Natural Sciences
carlota batres
Assistant Professor of Psychology
"Attraction to men and women predicts sexual dimorphism preferences"
International Journal of Sexual Health
We investigated women’s (N = 27,611) preferences for sexual dimorphism in male faces in relation to self-reports of sexual attraction to men/women (from ‘not at all’ to ‘very’). We found that self-identified heterosexual women reported considerable variation in sexual attraction levels. We also found that sexual dimorphism preferences related positively with attraction to men and negatively with attraction to women.
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"Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries: A Large-Scale Replication"
Psychological Science
Using a 45-country sample (N = 14,399), we attempted to replicate classic studies on human mate preferences and test both the evolutionary and biosocial role perspectives. Support for universal sex differences in preferences remained robust: Men, more than women, preferred attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, preferred older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes had mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increased.
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"Cultural Differences in Mate Preferences"
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary
Psychological Science
An encyclopedia entry on variations that arise in preferred mate qualities as a result of cultural influences.
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"Examining the influence of cosmetics on jury decisions"
Cosmetics
Many studies have examined how defendant characteristics influence jury decisions, but none have investigated the effect of cosmetics. In this study, we therefore examined how cosmetics influence jury decisions for young and middle-aged female defendants.
"Universality of the triangular theory of love: adaptation and psychometric properties of the triangular love scale in 25 countries"
The Journal of Sex Research
The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale – STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale.
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Jaime blair
Associate Professor of Biology
"Preliminary survey of Aphanomyces sp. associated with native and invasive crayfish in the Lower Susquehanna watershed of South Central Pennsylvania"
Journal of Freshwater Ecology
Student Coauthors:
Elizabeth Butler '19, Patricia Crigler '16, Glenn Robbins '19
In this study, my students and I surveyed local waterways for the presence of Aphanomyces astaci, a species of oomycete that is responsible for devastating crayfish plague in Europe. Previous studies have suggested that A. astaci is native to North America, and was accidentally introduced to Europe along with asymptomatic crayfish. We were able to confirm the presence of A. astaci locally, and suggest that environmental damage and the introduction of invasive species may impact the natural resistance of native crayfish to this disease.
Elena Cuffari
Assistant Professor of Psychology & Scientific Philosophical Studies of Mind
"Language, habit and the future"
Habits: Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory
I draw from Dewey's account of habit in juxtaposition with the enactive philosophy of linguistic bodies to consider three key features about human language, working to locate linguistic practice fully in body–environment interactions and habits that arise therein. A deep connection between language, habit, and environment is needed now, I argue, because as humans we must tell ourselves, and we must believe, that habits can change, and that what is exceptional about our kind of being can be good and not only deadly for the rest of the universe.
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andrew de wet
Professor of Geosciences
"Lava‐Rise Plateaus and Inflation Pits in the McCartys Lava Flow Field, New Mexico: An Analog for Pāhoehoe‐Like Lava Flows on Planetary Surfaces"
JGR Planets
Student co-authors: Jake Bleacher '00
Inflated lava flows grow vertically through a combination of initially rapid molten core thickening and gradual crustal accretion. The McCartys lava flow field includes a series of interconnected lava‐rise plateaus that formed via inflation over the course of years. Recognizing products of inflation on Earth and other planetary bodies can constrain lava emplacement processes and eruption timescales
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carol de wet
Dr. E. Paul & Frances H. Reiff Professor of Geosciences
"Widespread freshwater carbonate in the Olduvai Basin, a precursor to a major eruption in the East Africa Rift System"
The Depositional Record
Student co-authors: Leah (Houser) Givens '16
Freshwater limestone deposits in the Olduvai Gorge represent unusual concentrations of calcium carbonate, mobilized from volcanic deposits and deposited in springs and ponds. These sites appear to have been used as sources of potable water for animals and hominids.
