How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together

Palatal morphology: A systematic review of the association of palatal shape with genetic ancestry, sex and age

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to review the literature regarding palatal shape variation, and its influence on estimating genetic ancestry, sex, and age.

DESIGN

A literature search was performed using PubMed, Scopus and Embase databases, from inception up to January 2025. Original research articles in English examining variation in shape of human hard palate were included, irrespective of study type or publication year. Articles regarding craniofacial anomalies, pathologies and orthodontic treatment were excluded. The risk of bias was assessed independently by two reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tool.

RESULTS

Twenty-two studies fulfilled the selection criteria. Dental casts (n = 13) and crania (n = 8) were predominantly utilised in the studies. Geometric morphometrics emerged as the predominant method for palatal shape analysis, followed by fourth-order polynomial curve fitting, visual assessments and ratios. Five studies examined ancestral variation in palatal shape, with four reporting differences between population groups. These studies, however, utilised fixed landmarks only, offering limited insight. Sexual dimorphism of palatal shape was extensively investigated (n = 12), with large numbers of semi-landmarks employed in two studies, but association was reported in four studies only. Palatal shape was reported to change from birth to adulthood but remained unchanged after adulthood.

CONCLUSION

This review highlights that palatal shape may aid ancestry classification but remains inconsistent to classify sex. Palatal shape changes during growth are allometric and hence need to be considered in forensic investigations. More standardised and robust methods may better evaluate the effects of ancestry, sex and age on 3D palatal variation.

From reactions to reflection: A recursive framework for the evolution of cognition and complexity

This paper presents a comprehensive framework that traces the evolution of consciousness through a continuum of recursive processes spanning reaction, temporogenesis, symbiogenesis, and cognogenesis. By integrating biological cooperation, temporal structuring, and self-referential processing, our model provides a novel perspective on how complexity emerges and scales across evolutionary time. Reaction is established as the foundational mechanism that enables adaptive responses to environmental stimuli, which, through recursive refinement, transitions into temporogenesis-the synchronization of internal processes with external temporal rhythms. Symbiogenesis further enhances this process by fostering cooperative interactions at multiple biological levels, facilitating the emergence of higher-order cognitive functions. Cognogenesis represents the culmination of these recursive processes, where self-awareness and intentionality arise through iterative feedback loops. Our framework offers a biologically grounded pathway to addressing the "hard problem" of consciousness by proposing that subjective experience emerges as a result of progressively complex recursive interactions rather than as a static or isolated phenomenon. In comparing our approach with established theories such as Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, and enactive cognition, we highlight its unique contributions in situating consciousness within a broader evolutionary and biological context. This work aims to provide a foundational model that bridges the gap between reaction and reflection, offering empirical avenues for further exploration in neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and artificial intelligence.

Archaeology retains a central role for studying the behavioral and cognitive evolution of our species and genus

Our species' behavioral and cognitive evolution constitute a key research topic across many scientific disciplines. Based on ethnographic hunter-gatherer data, Stibbard-Hawkes challenges the common link made between past material culture and cognitive capacities. Despite this adequate criticism, archaeology must retain a central role for studying these issues due to its unique access to relevant empirical evidence in deep time.

Siesta behavior and genetics interact to influence obesity risk

OBJECTIVE

In this cross-sectional study, we aim to investigate the interactions between obesity, siesta behavior, and the genetic propensity for siesta in a Mediterranean population, in whom siesta is deeply rooted.

METHODS

We applied a previously generated Siesta-Polygenic Score (PGS) in the ONTIME study (n = 1278). Siesta and other Mediterranean lifestyle behaviors were characterized using questionnaires. We further determined obesity grade. Secondarily, we measured weight loss during treatment as well as long-term weight-loss maintenance. Logistic regression analyses were performed to address our aim.

RESULTS

A total of 42.4% of the population usually took siesta. A significant genetic influence on siesta propensity was found, with a higher genetic predisposition linked to taking siesta more frequently (odds ratio [OR] = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.03-1.32; p = 0.015). Participants with a higher genetic propensity for siesta showed poorer dietary habits (p < 0.05). Among individuals with a high genetic propensity for siesta, we found that those who usually take siesta have lower odds of having obesity (p = 0.038) compared with those who do not. Similarly, in exploratory analysis, among individuals with a high genetic propensity for siesta, we found that those who usually take siesta have higher odds of weight-loss success (p = 0.007) compared with those who do not.    CONCLUSIONS: Considering the ongoing debate regarding whether siesta is beneficial or detrimental, our findings suggest that individual genetic predisposition to siesta might influence the association between siesta and health.

Two distinct neural pathways for mechanical versus digital technology

Technology pervades every aspect of our lives, making it crucial to investigate how the human mind deals with it. Here we examine the cognitive and neural foundations of technological cognition. In the first fMRI experiment, participants viewed videos depicting the use of mechanical tools (e.g., a screwdriver) and digital tools (e.g., a smartphone) compared to simple object movements. Results revealed a key dissociation: mechanical tools extensively activated the dorsal and ventro-dorsal visual streams, which are motor- and action-oriented brain systems. Conversely, digital tools largely engaged the ventral visual stream, associated with conceptual and social cognition. A second behavioral experiment showed a pronounced tendency to anthropomorphize digital tools. A third experiment involving a priming task confirmed that digital tools activate the social brain. The discovery of two different neurocognitive systems for mechanical versus digital technology offers new insights into human-technology interaction and its implications for the evolution of the human mind.

