background: prelacteal feeding is an underestimated problem in a developing country like india, where infant mortality rate is quite high. the present study tried to find out the factors determining prelacteal feeding in rural areas of north india. methods: a crosssectional study was conducted among recently delivered women of rural uttar pradesh, india. multistage random sampling was used for ...

Proponents of affirmative action policies in higher education argue that the beneficiaries of affirmative action could gain academically from positive peer effects, whereas critiques argue that they could fall behind due to competition with better prepared peers. I examine this hypothesis in the context of caste based affirmative action in college admissions in India. Admission to general educa...

Developmental plasticity may accelerate the evolution of phenotypic novelty through genetic accommodation, but studies of genetic accommodation often lack knowledge of the ancestral state to place selected traits in an evolutionary context. A promising approach for assessing genetic accommodation involves using a comparative framework to ask whether ancestral plasticity is related to the evolut...

A caste system in which females develop into morphologically distinct queens or workers has evolved independently in ants, wasps and bees. Although such reproductive division of labour may benefit the colony it is also a source of conflict because individual immature females can benefit from developing into a queen in order to gain greater direct reproduction. Here we present a formal inclusive...

Eusocial animal societies are typified by the presence of a helper (worker) caste which predominantly cares for young offspring in a social group while investing little in their own direct reproduction. A key question is what determines whether an individual becomes a worker or leaves to initiate her own reproduction. In some insects, caste is determined nutritionally during development. In oth...

Division of labor, an adaptation in which individuals specialize in performing tasks necessary to the colony, such as nest defense and foraging, is believed key to eusocial insects' remarkable ecological success. Here we report, for the first time, a completely novel specialization in a eusocial insect, namely the ability of Cataglyphis cursor ants to rescue a trapped nestmate using precisely t...

Termite colonies, composed of large numbers siblings, develop an important caste-based division labor; individuals in these societies interact via intra- or intercaste chemical communications. For more than 50 years, termites have been known to use a variety pheromones perform tasks necessary for maintenance their societies, similar eusocial hymenopterans. Although trail-following chemically id...

Brow, a tall, strong, muscular man, of the cultivator caste, about 36 years of age, was admitted into the dispensary with, tetanus, which was said to have commenced four days previ? ously without apparent cause; there was no history of any wound or hurt, or of exposure to cold or wet. His state on admission was as follows :?Muscles of neck and jaw were quite rigid, so that he could not open his...

Previous Y chromosome studies have shown that the Cohanim, a paternally inherited Jewish priestly caste, predominantly share a recent common ancestry irrespective of the geographically defined post-Diaspora community to which they belong, a finding consistent with common Jewish origins in the Near East. In contrast, the Levites, another paternally inherited Jewish caste, display evidence for mu...