Credo che possa essere definito razzismo ogni forma di negazione della dignita' e dei diritti dell'uomo.

Il che è come dire che il razzismo è tutto, quindi niente, ergo non esiste?

Quando l'essere umano è ridotto nella condizione della "non persona" attraverso l'uso di un numero o di un aggettivo è molto più facile negare la sua identità, il suo essere persona detentrice di diritti.

Questo, immagino, non vale quando i cittadini vengono catalogati a forza di carte di identità e roba simile.

Anche se accettiamo come un fatto ormai inoppugnabile la mescolanza dei popoli e dei gruppi, siamo restii a pensarla.

Quale mescolanza, visto che i gruppi non esistono?

I nostri modi di vedere sono ancora troppo impregnati nelle vecchie categorie. Continuiamo a pensare l'identità in termini di somiglianza, di tradizione di lingua e di religione.

Mentre invece...?

Poco prima:

Nel corso del tempo questa catalogazione si è trasformata in netta divisione, e talvolta è stata sfruttata per fini politici. Ricordiamolo, con l'unico fine della PREVARICAZIONE.

Tuttavia:

Il democratico occidentale, progressista e di vedute aperte, si mette facilmente la coscienza a posto dichiarando di rispettare tutte le culture, ma poi sottintende, a bassa voce: purché ognuno se ne stia a casa sua o, almeno al suo posto.

Allora decidetevi: il democratico occidentale li vuole sfruttare qui, oppure farli stare tutti a casa loro?

E' una nuova forma di razzismo. (almeno credo)

Infatti, casualmente:

Lo stesso meccanismo è quello definire gli esseri umani con aggettivi che sono il massimo dell'anonimato.

E "democratico occidentale" (sottointeso: persona troppo pallida) cos'è, se non quello che hai appena detto, ovvero il massimo dell'anonimato? Poiché è palese cosa intendi per "occidentale", segue logicamente che secondo te "gli altri" non sono occidentali, pur trovandosi in occidente. Questo, ovviamente, altro non è che razzismo. Strano, vero?

Aspetta, fammi indovinare: premesso che la colpa è sempre dei democratici occidentali, in qual modo possono redimersi dal loro peccato originale, ovvero quello di esistere? Domanda da mille punti per il lettore sveglio. Forza ragazzi, che è divertente.

===

Pigna di link, per fomentare il lieto dibattito. Facciamo un gioco divertente: booga booga arrivano i razzisti!

Cancer diagnosis hits Asians hard

White patients cope better with the pressure of cancer than their British Asian counterparts, research suggests. The University of Leicester looked at coping strategies among 200 white and British Asian patients. The British Journal of Cancer study found the most common method of coping among Asian people was simply to deny they were ill. White people were more likely not to dwell on their illness - a strategy linked to less anxiety and depression.

Sarà un problema culturale! Leggiamo ancora:

UK Asians' low breast cancer risk

British Asians have a lower risk of breast cancer and are more likely to survive longer, a study says. Researchers found nearly a third fewer women in the south Asian community in England and Wales develop breast cancer than among all other ethnic groups.

Che non esistono, ricordiamolo: li studiano per sport.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine team also found more south Asians survived for five years after diagnosis than other groups. But the researchers were unable to pinpoint the reason for the findings.

Unable or unwilling?

Report co-author Michel Coleman said it was "difficult to explain", suggesting diet and lifestyle could play a role. And Dr Coleman added: "We can speculate that differential access to treatment or differences in tumour biology, or both, may contribute to the differences in survival."

Sugary drinks increase diabetes risk in fat Latino children, says study

11/23/2005 - Nearly a quarter of Latino children in the United States are overweight, with those who consume lots of sugar- especially in sugary drinks- running a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new study. Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California found that overweight Latino children who consumed more sugar in their everyday diet showed signs of decreased beta cell function.

Potere della cultura.

Beta cells, found in the pancreas, create the hormone insulin in response to sugar from food. Overworked beta cells start to function less effectively, which may result in the accumulation of sugar in the blood stream that characterizes type 2 diabetes, said the researchers. The study, which examined 63 overweight Latino children aged 9 to 13, found that around 40 percent of the sugar in their diet came from sugary drinks, such as soda or sweetened juices, with the children consuming an average of 1.5 cans of soda every day. "If left untreated, overweight and poor diet among these children could have disastrous consequences for minority health and the health-care costs for future generations," said Michael Goran, professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School.

The study, published in this month's issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, follows previous research by the group, which found that Latino children are more likely to be insulin-resistant than white children, regardless of their body weight- a finding most likely linked to genetic issues.

Booga!

Black and Low Income Women Need Tailored Weight Loss Programs

Weight loss programs need to be race and income specific because weight control experiences are far different between black and white women and affluent and poor women, according to a recent study.

Booga.

Researchers put together focus groups made up of obese women and divided by race and socioeconomic status. They found most of the women had been able to lose weight in the past, but they failed to keep it off. The white women surveyed said physical activity was their key to weight-loss success, while the black women put more emphasis on food choices. Black women in particular said weight loss programs that incorporated spiritual and psychological support would be helpful. And the low-income women surveyed said cost had been a barrier to effective weight loss for them. The study's authors said this points to a need to promote "creative strategies that educate low-[income] women on cost-effective ways to eat healthy and engage in physical activity..."

Black and low-income women are at higher risk for obesity than the general population, but tailored weight loss programs could help reduce the risk, the study's authors said.

Chinese, Americans Truly See Differently, Study Says

Booooga! Paura!

Chinese and Americans literally view the world differently, according to a new study, which found that the two groups tend to move their eyes in distinctly different patterns when looking at pictures.

