Scientist Calls For New Conversation On Genes And “Race"
There is a long and troubling history of science, or at least pseudoscience, being used to justify racism and discrimination. The 19th century practice of phrenology is a commonly cited — and thoroughly debunked – example.
But in the 1970s, the emerging field of genetics began presenting evidence against a biological definition of race. For instance, one study found that when people were grouped into seven “races” (e.g. European, African, East Asian, Native American), there were more genetic differences within those groups than between them. and that has become the scientific consensus
Still, it is increasingly clear that there are genetic differences that do correlate with populations that were separated for thousands of years by mountain ranges or oceans. Cystic fibrosis is most common among those of northern European descent, prostate cancer is more prevalent in men of Western African descent, and Tay-Sachs disease disproportionately affects Ashkenazi Jewish populations.
David Reich is a geneticist at Harvard University whose research is completely predicated on there being genetic differences between populations. He uses those differences to trace the migration of humans around the globe over the past five millennia, and he’s worked many of those stories into his new book "Who We Are and How We Got Here."
While much of his research looks at the past, he also has his eye on our present-day and even future discussions about race, and he argues that we urgently need a new, open and accurate way to talk about these genetic differences that doesn’t open the door to racism.
“Race, as we’ve known for many decades, is a socially constructed category,” he told Living Lab Radio. “It corresponds to ideas about how to place people into groups that have changed over time from U.S. census to U.S. census.”
For example, the category of “white” doesn’t reflect a genetic group that’s been around for tens of thousands of years. Rather, within the last 5,000 to 10,000 years, there were four distinct genetic groups living in Europe that were as different from each other as East Asians are from Europeans today.
“Almost every assumption that we’ve had about [racial] differences has been exploded,” through his work over the last decade, Reich said.
But even though there’s not one “white” or “black” race, we will likely find more differences between geographically separated populations as the work on genetics continues. Reich argues that geneticists need to be at the forefront of the conversation.
“Because geneticists have not been providing a lot of guidance … that space gets filled with … people who say that the stereotypes have been correct all along," he said.
The Ocean Has Even More Plastic Than We Thought
The ocean has a plastic problem — and it’s growing. Several million tons of plastic enter the ocean every year, and much of it ends up swirling around in the middle of ocean basins.
The largest such collection of plastic debris is an area in the middle of the North Pacific known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and a new study says it may contain 16 times as much plastic as previously estimated.
There are also similar “garbage patches” in the middle of the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean.
“Most of the plastic we’ve created since 1950 has become waste and most of it has not been recycled and has not been incinerated,” said Kara Lavender Law, research professor of oceanography at Sea Education Association.
“Most of it is still in landfills or in the natural environment,” she said. “And there’s really no reason to think we’ve gotten better at preventing it from entering the ocean.”
New England’s Earthquakes Recorded In Mud
New England isn’t exactly a major earthquake hotspot, but we do get small earthquakes every year. A magnitude 2.7 rattled New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts in mid-February just this year.
But in 1755, a much larger quake struck the area. It was known as the Cape Ann earthquake and is estimated to be between a 6 and a 6.3 on the Richter scale. It damaged buildings in Boston and was felt as far away as South Carolina.
One account from Massachusetts written at the time says, “The bed, on which I lay, was now tossed from side to side; the whole house was prodigiously agitated; the windows rattled, the beams cracked, as if all would presently be shaken to pieces.”
Now, researchers say they’ve found evidence of that earthquake at the bottom of Sluice Pond in Lynn.
Katrin Monecke is Assistant Professor of Geosciences at Wellesley College and the lead author of that study. She says she hopes the technique will be used to find evidence of other earthquakes in lake-bottom sediment.
As for whether we’re due for another beam-cracking earthquake soon? Not likely.
The frequency of such quakes is, “probably in the order of many centuries to maybe a few millennia,” she said.
More Children Are Drawing Women Scientists
There’s new evidence that gender stereotypes of scientists are changing. Researchers looked at drawings of scientists made by more than 20,000 children and found that 28 percent drew their scientist as a woman. That’s a dramatic increase from the .6 percent researchers saw 50 years ago, but there’s still room for growth.
“The tendency to draw male scientists did significantly increase during elementary school and middle school,” said David Miller, a graduate student at Northwestern University and lead author of the new study. “I think teachers and parents should be aware that elementary school and middle school are critical periods in which children start forming stereotypes about scientists."
