Sex differences in risk seeking behaviour, emergency hospital admissions, and mortality are well documented. However, little is known about sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour. This paper reviews the data on winners of the Darwin Award over a 20 year period (1995-2014). Winners of the Darwin Award must eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such an idiotic manner that their act...

Several forms of social learning rely on the direct or indirect evaluation of the fitness of cultural traits. Here we argue, via a simple agent-based model, that payoff uncertainty, that is, the correlation between a trait and the signal used to evaluate its fitness, plays a pivotal role in the spread of beneficial innovation. More specifically, we examine how this correlation affects the evolu...

In order to credibly "sell" legitimate children to their spouse, women must forego more attractive mating opportunities. This paper derives the implications of this observation for the pattern of matching in marriage markets, the dynamics of human capital accumulation, and the evolution of the gene pool. A key consequence of the trade-off faced by women is that marriage markets will naturally t...

In most vertebrates, males and females are nearly identical in morphology during early development, but, as a result of highly divergent growth, achieve often remarkably different adult morphologies. Although numerous studies have documented selection pressures that favor distinct morphologies of adult males and females, the mechanisms that enable the initially genetically identical sexes to en...

Computer simulations of the Penna ageing model suggest that already a small fraction of births with enhanced number of new mutations can negatively influence the whole population.

We present a model for evolving population that maintains genetic polymorphism. By introducing random mutation in the model population at a constant rate, we observe that the population does not become extinct but survives, keeping diversity in the gene pool under abrupt environmental changes. The model provides reasonable estimates for the proportions of polymorphic and heterozygous loci and f...

The calculation of empirical p-values for genome-wide non-parametric linkage tests continues to present significant computational challenges for many complex disease mapping studies. The gold standard approach is to use gene dropping to simulate null genome scans. Unfortunately, this approach is too computationally expensive for many data sets of interest. An alternative, more efficient method ...

A challenge in phylogenetic inference of gene trees is how to properly sample a large pool of homologous sequences to derive a good representative subset of sequences. Such a need arises in various applications, e.g. when (1) accuracy-oriented phylogenetic reconstruction methods may not be able to deal with a large pool of sequences due to their high demand in computing resources; (2) applicati...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the current and potential values and identify main threatening factors of Balanites aegyptiaca in Sudan. Three areas were selected for data collection (Umm Abdalla, Boat and Id Elfrissan). Group discussion was carried out to tap local community knowledge about the species uses, potentials and threatening factors. Then structured interview was used to verify...

Medicinal plants are the chief source of active compounds for drugs to cure diseases of human beings and his live stock. Presence of these plants in abundance in an area is a gift from god for positive approaches in the preparation of medicine and maintenance of plant diversity. It is the responsibility of all in general and scientists in particular to save the population of these plants by con...