Human culture is uniquely open-ended rather than uniquely cumulative

Theories of how humans came to be so ecologically dominant increasingly centre on the adaptive abilities of human culture and its capacity for cumulative change and high-fidelity transmission. Here we revisit this hypothesis by comparing human culture with animal cultures and cases of epigenetic inheritance and parental effects. We first conclude that cumulative change and high transmission fidelity are not unique to human culture as previously thought, and so they are unlikely to explain its adaptive qualities. We then evaluate the evidence for seven alternative explanations: the inheritance of acquired characters, the pathways of inheritance, the non-random generation of variation, the scope of heritable variation, effects on organismal fitness, effects on genetic fitness and effects on evolutionary dynamics. From these, we identify the open-ended scope of human cultural variation as a key, but generally neglected, phenomenon. We end by articulating a hypothesis for the cognitive basis of this open-endedness.

Signatures of selection with cultural interference

Human evolution is intricately linked with culture, which permeates almost all facets of human life from health and reproduction, to the environments in which we live. Nevertheless, our understanding of the ways in which stably transmitted, evolutionarily relevant human cultural traits might interact with the human genome is incomplete, and methods to detect such interactions are limited. Here, we describe some rules of cultural transmission which could pertain to both humans and cultural nonhuman animals that could lead to the formation and maintenance of stable associations between cultural and genetic traits. Next, we show that, in the presence of such associations, a process analogous to genetic hitchhiking is possible in gene-culture systems. These could leave signatures in the human genome similar to, and perhaps indistinguishable from, those left by selection on genetic traits. Finally, we model selective interference between cultural and genetic traits. We show that selective interference between a cultural trait under selection and a genetic trait under selection can reduce the efficacy of natural selection in the human genome, both in terms of the probability of fixation of beneficial alleles and the dynamics of selective sweeps. We then show that the efficiency of selection at genetic loci can, however, be increased in the presence of strong cultural transmission biases. This implies that the signatures of gene-culture interactions in genetic data may be complex and wide-ranging in gene-culture coevolutionary systems.

Genes, culture, and scientific racism

Quantitative studies of cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution (henceforth "CE" and "GCC") emerged in the 1970s, in the aftermath of the "race and intelligence quotient (IQ)" and "human sociobiology" debates, as a counter to extreme hereditarian positions. These studies incorporated cultural transmission and its interaction with genetics in contributing to patterns of human variation. Neither CE nor GCC results were consistent with racist claims of ubiquitous genetic differences between socially defined races. We summarize how genetic data refute the notion of racial substructure for human populations and address naive interpretations of race across the biological sciences, including those related to ancestry, health, and intelligence, that help to perpetuate racist ideas. A GCC perspective can refute reductionist and determinist claims while providing a more inclusive multidisciplinary framework in which to interpret human variation.

Evolutionary development of mother-child scaffolding for moral comprehension

This evolutionary developmental study employed an experimental recursive narrative ecological niche, comparing scaffolded mother-child (5-year-old) pairs to unassisted controls as they independently viewed and discussed a realistic fictional family video depicting a father-daughter emotional conflict over the girl's risky behavior, which violated harm/care and fairness/justice moral foundation norms. A microgenetic analysis was conducted on a selected variant pair that demonstrated high adaptive fitness in the niche by employing developmentally advanced cooperative scaffolding tools. The conversational ecosystem phase was characterized by repeated maternal theory-oriented "why" questions and coordinated child causal responses, forming a joint epistemic investigation that facilitated the child's moral understanding of the characters' responsibilities and motives. The pair used quasi-justice procedures to gather evidence, judge, and construct moral attributes for the characters. Their conversational mechanism was supported by mutual mindreading, mental time travel, and empathic communications, as they interacted simultaneously with each other and the story characters. A narrative ecological scaffolding theory emerged, establishing a standard for cooperative epistemic scaffolding between the mother and the child. Future training programs should utilize the Zone of Proximal Development method to instruct similar parent-child pairs.

Europeans and Americans of European origin show differences between their biological pathways related to the major histocompatibility complex

In this study, we analysed biological pathway diversity among Europeans and Northern Americans of European origin, the groups of people that share a common genetic ancestry but live in different geographic regions. We used a novel complex approach for analysing genomic data: we studied the total effects of multiple weak selection signals, accumulated from independent SNPs within a pathway. We found significant differences between immunity-related biological pathways from the two groups. All identified pathways included genes belonging to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) system, which plays an important role in adaptive immune responses. We suggest that the ways of evolution were different for the MHC-I and MHC-II gene groups at least in Europeans and Americans of European origin. We hypothesise that the observed variability between the two populations was triggered by selection pressures due to the different pathogen landscapes and pathogen loads on the two continents. Our findings can be important for epidemic prevention and control, as well as for analysing processes related to allergies, organ transplantation, and autoimmune diseases.