"If people are literally looking at the world differently, we think it would be natural for them to explain the world in different ways," said Richard Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Over the past decade reasearch by Nisbett and his colleagues has surprised the social sciences with numerous studies showing that Westerners and East Asians think differently.

Westerners tend to be analytical and pay more attention to the key, or focal, objects in a scene-for example, concentrating on the woman in the "Mona Lisa," as opposed to the rocks and sky behind her.

East Asians, by contrast, tend to look at the whole picture and rely on contextual information when making decisions and judgments about what they see, Nisbett said. (See sidebar at lower right.)

The new study was designed to determine if the difference in the thought processes of East Asians and Westerners affects how Westerners and East Asians physically look at the world.

To find out, the researchers measured eye movements of 45 U.S. and Chinese students as they looked at photographs that featured single focal objects against complex backgrounds.

For example, one image showed a tiger by a stream in a forest. Another image showed a fighter jet flying over a mountainous landscape.

When test subjects looked at the pictures, differences emerged between the U.S. and Chinese students within the first second of an average viewing, Nisbett said.

"Americans are looking at the focal object more quickly and spend more time looking at it," he said. "The Chinese have more saccades [jerky eye movements]. They move their eyes more, especially back and forth between the object and the [background] field."

The finding suggests that East Asians literally spend more time putting objects into context than Americans do. The differences are not just reflected in how individuals recall and report their memories but in how they physically see an image in the first place.

The study, which was led by Nisbett's graduate student Hannah-Faye Chua, is reported tomorrow in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cultural Differences

E se non sono socioeconomic, saranno cultural.

Nisbett says that any explanation for the cultural differences is, at this point, speculation. However, he and his colleagues suggest that the differences may be rooted in social practices that stretch back thousands of years.

Saranno tramandate per via orale, di padre in figlio!

"Westerners are taught to pay attention to objects that are important to them, to have goals that they can follow," he said. "East Asians are more likely to pay attention to the social field...."

Nisbett traces the origins of the variation to at least 2,500 years ago. At that time collaborative, large-scale agriculture was the primary driver of the East Asian economy. For most workers, economic survival required paying attention to the person in charge as well as co-workers in the fields. Context was important.

By contrast, ancient Greek society-the prototypical Western society-was characterized by individualistic activities, such as hunting, fishing, and small-scale farming.

The difference, Nisbett said, still holds today. East Asian societies tend to be more socially complex than Western societies. Understanding context, therefore, has more value in East Asia than in the West.

Characterizing Differences

Anthropologist Alan Fiske said the researchers' data is "very sound." But he questions the complex social reasons that the study authors use to explain the differences.

"Social scientists have not been successful in characterizing in absolute general terms what the difference is between East Asian and European-American societies," said Fiske, the director of the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We all agree there are huge differences, but [they're] difficult to characterize."

Nevertheless, Fiske said, the study shows "a statistically significant and scientifically interesting" difference in how Chinese and Americans view a scene. This difference, he added, strengthens the argument for multicultural teamwork in business and academe.

Rifletti, attento lettore: se fosse un fattore culturale, non si potrebbe semplicemente insegnare?

Badombe> Sgamati un'altra volta!

Fiske said the differences revealed by the study are not so great that people from Western and East Asian cultures can't understand each other when speaking the same language, he said. "But it suggests people have different strengths in remembering and noticing things, and that would be valuable."

Nisbett, the lead study author, said that the research also has implications for international relations. "Understanding there are differences and why these differences exist can be very helpful," he said.

Salt Retention Hormone a Greater Factor In African American High Blood Pressure

Sentite questa.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is 50 percent more prevalent in African Americans than in Caucasians, and salt retention may be a potent contributor to this high rate among African Americans.

Potere della cultura.

Aldosterone is an adrenal hormone that promotes salt-retention by the kidney. A new study by teams at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Montreal, Canada suggests a significant link between higher levels of this hormone and high blood pressure in African Americans.

The teams evaluated aldosterone levels in relation to blood pressure in two distinct genetic populations: Milwaukee-area African Americans, and a group of geographically and genetically isolated French Canadians. Participants underwent physical assessments, medical histories and 24-hour in-patient monitoring of blood pressure and blood chemistry, including plasma aldosterone, while supine and standing.

Over 1,000 members of Milwaukee's African American community have contributed to this ongoing research at Froedtert Hospital, and more volunteers are needed.

The study was led by Theodore A. Kotchen, M.D., associate dean for clinical research and professor of medicine at the Medical College, and Pavel Hamet, M.D., Ph.D., at the University of Montreal. Their abstract appears in the October 2004 issue of Hypertension, where the full manuscript has been accepted for publication soon.

The researchers reported that blood levels of aldosterone are higher in African Americans with high blood pressure than in Caucasians, and that there is a highly significant correlation between blood levels of aldosterone and blood pressure in African Americans. In an earlier study, they also found that elevated aldosterone is directly related to over-development of the left ventricle of the heart in African Americans with high blood pressure.

These observations may point the way to drug therapies that would be particularly beneficial for African Americans with high blood pressure, according to Dr. Kotchen. "Specifically, we could predict that drugs that block the salt retaining effect of aldosterone in the kidney would be particularly effective agents to lower blood pressure in hypertensive African Americans," he says.

Ma no, meglio lasciarli crepare tutti, tanto siamo tutti uguali, a che serve la medicina su misura?

Statement of The American Society of Human Genetics on Cystic Fibrosis Carrier Screening

CF is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder characterized by chronic lung disease and pancreatic insufficiency. There is a broad range of clinical severity. Recent advances in clinical care, including postural drainage, pancreatic enzyme replacement, and improved antibiotics, have increased survival, although a small fraction of patients still die in the first decade. Even without anticipated improvements in therapy, most individuals born today with CF are expected to survive into their 30s or 40s. CF occurs in about 1 in 2,500 newborns of European ancestry. It is less frequent among other ethnic and racial groups. About 1 in 25 persons of European ancestry is a carrier, having one normal and one abnormal CF gene.

