Through history women have been the butt of smirking male jokes about their alleged inability to give directions or to read road maps. Now, researchers at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, have discovered that a woman's spatial ability, and hence her ability to read maps, actually increases during her menstrual period.
During most of her monthly cycle, higher levels of the female hormone estrogen are present and these were linked to lower scores on such things as direction finding and map reading. But when levels of the male hormone testosterone were higher, as during their period, women did better.
The interesting evolutionary question is why was it necessary for women to be better spatially orientated during their periods?
If women tended to do more gathering and men more hunting, women should be expected to be better at locating, identifying, and remembering biological kinds. And there is some evidence that this is the case: women perform better at tasks of recalling objects.
The proper domain would of course be plants, but the actual domain appears to include the stationary environment in general, so that this skill may be seen as a spatial ability. The botanical classification systems of primitive tribes bear witness to an impressive memory capacity that may be domain-specific.
The monthly cycle of hormones could conceivably have been linked to cycles of the moon, knowledge of which was vital to early hunters and gatherers.
The research could partly explain the age-old stories about witches collecting herbs during the cycle of the full moon when their "magical" powers of detection were at their peak.
Another advantage that women have is the uncanny ability (from a man's point of view) to read another person's face, and here, too, the Bochum University researchers have come up with some startling findings. Their research suggests that the brain may be functionally specialized for individual emotions.
Neuropsychologist Reiner Sprengelmeyer of Ruhr University in Bochum recently investigated this aspect of the disease by asking patients to identify the changing emotions expressed by a face on a computer screen.
He found that Huntington's patients have problems recognizing all emotions except happiness, but experience the greatest difficulty of all in identifying disgust. Sprengelmeyer believes that disgust is an emotion that arose early in our evolutionary history, perhaps as a non-verbal warning of spoiled food. And as it arose, a specific part of the brain became dedicated to its recognition. This structure, he thinks, may reside in the caudate nucleus, a part of the brain involved in cognition and movement that is always destroyed by Huntingdon's.
"There is a long-standing hypothesis that all emotions are processed by the same brain structure," he said. "Our finding suggests that there are several structures that are important for decoding different emotions."
One unanswered question remains: Why is it men never admit they've misread a road map and refuse to stop and ask somebody for directions?
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed