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PsychTable.org is a new online, mass-collaborative tool for the social sciences that aggregates evidence for and classifies the evolved psychological adaptations (EPAs) that have been proposed to comprise the human mind. This article provides an overview of the need for this reference tool and how it can benefit researchers who incorporate the behavioral sciences into their work. The article walks the reader through a hypothetical use case for PsychTable.org and describes the features of the website. PsychTable.org is intended to help key stakeholders better understand the linkages between EPAs and political behavior, public policy, and ethics.

PsychTable.org is a new online, mass-collaborative tool for the social sciences that aggregates evidence for and classifies the evolved psychological adaptations (EPAs) that have been proposed to comprise the human mind. This article provides an overview of the need for this reference tool and how it can benefit researchers who incorporate the behavioral sciences into their work. The article walks the reader through a hypothetical use case for PsychTable.org and describes the features of the website. PsychTable.org is intended to help key stakeholders better understand the linkages between EPAs and political behavior, public policy, and ethics.

Scholars have suggested that emotions are evolved adaptations that increase fitness by adjusting the response of the individual to the specific situation. Thus, the particular emotion experienced by an individual should be dependent on whether the situation is a threat/opportunity, in the physical/social domain, and if the outcome is a success/failure. Nesse and Ellsworth (2009) created a model around this idea that predicts which emotions should arise in these particular situations. The current study empirically tested this model using the virtual simulation program Second Life. 50 (44 female, 6 male, Mage = 21.10 years, Age range: 18–30 years) participants’ avatars were placed in socially and physically threatening and opportunistic situations; further, participants were randomly assigned to succeed or fail at each task. After completing each task, participants rated the degree to which they experienced the emotions predicted by the model to arise in these situations. Results found the social opportunity, physical threat, and social threat conditions matched those emotions predicted by the model.

The term mixed emotions refers to the presence of two opposite-valence emotions toward a single target. Identifying when children begin to report experiencing and understanding mixed emotions is critical in identifying how skills such as adaptive functioning, coping strategies, environmental understanding, and socioemotional competence emerge. Prior research has shown that children as young as 5 years old can understand and experience mixed emotion, but perhaps appropriately sensitive methodologies can reveal these abilities in younger children. The present study evaluated 57 children between 3 and 5 years old for mixed emotion experience and understanding using an animated video clip in which a character experiences a mixed emotional episode. Ordinal logistic regression was utilized to examine the relation of gender, attention, and understanding of content to experience and understanding of mixed emotion. While only 12% of children reported experiencing mixed emotion while watching the clip, 49% of children-some as young as 3 years old-were able to recognize the mixed emotional experience of the character. Thus, mixed emotion understanding emerges earlier than previously identified and the expression of understanding may develop independently of the ability to report mixed emotion experience. These findings are discussed in relation to cognitive and developmental considerations.

Prior work in the boreal forest unearthed a novel ITS-LSU sequence (NS1) that falls outside known fungal phyla. Here we performed a targeted PCR survey to investigate the ecology of NS1. NS1 was found in three out of 99 soil cores at one black spruce (Picea mariana) site, and two cores were from nearby subplots, but clumping could not be demonstrated statistically. However, NS1 was detected 6 yr later in the same subplot, and in an adjacent subplot, with a join count probability of 0.0073. NS1 was not found in other lowland black spruce sites, but was detected in several upland mixed hardwood/white spruce (Picea glauca) sites and was correlated with presence of white spruce (p = 0.0011). It was also found in the same upland sites sampled in consecutive years. Our results provide clues concerning the ecology of NS1 and suggest that rare, divergent sequences should not necessarily be discarded from environmental sequence datasets.

The number of sequences from both formally described taxa and uncultured environmental DNA deposited in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases has increased substantially over the last two decades. Although the majority of these sequences represent authentic gene copies, there is evidence of DNA artifacts in these databases as well. These include lab artifacts, such as PCR chimeras, and biological artifacts such as pseudogenes or other paralogous sequences. Sequences that fall in basal positions in phylogenetic trees and appear distant from known sequences are particularly suspect. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that a novel sequence type (NS1) found in two boreal forest soil clone libraries belongs to the fungal kingdom but does not fall unambiguously within any known phylum. We have evaluated this sequence type using an array of secondary-structure analyses. To our knowledge, such analyses have never been used on environmental ribosomal sequences. Ribosomal secondary structure was modeled for four rRNA loci (ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2, 5' LSU). These models were analyzed for the presence of conserved domains, conserved nucleotide motifs, and compensatory base changes. Minimal free energy (MFE) foldings and GC contents of sequences representing the major fungal clades, as well as NS1, were also compared. NS1 displays secondary rRNA structures consistent with other fungi and many, but not all, conserved nucleotide motifs found across eukaryotes. However, our analyses show that many other authentic sequences from basal fungi lack more of these conserved motifs than does NS1. Together our findings suggest that NS1 represents an authentic gene copy. The methods described here can be used on any rRNA-coding sequence, not just environmental fungal sequences. As new-generation sequencing methods that yield shorter sequences become more widely implemented, methods that evaluate sequence authenticity should also be more widely implemented. For fungi, the adjacent 5.8S and ITS2 loci should be prioritized. This region is not only suited to distinguishing between closely related species, but it is also more informative in terms of expected secondary structure.

