It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, February 14, 2020
Smelling your lover's shirt could improve your sleep HAPPY VALENTINES DAY PHEROMONES OF LOVE
Marlise Hofer, the study's lead author and a graduate student in the UBC department of psychology Credit: UBC Psychology
The scent of a romantic partner can improve sleep, suggests new psychology research from the University of British Columbia.
The researchers found that study participants who were exposed to their partner's scent overnight experiencedbetter sleep quality, even though their partner was not physically present.
"Our findings provide new evidence that merely sleeping with a partner's scent improves sleep efficiency. Our participants had an average sleep efficiency improvement of more than two per cent," said Marlise Hofer, the study's lead author and a graduate student in the UBC department of psychology. "We saw an effect similar in size to what has been reported from taking oral melatonin supplements—often used as a sleep aid."
For the study, the researchers analyzed sleep data from 155 participants who were given two identical-looking t-shirts to use as pillowcases—one had been previously worn by their romantic partner, and the other had either been previously worn by a stranger or was clean.
To capture body odour on the t-shirts, the participants' partners were given a clean t-shirt to wear for 24 hours, and were asked to refrain from using deodorant and scented body products, smoking, exercising and eating certain foods that could affect their body odour. The t-shirts were then frozen to preserve their scent.
Each participant was then given two shirts to place over their pillows, without being told which one was which. They spent two consecutive nights sleeping with each t-shirt. Each morning, they completed a survey about how well-rested they felt. Their sleep quality was also objectively measured using an actigraphy sleep watch that monitored their movements throughout the night. At the end of the study, participants guessed if the shirts they had been sleeping with had previously been worn by their partner.
Participants reported feeling more well-rested on the nights when they believed they were sleeping with their partner's scent. Moreover, regardless of their beliefs about scent exposure, data from the sleep watches indicated that objective sleep improved when participants were actually exposed to their partner's scent.
"One of the most surprising findings is how a romantic partner's scent can improve sleep quality even outside of our conscious awareness," said Frances Chen, the study's senior author and associate professor in the UBC department of psychology. "The sleep watch data showed that participants experienced less tossing and turning when exposed to their partners' scent, even if they weren't aware of whose scent they were smelling."
The researchers say the physical presence of a long-term romantic partner is associated with positive health outcomes such as a sense of safety, calm and relaxation, which in turn leads to better sleep. By signalling recent physical proximity, the mere scent of a partner may have similar benefits.
Hofer says the research could pave the way for future work examining the efficacy of simple and effective methods of improving sleep, such as bringing a partner's shirt the next time you travel alone.
The researchers are currently recruiting participants for a pilot study to investigate whether the scent of parents can improve their infant's sleep quality.
The research has been accepted for publication in the journal Psychological Science.
A male California sheephead looms among the kelp fronds. Credit: Katie Davis
In 2014, a disease of epidemic proportions gripped the West Coast of the U.S. You may not have noticed, though, unless you were underwater.
Fueled by abnormally hot ocean temperatures, sea star wasting disease ravaged these echinoderms from Alaska to Mexico. The condition, still not fully understood, wiped out a significant marine predator, the sunflower star. The sunflower star was a particularly important predator of sea urchins, and since the sea star's disappearance, the urchins it preyed upon have multiplied and laid waste to large swaths of kelp forest. However, the spiny scourge seemed to have spared some areas, especially those where multiple urchin predators occurred, particularly within marine protected areas.
A team of marine biologists, led by recent UC Santa Barbara graduate Jake Eisaguirre, has investigated what factors kept urchins in check in marine protected areas in the western Channel Islands. They found that a redundancy in urchin predators, and the protection afforded to them, seems to be responsible. The results offer a new perspective on strategies to manage ecosystems for resilience and highlight an underappreciated benefit of marine reserves. The study appears in the journal Ecology.
"This sea star wasting disease was a very impactful and rapid event," said Jennifer Caselle, a research biologist at the university's Marine Science Institute (MSI), an adjunct faculty member in ecology, evolution and marine biology and one of the study's coauthors. "We had abundant sea stars on our reefs, and within one year we had no sea stars." The researchers haven't seen a single sunflower star since 2014.
