assorted addenda from Thursday's sessions

Food for a couple of thoughts:

So you already know that crazy-clean tendencies on mom's part can result in asthma (or worse) for the kids, but check this out: These days, it is country kids who are seen as having better preparation to fight such hyper-immune-system ailments in part because, as Marlene Zuk detailed Thursday, country kids have access to intestinal worms, which in small numbers prep your body for later assaults by activating a class of cells (T2) that help regulate another class of cells (T1, and are you still with me?) that when unchecked can account for awful afflictions such as Crohn's disease... The key element, it appears, is to have evidence of manure in the linens of the country kids (aerosolized pooh?).

On a lighter (or heavier) note, the standard deviation for brain size was, if Geoffrey Miller said what I think he did, is 8.2 percent. Bigger is better when it comes to your brain, so when some people get a baker's dozen, they really are much better off than the holders of a standard 12. OK, that was a stretch, but hey, 8.2 percent is quite the hill of beans.