The central role of the individual in the history of brains

Every species' brain, body and behavior is shaped by the contingencies of their evolutionary history; these exert pressures that change their developmental trajectories. There is, however, another set of contingencies that shape us and other animals: those that occur during a lifetime. In this perspective piece, we show how these two histories are intertwined by focusing on the individual. We suggest that organisms--their brains and behaviors--are not solely the developmental products of genes and neural circuitry but individual centers of action unfolding in time. To unpack this idea, we first emphasize the importance of variation and the central role of the individual in biology. We then go over "errors in time" that we often make when comparing development across species. Next, we reveal how an individual's development is a process rather than a product by presenting a set of case studies. These show developmental trajectories as emerging in the contexts of the "the actual now" and "the presence of the past". Our consideration reveals that individuals are slippery-they are never static; they are a set of on-going, creative activities. In light of this, it seems that taking individual development seriously is essential if we aspire to make meaningful comparisons of neural circuits and behavior within and across species.

Biogeographic Perspectives on Human Genetic Diversification

Modern humans originated in Africa 300,000 yr ago, and before leaving their continent of origin, they underwent a process of intense diversification involving complex demographic dynamics. Upon exiting Africa, different populations emerged on the four other inhabited continents, shaped by the interplay of various evolutionary processes, such as migrations, founder effects, and natural selection. Within each region, continental populations, in turn, diversified and evolved almost independently for millennia. As a backdrop to this diversification, introgressions from archaic species contributed to establishing different patterns of genetic diversity in different geographic regions, reshaping our understanding of our species' variability. With the increasing availability of genomic data, it has become possible to delineate the subcontinental human population structure precisely. However, the bias toward the genomic research focused on populations from the global North has limited our understanding of the real diversity of our species and the processes and events that guided different human groups throughout their evolutionary history. This perspective is part of a series of articles celebrating 40 yr since our journal, Molecular Biology and Evolution, was founded (Russo et al. 2024). The perspective is accompanied by virtual issues, a selection of papers on human diversification published by Genome Biology and Evolution and Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Punctuated equilibrium at 50: Anything there for evolutionary anthropology? Yes; definitely

The theory of punctuated equilibrium (PE) was developed a little over 50 years ago to explain long-term, large-scale appearance and disappearance of species in the fossil record. A theory designed specifically for that purpose cannot be expected, out of the box, to be directly applicable to biocultural evolution, but in revised form, PE offers a promising approach to incorporating not only a wealth of recent empirical research on genetic, linguistic, and technological evolution but also large databases that document human biological and cultural diversity across time and space. Here we isolate the fundamental components of PE and propose which pieces, when reassembled or renamed, can be highly useful in evolutionary anthropology, especially as humanity faces abrupt ecological challenges on an increasingly larger scale.

Cultural Psychology: Beyond East and West

Research in cultural psychology over the last three decades has revealed the profound influence of culture on cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes shaping individuals into active agents. This article aims to show cultural psychology's promise in three key steps. First, we review four notable cultural dimensions believed to underlie cultural variations: independent versus interdependent self, individualism versus collectivism, tightness versus looseness of social norms, and relational mobility. Second, we examine how ecology and geography shape human activities and give rise to organized systems of cultural practices and meanings, called eco-cultural complexes. In turn, the eco-cultural complex of each zone is instrumental in shaping a wide range of psychological processes, revealing a psychological diversity that extends beyond the scope of the current East-West literature. Finally, we examine some of the non-Western cultural zones present today, including Arab, East Asian, Latin American, and South Asian zones, and discuss how they may have contributed, to varying degrees, to the formation of the contemporary Western cultural zone.

Evaluating the Presence of Disgust in Animals

The emotion of disgust in humans is widely considered to represent a continuation of the disease-avoidance behavior ubiquitous in animals. The extent to which analogs of human disgust are evident in nonhuman animals, however, remains unclear. The scant research explicitly investigating disgust in animals has predominantly focused on great apes and suggests that disgust might be present in a highly muted form. In this review, we outline the main approaches to disgust. We then briefly discuss disease-avoidance behavior in nonhuman animals, proposing a set of criteria against which evidence for the presence or absence of disgust in animals can be evaluated. The resultant decision tree takes into account other plausible causes of avoidance and aversion when evaluating whether it is likely that the behavior represents disgust. We apply this decision tree to evaluate evidence of disgust-like behavior (e.g., avoidance of carrion and avoidance of feces-contaminated food) in several examples, including nonhuman great apes. Finally, we consider the large disparity between disgust in humans compared to muted disgust in other great apes, examining the possibility that heightened disgust in humans is a relatively recent cultural acquisition.

Social-ecological niche construction for sustainability: understanding destructive processes and exploring regenerative potentials

Through the exponential expansion of human activities, humanity has become the driving force of global environmental change. The consequent global sustainability crisis has been described as a result of a uniquely human form of adaptability and niche construction. In this paper, we introduce the concept of social-ecological niche construction focusing on biophysical interactions and outcomes. We use it to address destructive processes and to discuss potential regenerative ones as ways to overcome them. From a niche construction point of view, the increasing disconnections between human activities and environmental feedbacks appear as a success story in the history of human-nature coevolution because they enable humans to expand activities virtually without being limited by environmental constraints. However, it is still poorly understood how suppressed environmental feedbacks affect future generations and other species, or which lock-ins and self-destructive dynamics may unfold in the long-term. This is crucial as the observed escape from natural selection requires growing energy input and represents a temporal deferral rather than an actual liberation from material limitations. Relying on our proposal, we conclude that, instead of further taming nature, there is need to explore the potential of how to tame socio-metabolic growth and impact in niche construction processes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'.