The sunflower star's disappearance rippled through the entire kelp forest food web in what scientists call a trophic cascade. The team's research indicated that even a few sunflower stars could effectively control an area's urchin population, so without them, the populations exploded, and the kelp forests turned into barrens in many places in California.
And unfortunately, it's easier for a kelp forest to become an urchin barren than for it to return to its original state. "There are feedbacks that prevent it from shifting back," said lead author Eisaguirre. "One of them could be that the abundant urchins on the 'urchin barrens' are starved and provide no nutrition to predators, so nothing wants to eat them."
Puzzling oases
While the urchins mowed down vast tracts of kelp in some regions, especially in Northern California, the researchers noticed that kelp in marine protected areas off the Channel Islands was still relatively healthy. They suspected it may be related to the urchin's other two predators in the region: the California sheephead and California spiny lobster.
Both of these species occur primarily in Southern California, and are both heavily fished. "We thought that the protection of these other predators, even though they weren't highly abundant in the western part of the Channel, may still have helped to compensate for the loss of the sunflower star," said coauthor Katie Davis, a research scientist at MSI.
The patchwork layout of marine protected areas around the Channel Islands provided an ideal setup to test the effect marine reserves had on sea urchin predators, and accordingly, the urchins themselves. Adjacent areas are virtually identical except for their status as open or closed to fishing. What's more, the research group has been collecting data in the area for more than 20 years under the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), a long-term ecological project.
The team looked at data spanning several years before and after the onset of sea star wasting disease, examining how the assemblage of urchin predators changed. They used statistical models to investigate how different variables—like the size and abundance of the three predators, protected status of different sites and sea surface temperature—might have affected sea urchin populations. These models suggested that not only the abundance, but also the size of the remaining predators in the system were important.
Diversity and redundancy
Before the onset of the disease, the abundance of sunflower stars had the most pronounced effect on urchin populations. However, after the outbreak, the best predictors of urchin numbers were the abundance and size of the remaining predators. And, by comparing across a number of sites, the researchers found that predators were more abundant and larger within protected areas.
The scientists concluded that the marine protected areas released the predators from fishing pressures, so they were able to effectively fill the void left after the sunflower stars died off. Outside the protected areas, where the predators are smaller and less abundant, they were less able to compensate for the loss of the sea stars. This is one of the first studies showing that marine protected areas can confer ecosystem resilience by ensuring the protection of critical species functions.
"When you have multiple different species all performing similar functions, if something catastrophic happens to one of them, those functions can still be maintained," explained Caselle. In this case the function was predation, but the concept applies more broadly.
The state of affairs in Northern California supported the team's conclusion. The ocean north of San Francisco is too cold for sheephead and lobsters, and the otters that are well established on the Central Coast haven't been able to get a foothold north of the bay. As a result, the urchin population grew relatively unchecked once the sunflower star disappeared. The spiny hordes have since decimated the kelp forests of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.
The scientists also found that predators' sizes made a big difference, especially for the sheephead. "What surprised us the most was that even really small differences in sheephead size resulted in really big differences in how many urchins they could eat," Caselle said. This is because bigger fish have bigger mouths that can crack bigger sea urchins.
One of the most common effects in marine reserves is that fish grow larger and become more numerous. Many studies have shown that this increases reproduction rates, since larger fish release disproportionately more eggs than smaller fish. However, this study is one of the first to highlight another, underappreciated effect: The larger fish are also able to better control urchins, eating more of them, as well as the larger, more fertile individuals.
"And that's important because even small differences in fishing pressure can result in those size class differences for the sheephead," Caselle added.
"We are moving into a situation now where resource managers and resource users are having serious conversations about active restoration of kelp forests and other habitats being altered by climate change. Restoration may be the only option if we want kelp forests to retain their functions and their diversity," she continued. Fortunately, these findings show that we may be able to manage ecosystems for resilience to environmental changes by protecting multiple species that provide critical functions and recognizing that redundancy is important.
