Prosocial Progress

Would you help an old lady cross the road? How about picking up a stamped addressed letter off the sidewalk and putting it in a nearby mailbox? Or perhaps you might return a lost wallet you found? All of those actions are known as "prosocial" or society-promoting behaviors, and it's been a question for the ages as to how a human culture is best able to foster them. David Sloan Wilson has been working on exactly that. First, he and his team set out to measure the prevalence and geographical distribution of prosocial behaviors in his hometown of Binghamton, New York. The results were striking - prosociality (and I guess its inverse, which might be antisociality?) proved to be a cluster-based phenomenon. Prosocial people are grouped into geographic neighborhoods, with voids between them. Basically, Wilson has figured out a way to scientifically define a "good neighborhood."

At this point, Wilson and his team then looked at the results from an evolutionary standpoint.

As an academic evolutionist, I knew that prosociality can evolve in any species when highly prosocial individuals are able to interact with each other and avoid interacting with selfish individuals - in other words, when those who give also receive. Our surveys show that this is what is happening in Binghamton. The most caring and altruistic individuals receive the most social support from multiple sources, including family, neighbourhood, school, religion, and through extracurricular activities such as sports and arts. Groups that satisfy this basic condition for prosociality are likely to thrive.

Not only that, but he tracked people over time as they moved from neighborhood to neighborhood around town, and he found that their prosociality changed to match the existing levels of their new neighborhood! So obviously humans are versatile and resilient, and able to a certain extent to change themselves to fit their environment. Given this, let's go back to our original question - how do we foster prosociality?

Projects in the works to test for this include a neighborhood "Design Your Own Park" initiative, and the Regents Academy - a program being rolled out in local schools to aid at-risk children.

A group that functions well is a bit like an organism with numerous organs: remove any single organ and the organism dies. The Regents Academy has all the necessary organs to function as an effective group, and it seems to be working.

If we can understand the anatomy of a healthy social group, then we can start tinkering with and improving our own social health. In a prosocial culture, everyone wins.

Read more here: Evolutionary theory can make street life better via New Scientist

Just Gorgeous

What can we do with technology these days? Have a look at this printer-fountain in Osaka.

Go With Your Gut

It's been known for a while that quite a large proportion - about 95%! - of the neurotransmitter serotonin is made in the human gut, rather than in the brain. In fact, it has even been argued that the intestinal tract constitutes a "second brain" - and that our emotional wellbeing may be intricately tied to the sensations that arise in the gut.

Recent research has expanded this work, with results indicating that mice who have a healthy probiotic balance of gut microbes react more efficiently to stress - that is, they were braver and less paralyzed by fear when faced with experimental situations designed to test their mettle. Mice fed probiotic feed were more likely to spend longer in parts of a maze that didn't have a roof (mice don't like to be exposed from above - predators come from there!) and they reacted much more calmly to being put in bowls of water where they were required to swim around a bit and find a hidden platform to stand on.

Are probiotics a good idea for both mice and men? Anything that makes my tummy feel good is alright by me.

Read more here: From guts to brains – eating probiotic bacteria changes behaviour in mice via discovermagazine.com

Ball of Light

Denis Smith was once in high-pressure sales, but found that the lifestyle was destroying him. Now he paints with light - a type of photography that involves leaving the shutter open for long nighttime exposures, and then creating shapes by waving various light sources around in front of the lens. Humans generally move too fast and aren't reflective enough to even register as a blur in the resulting photo - the light forms seem to stand on their own, and to have their own existence and life.

Smith has gravitated toward a particular shape in his light painting - the "ball of light" - in which he stands very still in one place and swings a light on a string around him to create an almost perfect sphere. I love this story so much - it's inspirational in so many ways. Take 15 minutes off your day and watch this:

Ball Of Light from Sam Collins on Vimeo.

Find the original documentary link here:

http://documentaryheaven.com/ball-of-light/

The Good News, Courtesy of Uncle Carl

Excuse my erratic posting behavior here - I have been on the road a lot in the past month. Enjoy this video with Carl Sagan - he was always one of the best optimistic humanists.

The Hackerspace Revolution

"I don't do what I do because of hope, I do what I do because it feels right." - Mitch Altman

#CCCAMP11 - Mitch Altman, Tvbegone/Noisebridge [EN] from Owni on Vimeo.

Can a love of making stuff fix the world? Let's find out!

Too Close For Comfort

Relationships are usually way more complicated than they appear. Case in point, new evidence from a study conducted jointly by the University of Chicago and Cornell University, which suggests that men whose wives are friendly with their male buddies are significantly more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction.

What’s going on here? It’s not as simple as straight-up insecurity or jealousy. Rather, the results appear to indicate that the friendly wife interferes with the social connections that maintain her husband’s male identity. In this kind of “partner-betweenness” situation, men were an astonishing 92% more likely to report erectile dysfunction than men of a similar age not in a betweenness situation. As men entered old age, though, the correlation faltered. Old men do not define their masculinity by their buddy friendships, but have identities supported more by relationships with family members.

What makes a man a man? Certainly not the ability to coerce, threaten, or control his wife – to forbid her to socialize with his friends – or to play upon her insecurities to keep her compliant. The results of this study beg more examination, but in the meantime I might suggest: if you’re a man who wants to keep up keeping it up all through middle age, take the time to figure out who you are without your buddies around to remind you.

Read more here: Is impotence linked to dating within your group of friends? Via io9.com