We announce the launch of PsychTable.org, a collaborative web-based project devoted to classifying and evaluating evolved psychological adaptations (EPAs), geared toward researchers, educators, students, and the general public. The website works by aggregating citations which support or challenge the existence of each purported EPA, using a mathematical algorithm to assign an evidentiary strength score to each, and generating a table which represents the current but ever-changing state of the empirical evidence. Citations are added and assigned evaluative ratings by both general users and an international community of expert contributors; as such, the content of the site will represent the consensus of the scientific community and new research opportunities. PsychTable has features for achieving empirical meta-goals such as quality control, hypothesis testing, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and didactic utility. Additionally, PsychTable will help adjudicate arguments within the field by providing a one-stop resource to display which proposed EPAs have strong empirical support and which others are relatively lacking in evidence.

There is increasing urgency to develop effective prevention and treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD) as the aging population swells. Yet, our understanding remains limited for the elemental pathophysiological mechanisms of AD dementia that may be causal, compensatory, or epiphenomenal. To this end, we consider AD and why it exists from the perspectives of natural selection, adaptation, genetic drift, and other evolutionary forces. We discuss the connection between the apolipoprotein E (APOE) allele and AD, with special consideration to APOE ε4 as the ancestral allele. The phylogeny of AD-like changes across species is also examined, and pathology and treatment implications of AD are discussed from the perspective of evolutionary medicine. In particular, amyloid-β (Aβ) neuritic plaques and paired helical filament tau (PHFtau) neurofibrillary tangles have been traditionally viewed as injurious pathologies to be targeted, but may be preservative or restorative processes that mitigate harmful neurodegenerative processes or may be epiphenoma of the essential processes that cause neurodegeneration. Thus, we raise fundamental questions about current strategies for AD prevention and therapeutics.

In the target article, Del Giudice (this issue) offers a bold and provocative new framework for the field of evolutionary psychopathology that, if substantiated, may have far-reaching implications ...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a serious public health issue, and a treatment for the disease has been elusive. Evolutionary approaches to medicine may contribute to understanding why humans are vulnerable to AD and how to best approach research into clinical interventions. Since AD generally manifests late in life, it is often thought to be invisible to natural selection; however, an examination into APOE, the only unequivocal risk gene for AD, reveals that AD may, in fact, be subject to selection. Given this, antagonistic pleiotropy and environmental mismatch are explored as possibilities for our vulnerability to AD. In addition, the amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and paired helical filament tau (PHFtau) neurofibrillary tangles that characterize AD are considered from the perspective of evolution. These disease hallmarks are generally thought to promote neurodegeneration in AD, but may in fact be harmless by-products of a pathological process such as oxidative stress, or even beneficial adaptations to protect the brain from actual harmful processes. The spread of misfolded Aβ and synaptic propagation of PHFtau is considered, as are comparative perspectives on AD-like patterns in nonhuman species. The implications of evolutionary thinking for clinical practice and research are evaluated, especially with regard to the caution that must be taken when directly targeting tau and amyloid, as many drug trials have recently attempted.

Media publicity is an important resource for contemporary voluntary associations, but very little is actually known about the resources and organizational characteristics that are most important for getting media attention. To address this question, we collected and analyzed data on the organizational attributes and news publicity of 739 nonprofit organizations in New York City. We find that an organization's income, paid staff, membership size, and library resources are significantly related to getting media publicity, whereas the number of chapter affiliations is inversely related to publicity. Association type is also a significant factor that influences an organization's ability to get publicity. We discuss the implications that these findings have for current debates about advocacy and civic engagement in the nonprofit sector.

Background The FDA recently moved loratadine (Claritin) from prescription only status to over-the-counter (OTC). In response to the availability of an OTC non-sedating antihistamine, many managed care organizations are reevaluating which if any prescription antihistamines should remain on formulary. From a managed care perspective, determining which of the remaining prescription antihistamines results in the greatest patient satisfaction with allergy treatment would be informative. Methods We report on a weighted cross sectional survey (n = 10,023) delivered online to a sample of allergy sufferers in the U.S. during the month of December 2002. Two segments were identified for analysis: patient who were dissatisfied with loratadine and converted to desloratadine (Clarinex; n = 61), and patients who were dissatisfied with loratadine and converted to fexofenadine (Allegra; n = 211). The two segments were compared along a series of measures that the literature suggests are related to treatment satisfaction. Results The survey found that two of the satisfaction measures differentiated desloratadine converters from fexofenadine converters (p < .05): mean sum of self-reported adverse events and nighttime awakening due to allergy symptoms. For the remainder of satisfaction measures though, patients who were dissatisfied with loratadine reported equal duration of coverage and satisfaction with desloratadine as fexofenadine. When severity of disease was controlled for in the analysis, a pattern emerged suggesting greater levels of satisfaction amongst loratadine dissatisfied patients who converted to desloratadine. Point estimates suggest a consistent pattern favoring desloratadine patient satisfaction, with statistically significant results reported for sum of adverse effects, nighttime awakening due to symptoms, symptom severity just prior to the next dose, and overall satisfaction (p < 0.05). Conclusions On average, patients who were dissatisfied with loratadine reported equal or better satisfaction with desloratadine as fexofenadine. Patients with severe allergic rhinitis reported greater satisfaction when converted from loratadine to desloratadine than fexofenadine for select satisfaction measures. These results suggest that if managed care intends to position prescription antihistamines as second line for OTC loratadine treatment dissatisfaction, desloratadine is a useful treatment alternative. These findings, while informative to formulary decision-makers, must be interpreted with caution. Only through head-to-head controlled clinical trials can differences in efficacy and safety be established.