Grandmothers gave humans longer lifespans

I've seen things along these lines before; they always warm the cockles of my grandmotherly heart*. Aside from the (invaluable, really) babysitting services, and the love, there's all that wisdom.  

Humans developed longer lifespans and bigger brains because grandmothers began looking after their grandchildren up to two million years ago, according to a new study.

Grandmother's Story by Hugues Merle

Help with childcare from grandmothers at an early stage of human history could have resulted in an evolutionary change which caused women to live long past the menopause, researchers said.

Female chimpanzees rarely live beyond their 30s or early 40s, when their fertility typically ends, but a computer simulation showed that the influence of grandmothers could extend their lifespan to human levels within 24,000 to 60,000 years.

A popular theory known as the "Grandmother Hypothesis" (wiki) suggests that older women had an evolutionary benefit by caring for their grandchildren after their childbearing years were over.

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal, backs up the theory by demonstrating that grandmothers alone, and not other factors like the development of larger brains, could result in women having longer lifespans.

Researchers suggested grandmothers may even have been responsible for increasing humans' brain size by allowing mothers to have larger families, which increased the pressure of natural selection on their children.

Most primates and mammals collect their own food after they have been weaned, but when African forests began to be replaced by dry savannah two million years ago, children were no longer able to forage for themselves.

The Grandmother Theory suggests that older women began performing childcare tasks such as cracking hard nuts or digging up tubers from the dry ground, which allowed their daughters to keep producing and caring for new babies.

This meant long-lived and healthy grandmothers could pass on their genes to more descendants, increasing the number of women who would survive beyond childbearing age.

Mathematicians simulated the impact of childcare from grandmothers on a society of animals which only lived for 25 years after reaching adulthood, similar to chimpanzees in the wild.

They found that thanks to "grandmothering" female chimps would evolve to live for 49 years as adults – a level similar to human hunter-gatherers – within the space of 24,000 to 60,000 years.

Prof Kristen Hawkes of the University of Utah, senior author of the study, said: "Grandmothering was the initial step towards making us who we are."

It resulted in "a whole array of social capacities that are the foundation for the evolution of other distinctly human traits, including pair bonding, bigger brains, learning new skills and our tendency for co-operation," she said.

Related at Smithsonian: How Much Did Grandmothers Influence Human Evolution?

* What are the cockles of one's heart, anyway?

Prohibition in the United States began on January 16, 1920 and ended on December 5, 1933

The precursor to the "war on drugs":

Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. 

~ H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) (A Book of Burlesques, "Sententiae") 

Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially inactivity in the affairs of others. 

~ Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) (The Devil's Dictionary) 

Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. 

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) (speech, 18 December 1840 to the U.S. House of Representatives) 

The prohibition law, written for weaklings and derelicts, has divided the nation, like Gaul, into three parts - wets, drys, and hypocrites. 

~ Florence Sabin (1871-1953) (speech, 9 December 1931) 

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.

~ W. C. Fields (1880-1946) (attributed) 

Prohibition (wiki) began on January 16, 1920, which was the effective date of the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution: it was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States. An outgrowth of the temperance movement, which had been gathering momentum during the entire 19th century, Prohibition got a final impetus from World War I, which prompted the Congress to pass the 18th amendment in December 1917.* Ratification (by 36 of the 48 states) came on 16 January 1919, and the Volstead Act implemented the measure a year later.** 

Prohibition - highly unpopular - was only weakly enforced by the federal government, and thousands of "speakeasies" - many controlled by organized crime - quickly appeared to satisfy the nation's thirst. The illegal importation and distribution of booze soon became a major source of income for "the Mob" and led to the infamous gang wars of the late 1920s and early 1930s. 

Several states had banned alcohol prior to the federal ban, and in Illinois there was an organized attempt by a group of women to use telepathy to influence the outcome of local votes: the Temperance Thinkers mobilized some 500,000 women to dress all in white and to direct thought waves at voters. “Women arrayed in white will assemble at the polls,” described one paper, “and by concentrated mental effort endeavor to influence the men."