Il potere della cultura è straordinario.

A single mutation, denoted DeltaF508, is found in approximately 70% of carriers of European ancestry. Currently, over 160 other mutations have been identified. Many of these are extremely rare, but a few reach frequencies of 1% -3 % of CF carriers. Current surveys indicate that 85%-90% of CF carriers in the North American white population can be detected by testing for 6-12 mutations. The detection rate is even higher in some populations (e.g., Ashkenazi Jews) but is substantially lower in blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. In view of this mutational heterogeneity, it is unlikely that DNA-based CF carrier detection rates will exceed 95% in the foreseeable future.

Ho un'idea: facciamo finta di niente, non facciamo il test a nessuno per non discriminare, e lasciamo crepare tutti un'altra volta.

Infatti:

* Although the sensitivity of carrier testing for CF has improved and pilot studies are under way, CF testing is not recommended, at this time, for individuals or couples who do not have a family history of CF.

* Individuals with a positive family history of CF or who have a blood relative identified as a CF carrier should be offered CF testing with appropriate education and counseling. Optimally, carrier testing should be offered prior to conception, to provide a couple the broadest range of reproductive options.

Ma no, è più divertente fare una sorpresona.

Cystic fibrosis carrier-testing gains support

Tammy Stringer never had any reason to give much thought to cystic fibrosis. As far as she knew, no one in her family ever had it.

Ooops!

But in a prenatal class during the first trimester of her first pregnancy, Stringer, 23, learned that she could be tested to see whether she carries a CF gene mutation. What's one more test? she figured. "I didn't give it any thought. I said, 'Sure, why not?'"

Carriers don't have CF, but if both parents are carriers, a child has a one-in-four chance of being born with the disease. CF causes sticky mucus to build up in the lungs, pancreas and other organs, leading to respiratory and digestive complications.

For the most part, only pregnant women with a family history of CF have been offered carrier screening. But that is about to change.

Per colpa del razzismo, immagino?

In the current issue of Genetics in Medicine, the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) has published guidelines for so-called population-based CF carrier screening: All Caucasians, not just those with a family history, should be offered the test.

Non mi dire?

Though more than 900 CF mutations have been identified, the ACMG for now recommends testing for only the 25 most common. The test would identify 80% of Caucasian CF carriers.

Members of other racial groups are less likely to be carriers, and scientists have not yet identified all of their common mutations. If minority members are interested in testing, they should be told of its limitations, the ACMG says.

Io non direi niente, e lascerei crepare tutti tanto per cambiare, in nome dell'uguaglianza.

Within a year or two, medical geneticists expect population-based screening for CF carrier status to become standard, making it the largest-scale DNA testing ever.

Estimated: 10 million carriers

Only 30,000 Americans have CF, so, up to now, relatively few pregnant women have routinely been offered carrier testing. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation estimates that 10 million Americans carry CF mutations, including as many as one in 25 Caucasians. In most cases, carriers learn of their status only by having a child with CF.

For years, Jews of Eastern European descent have been routinely tested to see whether they are Tay-Sachs carriers, regardless of family history. The same for blacks and sickle cell anemia.

But the larger potential market for CF carrier screening takes the ethical and practical concerns surrounding such testing to a new level. "The whole idea of testing pregnant women begs the question of whether you should keep the baby," says Carolyn Habbersett, director of public affairs for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Wayne Grody, lead author of the ACMG statement, acknowledges that "the ultimate goal is to have fewer patients with CF, since we don't have a cure right now."

Today, average life expectancy for a person with CF is 32 years. Some live far longer, some far less.

"Tay-Sachs is so horrible," says Grody, a medical geneticist at UCLA. "There's no treatment. They die by age 2. People don't have too much trouble about the concept of terminating those fetuses.

"CF can be a somewhat variable disease. Some patients are only mildly affected."

Population-based screening is cost-effective only if most parents of affected fetuses terminate the pregnancies, says David Asch, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania.

"If you're not going to do anything differently, why get the test in the first place?" Asch asks.

Questa, vi ricordo, è eugenetica: l'aborto è lecito solo quando si tratta di annunciare la buona novella dell'emancipazione.

Molecular eyewitness: DNA gets a human face

Sentite questa...

Canadian police have been quietly using a controversial new genetic technology to reveal the racial background and physical appearance of criminals they are hunting, according to the Florida company that sells the test.

Officials with DNAPrint Genomics, a biotech firm in Sarasota that has offered the test since 2002, say four separate forces in Canada -- including the RCMP -- have used the technology to narrow their search for suspects. This spring, two Canadian investigators made the unusual move of hand-delivering a crime-scene DNA sample to the Florida lab.

Unlike the more familiar forensic test that tries to match DNA found at a crime scene with samples from known suspects, this test is based on a single recovered sample and has the potential to tell police if the offender they are looking for is white, black, Asian, native, or of mixed race. The company then supplies photos of people with similar genetic profiles to help complete the portrait.

The company says the so-called DNAWitness test has been used in 80 criminal investigations by law-enforcement organizations worldwide, including the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Army and Scotland Yard.

"This could be helpful in solving crimes, more helpful than human eyewitnesses," said Anthony Frudakis, the company's chief scientific officer.

"Our technology serves as a potential molecular eyewitness. It's objective."

It's also advancing at a dizzying pace. This spring, the company launched a new DNA test that can discern a person's eye colour with 92-per-cent accuracy. Meanwhile, the prospect of learning other physical -- even psychological -- traits could soon follow.

Ooops!

But while law enforcers seem to be embracing the new science, it has received a chilly reception from others who compare the technology -- a similar version of which has been developed in Britain -- to racial profiling in the genomics age.

