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The monogamous edge

"According to a new article in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: B … 'approximately 85 per cent of human societies have permitted men to have more than one wife … and both empirical and evolutionary considerations suggest that large absolute differences in wealth should favour more polygynous marriages.' (It would be easier for men in the top 1 per cent to support three wives, at least financially, than for a man in the lowest quartile of earners to support one.)" says The Wall Street Journal. "Yet in much of the world, particularly the wealthier parts, monogamy – albeit with cheating around the edges – has flourished. Why? The article says the answer lies in the 'group selection' advantages conferred by the one-wife norm, which reduces the pool of men who can't find any wife at all, making them less likely to become socially alienated and violent. And the practice helps the elite, too. 'By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, normative monogamy increases savings, child investment and economic productivity.'"

Elephants as mowers?

"A scientist who proposed importing elephants to Australia to control wild grasses known to fuel wildfires says the idea may seem absurd but may be 'practical,'" reports United Press International. "Biologist David Bowman, writing in the journal Nature, argues that wild elephants could act as handy 'mowers' for hardy species such as African gamba grass, currently invading tropical north Australia, and fill an ecological niche left vacant by the disappearance of ancient 'uber herbivores.' 'A major source of fuel for wildfires in the monsoon tropics is gamba grass …,' said Prof. Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania. 'It is too big for marsupial grazers (kangaroos) and for cattle and buffalo, the largest feral mammals. But gamba grass is a great meal for elephants or rhinoceroses.' … Other scientists expressed mixed feelings about Prof. Bowman's proposal. 'We had better develop the technology to clone sabre-tooth tigers to eventually control the elephants,' Ricky Spencer, a senior lecturer with the native and animal pests unit at the University of Western Sydney, told The Australian [newspaper]"

A hospital's trophies

"A Croatian hospital has framed and mounted a selection of objects that have been removed from patients' bodies over the last 80 years," reports Orange News U.K. "Needles, buttons, coins, animal bones and even a metal communist red star swallowed by patients have been carefully mounted in display boxes. They will now be put up on the wall in the main hospital in the southern town of Sibenik. Doctors decided to limit the display to items swallowed by patients. They also have a collection of items that patients had asked to be surgically removed after, they claimed, accidentally sitting on them. These include TV controls, salt pots, sex toys and deodorant cans. A spokesman for the hospital said: 'We started collecting things in the 1930s to show medical students the sort of thing to look for in cases like this.'"

After the game is over

"An estimated eight in 10 NFL players," says The Christian Science Monitor, "are bankrupt, jobless or divorced two years into retirement."

Technology can foster risk

"Technological innovation is great – except that we sometimes become so reliant on it that it leads us to take unwise risks," says The Boston Globe. "According to a recent analysis, golfers are no exception. In the 2010 season, professional golfers faced new restrictions on how deep and sharp the grooves on their golf clubs could be. Grooves allow golfers to impart spin on the ball and control how much it rolls once it lands. Nevertheless, the number of strokes golfers needed to finish a hole mostly decreased after the rule change. In other words, golfers had been relying too much on the groove technology, taking excessive risks in placing their shots."

Thought du jour

"A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war."

- Herbert V. Prochnow (1897-1998), U.S. bank executive and author

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