Selection and adaptation in human migration

This article reviews the ways migration shapes human biology. This includes the physiological and genetic, but also socio-cultural aspects such as organization, behavior, and culture. Across disciplines I highlight the multiple levels of cultural and genetic selection whereby individuals and groups adapt to pressures along a migration timeline: the origin, transit, and destination. Generally, the evidence suggests that selective pressures and adaptations occur at the individual, family, and community levels. Consequently, across levels there are negotiations, interactions, and feedbacks that shape migration outcomes and the trajectory of evolutionary change. The rise and persistence of migration-relevant adaptations emerges as a central question, including the maintenance of cumulative culture adaptations, the persistence of "cultures of migration," as well as the individual-level physiological and cognitive adaptations applied to successful transit and settlement in novel environments.

Genetic and cultural adaptations underlie the establishment of dairy pastoralism in the Tibetan Plateau

BACKGROUND

Domestication and introduction of dairy animals facilitated the permanent human occupation of the Tibetan Plateau. Yet the history of dairy pastoralism in the Tibetan Plateau remains poorly understood. Little is known how Tibetans adapted to milk and dairy products.

RESULTS

We integrated archeological evidence and genetic analysis to show the picture that the dairy ruminants, together with dogs, were introduced from West Eurasia into the Tibetan Plateau since ~ 3600 years ago. The genetic admixture between the exotic and indigenous dogs enriched the candidate lactase persistence (LP) allele 10974A > G of West Eurasian origin in Tibetan dogs. In vitro experiments demonstrate that - 13838G > A functions as a LP allele in Tibetans. Unlike multiple LP alleles presenting selective signatures in West Eurasians and South Asians, the de novo origin of Tibetan-specific LP allele - 13838G > A with low frequency (~ 6-7%) and absence of selection corresponds - 13910C > T in pastoralists across eastern Eurasia steppe.

CONCLUSIONS

Results depict a novel scenario of genetic and cultural adaptations to diet and expand current understanding of the establishment of dairy pastoralism in the Tibetan Plateau.

Oases in the Sahara Desert-Linking biological and cultural diversity

The diversity of life sensu lato comprises both biological and cultural diversity, described as "biocultural diversity." Similar to plant and animal species, cultures and languages are threatened by extinction. Since drylands are pivotal systems for nature and people alike, we use oases in the Sahara Desert as model systems for examining spatial patterns and trends of biocultural diversity. We identify both the underlying drivers of biodiversity and the potential proxies that are fundamental for understanding reciprocal linkages between biological and cultural diversity in oases. Using oases in Algeria as an example we test current indices describing and quantifying biocultural diversity and identify their limitations. Finally, we discuss follow-up research questions to better understand the underlying mechanisms that control the coupling and decoupling of biological and cultural diversity in oases.

An evolutionary perspective on social inequality and health disparities: Insights from the producer-scrounger game

There is growing concern with social disparities in health, whether relating to gender, ethnicity, caste, socio-economic position or other axes of inequality. Despite addressing inequality, evolutionary biologists have had surprisingly little to say on why human societies are prone to demonstrating exploitation. This article builds on a recent book, 'The Metabolic Ghetto', describing an overarching evolutionary framework for studying all forms of social inequality involving exploitation. The dynamic 'producer-scrounger' game, developed to model social foraging, assumes that some members of a social group produce food, and that others scrounge from them. An evolutionary stable strategy emerges when neither producers nor scroungers can increase their Darwinian fitness by changing strategy. This approach puts food systems central to all forms of human inequality, and provides a valuable lens through which to consider different forms of gender inequality, socio-economic inequality and racial/caste discrimination. Individuals that routinely adopt producer or scrounger tactics may develop divergent phenotypes. This approach can be linked with life history theory to understand how social dynamics drive health disparities. The framework differs from previous evolutionary perspectives on inequality, by focussing on the exploitation of foraging effort rather than inequality in ecological resources themselves. Health inequalities emerge where scroungers acquire different forms of power over producers, driving increasing exploitation. In racialized societies, symbolic categorization is used to systematically assign some individuals to low-rank producer roles, embedding exploitation in society. Efforts to reduce health inequalities must address the whole of society, altering producer-scrounger dynamics rather than simply targeting resources at exploited groups.

Social dimensions impact individual sleep quantity and quality

While sleep positively impacts well-being, health, and productivity, the effects of societal factors on sleep remain underexplored. Here we analyze the sleep of 30,082 individuals across 11 countries using 52 million activity records from wearable devices. Our data are consistent with past studies of gender and age-associated sleep characteristics. However, our analysis of wearable device data uncovers differences in recorded vs. self-reported bedtime and sleep duration. The dataset allowed us to study how country-specific metrics such as GDP and cultural indices relate to sleep in groups and individuals. Our analysis indicates that diverse sleep metrics can be represented by two dimensions: sleep quantity and quality. We find that 55% of the variation in sleep quality, and 63% in sleep quantity, are explained by societal factors. Within a societal boundary, individual sleep experience was modified by factors like exercise. Increased exercise or daily steps were associated with better sleep quality (for example, faster sleep onset and less time awake in bed), especially in countries like the U.S. and Finland. Understanding how social norms relate to sleep will help create strategies and policies that enhance the positive impacts of sleep on health, such as productivity and well-being.

