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Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

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Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#71

Post by hackerlight »

wongarsu wrote: post #70
hackerlight wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that "we" includes people that didn't venture out of the tropics, who presumably are impacted the same way by UVB, which if true would refute the hypothesis.

At a glance the study doesn't seem to investigate that at all. The authors are from Israel, so I guess the participants are Israelis too. That's one of the more ethnically diverse places, but only 12% of Israelis are of African origin. Of course not all of Africa is in the tropics, but there are a couple of Asian Israelis who are from the tropics, so let's estimate it at about 12% with mostly tropical ancestors. That…

That's why I said "presumably". If it turns out that a group of people who've lived in the tropics for the last 50k years do not respond to UVB in the same way, then the hypothesis isn't refuted (and indeed it is validated).

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#72

Post by wongarsu »

davesque wrote: post #44
littlestymaar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as we know, humans are a tropical species, which means reasoning about summer and winter is likely to be more misleading than anything.

Doesn't it seem like a common misconception that evolution takes eons? Without being an expert, it seems plausible that we've adapted biologically since venturing out from the tropics.

The most obvious adaptation since venturing from the tropics is reduced pigmentation to adapt to less intense UV radiation. Nose shapes are also influenced by climate.

The idea that we stopped evolving sometime before we spread over the globe is obviously false, with the number of adaptations that are plainly observable on the outside.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#75

Post by moron4hire »

xyzzyz wrote: post #31
totony wrote: post #26

"The questionnaire we used measured romantic passion, rather than physiological/sexual passion, due to institutional review board (IRB) ethical concerns regarding sensitive sexually oriented questions." Curious about this. I understand ethical boards for psychological blind studies and such, but for questionaires?

Yes, it’s stupid. IRBs today are, on net, more of a detriment to science than a benefit. When they block a stupid voluntary questionnaire for being “unethical”, just imagine how much other useful science is not being done, because of concern lack of ethics of a similar grade.

I was supposed to get an IRB review for a graphics experiment I did in undergrad where I showed people static, non-animated optical illusions on a computer screen and asked them some questions about whether or not it gave them the impression of hills. (This was, like, 20 years ago.)

Apparently there was some concern about inducing epileptic seizures. Not that there was any evidence that optical illusions, on their own, separate from the flickering of the computer screen, could cause seizures. But someone had the idea and then it couldn't be un-un-boxed.

The IRB submission process would have been too long to finish the study by the end of the semester (by the time I found out about it). So I just... didn't tell anyone I had already posted the demo online, before I ever even learned that IRB existed, and had a bunch of people on a game development forum on which I was a regular go through the study.

In my case, it was super low stakes. I mean, people into game development are subjecting themselves to the dodgy apps all the time. But when I tell this story today, there are two types of responses: those who have done academic research and laugh at my story, and those who haven't and start crying about "HuMaN eXpErImEnTaTiOn!!!"

I should start putting that on my business card: "formerly engaged in unlicensed human experimentation."

Who am I joking? I don't have business cards anymore. It's going on my Twitter profile.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#76

Post by tcldr »

ETH_start wrote: post #62
taylorius wrote: post #2

Interesting. A possible mechanism for the legendary passion of people from "hot blooded" countries?

If anything, people who originate in cold climate countries visiting hot-blooded countries would receive more UVB due to less skin melanin, and thus be more hot blooded than the natives of hot blooded countries when interacting with them, and vice versa, so that would't explain the association.

Ah, the ‘Brits Abroad’ phenomenon finally explained.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#78

Post by lettergram »

Seems this was only done on mice. Wouldn’t it be easy to evaluate (statistically) on males. Basically measure testosterone levels of out door laborers and indoor laborers.

Then as a follow up have the indoor laborers go outside for 1 hr mid-day or something for 12 weeks and measure the effect.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#80

Post by magicalist »

inglor_cz wrote: post #64
klodolph wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would normally be a bit skeptical of anything published by CSPI.

Given that American universities now routinely have a lot more administrators than teaching staff (still very untypical elsewhere in the world), wouldn't you at least agree that the bureaucratic bloat is real? This is, after all, what the students are paying in their tuition, which is becoming a major burden on the American middle class. (Ironically, "tuition" as a word promises that the money is mostly spent on teac…

> Politically, I get it, the academia is overwhelmingly liberal-left, so there is an instinct not to alienate it

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies, generic tangents, and internet tropes.

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