E' lo stesso motivo per cui la BBC scrive "jobless youths" quando qualche teppista spacca la testa a qualcuno gridando "kill whitey!", ho indovinato?

"You still have to make a leap that what you're getting from the DNA correlates to visual characteristics," said Mildred Cho, associate director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics in California. "Then in order to round those people up, you have to say to the police department, or the force, 'Go find people who look like this, someone who looks black, or someone who looks half black and half Asian.

"This technology really overstates the ability to classify people by race and ethnicity."

For this reason, as well as the risk of tipping off criminals who could try to alter their appearance, Dr. Frudakis said police are loath to discuss their use of the technology -- which appears to be the case in Canada.

Officials at DNAPrint, who sign confidentiality agreements with police, say they cannot reveal details of the Canadian cases and investigators they contacted on behalf of The Globe and Mail have not responded to requests to discuss the test.

But as far as the company knows (and police do not generally keep them updated), Dr. Frudakis said, the test has contributed to six arrests internationally. The most prominent example comes from Louisiana where detectives used it to catch a serial killer.

Eyewitness accounts of a white man driving a white pickup truck, as well as an FBI psychological profile, had suggested it was a Caucasian man who was raping and killing women in the Baton Rouge area in 2002.

Ohibò!

But crime-scene DNA the Florida company tested indicated the offender was 85 per cent sub-Saharan African and 15 per cent Native American. In short, the test told police they should not be looking for a white man.

Sarà un test razzista, ho indovinato?

Two months after the shift in focus, Baton Rouge police arrested Derek Todd Lee, a black man now on death row for the slaying of six women.

Orrore e razzismo, sarebbe stato meglio metterci un pallido individuo, in modo che scontasse i suoi peccati.

Asked whether RCMP hunting a possible serial killer in Edmonton might consider using the technology, spokesman Corporal Wayne Oakes would say only that investigators on the case are "aware of this technology, but it's not one they have had occasion to use."

Sergeant Don Kelly of the Baton Rouge police force said in an interview that one of the detectives involved in their serial killer case has made a presentation to police in Edmonton. But he could not say if the technology was discussed.

In some cases, the test has been helpful in identifying victims of a crime.

Police in Southern California, for example, had been targeting Asian gangs after discovering skeletal remains at Mammoth Lakes Park that bone-structure experts felt belonged to an Asian woman. But the Florida test found the woman was largely Native American, prompting park rangers to recall that a woman who fit that description had complained about her husband's abusive behaviour.

The test, which costs $1,000 (U.S.), scans 176 particular genetic mutations that each offer information about a person's continent of origin. The results then break DNA inheritance down into percentages of four geographic groups: sub-Saharan African, East Asian, European and Native American.

Orrore.

The company refers to the process as an estimate of "biogeographical ancestry" and from this, investigators can indirectly infer key physical traits -- in particular skin, eye and hair colour.

Of the 8,000 DNA samples they have tested by this method in the course of their research and work, 95 per cent of people turn out to be of significant mixed heritage, said Zach Gaskin, a technical co-ordinator of forensics at the company.

Sentite, sentite cosa scrivono questi fanatici razzisti!

Still, Mr. Gaskin said, once a DNA sample suggests that at least 30 per cent of a person's heritage belongs to a particular racial group, a person starts "to exhibit features consistent with that population."

But in a paper published in American Psychologist, U.S. sociologist Troy Duster and ethicist Pilar Ossorio caution that the test has risks: "Some percentage of people who look white will possess genetic markers indicating that a significant majority of their recent ancestors were African. Some percentage of people who look black will possess genetic markers indicating the majority of their recent ancestors were European.

Sorpresa!

"Inferring race from genetic ancestry may mislead police rather than illuminating their search for a suspect."

For these reasons, company officials in Florida do not actually interpret test results by trying to describe shades of skin or hair colour. Instead, they provide photographs taken from their sample database of 2,500 people who match the genetic mix of suspects.

Stanford's Prof. Cho criticized this technique, however, arguing that even children from the same family can look very different from one another.

Toronto police Detective David Needham of the major sex crimes unit applauded the technology and said it is scheduled to be presented at a conference the force is holding in October.

"If the science is reliable and it can be accepted and established in the courts, it's going to be great," he said.

But he knows firsthand about the controversy it attracts.

A year ago, Det. Needham was hunting two men who had abducted and raped a woman who had seen only one of her attackers. To narrow his search for suspects, Det. Needham asked experts at Ontario's Centre for Forensic Sciences to try to give him a sense of racial background based on semen samples.

"They said, 'We can't do that, that's racial profiling,' " Det. Needham said. "If someone said they had seen a white man or a black man leaving the scene of the crime, we would use that information. So what's the difference?"

Bruce O'Neill, spokesman for the Ministry of Community and Safety and Correctional Services, which oversees the CFS, said the technology at hand has nothing to do with racial profiling.

Tim Caulfield, director of the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Alberta, noted that if the technology is indeed a sound tool for determining a suspect's physical appearance, it could turn out to be more reliable than eyewitness accounts.

"With a witness, there may be a whole set of social stereotypes that come out," he said. "If this technology is providing information that is factual, and people don't use it to make unwarranted presumptions, then it could be worthwhile. We need to be careful about how we let politically correct concerns colour our views."

Yet such concerns are bound to grow right along with the power of genetics.

The Florida firm, for example, is now developing 3-D technology to read gene types to infer physical traits such as hair texture, skull shapes or the distance between the eyes. Dr. Frudakis predicted that such technology might allow them within the decade to generate a crude sketch of a suspect from a DNA sample.

Non è possibile, visto che tutto ciò non esiste ed è un'invenzione per discriminare.

If all this sounds more like an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the popular television program that plays up the power of forensics, it is just a brief trailer for the plot lines to come.