Evolutionary Psychology and Normal Science: in Search of a Unifying Research Program

Why are there so many controversies in evolutionary psychology? Using a couple of concepts from philosophy of science, this paper argues that evolutionary psychology has not reached the stage of mature, normal science, since it does not currently have a unifying research program that guides individual scientists working in the discipline. The argument goes against claims made by certain proponents and opponents of evolutionary psychology, and it is supported by discussion of several examples. The paper notes that just because evolutionary psychology has not reached the stage of normal science, the discipline is nevertheless a source of many progressive theoretical developments and interesting empirical discoveries.

The revolution that still isn't: The origins of behavioral complexity in Homo sapiens

The behavioral origins of Homo sapiens can be traced back to the first material culture produced by our species in Africa, the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Beyond this broad consensus, the origins, patterns, and causes of behavioral complexity in modern humans remain debated. Here, we consider whether recent findings continue to support popular scenarios of: (1) a modern human 'package,' (2) a gradual and 'pan-African' emergence of behavioral complexity, and (3) a direct connection to changes in the human brain. Our geographically structured review shows that decades of scientific research have continuously failed to find a discrete threshold for a complete 'modernity package' and that the concept is theoretically obsolete. Instead of a continent-wide, gradual accumulation of complex material culture, the record exhibits a predominantly asynchronous presence and duration of many innovations across different regions of Africa. The emerging pattern of behavioral complexity from the MSA conforms to an intricate mosaic characterized by spatially discrete, temporally variable, and historically contingent trajectories. This archaeological record bears no direct relation to a simplistic shift in the human brain but rather reflects similar cognitive capacities that are variably manifested. The interaction of multiple causal factors constitutes the most parsimonious explanation driving the variable expression of complex behaviors, with demographic processes such as population structure, size, and connectivity playing a key role. While much emphasis has been given to innovation and variability in the MSA record, long periods of stasis and a lack of cumulative developments argue further against a strictly gradualistic nature in the record. Instead, we are confronted with humanity's deep, variegated roots in Africa, and a dynamic metapopulation that took many millennia to reach the critical mass capable of producing the ratchet effect commonly used to define contemporary human culture. Finally, we note a weakening link between 'modern' human biology and behavior from around 300 ka ago.

Cultural evolution in the science of culture and cultural evolution

My critical review [1] elicited a welcome diversity of perspectives across the 12 commentaries now published [2-13]. In total 28 co-authors were inspired to contribute. In addition to engaging with the critical perspectives of my review, several of the commentaries take the debates and discussions into insightful and potentially important supplementary domains that I highlight in what follows. I have extracted a number of major themes in which I detected overlaps in the foci of different commentaries, and I use these to organise my replies. I hope that our shared efforts will constitute some degree of 'cultural evolution' in our science, as suggested in the title of this reply to commentaries.

Nutrigenomics in the context of evolution

Nutrigenomics describes the interaction between nutrients and our genome. Since the origin of our species most of these nutrient-gene communication pathways have not changed. However, our genome experienced over the past 50,000 years a number of evolutionary pressures, which are based on the migration to new environments concerning geography and climate, the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers including the zoonotic transfer of many pathogenic microbes and the rather recent change of societies to a preferentially sedentary lifestyle and the dominance of Western diet. Human populations responded to these challenges not only by specific anthropometric adaptations, such as skin color and body stature, but also through diversity in dietary intake and different resistance to complex diseases like the metabolic syndrome, cancer and immune disorders. The genetic basis of this adaptation process has been investigated by whole genome genotyping and sequencing including that of DNA extracted from ancient bones. In addition to genomic changes, also the programming of epigenomes in pre- and postnatal phases of life has an important contribution to the response to environmental changes. Thus, insight into the variation of our (epi)genome in the context of our individual's risk for developing complex diseases, helps to understand the evolutionary basis how and why we become ill. This review will discuss the relation of diet, modern environment and our (epi)genome including aspects of redox biology. This has numerous implications for the interpretation of the risks for disease and their prevention.

Haplotypic polymorphisms and forensic applications in Chinese Hunan Han population based on a series of Y-STR loci: a perspective of paternal inheritance

BACKGROUND

Hunan, a multinational province in China, possesses more than fifty ethnic groups, such as the Han, Yao, Tujia, Miao, and so on.

AIMS

To evaluate the forensic efficiency of the novel panel and investigate the genetic relationships between Hunan Han population and 12 other reference populations from China.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

Haplotypic data of 153 unrelated males of Hunan Han population were investigated using the AGCU Y SUPP Plus amplification system containing 27 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci. Forensic parameters were calculated to evaluate the application efficiency of this panel in Hunan Han population.

