from Phoenicia and Greece to North Africa (Todd, 1997). Later migrations can also be interpreted through cat genetics. New York’s cats, even now, are more genetically similar to the cats of Amsterdam than to the cats of Boston, reflecting the movement of people and their cats from Holland to North America starting in 1626 (Lloyd, 1986).

Driscoll, C. A., Clutton-Brock, J., Kichener, A. C., & O’Brien, S. J. (2009). The taming of the cat, Scientific American, 300(6), 68-75.

Lloyd, A. T. (1986). Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?, Natural History, 95(7), 46-52.

Searle, A. G. (1947). Gene frequencies in London’s cats, Journal of Genetics, 49, 214-220.

Todd, N. B. (1977). Cats and commerce, Scientific American, 237(5), 100-107.

Vigne, J. D., Guilaine, J., Debue, K., & Gérard, P. (2004). Early taming of the cat in Cyprus, Science, 304, 259.

Marx & Hillix (1963)

Needed to write about Clark Hull recently. Naturally, most new history texts or learning text only provide cursory information about him now.

I remembered that somewhere in my office I had a copy of Marx and Hillix's old History and Systems text. Its coverage of Hull was more detailed and proved most useful to me. Being an academic pack rat (e.g., keeping that old book) once again was a good thing for me. Never throw anything away. That's my message.

What Social Science Knows and Does Not Know

Jim Manzi has just published an incisive article in the City Journal titled: What Social Science Does-and Doesn't-Know. In it, he makes a compelling case for experimentation and for the importance of control groups.

He briefly reviews the history of experimentation beginning with Galileo. Then, he provides examples from economics and criminology. He introduces the problem of causal density and writes that it, in effect, dooms many otherwise worthy randomized field trials.

He then moves into the business world citing the success of the credit card company Capitol One. That company answers its own questions via large scale, but relatively economical experimentation. He uses the example of deciding whether to mail customers solicitations in white or blue envelopes. Capitol One simply mailed 50,000 of each color to randomly selected customers and waited to see the results. Since then, other business have adopted similar methods.

He offers three conclusions:

• It is exceedingly difficult to demonstrate that any kind of social program works via traditional randomized and replicated trials. Social evolution with its attendant trial and error process may "trump" those methods.
• Far more social programs fail than succeed, especially programs designed to change the way people think or behave. Incentives work better.
• Most successful programs only lead to modest improvements, but that's ok.

My Office

Here is where I work. Here's a tour from left to right. On the left is one of my servers. It serves my research methods ideas database (private, sorry) and sometimes others (e.g., for candidates for our job searches). Next is my window air conditioner, possibly the most important piece of equipment of all, given our hot summers along with the fact that the building is not cooled from Thursday night until Sunday mornings in the summer. The gooseneck lamp, too, is vital as my eyes get older. The small television is connected to the local cable system and comes in handy when I am doing mechanical work such as grading tests from a key. It stays off when I'm trying to write. It's on top of an old 13" RGB monitor (just in case I ever get another Apple II+) and it's on top of a large speaker. The huge 24" screen belongs to my three-year old, ailing, out-of-warranty iMac. It can no longer be trusted, alas. About once a week it decides to enter an endless loop featuring the spinning Mac pinwheel icon. Fortunately, restarting it seems to kick it out of its misery. There are two phones. The one nearest the foreground no longer has a working line connected to it. It used to be connected to our long gone modem server (remember those days?). That phone is gone now, freeing up some desk space. The scanner between the phones only scans slides now; it's main scanner bulb is weak, plus it costs more to buy the bulb than to buy a new scanner. The stereo works and the wire hanging down from the ceiling is its FM antenna. It's in the only orientation that will receive a good signal. Under the scanner is a 12 port router connecting all of the computers to the Internet and to the local printers. Barely visible on top of the router is my next to last cell phone. It only serves to forward my calls to its number to my new phone. Last on the right is one of the world's fastest System 9 laptops. It was built as aG4 OS X machine but its hard drive died. At about the same time one of our G3 laptop's boards crashed. You can guess the rest, the G4 now holds the G3's old drive, presto. I use that laptop for my old HyperCard materials and for Mac WordPerfect files. So, believe it or not, nearly everything here has a purpose. The office chair is mine. We bought it at an auction long ago. It's more comfortable than it looks. Good thing, I spend lots of time on it. The drawings on the wall are mostly my daughter's work. The stuff behind the iMac is mostly notes to myself along with some wistful thinking about motorcycles. Fortunately I don't really want another one but I will take a two-seater sports car.

Poster Session

The Research Methods II class had their first ever poster session today. Students presented their research projects for about an hour in their classroom. Students from other classes and faculty viewed the posters and interacted with the authors.

In chapter 12, we describe some of the dynamics of poster presentation:

• "Poster sessions usually take place in large rooms equipped with easels and large blank poster boards. Presenters are assigned a poster board, and they use it to post materials describing their research. After they post their materials, presenters stand next to their poster and wait for viewers (their audience) to file by. Interested viewers may pause, read the posted materials, and discuss them with the presenter. Poster presenters usually have copies of a complete report to give to those who are interested."

Here are some pictures of the event:



Kudos to Dr. Brittney Schrick, the new instructor of our Research Methods II class, for putting on the poster session.

Mascots and Autism

Here is a report on a pilot project in Nebraska where autistic volunteers are dressing up in Frito-Lay inflatable costumes of Chester Cheetah. Keith Allen of University of Nebraska Medical Center and Scott Bowen of Signs and Shapes, a company that creates and produces inflatable costumes, are the collaborators.

The hope is that wearing the costume will allow the autistic volunteers to adopt a new identity while wearing the costume.

This is certainly a far out research idea. Hopefully it will work.

Redheads and Pain

A recent article in the New York Times discusses the relationship between pain and having red hair. The problem is especially acute in dentistry. Redheads tend to avoid visiting the dentist because the usual does of analgesics (painkillers) are not effective.

The apparent cause seems to be the MC1R gene. In most people, that gene creates melanin. In redheads, however, the gene produces pheomelanin instead, causing red hair and fair skin. Another effect of pheomelanin is increased pain sensitivity, both for general and topical anesthesia.

Here's a research idea. Expose redheads and non-redheads to the cold pressor test, a standard laboratory test for pain using time as the dependent variable. Redheads, as a group, should remove their hands sooner.