Profs. Duster and Ossorio note police will eventually be able to discern psychological characteristics from DNA samples and generate behavioural profiles of subjects.

Political leanings may be etched in the genes

Political scientists have long held that people's upbringing and experience determine their political views. A child raised on peace protests and Bush-loathing generally tracks left as an adult, unless derailed by some powerful life experience. One reared on tax protests and a hatred of Kennedys usually lists to the right.

But on the basis of a new study, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut-level reaction to issues such as the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance.

The new research builds on a series of studies that indicate that people's general approach to social issues -- more conservative or more progressive -- is influenced by genes.

Boooooga!

Environmental influences such as upbringing, the study suggests, play a more central role in party affiliation as a Democrat or Republican, much as they do in a person's affiliation with a sports team.

The report, which appears in the current issue of the American Political Science Review, the profession's premier journal, uses genetics to help answer several open questions in political science.

They include why some people defect from the party in which they were raised and why some political campaigns, like the 2004 presidential election, turn into verbal blood sport, though polls find little disparity in most Americans' views on specific issues such as gun control and affirmative action.

The study is the first on genetics to appear in the journal. "I thought, 'Here's something new and different by respected political scholars that many political scientists never saw before in their lives,' " said Lee Sigelman, editor of the journal and a professor of political science at George Washington University.

Sigelman said that in many fields the findings "would create nothing more than a large yawn," but that "in ours, maybe people will storm the barricades."

Geneticists who study behavior and personality have known for 30 years that genes play a large role in people's instinctive emotional responses to certain issues -- their social temperament.

Quanti anni hai detto?

It is not that opinions on specific issues are written into a person's DNA. Rather, genes prime people to respond cautiously or openly to the mores of a social group.

Only recently have researchers begun to examine how these predispositions, in combination with childhood and later life experiences, shape political behavior.

In the study, three political scientists -- John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, John Alford of Rice University and Carolyn Funk of Virginia Commonwealth -- combed survey data from two large continuing studies, including more than 8,000 sets of twins.

From an extensive battery of surveys on personality traits, religious beliefs and other psychological factors, the researchers selected 28 questions most relevant to political behavior.

The researchers then compared dizygotic or fraternal twins, who, like any biological siblings, share 50 percent of their genes, with monozygotic, or identical, twins, who share 100 percent of their genes.

Calculating how often identical twins agree on an issue and subtracting the rate at which fraternal twins agree on the same item provides a rough measure of genes' influence on that attitude. A shared family environment for twins reared together is assumed.

On school prayer, for example, the identical twins' opinions correlated at a rate of 0.66, a measure of how often they agreed. The correlation rate for fraternal twins was 0.46. This translated into a 41 percent contribution from inheritance.

As found in previous studies, attitudes about issues such as school prayer, property taxes and the draft were among the most influenced by inheritance, the researchers found. Others like modern art and divorce were less so. And in the twins' overall score, derived from 28 questions, genes accounted for 53 percent of the differences.

Booooooooooga!

Racial groupings match genetic profiles, Stanford study finds

STANFORD - Checking a box next to a racial/ethnic category gives several pieces of information about people - the continent where their ancestors were born, the possible color of their skin and perhaps something about their risk of different diseases. But a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine finds that the checked box also says something about a person's genetic background.

This work comes on the heels of several contradictory studies about the genetic basis of race. Some found that race is a social construct with no genetic basis while others suggested that clear genetic differences exist between people of different races.

Provate ad indovinare chi sta spacciando cazzate tra i due?

What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent.

'God gene' discovered by scientist behind gay DNA theory

Religious belief is determined by a person's genetic make-up according to a study by a leading scientist.

Booooooooooga!

After comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples, an American molecular geneticist has concluded that a person's capacity to believe in God is linked to brain chemicals.

His findings were criticised last night by leading clerics, who challenge the existence of a "god gene" and say that the research undermines a fundamental tenet of faith - that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through divine transformation rather than the brain's electrical impulses.

Dr Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Cancer Institute in America, asked volunteers 226 questions in order to determine how spiritually connected they felt to the universe. The higher their score, the greater a person's ability to believe in a greater spiritual force and, Dr Hamer found, the more likely they were to share the gene, VMAT2.

Studies on twins showed that those with this gene, a vesicular monoamine transporter that regulates the flow of mood-altering chemicals in the brain, were more likely to develop a spiritual belief.

Growing up in a religious environment was said to have little effect on belief. Dr Hamer, who in 1993 claimed to have identified a DNA sequence linked to male homosexuality, said the existence of the "god gene" explained why some people had more aptitude for spirituality than others.

"Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus all shared a series of mystical experiences or alterations in consciousness and thus probably carried the gene," he said. "This means that the tendency to be spiritual is part of genetic make-up. This is not a thing that is strictly handed down from parents to children. It could skip a generation - it's like intelligence."

Orrore!

Research on twins supports 'God gene'

Religious belief is in the genes and can literally be inherited from one's parents, according to new research.

While environmental factors were the largest influences on children, genetic make-up played a significant part in whether people continued to believe into adulthood, it found.

The research will refuel the controversy about the existence of a so-called God gene, which has been hotly disputed by clerics and theologians.

Based on an analysis of more than 500 identical and non-identical twins, the study at Minnesota University in America set out to discover whether spirituality was the result of nature or nurture.

DNA project to trace human steps

A project spanning five continents is aiming to map the history of human migration via DNA. The Genographic Project - a partnership between National Geographic and IBM - will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide. Computer and lab analysis of samples - gathered from indigenous groups and the public - will help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised. Team leader Dr Spencer Wells calls the plan "the Moon shot of anthropology". The $40m, five-year project has brought on board some of the world's top population geneticists as well as leading experts in the fields of ancient DNA, linguistics and archaeology. "We see this as a resource for humanity going into the future. It could potentially become the largest genetic database ever created," he told the BBC News website. Members of the public will also be able to add their genetic information to the database by buying a kit that contains cheek swabs for obtaining a DNA sample.