On December 5th, 1933, prohibition in the United States of America came to an end with the ratification of the 21st Amendment***. After 13 years, the country's attempt to ban the booze had ended.

The video below shows a newsreel from the time, documenting the 'happy news for the grain raisers of the United States and for many others throughout the land'. I like this quote: "The problems with legislating morality soon became abundantly clear":

* N.B. To save grain for the war effort, a temporary prohibition measure was enacted just after the Armistice and went into force in July 1919. More over, the discrediting by the war of the large German-American community, strong objectors to Prohibition, diminished the opposition. Similarly, it has also been claimed that the absence of a large proportion of American men - serving in France - had a significant effect. 

** Named for Minnesota representative Andrew Volstead (1860-1947), the act defined the alcoholic products affected, stated enforcement procedures, and set out the penalties for violation. It was passed over President Wilson's veto.

In the 21st Amendment Congress gave individual states the right to regulate alcohol as they saw fit, a move that created a dazzling array of confusing alcohol control laws under seemingly arbitrary regulatory agencies.

Here's Milton Friedman (wiki), at age 93, regarding drug prohibition:

"I do not think the state has any more right to tell me what to put in my mouth than it has to tell me what can come out of my mouth. Those two are essentially the same thing, and they are both essential elements of freedom."

My maternal grandmother was the president of the Poughkeepsie, NY chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) - there were 4 members and they met monthly (or thereabouts). Her four sons tried many times over her life to sneak a few drops of something into her lemonade or iced tea, but as far as I know they never succeeded and she went to her grave never having had alcohol pass her lips.

Related:

Winston Churchill's Doctor's Note Allowing Him to Drink "Unlimited" Alcohol in Prohibition America.

1860s series of photos illustrating the '5 stages of inebriation'.

How a Wine and Cocaine Cocktail became Coca Cola.

Roundup of Mother's Day links

Grandmothers gave humans longer lifespans.

Notes on the History of Mother's Day: 5 Things Worth Knowing.

For your wino mom or wife on Mother's Day: FlaskScarf, tampon flasks, or the Wine Rack

The 8 Best Mothers In The Animal Kingdom, and the 15 worst.

Top 10 Mothers in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

A Biologist's Mother's Day Song: Slightly more than half of everything I am is thanks to you.

6 Unforgettable Movie Mothers and the Real Moms They Depicted.

Don't get along with your mom? This might help:

One of the reasons blogging has been light - welcoming a new grandchild to the world ;-)

Jack with his dad (my older son)

The most recent addition to my family is Jack Hunter Witt, fifth child and third son of my older son Charlie and his wife Mai Lea. He was born at 1:17 on the afternoon of Thursday, September 20, weighs 7 pounds and 6 ounces, and is 2.5 inches long. Jack has a small amount of light brown hair plus all of the appropriate body parts, in the appropriate amounts.

It is not a slight thing when those so fresh from God love us.

~ Dickens

Infant Sorrow by William Blake

My mother groand! my father wept.

Into the dangerous world I leapt:

Helpless, naked, piping loud; 

Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my fathers hands: 

Striving against my swaddling bands: 

Bound and weary I thought best

To sulk upon my mothers breast.

Grandbaby pictures

Update August 22:

Addie

and Charlotte:

For those of you who requested it, here are some recent photos of the new girl cousins (Addie, born 2/4/16 is sitting up, and Charlotte, born 4/14/16, is reclining) in their semi-matching pink camo outfits:

And just hanging out:

Their "Best Friends" shirts, which their parents purchased when they found out both were pregnant:

Earlier, Addie, age 11 weeks, and Charlotte, age 10 days:

 Charlotte:

 And Addie:

And here's a group shot of all of our local grandkids (seven of them, out of a total of fourteen scattered about):

Baby Horoscopes

As many of you know, in addition to several older and well-used grandchildren (ages 17, 16, 12, 12, 12, 12 and 11, plus an extra 5 step-grandchildren), I have two brand new granddaughters in the family  - Addie, born February 4, and Charlotte, born April 14. 

