Wednesday, December 20, 2017

New research on testosterone and behavior

A retired researcher friend asked for my help. He has been linking male sex hormones to behavior for more than three decades. Since he is retired, he has no access to students to volunteer as research participants. I can't help him because there is no way the IRB committee at my university will approve this study.  He needs volunteers to complete this 5 minute survey. Please help if you can, and invite others. We need the broadest sample we can get. Warning: you will need to measure a body part!  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NKBRYYR

UPDATE: Of course, this study is very exploratory. He wants to see if it looks promising. 

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Addiction among American Indians

I ran across a new study reviewing the research on race and addiction. The authors find that: 
In these studies, both past year and lifetime rates of alcohol, nicotine, and drug use disorders were consistently higher in Native Americans and lower in Asians,with Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites in between. 
It looks like any theory of American Indians (AIs) that limits itself to alcohol (e.g., the notion that AIs have not been exposed to it long enough to adapt to it) is missing part of the story. Addiction to drugs in general tends to be more common in this population.

Also--the stark differences between Northest Asians and Natives--addiction differences being only one illustrative trait--show how quickly significant genetic change can occur (the differences surely can't be 100% due to environment). It's not like these groups split 100k years ago. 

Are gun owners mentally ill?

  Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...