In A Society of Strangers, Kin Is Still Key: Identified Family Relations In Large-Scale Mobile Phone Data

Mobile call networks have been widely used to investigate communication patterns and the network of interactions of humans at the societal scale. Yet, more detailed analysis is often hindered by having no information about the nature of the relationships, even if some metadata about the individuals are available. Using a unique, large mobile phone database with information about individual surnames in a population in which people inherit two surnames: one from their father, and one from their mother, we are able to differentiate among close kin relationship types. Here we focus on the difference between the most frequently called alters depending on whether they are family relationships or not. We find support in the data for two hypotheses: (1) phone calls between family members are more frequent and last longer than phone calls between non-kin, and (2) the phone call pattern between family members show a higher variation depending on the stage of life-course compared to non-family members. We give an interpretation of these findings within the framework of evolutionary anthropology: kinship matters even when demographic processes, such as low fertility, urbanisation and migration reduce the access to family members. Furthermore, our results provide tools for distinguishing between different kinds of kin relationships from mobile call data, when information about names are unavailable.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, supplementary material at the en

Rendering a Digital Object

Rendering a digital element is disclosed. An indication that a device is within a region associated with the digital element is received. It is determined that the digital element is to be rendered. A representation of the digital element is generated in a rendered view of the region. The digital element is provided upon receiving an indication that the digital element has been selected

Why do we love medicines so much?

Humans have an irrational desire for medicines. The authors explain that this ‘pharmophilia' could have evolutionary roots and may have a profound impact for public health policies

Mating strategies in Mozart's Figaro

Since its first performance in 1786, Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, written in close cooperation with opera’s librettist Da Ponte, has inspired a wealth of research in musicology and cultural studies. We study the social relationships of this opera using an evolutionary framework. The protagonists are analysed with respect to biologically-relevant individual traits like gender, social status and reproductive value and via the dyadic ties of sexuality, kinship and friendship. We argue that The Marriage of Figaro displays the major human male and female mating strategies with regards to long and short term relationships. The biological-relevance of the dense social network may explain part of this opera’s popularity across centuries, together with its musical, dramaturgical, and overall aesthetical qualities

Intergroup Transfer of Females and Social Relationships Between Immigrants and Residents in Bonobo (Pan paniscus) Societies

International audienceThis paper first reviews data collected from 1976 to 2013 regarding the life histories of members of the main E1 study group of bonobos (Pan paniscus) in Wamba. The E1 group exhibited strong tendencies toward female dispersal and male residence during the entire study period, thereby exemplifying the typical characteristics of a male-philopatric and female-dispersal society. This pattern did not change after the abandonment of artificial provisioning. We then present two new cases of immigrant females, focusing especially on social association patterns, dominance relationships, and affiliative interactions during the approximate 2.5 years from the time of their immigration to their first birth. These females began engaging in social grooming with resident females immediately after their arrival but rarely did so with adult males, suggesting that they regard social bonding with females as more important than that with males. They also emigrated at a young age and frequently engaged in social play. Indeed, social bonding established through frequent social play may be related to the development of socially symmetrical relationships, which are the basis for the egalitarian bonobo society. Intragroup competition for food and mates was unlikely explanations for the tendency toward female dispersal. However, male residence and the risk of father–daughter incest may encourage female transfer among bonobo

Cultural variation in the main finding.

<p>Panel (a): the ratio between same-gender and mixed gender pictures of different group size (corrected by the probability of appearance, see text). Panel (b): number of close friends (same gender, with groups size 2 to 4). Panel (c): the ratio between same-gender Profile Pictures as a function of group size (1F/1M normalised to 0). Panel (d): cultural variation in the proportion of single person pictures within all Profile Pictures in a given global region. (Region codes of Panels a-c: green: Central and South Asia, blue: Europe, dashed blue: Latin America, dashed green: Middle East and North Africa, dotted blue: North America, dotted green: South-East Asia, red: Sub-Saharan Africa, black: Australia, dashed black: East Asia.)</p

Homophobia is not related to the frequency of 2F Profile Pictures, bootstrapping distributions.

<p>Blue line: highly homophobic countries; red line: countries with low homophobia (see text for definitions). Dashed black line: the (2F/1F)/(2M/1M)-1 mean of the entire database. (100,000 bootstrapping repeats.)</p

The ratio of same-gender women-only to men-only frequencies (nF/nM as function of n).

<p>Gray lines denote a one-standard-deviation band from bootstrapping. Above n>4, men-only groups dominate, while women-only groups become extremely rare. The linear OLS coefficient of nF/nM as a function of n is negative, with R² = 0.86, and p<0.01</p