In the future, the team wants to investigate the feedback cycles at work, especially those involving sheephead, with an eye toward how these insights can be leveraged for ecosystem restoration. They will also continue their long-term monitoring with a special focus on understanding the effectiveness of marine protected areas and how they confer resilience to climate change.
More information: Jacob H. Eisaguirre et al, Trophic redundancy and predator size class structure drive differences in kelp forest ecosystem dynamics, Ecology (2020). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2993
UPDATED US astronaut returns to Earth after longest mission by woman
IF SHE WERE A MAN TRUMP WOULD HAVE CONGRATULATED HER
A WEEK LATER HE STILL HAS NOT MENTIONED HER
Record-setting astronaut feels good after near year in space
by Marcia Dunn
In this June 2019 photo made available by NASA, astronaut Christina Koch poses for a portrait inside of the vestibule between a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft and the Harmony module of the International Space Station. Still fresh from space, NASA's new record-setting astronaut says that aside from sore muscles and feelings of off-balance, she's readjusting well to gravity after nearly 11 months in space. Koch met with reporters on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020, six days after returning from the International Space Station. Her 328-day mission was the longest ever by a woman. (NASA via AP)
NASA's new record-setting astronaut said Wednesday that aside from sore muscles and trouble with balance, she's readjusting well to gravity after nearly 11 months in space.
Christina Koch met with reporters in Houston six days after returning to Earth from the International Space Station. Her 328-day mission—which ended last Thursday—was the longest ever by a woman.
Her neck hurt for about a day. "I felt like a 2-week-old who was actually working hard to hold up my own head," she said.
She considers herself lucky she didn't have the sore feet and burning skin suffered four years ago by NASA's all-time endurance champ, Scott Kelly, whose mission lasted 340 days.
Koch returned home to Galveston, Texas, to find a kitchen full of chips and salsa, something she'd craved in orbit, along with the Gulf of Mexico. She hit the beach with her husband, Bob, and their dog, a rescue pup named LBD for Little Brown Dog, just three days after her landing in Kazakhstan.
LBD was excited to see her, and vice versa.
"I'm not sure who was more excited to see the other," Koch said.
Their reunion was recorded. "It's just a symbol of coming back to the people and places that you love, to see your favorite animal," she said.
The 41-year-old Koch is an electrical engineer who also has a physics degree. She flew to the space station last March and was part of the first all-female spacewalk in October. Three astronauts remain at the orbiting lab, including the other half of the all-female spacewalk, NASA's Jessica Meir
NASA astronaut comes home to chips and salsa after record 11 months in space
Marcia Dunn The Associated Press Wednesday, February 12, 2020
U.S. astronaut Christina Koch reacts shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-13 space capsule about 150 km south-east of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020. (Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool Photo via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. -- NASA's new record-setting astronaut said Wednesday that aside from sore muscles and trouble with balance, she's readjusting well to gravity after nearly 11 months in space.
Christina Koch met with reporters in Houston six days after returning to Earth from the International Space Station. Her 328-day mission -- which ended last Thursday -- was the longest ever by a woman.
Her neck hurt for about a day. "I felt like a 2-week-old who was actually working hard to hold up my own head," she said.
She considers herself lucky she didn't have the sore feet and burning skin suffered four years ago by NASA's all-time endurance champ, Scott Kelly, whose mission lasted 340 days.
Koch returned home to Galveston, Texas, to find a kitchen full of chips and salsa, something she'd craved in orbit, along with the Gulf of Mexico. She hit the beach with her husband, Bob, and their dog, a rescue pup named LBD for Little Brown Dog, just three days after her landing in Kazakhstan.
LBD was excited to see her, and vice versa.
"I'm not sure who was more excited to see the other," Koch said.
Their reunion was recorded. "It's just a symbol of coming back to the people and places that you love, to see your favourite animal," she said.
The 41-year-old Koch is an electrical engineer who also has a physics degree. She flew to the space station last March and was part of the first all-female spacewalk in October. Three astronauts remain at the orbiting lab, including the other half of the all-female spacewalk, NASA's Jessica Meir.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch has returned from a record-breaking 328-day spaceflight.
While aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Koch was part of the first all-female spacewalk and participated in a number of critical research projects.
She launched for the ISS on March 14, 2019.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch and her two space-faring colleagues landed safely on the remote steppes of Kazakhstan this morning.
Koch returned from a record-breaking 328-day space mission—the longest amount of time spent in space by any woman. She launched for the International Space Station (ISS) on March 14, 2019, along with fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin.
Koch's 328-day mission is the second longest spaceflight conducted by a U.S. astronaut—Scott Kelly holds that record with 340 days spent in space—but it does break the record for the longest amount of time a woman has spent in orbit. (The record for longest consecutive time spent in space by any person goes to Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, who spent almost 438 days aboard the Mir space station in the mid 1990s.)
Groundbreaking Spacewalks
NASA
During her time on the ISS, Koch conducted six spacewalks, including the first all-female spacewalk with astronaut Jessica Meir on October 18, 2019. They repaired a faulty charge-discharge battery unit during their roughly six hour spacewalk.
Last month, Meir and Koch completed a nearly 7.5-hour spacewalk to, again, repair batteries outside the ISS. The spacewalk was briefly hampered by an issue with Koch’s helmet lights, but continued as planned.
Research and Development
NASA
While aboard the ISS, Koch was also responsible for a number of experiments designed to help NASA understand the effects of microgravity on the human body and tiny, tiny proteins. She participated in projects to explore the body's response to weightlessness, radiation, and isolation on long-durations flights, among other things.
Koch played an integral role in the Microgravity Crystals investigation, which aims to freeze proteins associated with tumor growth. Similar projects have been conducted on Earth without success, but conditions in microgravity may prove helpful in combating the growth of cancer-causing proteins.
The astronaut also participated in the Vertebral Strength investigation, which explores the impacts of microgravity on bone and muscle density. Vertebrae and muscles in the spine are particularly susceptible to degradation, which can eventually lead to fractures. Understanding how quickly this happens, and how the body reacts to these stresses, will help NASA
Like all astronauts who spend a significant amount of time in space, Koch will be subjected to a series of tests now that she’s back on Earth. Understanding the potential health hazards associated with spaceflight will help NASA prepare astronauts for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch landed on the Kazakh stepe after 328 days in space
NASA's Christina Koch returned to Earth safely on Thursday after shattering the spaceflight record for female astronauts with a stay of almost 11 months aboard the International Space Station.
Koch touched down at 0912 GMT on the Kazakh steppe after 328 days in space, along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency.
Koch was shown seated and smiling broadly after being extracted from the Soyuz descent module in the Roscosmos space agency's video footage from the landing site.
"I am so overwhelmed and happy right now," said Koch, who blasted off on March 14 last year.
Parmitano pumped his fists in the air after being lifted into his chair while Skvortsov bit into an apple.
US President Donald Trump congratulated Koch on Twitter.
"Welcome back to Earth, @Astro_Christina, and congratulations on breaking the female record for the longest stay in space! You're inspiring young women and making the USA proud!" he tweeted.
Local Kazakhs on horseback were among those to witness the capsule landing in the snow-covered steppe as support crews gathered around the three astronauts, NASA commentator Rob Navias said.
"I've never seen this," Navias exclaimed, reporting that the men stopped to chat with engineering personnel.
Koch, a 41-year-old Michigan-born engineer, on December 28 beat the previous record for a single spaceflight by a woman of 289 days, set by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson in 2016-17.
Koch called three-time flyer Whitson, now 60, "a heroine of mine" and a "mentor" in the space programme after she surpassed the record.
She spoke of her desire to "inspire the next generation of explorers."
Koch also made history as one half of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir—her classmate from NASA training—in October.
The spacewalk was initially postponed because the space station did not have two suits of the right size for women, leading to allegations of sexism.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch is set to return to Earth after 328 days living and working aboard the International Space Station
Ahead of the three-and-a-half hour journey back to Earth, Koch told NBC News on Tuesday that she would "miss microgravity".