RESULTS

Haplotype diversity, discrimination capability, and match probability values were 0.9999999977, 1.0000, and 0.0065, respectively. Pairwise fixation index values demonstrated that the minimal genetic differentiation (0.0073) was found between Hunan Han population and Hunan Yao group, while the maximal genetic differentiation (0.0651) was observed between Hunan Han and Guangxi Yao group from the perspective of the patrilineal DNA analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

The haplotype distributions of 27 Y-STR loci in Hunan Han population exhibited remarkable polymorphisms. Moreover, this panel has potential advantages for the forensic applications regarding family investigations, paternity testing of the paternal line, and population genetics.

A Socioecological-Genetic Framework of Culture and Personality: Their Roots, Trends, and Interplay

Culture and personality are two central topics in psychology. Individuals are culturally influenced influencers of culture, yet the research linking culture and personality has been limited and fragmentary. We integrate the literatures on culture and personality with recent advances in socioecology and genetics to formulate the Socioecological-Genetic Framework of Culture and Personality. Our framework not only delineates the mutual constitution of culture and personality but also sheds light on (a) the roots of culture and personality, (b) how socioecological changes partly explain temporal trends in culture and personality, and (c) how genes and culture/socioecology interact to influence personality (i.e., nature × nurture interactions). By spotlighting the roles of socioecology and genetics, our integrative framework advances the understanding of culture and personality.

Parallel evolution in human populations: A biocultural perspective

Parallel evolution-where different populations evolve similar traits in response to similar environments-has been a topic of growing interest to biologists and biological anthropologists for decades. Parallel evolution occurs in human populations thanks to myriad biological and cultural mechanisms that permit humans to survive and thrive in diverse environments worldwide. Because humans shape and are shaped by their environments, biocultural approaches that emphasize the interconnections between biology and culture are key to understanding parallel evolution in human populations as well as the nuances of human biological variation and adaptation. In this review, we discuss how biocultural theory has been and can be applied to studies of parallel evolution and adaptation more broadly. We illustrate this through four examples of parallel evolution in humans: malaria resistance, lactase persistence, cold tolerance, and high-altitude adaptation.

The evolutionary dance between culture, genes, and everything in between

Uchiyama et al. describe how a more complete measurement of the dynamic nature of culture could help us unmask the true richness of genetic effects on behaviour. I underscore this notion here by reflecting on the role that the dynamic relationship between culture and DNA has played in our evolutionary history and will play in our evolutionary future.

The genotype-phenotype distinction: from Mendelian genetics to 21st century biology

The Genotype-Phenotype (G-P) distinction was proposed in the context of Mendelian genetics, in the wake of late nineteenth century studies about heredity. In this paper, we provide a conceptual analysis that highlights that the G-P distinction was grounded on three pillars: observability, transmissibility, and causality. Originally, the genotype is the non-observable and transmissible cause of its observable and non-transmissible effect, the phenotype. We argue that the current developments of biology have called the validity of such pillars into question. First, molecular biology has unveiled the putative material substrate of the genotype (qua DNA), making it an observable object. Second, numerous findings on non-genetic heredity suggest that some phenotypic traits can be directly transmitted. Third, recent organicist approaches to biological phenomena have emphasized the reciprocal causality between parts of a biological system, which notably applies to the relation between genotypes and phenotypes. As a consequence, we submit that the G-P distinction has lost its general validity, although it can still apply to specific situations. This calls for forging new frameworks and concepts to better describe heredity and development.

Quantifying the heritability of belief formation

Individual differences in behaviour, traits and mental-health are partially heritable. Traditionally, studies have focused on quantifying the heritability of high-order characteristics, such as happiness or education attainment. Here, we quantify the degree of heritability of lower-level mental processes that likely contribute to complex traits and behaviour. In particular, we quantify the degree of heritability of cognitive and affective factors that contribute to the generation of beliefs about risk, which drive behavior in domains ranging from finance to health. Monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs completed a belief formation task. We first show that beliefs about risk are associated with vividness of imagination, affective evaluation and learning abilities. We then demonstrate that the genetic contribution to individual differences in these processes range between 13.5 and 39%, with affect evaluation showing a particular robust heritability component. These results provide clues to which mental factors may be driving the heritability component of beliefs formation, which in turn contribute to the heritability of complex traits.

Unhealthy Dieting During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Opinion Regarding the Harmful Effects on Brain Health

Since 2020, the world has been suffering from a pandemic that has affected thousands of people regardless of socio-economic conditions, forcing the population to adopt different strategies to prevent and control the advance of the disease, one of which is social distancing. Even though social distancing is a safe strategy to reduce the spread of COVID-19, it is also the cause of a rising sedentary behavior. This behavior develops an excess of fat tissue that leads to metabolic and inflammatory disruption related to chronic diseases and mental health disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and sleep issues. Furthermore, the adoption of dietary patterns involving the consumption of ultra-processed foods, higher in fats and sugars, and the reduction of fresh and healthy foods may play a role in the progress of the disease. In this perspective, we will discuss how an unhealthy diet can affect brain function and, consequently, be a risk factor for mental health diseases.

Cultural evolution: Conserved patterns of melodic evolution across musical cultures

A new study finds that melodies evolve in similar ways, reminiscent of genetic evolution, across cultures. Patterns of change in music and other aesthetic domains may be the key to understanding how culture evolves when unfettered by physical or ecological constraints.