Edward fenlon
Professor of Chemistry
"Design and Synthesis of a Bis-macrocyclic Host and Guests as Building Blocks for Small Molecular Knots"
Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry
Student co-authors: Elizabeth A. Margolis '12, Rebecca J. Keyes '11, Stephen D. Lockey IV '11
"2D-IR Studies of Cyanamide (NCN) as a Spectroscopic Reporter of Dynamics in Biomolecules: Uncovering the Origin of Mysterious Peaks"
Journal of Chemical Physics
Student co-authors: Julia Weiner '19, Judith Monzy '21
FPS co-authors: Scott H. Brewer
A study exploring how children learn to solve simple problems, how this ability changes across development (age 2-5 years), and how it compares to a sample of chimpanzees and gorillas run in the same paradigm.
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"Extending the Vibrational Lifetime of Azides with Heavy Atoms"
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
FPS co-authors: Scott H. Brewer
The effects of heavy atoms and isotopic substitution have on the vibrational lifetimes of azides was explored. It was found that both factors can be used to extend lifetimes and 15N-isotopic tin azides were found to have the longest lifetimes.
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lauren howard
Assistant Professor of Psychology & Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind
"The application of non-invasive, restraint-free eye tracking methods for use with nonhuman primates"
Behavior Research Methods
A review of all current work with nonhuman primates using the eye tracking method, along with information on best practices and considerations for the field going forward.
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"Problem solving flexibility across early development"
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
A study exploring how children learn to solve simple problems, how this ability changes across development (age 2-5 years), and how it compares to a sample of chimpanzees and gorillas run in the same paradigm.
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"Learning From Others: The Effects of Agency on Event Memory in Young Children"
Child Development
Three studies explore whether children learn more from an event where a person is present vs. absent. Uses behavioral, eye-tracking, and neural methods to show that human children demonstrate a "social memory bias", recalling more when they are learning from other people than in their absence.
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stanley mertzman
Professor of Geosciences
"A fractional crystallization link between komatiites, basalts, and dunites of the Paleoproterozoic Winnipegosis Komatiite Belt, Manitoba, Cananda"
Journal of Petrology
For the first time a clear petrogical link was established between komatiites, basalts, and residual dunite upper mantle residual material.
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"Iron isotopic and chemical tracing of basalt alteration and hematitie spherule formation in Hawaii: A prospective study for Mars"
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Finding a suitable site that is similar to the surface of Mars to test the suitability and reliability of analytical equipment is a challenge. It proved to be unexpectedly challenging.
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"JSC-Rocknest: a large-scale Mojave Mars simulant (MMS) based soil simulant for in-situ resource utilization water-extraction studies"
Icarus
Approximately 800 kg of material intended to duplicate the chemical and mineralogical composition of the Martian regolith was prepared and analyzed to insure homogeneity. This simulant will be used in component and system testing for water extraction from Martian surficial material. Think of the book: The Martian.
"A wet basin during dry times: a new Pliocene lake record from the Afar region, Ethiopia"
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual meeting 2020
Evidence has been gathered that suggest a heretofore unknown lake existed in the Godaya Valley of the Afar Region of Ethiopia between 3.804 and 3.777 million years ago. Hominid fossils have been found in equivalent aged terrestrial sediments adjoining these lacustrine sediments.
andrew miller
Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology
"Age-0 Smallmouth Bass abundance depends on physicochemical conditions and stream network position"
Ecosphere
We evaluated the role of local and watershed-scale stream habitat variables and stream flow conditions to understand the factors associated with survival of age-0 Smallmouth Bass in Ozark streams. Age-0 bass were most abundant in deeper, warmer streams and following benign July stream flows, though these relationships were dampened or absent in close proximity to larger mainstem rivers.
jennifer morford
Professor of Chemistry
"Adsorption of tetrathiomolybdate to iron sulfides and its impact on iron sulfide transformations"
ACS Earth and Space Chemistry
Student co-authors: Nathan Miller, Maura Dougherty, Ruochen Du, Tyler Sauers, Candice Yan, Jonathan Pines, Kate Meyers, Y Dang, Emily Nagle, Ziqin Ni, Tipsiri Pungsrisai
FPS co-authors: Kate Plass
We seek to better understand how molybdenum adsorbs to iron sulfides in marine sediments and how that adsorption might impact the transformation of those iron sulfides.