Related: Grandmothers gave humans longer lifespans

As a result of these recent additions more than a decade after the previous batch, all things baby-related have been very much in our thoughts and conversations recently. Artist Jim Benton also seems to know his way around babies:

Napping together: Addie, age 11 weeks, and Charlotte, age 10 days. ;-)

Horoscope via Neatorama

My two new granddaughters sleeping together ;-)

For those who asked - Addie, age 11 weeks, and Charlotte, age 10 days. ;-)

Blogging will be light for a few days while I welcome ANOTHER new granddaughter to the world ;-)

Today we're welcoming Miss Charlotte Mae Witt, fourth child and second daughter to my older son Charlie and his wife Mai Lea. Charlotte was born at 1:40 this afternoon, weighs 7 pounds and 9 ounces, and is 21 inches long. She has a good amount of light brown hair plus all of the appropriate body parts, in the appropriate amounts.

The most recent addition to the family prior to today was Charlotte's cousin Addie, born February 4, 2016.

It is not a slight thing when those so fresh from God love us.

~ Dickens

Infant Sorrow by William Blake

My mother groand! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my fathers hands:
Striving against my swaddling bands:
Bound and weary I thought best
To sulk upon my mothers breast.

Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children

by Ogden Nash

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.

Oh, somewhere, somewhere, an infant plays,
With parents who feed and clothe him.
Their lips are sticky with pride and praise,
But I have begun to loathe him.
Yes, I loathe with loathing shameless
This child who to me is nameless.
This bachelor child in his carriage
Gives never a thought to marriage,
But a person can hardly say knife
Before he will hunt him a wife.

I never see an infant (male),
A-sleeping in the sun,
Without I turn a trifle pale
And think is he the one?
Oh, first he'll want to crop his curls,
And then he'll want a pony,
And then he'll think of pretty girls,
And holy matrimony.
A cat without a mouse
Is he without a spouse.

Oh, somewhere he bubbles bubbles of milk,
And quietly sucks his thumbs.
His cheeks are roses painted on silk,
And his teeth are tucked in his gums.
But alas the teeth will begin to grow,
And the bubbles will cease to bubble;
Given a score of years or so,
The roses will turn to stubble.
He'll sell a bond, or he'll write a book,
And his eyes will get that acquisitive look,
And raging and ravenous for the kill,
He'll boldly ask for the hand of Jill.
This infant whose middle
Is diapered still
Will want to marry My daughter Jill.

Oh sweet be his slumber and moist his middle!
My dreams, I fear, are infanticiddle.
A fig for embryo Lohengrins!
I'll open all his safety pins,
I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle,
And give him readings from Aristotle.
Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring,
And Tabasco sauce for his teething ring.
And an elegant, elegant, alligator
To play with him in his perambulator.
Then perhaps he'll struggle through fire and water
To marry somebody else's daughter.

A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. 

~ Ronald Knox (attributed)

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last. 

~ Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Ch. 36

This Urn Turns Your Loved One's Ashes Into A Potted Tree After they Die

Your loved ones can nurture your ashes and create new life—and they don't even need a backyard.

Instead of visiting your dearly departed grandmother in a cemetery, now it's possible to watch her ashes turn into a tree on your balcony.

The Bios Urn, made from coconut shells, compacted peat, and cellulose, holds a person's ashes along with a seed for a tree. As the urn decomposes, the tree roots take up the ashes and break through the small pod. Though the urn can be planted in the ground, the designers realized that city-dwellers not have access to land—and might want to keep a family member closer.

"Everyone has mentioned that they want to be a tree after they die," Moliné says. "But since we’ve launched Bios Incube, we’ve seen that people are also excited for the fact that you can experience the growth of the tree that comes from your loved one's remains. I think this is really interesting because if we are able to turn the process of death—which is always related with grief and desolation—to an educative and emotionally appealing moment of life itself, we will have achieved a lot."