Selection signatures in the CIMMYT International Elite Spring and Semi-arid Wheat Yield Trials

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) annually distributes advanced wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) breeding lines to collaborators worldwide through the International Wheat Improvement Network. Lines are disseminated through international nurseries, including the Elite Spring Wheat Yield Trial (ESWYT) targeted to optimal (irrigated and high production) wheat production areas and the Semi-arid Wheat Yield Trial (SAWYT) targeted to low rainfall environments. A total of 2,184 wheat lines that formed the ESWYT and SAWYT since 1979 and 1992, respectively, were genotyped using genotyping-by-sequencing to explore trends of genetic diversity and selection footprints associated with continuous crop improvement and adaptation. Due to a small population size of each trial, adjacent year trials were pooled into subpopulations. Population structure was evaluated using discriminant analysis of principal components and fixation index. High levels of admixture within and across the ESWYT and SAWYT subpopulations were revealed, indicating that the entire genetic diversity in the overall CIMMYT germplasm pool is harnessed to target core traits to individual mega-environments. Genome wide scans of deviations of minor allele frequencies at each marker identified large linkage blocks in several chromosomes. The scans also revealed that 9.8 and 2.0% of the SNP markers could be associated to selection signatures over time and to environmental adaptation (significant deviations between ESWYT and SAWYT), respectively. Several known genes and previously identified haplotypes associated with grain yield in more recent CIMMYT elite germplasm did fall into genomic regions with directional selection.

Defining Firm-Level Resource Integration Effectiveness from the Perspective of Service-Dominant Logic: A Critical Factor Contributing to the Sustainability of a Firm’s Competitive Advantage and the Ecosystem It Operates

When a firm engages in repeated resource integration efforts, it develops an attribute called firm-level resource integration effectiveness (FL-RIE) over time. Due to its meta-theoretical nature, the use of this concept is limited. Thus, to make the formation of mid-range theories easier, through a systematic literature review, this study defines FL-RIE as the degree to which a firm’s resource integrating activities are successful in co-creating value, creating new resources and evaluating emerging properties of resource integration efforts. According to the definition, FL-RIE can be used to calibrate a firm’s resource integration capability in two instances. First, insights generated by FL-RIE can increase the frequency of value cocreation and new resource creation by a firm. Since increasing the frequency of value cocreation and new resource creation can ensure long-term business sustainability, FL-RIE can contribute to business sustainability. Second, insights generated by FL-RIE can improve the capability of evaluating emerging properties of resource integration efforts. Since the evaluation of emerging properties can generate feedback that can enhance resource integration capability, which can be considered a dynamic capability, FL-RIE can contribute to a firm’s sustained competitive advantage. Furthermore, since the same feedback can enhance the well-being of the other actors engaged with the firm and ensure the continuation of the ecosystem that the firm operates, FL-RIE can contribute to the sustainability of the firm and the ecosystem. The findings of this study can be used to develop a conceptual framework and a measurement scale for FL-RIE, and form several hypotheses related to strategic management and sustainability.

Ornamental plant domestication by aesthetics-driven human cultural niche construction

Unlike plants that were domesticated to secure food, the domestication and breeding of ornamental plants are driven by aesthetic values. Here, we examine the major elements of the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) theory that bridges the gap between the biology of ornamental plant domestication and the sociocultural motivations behind it. We propose that it involves specific elements of cumulative cultural evolution (CCE), plant gene-human culture coevolution (PGHCC), and niche construction (NC). Moreover, ornamental plant domestication represents an aesthetics-driven dimension of human niche construction that coevolved with socioeconomic changes and the adoption of new scientific technologies. Initially functioning as symbolic and aesthetic assets, ornamental plants became globally marketed material commodities as a result of the co-dependence of human CCE and prestige-competition motivations.

A framework for research into continental ancestry groups of the UK Biobank

BACKGROUND

The UK Biobank is a large prospective cohort, based in the UK, that has deep phenotypic and genomic data on roughly a half a million individuals. Included in this resource are data on approximately 78,000 individuals with "non-white British ancestry." While most epidemiology studies have focused predominantly on populations of European ancestry, there is an opportunity to contribute to the study of health and disease for a broader segment of the population by making use of the UK Biobank's "non-white British ancestry" samples. Here, we present an empirical description of the continental ancestry and population structure among the individuals in this UK Biobank subset.

RESULTS

Reference populations from the 1000 Genomes Project for Africa, Europe, East Asia, and South Asia were used to estimate ancestry for each individual. Those with at least 80% ancestry in one of these four continental ancestry groups were taken forward (N = 62,484). Principal component and K-means clustering analyses were used to identify and characterize population structure within each ancestry group. Of the approximately 78,000 individuals in the UK Biobank that are of "non-white British" ancestry, 50,685, 6653, 2782, and 2364 individuals were associated to the European, African, South Asian, and East Asian continental ancestry groups, respectively. Each continental ancestry group exhibits prominent population structure that is consistent with self-reported country of birth data and geography.

CONCLUSIONS

Methods outlined here provide an avenue to leverage UK Biobank's deeply phenotyped data allowing researchers to maximize its potential in the study of health and disease in individuals of non-white British ancestry.