"It's really fun to be in a place where you can just bounce around between the ceiling and the floor whenever you want," she said, smiling as she twisted her body around the ISS.
Koch will now head to NASA headquarters in Houston, via the Kazakh city of Karaganda and Cologne in Germany, where she will undergo medical testing.
Koch's medical data will be especially valuable to NASA scientists as the agency draws up plans for a long-duration manned mission to Mars.
'Make space for women'
Koch's return comes after an advert for a skincare brand ran during an intermission in the American football Super Bowl with a call to "make space for women".
The advert featured NASA astronaut Nicole Stott and saw the company promise to donate up to $500,000 to the non-profit Women Who Code, which works with young women seeking careers in tech and scientific fields.
The first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, whose spaceflight in 1963 is still the only solo mission carried out by a woman.
Russia has sent only one woman to the ISS since expeditions began in 2000—Yelena Serova whose mission launched in 2014.
Both Tereshkova and Serova are now lawmakers in the Russian parliament, where they represent the ruling United Russia party.
Unlike Koch, whose ISS stay was extended, Parmitano and Skvortsov were rounding off regular half-year missions.
Parmitano handed over command of the ISS to Roscosmos's Oleg Skripochka on Tuesday.
The 43-year-old Italian posted regular shots of the Earth while aboard, highlighting the plight of the Amazon rainforest and describing the Alps as "like a spinal column, never bending to time".
Four male cosmonauts have spent a year or longer in space as part of a single mission with Russian Valery Polyakov's 437 days the overall record.
Scott Kelly holds the record for a NASA astronaut, posting 340 days at the ISS before he returned home in 2016.
Secularism and tolerance of minority groups predicts future prosperity of countries
The data-driven analysis supports the notion that a ‘good’ society - valuing diversity, tolerance and openness - may also be a ‘productive’ society.
Press release issued: 12 February 2020
Secular cultures which are tolerant of minority groups and respectful of individuals’ rights tend to have more wealth, education and democracy, a new study by University of Bristol scientists has found.
New research, which surveyed nearly half a million people across 109 countries, shows that changes in culture generally come before any improvements in wealth, education and democracy, rather than the other way around.
Researchers from the University of Bristol (UK) and University of Tennessee (US) used the global survey data to show how secularism and openness towards minorities can be used to statistically predict future GDP per capita, secondary education enrollment and democratisation.
The outcome shows that pre-existing cultural values predicted future levels of economic growth and prosperity.
One of the policy implications of the study’s analysis is that promotion of a country’s development must take preexisting cultural values into account. For instance, promoting democracy, whether through economic exchange or regime change, will only succeed if combined with promoting openness and tolerance of minority groups.
The first places to see dramatic increases in wealth, health, education and democracy tended to be Western countries, but the causes are hard to prove. This research shows that - at least in the 20th Century - places which had the greatest improvement also tended to have pre-existing secular and tolerant cultures.
The question posed by the study’s researchers was to determine if these cultural values evolved first, or if they emerged because of increased prosperity.
Dr Daniel Lawson, the study’s statistician from the University of Bristol’s School of Mathematics, said: “We used careful statistical methods to learn cultural values from survey data, and compared them to historical statistics.
“With access to massive digitised datasets, history is becoming a science. Our data-driven analysis supports the notion that a ‘good’ society - valuing diversity, tolerance and openness - may also be a ‘productive’ society, which is a reason to be hopeful about the future.”
Damian Ruck, from the University of Tennessee, added: “This study investigates the co-evolution of cultural values with health, wealth, education and democracy around the world.
“It shows that promoting a culture of secularism, tolerance and openness, along with improved public health, may be the first step on the road to development.”
The study was supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee.
Paper:
‘Cultural prerequisites of socioeconomic development’ by D. Ruck, R.A. Bentley and D. Lawson in Royal Society Open Science
Ichthyosaurs rapidly evolved a large range of forms and sizes early in their evolution, but after a bottle neck at the end of the Triassic, show much slower rates and more restricted variety. Credit: Dr Ben Moon & Dr Tom Stubbs
A new study by scientists from the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, shows a well-known group of extinct marine reptiles had an early burst in their diversity and evolution—but that a failure to adapt in the long-run may have led to their extinction.
