Undead Astronauts

Straight from Nick Wade in the journal of note the NYT – East Asians have thicker hair, smaller breasts and characteristically identified teeth that is different from other races.

Researchers tested this by inserting a known Asian gene mutation into mice and seeing if the mice developed different physical characteristics. The mice indeed grew thicker hair and had less breast tissue. Teeth are so different in mice that no conclusions could be drawn.

The method they used to test these changes can be applied to 400 other sites in the human genome. One might wonder what other traits they could test for… inclination to violence? intelligence? other personality traits? There is now a vast untapped trove of testable hypotheses for researchers to mine.

What’s also interesting is the age of this mutation. I didn’t have the impression that Asians as a group had already differentiated themselves from other races 35k years prior. I had for some reason thought that differentiation didn’t happen until much later, say 25k-20k years earlier. I thought that it was only in the past 10k years that much of what we see in today’s groups appeared and gave rise to our modern day stereotypes. If differentiation happened much earlier, any attempt to “homogenize” race (either by gov’t policy or by breeding between races) so that it really becomes meaningless has over 30k years of evolution to overcome instead of 10k. Egalitarianism is DOA.

In a study published in Psychological Science, researchers have found that whites behave differently from Asian Americans when it comes to motivational primers. When primed with messages emphasizing independence, whites worked longer at a difficult task that required some persistence. When primed with messages emphasizing interdependence however, they worked for a much shorter duration. When no priming was given, the time they spent was still closer to independent priming than interdependent.

When Asian Americans were tested, they performed about the same in all situations.

What apparently goes un-noted is the fact that Asians didn’t persist as long as whites in any setting except the one where whites were primed for interdependence. That result is somewhat counter to what I might have expected, which is that Asian Americans would persist longer than whites in most situations. I suppose I’m biased to think that Asians have higher grit when I have no evidence to support that position (I’ve looked… albeit briefly).

The only issue here is that I don’t have access to the paper, so I don’t know what the primers were. It’d be interesting to see what they actually consisted of and what other types of primers might have an effect. I’m actually somewhat skeptical of the result’s applicability in the real world as there are plenty of whites that feel like working with a good team is highly motivating in and of itself. Perhaps there’s a psychological difference between working toward a true public good versus a semi-public good like a small well-knit team. Political identity might also have an effect as liberals might be expected to do better under interdependent priming than conservatives.

The EU Commission put this commercial out featuring “street fighters” from China, India and Brazil that threaten and surround a white woman in Kill Bill garb (once upon a time known as Bruce Lee garb but no more). She then pulls out her Shadow Clone Jutsu and surrounds them instead. Then the group decides to sit down and have tea or crumpets or whatever it is you do in the EU. Try as I might, it’s difficult to escape the racial imagery and implications here but I suppose that’s what the creators were going for. I would say they succeeded in their effort. I mean, what European youth wouldn’t get all nationalistic seeing a single white girl take down 3 of the BRIC nations that threaten their way of life? Oh, but they left out the “R” in BRIC. I suppose the EU didn’t particularly want the Russians thinking they were anti-Russian. They just didn’t feel the same about the rest apparently.

(First seen here)

“Love thyself last” – William Shakespeare

There’s a particular liberal dream for the future in which racial discord will disappear due to interracial relations. Every race, so the dream goes, will inevitably mix with every other race, and in so doing, skin color (among other attributes) will blend and everyone will live in perpetual unity. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration… but only a bit.

Do any racial groups actually follow Shakespeare’s advice and love themselves last? OkTrends puts this dream to the test. In a hypothetical world where all racial populations are the same in number, what would dating patterns look like? Would there be a “winner” or would things even out? The result may surprise you as they surprised me.

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1. Here’s an interactive graphic that I just found out about. It shows the racial breakdown of neighborhoods from census sampling over 5 years. It’s pretty interesting to see how sharply the racial lines are drawn in NYC. Not surprising, but interesting. There are a variety of map types and you can look up the population percentage of specific groups.
2. I keep thinking Munny is paranoid for his zealous efforts to encrypt data, maybe he has a point. This article points out reasons to always encrypt your smartphone.
3. Fast talking scientific comedian talks about the placebo effect.

gotta love the ppl at okcupid. these are the same ppl who put up some stats on racial preferences in dating earlier. yesterday, they put up some more info from their users. this time, they split a randomly selected group into racial groups and looked at what they put down as their interests or how they described themselves. it’s funny how stereotypical everything turns out to be. each group lists a bunch of stuff u really kinda expect them to, from pop culture references to activities.

white ppl wrote stuff like: van halen, harley davidson, hockey, megadeath, the big lebowski, red sox, mountain biking, mostly rock, i’m a country boy, nascar

black ppl wrote stuff like: soul food, i am cool, rapping, boondocks, holla, (all sorts of stuff about god/religion), basketball, kanye west, tryna

latino ppl wrote stuff like: merengue, soccer, i’m a funny guy, salsa, hip hop, colombian, peruvian (strangely no mention of mexican), baseball

and asians… asians are obviously the bookworms of the group: taiwan, i’m a simple guy, korean, software developer, mechanical engineer, mandarin, vancouver, the bay, electrical engineer, freakonomics, malcolm gladwell, finance, investment, gadgets, surfing the net, cricket

what can u say? i mean really?

the national sleep foundation polled ppl of different racial groups and found that there were both similarities and differences. all groups reported getting less sleep than they wanted, and the vast majority of every group knew that lack of sleep led to health disorders. with that said, here’s the interesting stuff.

While watching TV was the activity most often performed every night or almost every night for all ethnic groups within one hour of going to bed, Asians were less likely than their counterparts to report doing so (52% vs. 75% Blacks, 72% Hispanics and 64% Whites).

Asians were much more likely to have been on the computer or Internet every night or almost every night than the other ethnic groups in the hour before bed (51% vs. 22% Whites, 20% Blacks and 20% Hispanics).

Meanwhile, Blacks were much more likely to have reported praying or doing another religious activity during this time every night or almost every night than their counterparts (71% vs. 45% Hispanics, 32% Whites and 18% Asians).

Hispanics tended to complete household chores every night or almost every night more often in the hour before bed time than their counterparts (41% vs. 33% Blacks, 25% Whites and 24% Asians).

Blacks (10%) and Hispanics (10%) were both more likely to report having sex every night or almost every night in the one hour before they went to bed than Whites (4%) and Asians (1%). [尸zed: oh come on...]

Asians were the least likely ethnic group to have consumed alcohol within one hour of bed time every night or almost every night (1% vs. 7% Whites, 4% Blacks and 4% Hispanics).

Whites are most likely to sleep with their pets — as well as more likely to sleep with their spouse or significant others. Sixteen percent of white respondents say they sleep with a pet, and 72% say they sleep with their partners. In comparison, only 4% of Asians, 4% of Hispanics, and 2% of black people let the pet on the bed. But the space isn’t always saved for a spouse or partner, apparently. Only 48% of blacks and Asians sleep with a ”significant other,” and 54% of Hispanics.

Recession-related stresses affected sleep to different degrees, with Hispanics and blacks more affected than whites or Asians.

Overall, Asians were the most likely ethnic group to say they get a good night’s sleep at least a few nights a week (84% vs. 72% Hispanics, 68% Whites and 66% Blacks), and Asians were also the least likely to have been asked about or discussed sleep with a HCP or doctor (31% vs. 56% Whites, 48% Hispanics and 45% Blacks).

i the skimmed about half the report which is huge. answering all the questions must’ve been a big snore.