Women Evolve More Spine to Carry Babies

…says the headline. Heh. I guess that means lauraw is equipped for octuplets.

The headline itself is pretty silly, though. They didn’t evolve “more spine,” they evolved stronger, more flexible spines:

Like cushy baby strollers, women’s bodies have evolved spines that are more flexible and supportive than men’s to keep from tipping over while walking during pregnancy. …

“Early human women lived very strenuous, active lives, and pregnant females were forced to cope with the discomfort of childbearing while foraging for food and escaping from predators,” Lieberman said. “This evolution of the lower back helped early woman to remain more mobile during pregnancy, which would have been essential to survival, and appears to have been favored by natural selection.”

I like that “keep from tipping over” part. It’s like women have evolved into Weebles.

…and what have Russia and China been up to during my absence?

I’m sure you know that Russia and China have continued their pattern of economic alliances and regular summit meetings, and you may have noticed over the past few weeks that Russia is likely to reabsorb Belarus. A new German poll tells us that people worldwide feel that Russia, China, India, and the EU are ascendant, while:

The US will be “the great loser of the future”… 

An interesting analysis of why Russia was so prone to return to its bad old ways was published yesterday. Here’s the author’s encapsulation of our current situation:

A resurgent Russia is the world’s foremost revisionist power, rejecting a status quo predicated on the notion of a Western victory in the Cold War. Its two super-power assets ― nuclear weapons and energy ― make it a potential leader of all those lesser powers dissatisfied with their position in the world. A potential Russia-China axis based on shared resistance to U.S. hegemony carries the seeds of a new bipolarity. 

The author then addresses the question:

Why didn’t Russia become more integrated with the West after the breakup of the Soviet Union?

His answer:

Western expectations of postcommunist Russia’s trajectory rested on three assumptions that proved to be mistaken. First, most of Russia’s elite rejected the view that the loss of empire was irreversible. Second, the Bush administration’s unilateralism shattered the belief that the US would continue to provide the world with “multilateral” leadership; indeed, U.S. unilateralism was a cue for Russia to pursue its own unilateral policy. Third, Russia has not yet become economically integrated with the West, especially Europe, as was expected.

The entire piece is worth a read.

The most important event this week

The one we were all hoping would somehow, someway, not happen:

EU leaders have signed a treaty in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, that is expected to greatly alter the way the 27-nation body operates.

… The treaty is a slimmed-down version of the European constitution, with a more modest name and without any reference to EU symbols such as the flag and anthem.

It is meant to ease decision-making, by scrapping national vetoes in some 50 policy areas, including sensitive ones such as police and judicial co-operation.

There will also be a foreign policy chief, controlling a big budget and thousands of diplomats and officials, and a permanent EU president appointed for up to five years.

I suppose Britain was already lost on several fronts, so this is just a formality. But I had higher hopes for Poland, who didn’t get to enjoy their sovereignty for very long.

The EU countries still have to ratify the treaty, but it’s likely that it will pass. I got a chuckle, though, out of this lede from The Sun:

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has signed the hated EU treaty. Due to the delayed arrival of Gordon Brown, Mr Miliband was the only foreign minister to attend the televised ceremony alone, amid a stream of prime ministers and presidents from the other 26 EU states.