The bears from Dmanisi and the first dispersal of early Homo out of Africa

We report on the taxonomy and paleodiet of the bear population that inhabited the emblematic palaeoanthropological Early Pleistocene (1.8 Ma) site of Dmanisi (Georgia), based on a dual approach combining morphometrics and microwear of upper and lower teeth. Given that the teeth of Ursus etruscus Cuvier, 1823 from Dmanisi show considerable size variability, their systematic position has been debated. However, a comparative study of the coefficients of variation for tooth size measurements in several modern bear species shows that the variability in tooth size of the ursid population from Dmanisi could result from sexual dimorphism. The analysis of tooth microwear indicates that these bears inhabited a mixed environment of open plain with forest patches, where they had a browsing diet with a substantial contribution of meat and/or fish. Comparative tooth morphometric analyses of modern ursids and fossil U. etruscus indicate that this extinct species had an omnivorous behavior similar to that of extant brown bears. The ecological interactions of the Dmanisi bears with other members of the large mammals community, including the first hominins that dispersed out of Africa, are discussed in the light of this new evidence

Exploring children’s perspectives on the welfare needs of pet animals

This work was supported by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (grant number AW1404).Children are increasingly viewed as important recipients of eduational interventions to improve animal welfare, yet research examining their perspectives is lacking, particularly within the UK. Helping children to care appropriately for animals depends, not least, on an ability to understand the needs of different species and correctly identify cues given by the animal that indicate its welfare state. This study began to explore: (a) children’s perceptions of welfare needs, focusing on four common pet animals; (b) influences on the development of knowledge; (c) beliefs about whether or not (all) animals are sentient, and (d) their confidence in identifying when their own pets are in need. Fourteen focus groups were carried out with 53 children aged 7 to 13 years. Findings highlighted an affirmative response that animals have feelings (dogs especially), albeit with doubts about this applying universally. There was wide variation in children’s knowledge of welfare needs, even among owners of the animal in question. Conversely, some children lacked confidence in spite of the extensive knowledge they had developed through direct experience. An important finding was a perceived difficulty in identifying the needs of particular species or specific types of need in their own pets. Fitting well with a recent emphasis on “positive welfare,” children felt that many animals need demonstrative love and attention, especially cats and dogs. While there is clearly scope for educating children about common needs and cues that indicate animals’ welfare state, other areas pose a greater challenge. Emotional connection seems important in the development of extensive knowledge and concern for welfare. Accordingly, animals that do not possess the kind of behavioral repertoire that is easy to interpret or allows for a perceived sense of reciprocity are possibly at risk of negative welfare experiences.PostprintPeer reviewe

Jumping to the wrong conclusions? An investigation of the mechanisms of reasoning errors in delusions

Understanding how people with delusions arrive at false conclusions is central to the refinement of cognitive behavioural interventions. Making hasty decisions based on limited data ('jumping to conclusions', JTC) is one potential causal mechanism, but reasoning errors may also result from other processes. In this study, we investigated the correlates of reasoning errors under differing task conditions in 204 participants with schizophrenia spectrum psychosis who completed three probabilistic reasoning tasks. Psychotic symptoms, affect, and IQ were also evaluated. We found that hasty decision makers were more likely to draw false conclusions, but only 37% of their reasoning errors were consistent with the limited data they had gathered. The remainder directly contradicted all the presented evidence. Reasoning errors showed task-dependent associations with IQ affect, and psychotic symptoms. We conclude that limited data-gathering contributes to false conclusions but is not the only mechanism involved. Delusions may also be maintained by a tendency to disregard evidence. Low IQ and emotional biases may contribute to reasoning errors in more complex situations. Cognitive strategies to reduce reasoning errors should therefore extend beyond encouragement to gather more data, and incorporate interventions focused directly on these difficulties

The anterior temporal lobes are critically involved in acquiring new conceptual knowledge:evidence for impaired feature integration in semantic dementia

AbstractRecent evidence from multiple neuroscience techniques indicates that regions within the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) are a critical node in the neural network for representing conceptual knowledge, yet their function remains elusive. The hub-and-spoke model holds that ATL regions act as a transmodal conceptual hub, distilling the various sensory-motor features of objects and words into integrated, coherent conceptual representations. Single-cell recordings in monkeys suggest that the ATLs are critically involved in visual associative learning; however, investigations of this region in humans have focused on existing knowledge rather than learning. We studied acquisition of new concepts in semantic dementia patients, who have cortical damage centred on the ventrolateral aspects of the ATLs. Patients learned to assign abstract visual stimuli to two categories. The categories conformed to a family resemblance structure in which no individual stimulus features were fully diagnostic; thus the task required participants to form representations that integrate multiple features into a single concept. Patients were unable to do this, instead responding only on the basis of individual features. The study reveals that integrating disparate sources of information into novel coherent concepts is a critical computational function of the ATLs. This explains the central role of this region in conceptual representation and the catastrophic breakdown of concepts in semantic dementia

Essentially biased: why people are fatalistic about genes

We propose that people are genetic essentialists—that is, they tend to think of genetic attributions as being immutable, of a specific etiology, natural, and dividing people into homogenous and discrete groups. Although there are rare conditions where genes operate in these kinds of deterministic ways, people overgeneralize from these to the far more common conditions where genes are not at all deterministic. These essentialist biases are associated with some harmful outcomes such as racism, sexism, pessimism in the face of illnesses, political polarization, and support for eugenics, while at the same time they are linked with increased tolerance and sympathy for gay rights, mental illness, and less severe judgments of responsibility for crime. We will also discuss how these essentialist biases connect with the burgeoning direct-to-consumer genomics industry and various kinds of genetic engineering. Overall, these biases appear rather resistant to efforts to reduce them, although genetics literacy predicts weaker essentialist tendencies

Combination and QCD analysis of charm production cross section measurements in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA

Measurements of open charm production cross sections in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA from the H1 and ZEUS Collaborations are combined. Reduced cross sections sigma(c (c) over bar)(red) for charm production are obtained in the kinematic range of photon virtuality 2.5 LT = Q(2) LT = 2000 GeV2 and Bjorken scaling variable 3 . 10(-5) LT = x LT = 5 . 10(-2). The combination method accounts for the correlations of the systematic uncertainties among the different data sets. The combined charm data together with the combined inclusive deep-inelastic scattering cross sections from HERA are used as input for a detailed NLO QCD analysis to study the influence of different heavy flavour schemes on the parton distribution functions. The optimal values of the charm mass as a parameter in these different schemes are obtained. The implications on the NLO predictions for W-+/- and Z production cross sections at the LHC are investigated. Using the fixed flavour number scheme, the running mass of the charm quark is determined