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Journal of Aging Studies Sep 2022Taking as a point of departure the role that the category of frailty increasingly plays in the classification, sorting and management of ageing populations in...
Taking as a point of departure the role that the category of frailty increasingly plays in the classification, sorting and management of ageing populations in contemporary societies, this paper focuses on the crafting and validation of mouse models of frailty. The paper suggests that such models embody therapeutic and techno-economic expectations of ageing research, particularly as these are re-invigorated by current attempts to manipulate or eradicate cell senescence. The paper brings together critical gerontology, social studies of science and more-than-human anthropology to contextualise and analyse ethnographic data collected during fieldwork in a biology of ageing laboratory. The paper proposes that to build a mouse model of frailty, researchers need to learn to 'think like a mouse', provisionally taking the animal's point of view, to then efface that link and reconfigure the scientific chain of reference that enables translation between humans and mouse models of frailty.
Topics: Aging; Animals; Anthropology, Cultural; Frailty; Geriatrics; Humans; Mice
PubMed: 36008027
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101055 -
Chemical Reviews Aug 2022Paleoproteomics, the study of ancient proteins, is a rapidly growing field at the intersection of molecular biology, paleontology, archaeology, paleoecology, and... (Review)
Review
Paleoproteomics, the study of ancient proteins, is a rapidly growing field at the intersection of molecular biology, paleontology, archaeology, paleoecology, and history. Paleoproteomics research leverages the longevity and diversity of proteins to explore fundamental questions about the past. While its origins predate the characterization of DNA, it was only with the advent of soft ionization mass spectrometry that the study of ancient proteins became truly feasible. Technological gains over the past 20 years have allowed increasing opportunities to better understand preservation, degradation, and recovery of the rich bioarchive of ancient proteins found in the archaeological and paleontological records. Growing from a handful of studies in the 1990s on individual highly abundant ancient proteins, paleoproteomics today is an expanding field with diverse applications ranging from the taxonomic identification of highly fragmented bones and shells and the phylogenetic resolution of extinct species to the exploration of past cuisines from dental calculus and pottery food crusts and the characterization of past diseases. More broadly, these studies have opened new doors in understanding past human-animal interactions, the reconstruction of past environments and environmental changes, the expansion of the hominin fossil record through large scale screening of nondiagnostic bone fragments, and the phylogenetic resolution of the vertebrate fossil record. Even with these advances, much of the ancient proteomic record still remains unexplored. Here we provide an overview of the history of the field, a summary of the major methods and applications currently in use, and a critical evaluation of current challenges. We conclude by looking to the future, for which innovative solutions and emerging technology will play an important role in enabling us to access the still unexplored "dark" proteome, allowing for a fuller understanding of the role ancient proteins can play in the interpretation of the past.
Topics: Animals; Archaeology; Fossils; Humans; Paleontology; Phylogeny; Proteome; Proteomics
PubMed: 35839101
DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.1c00703 -
Communications Biology Jun 2023Fossil endocasts record features of brains from the past: size, shape, vasculature, and gyrification. These data, alongside experimental and comparative evidence, are... (Review)
Review
Fossil endocasts record features of brains from the past: size, shape, vasculature, and gyrification. These data, alongside experimental and comparative evidence, are needed to resolve questions about brain energetics, cognitive specializations, and developmental plasticity. Through the application of interdisciplinary techniques to the fossil record, paleoneurology has been leading major innovations. Neuroimaging is shedding light on fossil brain organization and behaviors. Inferences about the development and physiology of the brains of extinct species can be experimentally investigated through brain organoids and transgenic models based on ancient DNA. Phylogenetic comparative methods integrate data across species and associate genotypes to phenotypes, and brains to behaviors. Meanwhile, fossil and archeological discoveries continuously contribute new knowledge. Through cooperation, the scientific community can accelerate knowledge acquisition. Sharing digitized museum collections improves the availability of rare fossils and artifacts. Comparative neuroanatomical data are available through online databases, along with tools for their measurement and analysis. In the context of these advances, the paleoneurological record provides ample opportunity for future research. Biomedical and ecological sciences can benefit from paleoneurology's approach to understanding the mind as well as its novel research pipelines that establish connections between neuroanatomy, genes and behavior.
Topics: Fossils; Phylogeny; Brain; Archaeology; Artifacts
PubMed: 37311857
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04803-4 -
Fa Yi Xue Za Zhi Oct 2020no abstract.
no abstract.