Pedagogical Ecology for an Alternative Sustainability: With Insights from Francis of Assisi and Contemporary Life Sciences

Sustainability is a widely discussed issue nowadays. The “human factor” appears to be the key to a suitable theory of sustainable development and, even more, to understanding the real scope of the issue at stake. We begin by highlighting that the issue of sustainability and the related ecological crisis ultimately stem from the fundamental view of the human–environment relationships. We tackle such a fundamental view from two apparently distant but converging perspectives: the one of Francis of Assisi (the patron saint of ecologists) and the one of contemporary advancements in evolutionary biology known as the “extended evolutionary theory” (EES). This will allow us to highlight how current life sciences ground a strong form of organism–environment complementarity—a core point for any allegedly comprehensive approach to sustainability and ecology. After that, we focus on recent developments in cultural evolution studies that see culture both as the driving force of (recent) human evolution and as the general context where the human–environment relationships take place and develop. Therefore, we argue that the environment exerts a powerful pedagogical influence on the human being and on humanity as a whole. We conclude by proposing a pedagogical criterion for ecology and sustainable development, according to which the modifications caused by the human being to the environment must be assessed (also) for their pedagogical import.

Exploring gene-culture coevolution in humans by inferring neuroendophenotypes: A case study of the oxytocin receptor gene and cultural tightness

The gene-culture coevolution (GCC) framework has gained increasing prominence in the social and biological sciences. While most studies on human GCC concern the evolution of low-level physiological traits, attempts have also been made to apply GCC to complex human traits, including social behavior and cognition. One major methodological challenge in this endeavor is to reconstruct a specific biological pathway between the implicated genes and their distal phenotypes. Here, we introduce a novel approach that combines data on population genetics and expression quantitative trait loci to infer the specific intermediate phenotypes of genes in the brain. We suggest that such "neuroendophenotypes" will provide more detailed mechanistic insights into the GCC process. We present a case study where we explored a GCC dynamics between the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and cultural tightness-looseness. By combining data from the 1000 Genomes project and the Gene-Tissue-Expression project (GTEx), we estimated and compared OXTR expression in 10 brain regions across five human superpopulations. We found that OXTR expression in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was highly variable across populations, and this variation correlated with cultural tightness and socio-ecological threats worldwide. The mediation models also suggested possible GCC dynamics where the increased OXTR expression in the ACC mediates or emerges from the tight culture and higher socio-ecological threats. Formal selection scans further confirmed that OXTR alleles linked to enhanced receptor expression in the ACC underwent positive selection in East Asian countries with tighter social norms. We discuss the implications of our method in human GCC research.

Affect, Belief, and the Arts

The cultural project is a therapeutic melding of emotion, symbols, and knowledge. In this paper, I describe how spiritual emotions engendered through encounters in imaginative culture enable fixation of metaphysical beliefs. Evolved affective systems are domesticated through the social practices of imaginative culture so as to adapt people to live in culturally defined cooperative groups. Conditioning, as well as tertiary-level cognitive capacities such as symbols and language are enlisted to bond groups through the imaginative formats of myth and participatory ritual. These cultural materializations can be shared by communities both synchronically and diachronically in works of art. Art is thus a form of self-knowledge that equips us with a motivated understanding of ourselves in the world. In the sacred state produced through the arts and in religious acts, the sense of meaning becomes noetically distinct because affect infuses the experience of immanence, and one's memory of it, with salience. The quality imbued thereby makes humans attentive to subtle signs and broad “truths.” Saturated by emotions and the experience of alterity in the immanent encounter of imaginative culture, information made salient in the sacred experience can become the basis for belief fixation. Using examples drawn from mimetic arts and arts of immanence, I put forward a theory about how sensible affective knowledge is mediated through affective systems, direct perception, and the imagination.

A selection pressure landscape for 870 human polygenic traits

Characterizing the natural selection of complex traits is important for understanding human evolution and both biological and pathological mechanisms. We leveraged genome-wide summary statistics for 870 polygenic traits and attempted to quantify signals of selection on traits of different forms in European ancestry across four periods in human history and evolution. We found that 88% of these traits underwent polygenic change in the past 2,000-3,000 years. Recent selection was associated with ancient selection signals in the same trait. Traits related to pigmentation, body measurement and nutritional intake exhibited strong selection signals across different time scales. Our findings are limited by our use of exclusively European data and the use of genome-wide association study data, which identify associations between genetic variants and phenotypes that may not be causal. In sum, we provide an overview of signals of selection on human polygenic traits and their characteristics across human evolution, based on a European subset of human genetic diversity. These findings could serve as a foundation for further populational and medical genetic studies.

Why do we pick similar mates, or do we?

Humans often mate with those resembling themselves, a phenomenon described as positive assortative mating (PAM). The causes of this attract broad interest, but there is little agreement on the topic. This may be because empirical studies and reviews sometimes focus on just a few explanations, often based on disciplinary conventions. This review presents an interdisciplinary conceptual framework on the causes of PAM in humans, drawing on human and non-human biology, the social sciences, and the humanities. Viewing causality holistically, we first discuss the proximate causes (i.e. the 'how') of PAM, considering three mechanisms: stratification, convergence and mate choice. We also outline methods to control for confounders when studying mate choice. We then discuss ultimate explanations (i.e. 'the why') for PAM, including adaptive and non-adaptive processes. We conclude by suggesting a focus on interdisciplinarity in future research.