BS: American Fatheads

Subject: BS: American Fatheads
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 08:13 PM

White Americans' heads are getting bigger -- literally, study shows

By Meghan Holohan

... Over the past 150 years, the size of white Americans' craniums have actually increased in size.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee's Forensic Anthropology Center (what Mary Roach calls "the body farm" in her book "Stiff") routinely examine skulls to try to determine sex and race of the craniums so if police officers discover just a skull, there are guidelines for gleaning info about it. The database of skulls and bodies has steadily increased to include people who were born and died in the 20th century, whereas prior the skulls were from people born in the 19th century.

As researchers Lee Jantz, coordinator of Forensic Anthropology Center, Richard Jantz, professor emeritus, and Joanne Devlin, adjunct assistant professor, catalogued 1,500 noggins they observed that white people who were born in the 20th century had bigger heads.

They looked at white skulls because they wanted to have a large sample and they don't have as many black and Hispanic skulls. When people decide to donate their bodies to science, some of those bodies end up at the Forensic Anthropology Center. Historically, more white people have donated their bodies to science than black or Hispanic people, but Jantz suspects that as the makeup of America changes, the center will receive more donations from black and Hispanic people.

The height of white male skulls has increased by eight millimeters and the overall skull has grown by 200 cubic centimeters. For women, cranium height increased by seven millimeters and overall by 180 cubic centimeters.¹

"The basic thing that we observed over the course of looking at crania that belong to people born from 1820s to 1980s, is that the cranium has gotten higher and narrower," says Richard Jantz, who is married to Lee.

"If you just look at a side view of the skull, what you would see is the distance from top to bottom increased, and if you look at a front view of the skull, you would see the distance from side to side decreased."

Bigger heads typically mean bigger brains, and while Richard Jantz and his colleagues did not look at brain size, he suspects brain size also increased. There are several theories why brains might be brawnier.

Over the past 100 years, life in America changed dramatically. People no longer toil in the fields, and they don't struggle to consume enough calories. We have too much food and not enough physical activity. This means our bodies don't have to divide fewer calories between the body and the brain, so enough energy can go to the brain, allowing it to balloon. Improved medicine also contributes to larger heads-- in the past babies with bulbous heads could not escape the birth canal and many died. With the increase of C-sections, more and more of these big-headed babes make it into the world.

"As we continue to have excess calories then I am guessing that the brain can continue to increase in size. There obviously has to be some upper limit,"² says Richard Jantz.

He suspects that most black Americans would have larger craniums as well, but believes that Hispanic skulls might be smaller. A greater number of the country's Hispanic people are not born in the United States, potentially limiting their access to excess calories and the additional energy needed to grower larger skulls (and bodies). As the generations pass, Hispanic people will probably grow larger as well.

Jantz also notes that Americans mature faster now than they did in earlier centuries. In the 19th century, on average, girls reached menarche at 16 or 17, whereas modern girls reach it by 12 or 13,³ indicating that humans are growing more rapidly.

To a certain extent, the researchers weren't surprised to learn that noggins increased in size. Jantz says it is obvious that modern Americans look different than their ancestors. He notes there aren't a lot of pictures of obese people from the 19th century. Having access to excess calories leads to taller, fatter, bigger Americans. And while Jantz notes that bigger heads means bigger brains, he hesitates to speculate that bigger brains equal smarter people.

[end quote]

¹ Some of our misogynists will likely be happy to note that the absolute increase for women was slightly smaller than for men, and will probably note that "well, theirs were smaller to begine with."

² Some decades ago, an eminent scientist pronounced that humans can't get much smarter since that would require bigger brains, and if women's hips got any wider (to deliver bigger heads) they wouldn't be able to walk ... But now we can see that the answer is just ... ... long skinny heads
... and nature may have begun providing them(?).

³ It has been claimed that in a very few species it's possible to observe offspring that are "born pregnant." Are we trending toward that? We'll need some reinforcement of the "born hired" concept for males to support raising the kids if it happens, I'd suspect.

John

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 08:20 PM

A modest proposal:

We could always try to use what we have more efficiently.

Nah! It'll never work!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 08:28 PM

What we need are some old African head shrinkers to step in and save white people... I mean, white people heads could get so large that they would fall over... Ya'll want that??? Hell no, you don't!!! You want special cars for white people with a big bubble in the roof for their big white heads??? Hell no, you don't... You want to have to sit behind white people in a theater??? Hell no, you don't... You wanta sit behind them at sports events??? Hell no, you don't...

Bring in the head shrinkers...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 11:03 PM

Chimps have small, round, compact skulls. The obvious solution is to start interbreeding White Americans with Chimps. There are rumors afoot that Chongo has already made steps in this direction. He is a head of his time.

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 11:29 PM

Bobert -

You want special cars for white people with a big bubble in the roof for their big white heads

For the head expansions reported, a small pimple on top should suffice.

When the Boeing 747 was being introduced, I believe it was the President of American Airlines(?) who stated that he had learned that the "bump on top of the cockpit" was so that "the pilots won't bump their heads when they sit on their wallets."

(He apparently had just heard what ALPA expected them to pay someone lumbering around with 500 passengers in their care (?).)

John

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Jun 12 - 11:53 PM

"He is a head of his time. " chuckle

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 12:03 AM

Coneheads are us!

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 04:21 AM

I was measuring my head for a hat the other day (must have that Fedora!) and, in the article on head measurements and hat sizes, it said that the smallest heads in the world generally belong to the Japanese - and the biggest belong to the Germans.

Well, waddya know...

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 05:45 AM

Didn't Homo Neanderthalis have a greater cranial capacity than Homo Sapiens?

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 06:07 AM

It perhaps should be noted that the report considered only "white Americans" only because those were the only samples easily available to the people who did the study in sufficient number and including samples over a sufficient time period to make it easy to do the analysis.

Those making gleeful extrapolations of that result might want to give some consideration to what the results may be when their own tribal groups have their own results reported - as it's likely they eventually will be.

(Once a method is reported and seen to be easy to use, lots of people are likely to try performing the same test on different sets of subjects.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 07:06 AM

...They looked at white skulls...

Aren't all skulls white skulls?

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 11:45 AM

It's interesting to see even one recent study about the relationship between skull size/shape in different 'racial'/ethnic groups. Inevitably, the speculation by some turns to 'mental capacity' or behavioral characteristics. The field of study is fraught with delicate issues, and any attempt to suggest conclusions draws criticisms.

We humans are mammals, and while we study & breed other mammals for various useful traits....including aggression, intelligence...etc., it would be fairly awkward to even find such differences in humans.

It's a strange situation that certain areas of research are limited because we don't have easy ways to even discuss possible findings. Having a brain complex enough to reflect on its own nature is both an advantage and a maze of confusions.

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 12:41 PM

Music reference:

Album: "Fat-Headed Stranger" by Wammo. Not quite folk, but a great song about Batman.

And need I do more than refer to "Big White Pillow for my Big Fat Head"? from the greatest music video of all time? (although I'm not sure it was referring to a Yank).

So, time to bring this one above the line!

Subject: RE: BS: American Fatheads
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Jun 12 - 02:10 PM

Bill D -

You should notice that the report that's the subject here didn't compare skulls of different racial/ethnic groups.

Because only skulls for one fairly consistent group were available, they only reported results for that group. They were careful to point out that they had NOT made comparisons with any other groups, and implied that they don't really expect to do so.

They did indicate some "speculations" about possible differences for other gropus, but only as a suggestion of how their suspicion that the reported differences were largely due to dietary habits might be further investigated, and the only "different groups" they mentioned were really just groups with different dietary histories.

At least that's how I read it.

John