Ichthyosaurs were fish-like reptiles that first appeared about 250 million years ago and quickly diversified into highly capable swimmers, filling a broad range of sizes and ecologies in the early Mesozoic oceans. However, this rapid pace didn't last long and an evolutionary bottleneck 200 million years ago, through which only one lineage of ichthyosaurs survived, led to much slower evolution in much of their long history.
Dr. Ben Moon, who led the research, published in the journal Communications Biology, said: "Ichthyosaurs are a fascinating group of animals to work on because they evolved so many adaptations for living in water very quickly: a fish-like body and tail fin, giving birth to live young rather than laying eggs, and lots of different feeding styles.
"Because of this we expected to see a rapid evolution early after ichthyosaurs first appeared, but we were staggered by just how big this early burst was and how relatively short it was."
There are over 100 known species of ichthyosaur from between 250–90 million years ago in the Mesozoic Era, when the infamous dinosaurs ruled the land and the seas were full of marine reptiles, the top predators that filled comparable roles to dolphins, orcas, and sharks in modern seas.
This very complete specimen of the ichthyosaur Suevoleviathan is from the Early Jurassic of Germany. Many excellently preserved ichthyosaur fossils are known from this time and have been collected from the UK and Germany. Mary Anning from Lyme Regis is intimately associated with fossil collection and found the first recognized ichthyosaur fossils in 1810. Credit: Dr Ben Moon & Dr Tom Stubbs
The study used state-of-the-art computational methods and looked at two types of data, one covering skull size and the other including many features of ichthyosaurs' skeleton. All methods show an 'early burst' of evolution in ichthyosaurs, with high rates and rapid variation soon after the appearance of the group, that quickly diminishes later on.
Co-author Dr. Tom Stubbs said: "Ichthyosaurs really dominated early in the Triassic (252–201 million years ago), rapidly evolving in an ocean with few predators soon after the largest known mass extinction in Earth's history. However, the seas quickly became more crowded and competitive, and ichthyosaurs lost their top position in the Jurassic (201–145 million years ago) to other marine reptiles like plesiosaurs and pliosaurs.
"It may well have been the ichthyosaurs' decreasing evolutionary rates which made them less able to adapt quickly, and therefore less diverse and competitive, allowing other marine reptiles to take over as the top predators."
Despite slower evolution and going through a bottleneck at the end of the Triassic period, ichthyosaurs remained a common group but had less variation between them. These are perhaps best known ichthyosaurs, found in several UK locations, including Lyme Regis in Dorset, and first collected by Mary and Joseph Anning.
The huge ichthyosaur Temnodontosaurus from the Early Jurassic of Germany. This specimen is about 7 m long, but other ichthyosaurs grew up to 21 m. Credit: Dr Ben Moon & Dr Tom Stubbs
Dr. Ben Moon added: "Even though ichthyosaurs were evolving more slowly in their last 100 million years, they are still known from many species, but with less variety between them.
"It's possible that we might find more ichthyosaurs out there that buck this trend, but it seems that this lack of variety was eventually the cause of their extinction when global conditions became less favourable around 90 million years ago. Ichthyosaurs were simply unable to adapt."Scientists put ichthyosaurs in virtual water tanks
More information: Early high rates and disparity in the evolution of ichthyosaurs. Communications Biology. DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0779-6
Religion-based tattoo on college student in Baylor University study. Credit: Kevin Dougherty
With more than a quarter of U.S. adults now having tattoos—and nearly half of millennials sporting them—only a handful of studies have focused on religious tattoos. But a new study by researchers at Baylor University and Texas Tech University analyzes faith-centered tattoos and is the first to use visual images of them.
The study, published in the journal Visual Studies, analyzed 752 photos of tattoos taken at a Christian university in the United States and found that nearly 20% of those were overtly religious in content.