Genetic markers

Evidence from genetics and archaeology places the origin of (Homo sapiens) in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. The first modern humans to leave the continent set off around 60,000 years ago.

By studying the male, or Y, chromosome and mitochondrial DNA - which is passed down exclusively on the maternal line - scientists have obtained a broad-brush picture of the routes taken by our forbears as they trekked across the world.

Social construct...

Gene researchers find variations by ancestry

Under the skin, we're all the same. That's been the warm-and-fuzzy wisdom of modern genetics, based on the first efforts to sequence the human genome.

But a closer look by Mountain View biotech company Perlegen Sciences has found small genetic differences that vary in prevalence among people of different ancestries -- suggesting that nature may not be colorblind, after all.

The goal of the new information is to help prevent and treat common diseases. The first comprehensive map of genetic variation among several ethnic groups, published in today's issue of the journal Science, shows patterns of genetic variation that could explain differences in health, disease and response to medication. This is a key step toward the possibility of personalized medicine based on genetic variations.

"We think this is a very powerful new resource for identifying the genetic determinants of complex traits," said David Hinds, statistical genetics analyst at Perlegen. He spoke to reporters Thursday in Washington, D.C., at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science.

Although it is not their goal, the Perlegen scientists have found differences that suggest "race" has biological significance.

Critics fear that the identification of biological differences among races could bolster cranks and demagogues, allowing scientists to play into the hands of racists. Many anthropologists, sociologists, geneticists and population biologists consider race a social construct.

But scientists and doctors say the idea of race-based medicine has new respectability -- and that identifying tiny differences could help reduce health disparities among the races.

It is known, for instance, that hypertension affects black Americans at a higher rate than white Americans. And white Americans sometimes take longer to clear certain drugs from the liver than East Asians.

Life's genetic blueprint is 99.9 percent similar from person to person.

The remaining 0.1 percent consists of single-letter DNA variations called SNPs (pronounced SNIPS), or single nucleotide polymorphisms.

Most patterns of genetic variation are common and found in all populations.

But others are less common -- and are likely to determine a person's vulnerability to disease and response to medications, as well as other traits, such as eye or hair color, height and body type.

Uncommon SNPs occur in different frequencies in different populations. For instance, 70 percent of African-Americans might have a nucleotide represented by the letter A; 30 percent might have a letter T. At the same spot, the percentage may be flipped in European-Americans. The difference in frequency of a specific letter could make a population more susceptible to disease.

Finding those differences, and identifying whether they have any clinical significance, is the goal, said Paul Cuzenza, who oversees research collaborations at Perlegen.

The Perlegen researchers analyzed nearly 1.6 million SNPs across 71 unrelated individuals.

They found that most of the SNPs were common to the three human populations in the study. But 94 percent of the study's SNPs were found in African-Americans, 81 percent in European-Americans and 74 percent in Chinese-Americans.

The presence of these patterns allowed the scientists to create the first picture of the structure of human genetic variation.

"Our paper in no way makes any sort of a scientific statement or definition of race," said David Cox, Perlegen's chief scientific officer. "When you look at any group of individuals, you'll see differences in their DNA."

Perlegen is now working to generate an even better map, describing variation across individuals of Japanese, Chinese, Nigerian and European ancestry.

The company hopes to include 4 million SNPs in 270 individuals by the end of the year.

In a related and even more significant project, it is comparing the genetic variants of sick and healthy people. Their blood samples come from people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, breast cancer -- even nicotine addiction. This research is not yet published.

"The challenge going forward is to translate this technology into something that's efficient and informative," said Lawrence Lesko, chair of pharmacogenomics at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Questa mi fa spanzare dalle risate.

African-Americans and Caucasians have similar emotional brain activity when seeing African-Americans

African Americans and Caucasians viewing African American faces display extremely similar changes in the activity of brain structures that respond to emotional events, a new UCLA study finds.

Avete indovinato, sono tutti razzisti, anche la minoranza oppressa.

The changes occur in the amygdala, a region of the brain that serves as an "alarm" to activate a cascade of other biological systems to protect the body in times of danger, said Matthew D. Lieberman, assistant professor of psychology at UCLA and lead author of the study.

The findings will be published May 8 in the online version of Nature Neuroscience, and later in the print version.

Five out of eight African Americans (63 percent) responded with significantly more amygdala activity when presented with expressionless photographs of African Americans than when they were shown expressionless photographs of Caucasians, Lieberman and his colleagues found. Seven of 11 Caucasians (64 percent) in the study also responded with greater activity in the amygdala when viewing the African American photographs.

Sarà un fattore culturale.

Although a third of participants in each race did not show this effect, no participant in the study responded with greater amygdala activity to the Caucasian photographs than to the African American photographs, Lieberman said.

Booga!

"We didn't see any differences in amygdala activity between the racial groups," Lieberman said. "From looking at the amygdala, you couldn't tell if the scans were from African American or Caucasian participants.

"Many people of either race may not be happy to find out that a part of their brain involved in responding to potential threats responds more to African Americans than Caucasians," Lieberman said. "Even people who believe to their core that they do not have prejudices may still have negative associations that are not conscious."

Strano, vero?

Why do African Americans have this amygdala response?

Ottima domanda. Saranno razzisti?

"One theory," Lieberman said, "is that people are likely to pick up the stereotypes prevalent in a society regardless of whether their family or community agrees with those stereotypes.

Oplà, risolto il mistero.