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Harriet Okatch
Assistant Professor of Biology & Public Health
"Trends in HIV treatment adherence before and after HIV status disclosure to adolescents in Botswana"
Journal of Adolescent Health
Contrary to previous studies demonstrating HIV disclosure as a tool to improve medication adherence among perinatally HIV infected adolescents, the findings of our study demonstrate that the improvement in medication adherence is maintained for a brief period followed by a significant decline. Our findings suggest healthcare institutions provide additional counseling and support services to adolescents as they learn of their positive HIV status.
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Michael Penn
Professor of Psychology
"Cultivating Our Common Humanity: Reflections on Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion"
The Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and Human Rights
Written by psychologists, historians, and lawyers, this handbook demonstrates the central role psychological science plays in addressing some of the world's most pressing problems. Over 100 experts from around the world work together to supply an integrated history of human rights and psychological science using a rights and strengths-based perspective. It highlights what psychologists have done to promote human rights and what continues to be done at the United Nations.
Joshua Rottman
Assistant Professor of Psychology & Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind
"The moral, or the story? Changing children’s distributive justice preferences through social communication"
Cognition
Student co-authors: Val Zizik '19 and Kelly Minard '21
We investigated whether storybooks and direct instruction can influence children's preferences to distribute resources either equally or based on merit. While storybooks with animals didn't change children's resource distribution preferences, direct instruction reliably altered children's resource distribution preferences. Matched storybooks and direct instruction featuring humans produced similarly strong changes.
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"In sickness and in filth: Developing a disdain for dirty people"
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Student co-authors: Sydney Bierhoff '18, Taisha Pelletier '18, Anastasiia Grigoreva '20, Josie Benitez '18
We found that biases against physically unclean and unhygienic people emerge by the age of 5. These biases are generally constant across different causes of dirtiness, and they manifest similarly for participants from the United States and from India.
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Roger D. K. thomas
John W. Nevin Memorial Professor of Geosciences, Emeritus
"Pelagiella exigua, an early Cambrian stem gastropod with chaetae: lophotrochozoan heritage and conchiferan novelty"
Palaeontology
Student co-authors: Ryan Secor
Co-authors: Bruce Runnegar and Kerry Matt
Remarkably preserved clusters of chaetae (bristles), never before seen as features of a living or extinct snail, are described in association with the earliest documented fossil snails, about 512 million years old, from Lancaster County. These chaetae confirm the prior inference, based on molecular data from living organisms, that molluscs, annelid worms, and brachiopods ("lamp shells") share an ancient common ancestry.
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Our Readers Respond: "How Many Elephants"
The Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society
Commentary in response to an article published in journal.
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joe thompson
Professor of Biology
"Suction adhesion in the gliding joint of a cephalopod"
Journal of Experimental Biology
Student co-authors: Scott M. LaValva '15 and Matthew M. Loiacono '15
The body parts of a squid that articulate to form a joint that allows the head to move independently of the body are held together by suction. Squid may be able to adjust the suction force to modify the function of the joint.
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Christina Weaver
Associate Professor of Mathematics
"Network Models Predict That Pyramidal Neuron Hyperexcitability and Synapse Loss in the dlPFC Lead to Age-Related Spatial Working Memory Impairment in Rhesus Monkeys"
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience
FPS co-authors:
Sara Ibañez, Research Associate of Mathematics, and Danel Draguljić, Associate Professor of Mathematics
Pyramidal neurons of the prefrontal cortex in rhesus monkeys undergo many structural and functional changes during normal aging, but the effects of these changes on working memory performance is not understood fully. Our differential equations-based computational model simulates two spatial working memory tasks, and shows how a loss of synaptic connections and an increase in electrical excitability of pyramidal neurons observed in aging can lead to cognitive impairment.
caitlin yantis
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology
"Inconceivable middle-class Black space: The architecture and consequences of space-focused stereotype content at the race-class nexus"
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Two studies demonstrate that White Americans have difficulty imagining middle-class Black space as desirable and high quality, and the stronger this difficulty, the more likely they are to devalue a house in a Black neighborhood. These findings have implications for place-based racial disparities, such as residential segregation and environmental racism.
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