Topics: Anthropology; Forensic Anthropology
PubMed: 33295158
DOI: 10.12116/j.issn.1004-5619.2020.05.001 -
Journal of Physiological Anthropology Mar 2024Nutritional anthropology is the study of human subsistence, diet and nutrition in comparative social and evolutionary perspective. Many factors influence the nutritional... (Review)
Review
Nutritional anthropology is the study of human subsistence, diet and nutrition in comparative social and evolutionary perspective. Many factors influence the nutritional health and well-being of populations, including evolutionary, ecological, social, cultural and historical ones. Most usually, biocultural approaches are used in nutritional anthropology, incorporating methods and theory from social science as well as nutritional and evolutionary science. This review describes approaches used in the nutritional anthropology of past and present-day societies. Issues of concern for nutritional anthropology in the world now include: understanding how undernutrition and food insecurity are produced at local, regional and international levels; how food systems are constructed using social, biological and biocultural perspectives; and obesity from a biocultural viewpoint. By critiquing framings of present-day diet in an evolutionary context, nutritional anthropology asks 'what should be eaten?', rather than 'what can be eaten?', and 'how cheaply can people be fed?'.
Topics: Humans; Anthropology; Diet; Obesity; Nutritional Status
PubMed: 38459536
DOI: 10.1186/s40101-023-00345-0 -
Singapore Medical Journal Oct 2021This review introduces a qualitative methodology called institutional ethnography (IE) to healthcare professionals interested in studying complex social healthcare... (Review)
Review
This review introduces a qualitative methodology called institutional ethnography (IE) to healthcare professionals interested in studying complex social healthcare systems. We provide the historical context in which IE was developed, and explain the principles and terminology in IE for the novice researcher. Through the use of worked examples, the reader will be able to appreciate how IE can be used to approach research questions in the healthcare system that other methods would be unable to answer. We show how IE and qualitative research methods maintain quality and rigour in research findings. We hope to demonstrate to healthcare professionals and researchers that healthcare systems can be analysed as social organisations, and IE may be used to identify and understand how higher-level processes and policies affect day-to-day clinical work. This understanding may allow the formulation and implementation of actionable improvements to solve problems on the ground.
Topics: Anthropology, Cultural; Delivery of Health Care; Health Personnel; Humans; Research Design
PubMed: 35001127
DOI: 10.11622/smedj.2021199 -
Acta Biotheoretica Jun 2020Recent years have seen the growing promise of cultural evolutionary theory as a new approach to bringing human behaviour fully within the broader evolutionary synthesis.... (Review)
Review
Recent years have seen the growing promise of cultural evolutionary theory as a new approach to bringing human behaviour fully within the broader evolutionary synthesis. This review of two recent seminal works on this topic argues that cultural evolution now holds the potential to bring together fields as disparate as neuroscience and social anthropology within a unified explanatory and ontological framework.
Topics: Anthropology, Cultural; Biological Evolution; Cultural Evolution; Human Characteristics; Humans; Interdisciplinary Communication; Neuropsychology
PubMed: 31563992
DOI: 10.1007/s10441-019-09367-7 -
Journal of Physiological Anthropology Mar 2023
Topics: Humans; Anthropology; Adaptation, Physiological
PubMed: 36895022
DOI: 10.1186/s40101-023-00320-9 -
Trends in Ecology & Evolution Dec 2023Measurement theory, a branch of applied mathematics, offers guiding principles for extracting meaning from empirical observations and is applicable to any science... (Review)
Review
Measurement theory, a branch of applied mathematics, offers guiding principles for extracting meaning from empirical observations and is applicable to any science involving measurements. Measurement theory is highly relevant in paleobiology because statistical approaches assuming ratio-scaled variables are commonly used on data belonging to nominal and ordinal scale types. We provide an informal introduction to representational measurement theory and argue for its importance in robust scientific inquiry. Although measurement theory is widely applicable in paleobiology research, we use the study of disparity to illustrate measurement theoretical challenges in the quantitative study of the fossil record. Respecting the inherent properties of different measurements enables meaningful inferences about evolutionary and ecological processes from paleontological data.
Topics: Biological Evolution; Paleontology; Fossils
PubMed: 37696719
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2023.08.005 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Jan 2021One prominent feature of human culture is that different populations have different tools, technologies and cultural artefacts, and these unique toolkits can also differ... (Review)
Review
One prominent feature of human culture is that different populations have different tools, technologies and cultural artefacts, and these unique toolkits can also differ in size and complexity. Over the past few decades, researchers in the fields of prehistoric demography and cultural evolution have addressed a number of questions regarding variation in toolkit size and complexity across prehistoric and modern populations. Several factors have been proposed as possible explanations for this variation: in particular, the mobility of a population, the resources it uses, the volatility of its environment and the number of individuals in the population. Using a variety of methods, including empirical and ethnographic research, computational models and laboratory-based experiments, researchers have found disparate results regarding each hypothesis. These discordant findings have led to debate over the factors that most significantly influence toolkit size and composition. For instance, several computational, empirical and laboratory studies of food-producing populations have found a positive correlation between the number of individuals in a population and toolkit size, whereas similar studies of hunter-gatherer populations have found little evidence of such a link. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive review of the literature in this field of study and propose corollaries and interdisciplinary approaches with the goal of reconciling dissimilar findings into a more comprehensive view of cultural toolkit variation. This article is part of the theme issue 'Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography'.
Topics: Anthropology, Cultural; Cultural Evolution; Demography; Humans; Population Density
PubMed: 33250027
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0713