Several social psychologists have found evidence for this view. From an early age, cultural views, media portrayals and even the body language of authority figures may train our brains, whether we consciously agree or not."

Previous research has shown that Caucasians show an increased amygdala response to African American photos to the extent that they hold nonconscious negative attitudes towards African Americans, Lieberman said.

Co-authors on the study are Johanna Jarcho, a UCLA graduate student in Lieberman's laboratory; UCLA graduate student Naomi Eisenberger; Susan Bookheimer, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine; and Ahmad Hariri, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a former UCLA graduate student.

The researchers also studied whether adding a verbal label (such as "African American") when viewing African American photos changes the amygdala response, and found it does.

"When people look at an African American and think of the word 'African American,' we no longer see the amygdala response," Lieberman said.

Instead, the researchers found changes in a second region of the brain: the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. This region of the brain is located behind the forehead and eyes, and has been associated with thinking in words about emotional experiences; it also is associated with inhibiting behavior, impulses and emotions.

"This region is especially active when you add the verbal label to the face," Lieberman said. "The people who show the most activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex show the least activity in the amygdala.

"We found that when the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex gets turned on, the amygdala does not," he added. "When you engage in verbal labeling, that partially turns off or disrupts the amygdala response. The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was significantly active only when people were looking at African Americans and choosing the word 'African American.'"

These results suggest that "thinking about the race of others in words may regulate some of the threat experienced when confronting unfamiliar or feared others," Lieberman said.

Non sarà mica per questo che ci fanno due coglioni così ogni giorno con la storiella della società multiculturale, vero?

"It is possible this emotional 'benefit' of using race-related words may have inadvertently contributed to the widespread use of race-related words and stereotypes."

Sorpresa!

Lieberman and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain activity for this study, conducted at UCLA's Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health.

Avanti!

Human brains enjoy ongoing evolution

L'evoluzione in azione.

The human brain may still be evolving, new research suggests.

Rifletti: e per quale motivo non dovrebbe?

New variants of two genes that control brain development have swept through much of the human population during the last several thousand years, biologists have found.

The evolution of a large, complex brain has been the defining feature of the human lineage - although human brain size has not changed over the past 200,000 years. But it is not apparent whether the new genetic adaptations discovered in human brains have any effect on brain size, or intelligence.

What is more, not everyone possesses the new gene variants, potentially inflaming an already controversial debate about whether brains of different groups of people function differently.

"Whatever advantage these genes give, some groups have it and some don't. This has to be the worst nightmare for people who believe strongly there are no differences in brain function between groups," says anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US.

Prendete nota.

Brain size

There are two new genetic studies that suggest the brain may still be evolving. Geneticist Bruce Lahn of the University of Chicago in Illinois, US, and colleagues analysed the sequences of two genes active in the brain - Microcephalin and ASPM. Both regulate brain size - people carrying a non-functioning mutant copy of these genes suffer microcephaly, where they have a normally structured brain that is much smaller than usual.

First, the researchers sequenced the Microcephalin gene found in 89 ethnically diverse people. The team found dozens of variants (or alleles) of the gene, but one particular set stood out. These alleles all carry a specific mutation that changes the protein the gene codes for.

This distinctive mutation is now in the brains of about 70% of humans, and half of this group carry completely identical versions of the gene. The data suggests the mutation arose recently and spread quickly through the human species due to a selection pressure, rather than accumulating random changes through neutral genetic drift.

Analysing variation in the gene suggests the new Microcephalin variant arose between 60,000 and 14,000 years ago, with 37,000 years ago being the team's best estimate. The new mutation is also much more common among people from Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas than those from sub-Saharan Africa.

Prendete nuovamente nota.

"Compelling evidence"

The team also sequenced the ASPM gene from the same original sample and again, among dozens of variants, found a defining mutation that alters the protein the gene codes for. Estimates are that the new variant of ASPM first appeared in humans somewhere between 14,000 and 500 years ago, with the best guess that it first arose 5800 years ago. It is already present in about a quarter of people alive today, and is more common in Europe and the Middle East than the rest of the world.

"The evidence for selection is compelling," says population geneticist Rasmus Nielsen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Yet it remains unclear yet how these genes work in healthy people. Many researchers doubt there is any mechanism by which nature could be selecting for greater intelligence today, because they believe culture has effectively blocked the action that natural selection might have on our brains.

Culture: sostituisci welfare.

Lahn and his colleagues are now testing whether the new gene variants provide any cognitive advantage. Natural selection could have favoured bigger brains, faster thinking, different personalities, or lower susceptibility to neurological diseases, Lahn says. Or the effects might be counter-intuitive. "It could be advantageous to be dumber," Lahn says. "I highly doubt it, but it's possible."

Noi invece non dubitiamo del destino delle ricerche di Lahn: indovinate quale?

Bruce Lahn moving on to non-IQ projects?

CHICAGO -- Last September, Bruce Lahn, a professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago, stood before a packed lecture hall and reported the results of a new DNA analysis: He had found signs of recent evolution in the brains of some people, but not of others.

It was a triumphant moment for the young scientist. He was up for tenure and his research was being featured in back-to-back articles in the country's most prestigious science journal. Yet today, Dr. Lahn says he is moving away from the research. "It's getting too controversial," he says.

Dr. Lahn had touched a raw nerve in science: race and intelligence.

What Dr. Lahn told his audience was that genetic changes over the past several thousand years might be linked to brain size and intelligence. He flashed maps that showed the changes had taken hold and spread widely in Europe, Asia and the Americas, but weren't common in sub-Saharan Africa.

Web sites and magazines promoting white "racialism" quickly seized on Dr. Lahn's suggestive scientific snapshot. One magazine that blames black and Hispanic people for social ills hailed his discovery as "the moment the antiracists and egalitarians have dreaded."