Dame Maggie Smith's (aka the Dowager Countess) snarkiest comments on Downton Abbey

Dame Maggie Smith (wiki) won back-to-back Emmys for her Downton Abbey (wiki) role. Per youtube, "The dowager’s insults represented the id of a fading English upper class." Well, maybe, but there is one comment, at least, more universal than that (and with which I completely agree): 

It’s the job of grandmothers to interfere.

Docs Removed My Brain For Nothing: Ridiculous Tabloid Magazine Headlines That Are Totally 100% True

“Real Life” Headlines:

More at Pleated Jeans and Really Real Life.

Related: 

Headline of the day: Grandmother choked with bra defends herself with ceramic chicken.

Not The Onion: Onion-like Real Headlines.

82 year old woman locked in public restroom spends four days knitting scarf

FELIXSTOWE, England, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A British grandmother locked in a public restroom for four days said she kept warm using a hand dryer and passed the time by knitting a scarf.

Gladys Phillips, 82, said she was out shopping in Felixstowe, England, when she made a pit stop in a public restroom that she didn't realize was not yet open to the public.

The hi-tech locking system shut tight and it was not until four days later that painters discovered her inside. She had no mobile phone and her bangs and shouts were unanswered – so she settled down and made a pink scarf for her granddaughter to keep boredom at bay.

"I was not really concerned at first when I couldn't get out," Phillips told the Suffolk Gazette. 

"In fact I was just relieved I'd managed to go to the loo! Luckily I had just been to the shops and picked up a new ball of pink wool, so I began making a scarf, which one of my lucky grandchildren will now get for Christmas.

I had also popped into the sweet shop after collecting my pension, so I had a full bag of mint imperials to eat which kept my spirits up no end.

The loo was very clean and cozy. I was able to sleep on my big overcoat and was lovely and warm, and if I got cold I just sat under the hand dryer for a while."

 more at UPI  and Yahoo.

Italian grandmothers getting magical Disney princess makeovers (NSFW language)

Remember the Italian grandmothers trying Olive Garden for the first time (see below)? Now they're getting Disney princess makeovers. Some NSFW language:

Buzzfeed:


“Who the f*ck made this?” The Olive Garden tasting:

Friday links

It's V.E. Day: 70 years ago today, World War 2 ended in Europe.

What Did The Romans Eat? Food And Drink In Ancient Times.

How To Become A Fossil After You Die.

Roundup of Mother's Day links: good and bad animal and human moms, top sci-fi moms, history, videos and science, how grandmothers gave humans longer lifespans, gifts for your wino mom or wife, lots more.

How humans discovered cheese.

An Illustrated Guide To Cat Physics

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include why superheroes don't kill, an excellent set of botanical mazes, and a 5 year old boy who perfectly recreates Bruce Lee's famous nunchaku scene.

Friday links

Great-grandmother, 92, rams mugger with mobility scooter. Bonus: Hell's Grannies sketch from Monty Python.

In 1950, the White House was gutted and re-built from the inside. Here's a set of photos.

Yesterday was National High Five Day: a brief history of the high five.

Better than it sounds: David Hasselhoff stars in a new epic '80s style music video for a song from the Kickstarted film 'Kung Fury' (in which a martial-arts expert cop goes back in time to fight Hitler (AKA Kung Furher), dinosaurs and Norse gods). Kind of related (as in also from Kickstarter): here's a trailer for Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (because fracking!)

Collection of photos of animals licking windows.

Superheroes’ Part-Time Jobs: Because No One Pays Them For Saving The World.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include lots of tax stuff, Leonardo da Vinci's handwritten resume (from before he was famous), the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, and an answer to the age-old question: if I dug straight down, at a speed of 1 foot per second, what would kill me first?

