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SOCIAL STRUCTURING. “Visual communication among conspecifics within Primates is part of maintaining social groups, social bonds, reproduction, and many aspects of daily life, especially so among the diurnal species. Primates generate visual communication signals in the face and these signals include skin coloration/patterning and facial expressions/displays.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend and concludes this weekend on the theme of the human face. This delightful article combines morphology, biochemistry, and evolutionary biology in this multidisciplinary enquiry into the human face. Seeing the familiar anew is always a challenge, but the rewards are manifold. That is a gift of reading from different disciplines by very bright authors, the core of a curated Natural Sciences journal club. Enjoy! View in LinkedIn

Amarilis at its best. View in LinkedIn

WISHFUL THINKING. “Copernicus...brought the sun to a standstill and launched the Earth into the skies -- heliocentrism replaces geocentrism.” https://lnkd.in/deri8XN View in LinkedIn

ROOTS OF MODERN THINKING. “Much of our previous understanding of mimetic musculature and its evolution in primates was rooted solely in phylogeny. Huber (1931) held that facial expression musculature was the simplest and least complex in prosimians (complexity here referring to number of individual muscles, relative sizes, interconnections, and attachment sites).” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn

FACIAL MECHANICS. “Internal facial morphology consists of the mimetic musculature and its motor supply, branches of the facial nerve. Mimetic musculature is responsible for generating facial displays or facial expressions. These displays assist in regulating and maintaining social bonds and the social group by cueing conspecifics to the emotional and behavioral intentions of the sender.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn

TRIBAL MAKEUP. “Skin coloration and patterning make up the ‘external morphology’ of the face. External morphology provides cues on identity, both at the species and individual levels, and is important in assigning identity for recognition of kin, individuals, and mate recognition.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn

MUSCLES CONTRACT. “All skeletal muscle, including mimetic musculature, works by getting shorter, or contracting. Each muscle is made up of smaller units that work together to contract. Muscles consist of packaged units called ‘fascicles’, collections of muscle fibers enveloped by connective tissue. Each muscle fiber (or myofiber) in turn consists of bundles of myofibrils, which are made up of many filaments of contractile proteins. One of those contractile proteins is myosin.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn

GROUP SIZE. “These studies demonstrate that there is a strong co-evolution between social group size and neurobiological components of facial musculature, at least in the catarrhines. Overall, it appears that as group size increases, primate species have more brain area dedicated to the production of facial displays/expressions.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn

NEOCORTICAL IMPACT. “Dobson (2012) showed that neocortex size (the area of the brain that includes regions devoted to social interactions) is a significant predictor of facial nerve nuclei volumes in catarrhines (Old World monkeys and apes).” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.12440/full View in LinkedIn