Dr. Lahn has drawn sharp fire from other leading genetics researchers. They say the genetic differences he found may not signify any recent evolution -- and even if they do, it is too big a leap to suggest any link to intelligence. "This is not the place you want to report a weak association that might or might not stand up," says Francis Collins, director of the genome program at the National Institutes of Health.

Several scientific groups have set out to disprove or challenge Dr. Lahn's discoveries. His own university now says it is abandoning a patent application it filed to cover a DNA-based intelligence test that drew on his work.

As scientific tools for probing genes become increasingly powerful, research into human differences has exploded. Most of the time, scientists are looking for clues about the causes of disease. But some research is raising tensions as scientists such as Dr. Lahn venture into studies of genetic differences in behavior or intelligence.

Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and medical ethics at the University of Wisconsin, criticizes Dr. Lahn for implying a conclusion similar to "The Bell Curve," a controversial 1994 bestseller by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. The book argued that the lower average performance by African-Americans on IQ tests had a genetic component and wasn't solely the result of social factors. Referring to Dr. Lahn and his co-authors, Prof. Ossorio says: "It's exactly what they were getting at. There was a lot of hallway talk. People said he's doing damage to the whole field of genetics."

[...]

Henry Harpending, a University of Utah anthropology professor who recently published a theory for why Ashkenazi Jews tend to have high IQ's, says Dr. Lahn once suggested they co-author an article for Scientific American about the genetics of behavior, in which they could explain why "Chinese are boring."

Avete capito bene, cos'ha pubblicato Harpending?

"I think that Bruce doesn't understand political correctness," Dr. Harpending says. Dr. Lahn says he only vaguely recalls the conversation but confirms that he wonders whether during China's imperial times there was "some selection" against rebellious individuals.

In recent years, Dr. Lahn has become interested in why the human brain is so large and complex. Although humans and chimpanzees share about 96% of their DNA, human brains are about four times larger. Even today, researchers can find a correlation, on average, between people's brain size and their IQ.

Dr. Lahn's group zeroed in on the role of two genes, called ASPM and microcephalin, that are known to have a role in brain size. Humans with defective copies of either gene are born with brains only about one-third the normal size.

[...]

Mr. Easton says Dr. Lahn "makes us nervous" but "with Bruce we know it's not driven by personal bias." That is because Asians "don't score at the top" in the frequency of the brain-gene mutations, Mr. Easton says.

"Makes us nervous" vuol dire che qualcuno sta per tagliare i fondi, ho indovinato?

Dr. Lahn's paper and talk at his university -- in which he also claimed the gene variants were probably linked to higher IQ -- provoked a strong reaction both on and off campus. Dr. Collins, head of the federal genome program, obtained advance copies of the papers and circulated them to top population geneticists. He wasn't persuaded by the statistical evidence for evolution and criticized Dr. Lahn's work in media interviews.

[...]

The accuracy of Dr. Lahn's work and his views on race came up in his tenure review last fall, says a person familiar with it. After debate, his department voted unanimously in his favor, according to another faculty member. A more senior committee agreed and awarded Dr. Lahn the post of full professor, although it wasn't unanimous, this person says.

Dr. Lahn stands by his work but says that because of the controversy he is moving into other projects. Earlier this year, Mr. Easton of the university's media department forwarded Dr. Lahn a paper by two economists looking at the IQ of infants of different races. Dr. Lahn wasn't interested. "I'm surprised anyone studies this," he replied in an email.

Dr. Lahn says he isn't as eager as he once was to continue studying brain differences. P. Thomas Schoenemann, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, says that at Dr. Lahn's request he collected DNA from 25 people whose brain sizes he had studied previously. But the two scientists haven't been in touch recently.

Avete capito bene cosa si può pubblicare e cosa non si può pubblicare?

The university's patent office is also having second thoughts. Its director, Alan Thomas, says his office is dropping a patent application filed last year that would cover using Dr. Lahn's work as a DNA-based intelligence test. "We really don't want to end up on the front page... for doing eugenics," Mr. Thomas says.

More recently, Dr. Lahn says he was moved when a student asked him whether some knowledge might not be worth having. It is a notion to which he has been warming. Dr. Lahn says he once tried testing himself for which version of the brain genes he has. The experiment's outcome was blurry "but it wasn't looking good," he says. He hasn't tried testing himself again.

Non aprite quel cancello, bambini: don't try this at home.

(seguirà ricco megapost)

Riprogettare i percorsi educativo-didattici (ma più in generale le discipline scolastiche, i "saperi") a partire dall'altro non è un fatto puramente metodologico ma comporta un cambiamento di prospettiva che si estende alla globalità del fatto educativo fino a caratterizzarsi come vera e propria "svolta antropologica".

Non mi dire, non mi dire: rieducazione collettiva permanente. Ne vediamo i risultati, osservando i pargoli usciti dalle scuole. La testa piena di spazzatura ecologista e terzomondista, salvo poi non saper trovare il Libano sulla carta geografica.

Questa supposta superiorita' culturale ha giustificato il pensiero e l'espansionismo dell'Occidente, che nella sua storia ha fatto del proprio modello di sviluppo un metro di valutazione universale e della politica di dominio la naturale conseguenza della propria idea di superiorità.

E come sempre è colpa degli occidentali cattivi: ma quando la bella Condoglianza Rice veniva chiamata black devil e black ghost in Cina, dov'erano tutti gli antirazzisti?

Non è forse vero che il miracolo multiculturale viene spacciato come supposta superiorità culturale, vetta del pensiero umano, e confrontato con i paesi miserelli oppressi dall'omofobia e dall'intolleranza? Evidentemente di superiorità culturale si può parlare, ma solo quando fa comodo, ovvero solo quando si tratta di recitare il solito mea culpa collettivo.

Fate due conti.