Recent news about a possible ’gene for homosexuality’ on the X chromosome made me think a bit about the special factors influencing selection on the X and Y chromosomes. I may post more about that in future, but, as usual, I got sidetracked by a subsidiary issue. There are more X than Y chromosomes in […]

So in this superheated political season it should come as no surprise that political bloodlines are mingling with Halloween themes. Huh, you say. In a roundabout way, let me explain. Surely you recall Razib’s post that made the point that 8% of Asian men are descendents of Genghis Khan. Perhaps you also saw the Vice-Presidential […]

Ethnic Clashes Erupt in China, Leaving 150 Dead. The story details the strife and rioting that occurred after a Hui taxi driver struck a Han girl and killed her. The Han are who we generally think of when we speak of “Chinese,” and form between 90-95% of the China’s population (some of the same tendencies […]

Interesting, although short and somewhat uninformative, story about how IVF embryos are now being screened for signs of colon cancer in London. Posted by Arcane at 05:13 PM

St. John, Warren and Rachel L. Swarns. “Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows”. The New York Times. 2004 October 31. In towns big and small across the country, couples and family members on opposite sides of the political fence are struggling to maintain amicable relationships as a highly polarized political season reaches its apex. With the presidential […]

Posts that deal too closely with the kind of stuff you can find at Daily Kos, Polipundit, Andrew Sullivan or Kausfiles will be deleted. Long commentaries on foreign policy are fine, ruminations on the relationships between political ideologies are fine, etc. etc. etc. Also, many of the blogs run by posters are GNXP have political […]

For those who have been monitoring all of the various comments sections at this site, I’m sure you have noticed that there has been raging a rather strong debate here and there about what journals are credible sources for material and which are not. That brings me to a great question that I simply cannot […]

Anyone else want to make a guess? Posted by scottm at 04:33 PM

We knew he would, a Kerry victory is in the best interest of Al Qaeda. Update Ok everyone, let me first state that this was a joke. I have seen several leftie-bloggers seriously say that the terrorists prefer Bush and endorse him, so this is my way of thumbing my nose at the left. I […]

Something Awful manages to nail down the differences between Republicans and Democrats with their New Voter Exam. Posted by Thrasymachus at 08:19 AM

And the role of Malik on this weeks Enterprise (with Data creating superhumans) will be played by Paul Atreides. Posted by scottm at 08:16 PM

Cancer is far more common today than at any time in history, according to a study of 3,000 human skeletons in a Croatian archaeological collection. The researchers argue that cancer is more common today because people now have much longer life spans than they did just a few centuries ago. In Croatia, for example, the […]

Gladstone, Bill [I shit you not]. “From King David to Freud to Marx, new book traces a family’s history”. JTA. 2004 October 24. In [“The Lurie Legacy,” Neil] Rosenstein links the Lurie lineage — which includes such modern luminaries as Sigmund Freud and Martin Buber — to Rashi, the 11th-century sage, and many other revered […]

Hong Kong pop star Faye Wong in upcoming sci-fi movie 2046; Ruan Lingyu, the Chinese Garbo: when she took fatal overdose in 1935 at age 25, 3 women committed suicide during 3-mile long funeral procession & NY Times ran front page story as ‘the most spectacular funeral of the century’ Mark Cousins has a sensational […]

Dominus, Susan. “Growing Up With Mom and Mom”. The New York Times Magazine. 2004 October 24. When [Cade Russo-Young] went to Smith College, she met other women who, like her, were lesbians and had been raised by lesbian mothers. In some cases, she said, those women faced mothers who actively disapproved, distressed that their children […]

There has been recent talk about the idea that ~120 IQ is ideal for a president, or an executive in the generality. I realized that there might be a way to take a stab at this topic as far as the US government is concerned: analyze the educational backgrounds of the 100 senators and 50 […]

(27 October, 18.00 GMT) Search Google News for ‘Hobbit’ right now and you’ll fall off your chair. Addendum from Razib: I was in the air most of today, and paid $4.95 to access Cincinnati airport’s wireless connection, and boy was it worth it, as I saw this post by David. I didn’t have much time […]

This post evolved out of a question razib posed to me in the comments section of an earlier post. I’m keeping it in extended-entry since it’s political and, typically of me, unnecessarily loquacious: it concerns the general topic of US-born Asian kids going to their mother countries and, through the pop culture, giving the public […]

Hey all. A weird question, those of you running weblogs, have you been getting emails from companies (not really spam, though definitely solicitations) to promote technologies that aid in reading and tracking blogs? You know, better RSS aggregators and reader-side block-tracking so that you can know when GNXP has a post on your cellphone or […]

You might want to track the Cassini/Huygens site (always on the sidebar) as the probe nears Titan. Posted by razib at 01:40 AM