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Today's commute read: picking up where I left off on Dunbar's Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. Yup, "Dunbar's number" Dunbar https://t.co/wJdkFnJrXD


Sometimes lions casually walk through herds of wildebeest, which simply part to let them through. This is because the lions and wildebeest both understand that the wildebeest can outrun the lion once it's seen it. Predators rely on element of surprise. Once seen, attack pointless

There are numerous instances of monkeys, baboons, etc being observed to use politics, deception and social strategy better than some adult humans are capable of 🤔 makes we wonder if modern civilization has dulled our social instincts

For many monkeys, the stress of being a low-status member of the group has a debilitating effect on the immune and endocrine systems. The brain releases opiates in response to stress, which block a cascade of hormonal events - leading to infertility (egg is not released) https://t.co/d0lzkGDbL8


High stress jobs = difficulty conceiving Couples who struggle to conceive often conceive after deciding to adopt instead - the stress of trying kept them from conceiving Medical students' sperm counts drop dramatically as exam season approaches https://t.co/cAAe0i2feC