Great-grandmother, 92, hits mugger with mobility scooter. Bonus: Hell's Grannies sketch from Monty Python

My favorite bit:

"We went through the war and all the bombings. We won't let a weasel like that hold us back."

A 92-year-old woman has told how she saved her 75-year-old friend from a mugger by ramming him with her mobility scooter.

Eileen Mason and Margaret Seabrook were on their way back from a lunch club meeting when the thief struck from behind a fence.

Margaret Seabrook, 75, (left) and Eileen Mason, 92 Photo: SWNS

He saw the contents of Ms Seabrook's basket, mounted on the front of her scooter, before grabbing Ms Mason by the arm and reaching for her carrier bag. Ms Mason shouted "Oh, no you don't," and hit the accelerator of her scooter.

The would-be thief was knocked to the ground before the great-grandmothers, both of Swindon, Wiltshire, sped off.

Ms Mason - who has four children, 10 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren - said: "I saw him look into my basket and I said 'oh no you don't', really loudly.

"I put my scooter into accelerate and turned really fast. The next thing I know he was on the floor. I thought 'my gosh'.

"Something in me just told me to turn so I squeezed the accelerator and turned and he went flying. He was so evil looking. We go to the lunch club every week on our scooters and nothing like this has ever happened before.

"We went through the war and all the bombings. We won't let a weasel like that hold us back. I would stand up for myself again if I needed to, but hopefully I won't need to. We will carry on as normal though - he hasn't put us off."

Mother-of-three Ms Seabrook, who has eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren said: "They were obviously targeting us because they thought we'd be an easy target - he was wrong.

"We're just so surprised by the response we've had. We just want to warn people not to leave things on display in their baskets, put it in the back or leave it on your lap, hidden by a coat."

And here are Hell's Grannies from Monty Python (wiki):

More at the Telegraph, via Dave Barry.

Headline of the day: Grandmother choked with bra defends herself with ceramic chicken

Apparently ceramic chickens are a thing, and you should maybe get one for your grandmother for self-defense purposes. Who knew?

LEXINGTON, Ky., April 1 (UPI) -- Police in Kentucky said a woman who was being strangled with a bra fended off her attacker by striking her in the head with a ceramic chicken.

Patricia Leece, 61, of Lexington, said she opened her door early Monday because she thought the banging and shouting was her granddaughter, but she instead found stranger Ashley Sies, 31.

The homeowner told police Sies pushed her way into the house and wrapped a bra around Leece's neck.

"She choked me down and we fought for a good 15 to 20 minutes. Finally I saw one of my (ceramic) chickens on the floor so I picked it up and started bashing her on the head with it," Leece told WKYT-TV.

Leece said Sies fell unconscious and she called 911.

Police said Sies was apparently on drugs and believed she was being followed when she knocked on Leece's door.

Sies pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a charge of first degree burglary and was ordered held in lieu of $10,000 bond. Leece said she plans to pursue additional charges against the intruder.

More here.

Friday links

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties! Instructions, translators, and Dave Barry's 2002 column.

Making, and Eating, the 1950s' Most Nauseating Jell-O Soaked Recipes.

Local Grandmother Quilts Giant Penises. (SFW)

Hey, Firefly fans - tomorrow (Sept 20) is Unification Day. Related: the biggest comparison of sci-fi spaceships ever is complete at last.

14 Extremely Detailed Close-Ups of Animal Eyes.

95% of children in the '50's were out of diapers by age 18 months - now it's 10%: The Evolution of Potty Training.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, including Samuel Johnson's Scotland-bashing, Pony Express history, how Richard III died, and weird ways to stop lava.

Grandmothers who are brilliant at technology

"Grandma Got STEM" profiles grandmothers who have accomplished marvelous feats of technology. via BoingBoing.

105-year-old passes her driving test

The great-grandmother of 17 from Santa Barbara, who also holds the record for being the oldest person on Facebook, is not slowing down despite her advancing years.

She has been officially declared the oldest driver in California after passing her test to renew her license on Wednesday - which she described as a 'snap'.