"The embrace of tattoos in the United States reflects a generational shift toward greater individualism and self-expression," said lead author Kevin D. Dougherty, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Baylor University. "Americans born since the 1970s have increasingly embraced tattoos as an acceptable means to communicate identity and belonging, whereas previous generations of Americans largely did not. Today, men and women in the United States are equally likely to have tattoos."
A 2016 Harris Poll showed that 29% of American adults had at least one tattoo—up from 14% in 2008.
"An interesting discovery in our research is that the religious tattoos of college students are more likely than non-religious ones to face inward, toward the owner," Dougherty said. An example is a tattoo on the inner wrist.
"We speculate that religious tattoos may serve a different purpose than do tattoos of favorite sports teams, occupations or hobbies. While any visible tattoo is a public proclamation, tattoos oriented toward the owner represent a personal reminder of identity or affiliation. In this way, religious tattoos are personal but not private. They may encourage individuals to live in accordance with their religious beliefs."
Religion-based tattoo on college student in Baylor University study. Credit: Kevin Dougherty
The study also found some evidence that a generally visible tattoo may be conceptually different from tattoos hidden by clothing, said co-author Jerome R. Koch, Ph.D., professor of sociology at Texas Tech University. He has studied body art on college campuses for more than a decade.
"Generally visible tattoos seem intended more toward stories of life and remembrance, which the wearer may be willing to openly discuss," Koch said. "Tattoos which are only visible, say, to someone else with whom they are intimately involved may be more closely tied to sense of self, private memories and/or emotional conflicts."
Photos used in the study were taken by sociology students as part of a semester-long research project. Researchers analyzed 752 photos by owners' gender; whether the tattoos were religious in nature; and tattoo size—small (1 inch by 1 inch or smaller), medium (3 inches by 3 inches) or large (larger than 3 inches or more than a quarter of an arm or leg). The study also examined whether the tattoo faced the owner or faced out; and whether those with religious content featured an image, text or both image and text.
The analysis found that:
Overt religious content appeared in 145 photos (19% of total sample).
More men in the photos (23%) had religious tattoos than women (17%).
Of the religious tattoos on women, most (69%) were small and in more easily concealed locations. The most frequent sites of their religious tattoos were the wrist (23%), foot (18%) and back (18%).
Men's religious tattoos were more likely to be large than non-religious ones (61% compared to 44%). Most prevalent sites for men's religious tattoos were upper arm (26%), forearm (21%) and back (19%).
Half of the religious tattoos were images—the most common being the cross. More than one quarter were text, often Bible references, with a slight majority being New Testament references. But the Old Testament book of Psalms was most popular. Images with text comprised 21% of religious tattoos.
Religious tattoos were more likely than non-religious ones to face the owner, with 26% facing inward, in contrast to 18 % of non-religious tattoos.
Researchers said they have no way of knowing if these findings apply to all students at the university or to students at other universities. They also say it is probable that they undercounted religious tattoos—in part because tattoos may have religious or spiritual connotations but not be recognized as such.
Tattoo symbols express the belief that God is greater than the highs and lows of the owner's depression. Credit: Kevin Dougherty
Dougherty and Koch are expanding their research to a national level with random samples.
"So far, all our work has involved college students as respondents," Koch said. "Since we know tattoos tell life stories, broadening our respondent base is the next logical step. How might life stories expressed through body art—religious and otherwise—differ by wider differences in the race, age and social class?"
"We have a study in progress on religion and tattoos in a national sample of U.S. adults," Dougherty said. "Our research question is: Do religious people in the United States today get tattoos? We also have plans for a national survey on religious tattoos. This will allow us to determine the percentage of Americans with religious tattoos and how they differ from other Americans without a tattoo or with tattoos that have no religious significance."
Future research also might examine how tattoos are viewed in other parts of the globe, Koch said.
"It would be interesting to compare and contrast the path toward legitimation of tattoos in different parts of the developed Western world," he said. "We have some information from other scholars that, for example, conservative Catholicism in Latin America may continue to stigmatize tattoo wearers. So broader religious/folk culture may be in play where there is greater antipathy or stricter cultural norms against body art. Conversely, some of our students have reported that the fact their tattoo was religious lent legitimation with their families more than a tattoo of another type might."
