Population, Warfare, and the Male Supremacist Complex

We present cross-cultural data on the existence of a pervasive institutional and ideological complex of male supremacy in band and village sociocultural systems, and we identify warfare as the most important cause of this complex. We explain the perpetuation of warfare in band and village society and its interaction with selective female infanticide as a response to the need to regulate population growth in the absence of effective or less costly alternatives. Our hypothesis is supported by a demographic analysis of 561 local band and village populations from 112 societies.     

Comparative studies of three methods for measuring pepsin activity

Comparison has been made of a simple method originated by Absolon and modified in our laboratories for assay of proteolytic activity using RISA (radioactive iodinated serum albumin—Abbott Laboratories), with the commonly used photometric methods of Anson and Kunitz. In this method, pepsin was incubated with an albumin substrate containing RISA, followed by precipitation of the undigested substrate with trichloroacetic acid and measurement of radioactive digestion products in the supernatant fluid. The I¹³¹—albumin bond was shown in the present studies to be altered only by the proteolytic activity, and not by the incubation procedures at various values of pH. Any free iodine present originally in the RISA was removed by a single passage through a resin column (amberlite IRA-400-C1). Pepsin was shown to be most stable in solution at a pH of 5.5. Activity of pepsin was shown to be maximal when it was incubated with albumin at a pH of 2.5. Pepsin activity was shown to be altered in the presence of various electrolytes. Pepsin activity measured by the RISA and Anson methods as a function of concentration or of time of incubation indicated that these two methods are in good agreement and are equally sensitive. Consistently smaller standard errors were obtained by the RISA method of pepsin assay than were obtained with either of the other methods.