Free Republic

Why we are closer to cousins from our mother's side By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:51am GMT 28/02/2007 We tend to help cousins on our mother's side more than cousins on our father's, according to a study published today. Evolution by natural selection has shaped us to mistrust paternity, say researchers, and their findings confirm a prediction by evolutionary scientists that we tend to be kinder – altruistic – to the children of our mother's sister than those of our father's brother. Evolutionary biologists say that the more likely we are to have genes in common with our...

Nancy Pelosi has decided to play the gender card. For good measure, she's thrown in a soupcon of Rumsfeld-phobia. MSNBC just aired a clip of Pelosi making the following remarks on the issue of her demand to the Pentagon for a large plane: "I don't even know the numbers of the planes. So this is something that is really very strange. That the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, which I have been a constant critic of the war in Iraq, and where I understand Mr. Rumsfeld still has a desk, even though he's no longer the Secretary, has decided that...