razib
Posts by this author
February 27, 2010
Check out Dr. Dan MacArthur's assessment of the Pacific Biosciences presentation at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology conference. Also check out Genetic Inferences take on AGBT (yes, they're really original with catchy blog names at the Sanger Institute!). In any case, a friend of mine…
February 27, 2010
The Genetics of Human Adaptation: Hard Sweeps, Soft Sweeps, and Polygenic Adaptation:
There has long been interest in understanding the genetic basis of human adaptation. To what extent are phenotypic differences among human populations driven by natural selection? With the recent arrival of large…
February 26, 2010
For a hot-button issue which is arguably the social lodestar for American culture-wars people make a lot of unfounded assertions and assumptions about abortion. For example, poking around the GSS data set it's pretty evident that there isn't a sex difference in regards to the legal status of…
February 26, 2010
US routs Finland 6-1, will play for hockey gold. It's really not even fair; this is a nation which was oppressed by Swedes for nearly a thousand years. I really hope those losers beat Slovakia so we can face them for the gold. Most of the time we don't have to think about them, except in the areas…
February 25, 2010
Social Cognition in Dogs, or How did Fido get so smart?. This you know:
Domesticated dogs seem to have an uncanny ability to understand human communicative gestures. If you point to something the dog zeroes in on the object or location you're pointing to (whether it's a toy, or food, or to get his…
February 25, 2010
Citing shame, danger, one Madoff seeks name change:
Stephanie Madoff, who is married to Madoff's son Mark, has asked New York Supreme Court for permission to change her last name to Morgan and also, according to local media reports, made similar requests for her two young children.
February 25, 2010
Mike the Mad Biologist has a post up, Yes, We Have a PhD Glut... Which is interesting, because it isn't has if getting a doctorate is financially lucrative. Though getting a medical doctorate is financially lucrative. Perhaps the medical profession has the right idea, control labor supply?* Right…
February 25, 2010
The New York Times has an article attempting to clarify complex political tensions cross-linked with religious identity (or not), In an Iraqi City, the Real Ballot Contest Is for Shiite Leadership. The author, Anthony Shadid, states:
The contest bears down on one of the unanswered questions in Iraq…
February 24, 2010
Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent:
The origin of values and preferences is an unresolved theoretical question in behavioral and social sciences. The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, derived from the Savanna Principle and a theory of the evolution of general intelligence, suggests…
February 24, 2010
Arboreality has allowed for the evolution of increased longevity in mammals:
The evolutionary theory of aging predicts that species will experience delayed senescence and increased longevity when rates of extrinsic mortality are reduced. It has long been recognized that birds and bats are…
February 24, 2010
Human face recognition ability is specific and highly heritable:
Compared with notable successes in the genetics of basic sensory transduction, progress on the genetics of higher level perception and cognition has been limited. We propose that investigating specific cognitive abilities with well-…
February 24, 2010
The IGF1 small dog haplotype is derived from Middle Eastern gray wolves:
Background
A selective sweep containing the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) gene is associated with size variation in domestic dogs. Intron 2 of IGF1 contains a SINE element and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) found…
February 23, 2010
Denmark Introduces Harrowing New Tourism Ads Directed By Lars Von Trier
I think "Karen the single mom" ad does a better job of selling Denmark:
February 23, 2010
A few months ago I read Empires of the Silk Road, where the author makes the argument that contrary to the common perception of Inner Asians as uncouth barbarians who were inimical to civilization as we understand it, in fact these populations were critical to the emergence of particular civilized…
February 23, 2010
Papers Link Husband of Professor to '93 Threat:
The husband of the neuroscientist accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville told a witness he wanted to harm a Harvard professor who was later mailed a pipe bomb in 1993, according to newly released federal…
February 23, 2010
Two posts for your consideration.
On the Less Wrong weblog, Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych. I am not one to make blanket dismissals of "evolutionary psychology." But, there are structural problems with the strong incentives toward generating hypotheses at the equipoise of novelty and…
February 22, 2010
For various reasons it was no longer feasible to run the Gene Expression Classic website on Blogger. So I've switched over to WP. Please update your RSS feeds if you are subscribed to that blog:
http://www.gnxp.com/wp/feed
February 21, 2010
There's apparently a game in this sport at the Olympics tonight. Canada is the favorite. Which is awesome, because if the USA loses, no one in the USA will care. But if the USA wins, we'll get to laugh at the Canadians. Don't lie, you know Canada is the country that keeps on giving in terms of…
February 21, 2010
Lost of discussion about Basques below. Some interesting examples which are less speculative.
Hungary = Language changes, genes do not
The intrusion of ethnic Magyars, and later the settlement of Kipchak Turks fleeing the Mongols, within Hungary is historically attested. Additionally, down to the…
February 20, 2010
An interesting exchange in Nature on ways to conceptualize the evolution of virulence. First, Adaptation and the evolution of parasite virulence in a connected world:
Adaptation is conventionally regarded as occurring at the level of the individual organism, where it functions to maximize the…
February 20, 2010
From The Boston Globe, Ambition fueled a smoldering rage:
A friendship of sorts was kindled, based largely on a mutual interest in science. Over coffee and lunch, they would discuss Bishop's research and McCann's work in biotechnology.
Bishop never spoke of her husband or growing family.
During one…
February 20, 2010
Ruchira Paul points me to a blogger who's been digging through Bishop's recent published works, and there's a lot of fishy stuff in there. You have to read it to believe it. Here's the conclusion:
There is no question that Dr. Bishop is smart. But it also seems very evident that she suffers…
February 20, 2010
Covers all the major angles. Nice that there's a newspaper which can support this sort of reporting (on the other hand). Not surprising that Amy Bishop seems to have some history of delusions of grandeur, she's claiming that both she and her husband have an I.Q. of 180. That's 5.3 standard…
February 17, 2010
The language families of Europe fall into a few broad categories. There are the Indo-European languages, which include the Romance, Germanic, Slavic and Celtic subgroups, along with Greek and Albanian. The Iranian languages and most of the languages of India are also Indo-European. Then there are…