Check out this cool paper in PLOS Genetics: In this first application of the approximate Bayesian computation approach using the serial coalescent, we demonstrated the estimation of historical demographic parameters from ancient DNA. We estimated the timing and severity of a population bottleneck in an endemic subterranean rodent, Ctenomys sociabilis, over the last 10,000 y […]

Now, we know that Europeans seem to be light in skin color because of fixation of a derived allele at a locus other than MC1R. In contrast, East Asians are “ancestral” at the locus where Europeans are “derived,” but they show evidence of strong positive selection for the Arg67Gln haplotype on MC1R. Here are Arg67Gln […]

A novel domain suggests a ciliary function for ASPM, a brain size determining gene: The N-terminal domain of abnormal spindle-like microcephaly-associated protein (ASPM) is identified as a member of a novel family of ASH (ASPM, SPD-2, Hydin) domains. These domains are present in proteins associated with cilia, flagella, the centrosome and the Golgi complex, and […]

In the GNXP Forum I have placed a PDF titled skincolorsexual.pdf. It is the full PDF of Sexual Selection as a cause of human skin color variation: The dark skin of tropical peoples is likely to be an adaptation to the strong ultraviolet (UV) radiation near the equator, perhaps protecting against sunburn or degradation of […]

Nick Wade is interviewed on NPR for about 30 minutes about his new book Before the Dawn.

Since nobody else has noted it on here yet I figured I might as well: Griffe’s poked his head back up for the first time since the Summers flap, with an essay on “Politics, Prison and Race”. Nothing particularly new here — using similar methods as he’s used in past essays, he posits a model […]

Next Tuesday Kuala Lumpur will host an important two day seminar on Islam and Life in Space. With Malyasian astronauts likely to be sent to the ISS by the Russians there is an urgency to the question of how Islam should be practiced in the unique conditions of space. For instance, with the station orbiting […]

I’m not an alien. With that declaration out of the way let me say that I’m starting to think that perhaps I’m not part of the demographic that CBS is targeting for their show NCIS. I have deduced though that the demographic that is targeted must have something to do with aliens, either as the […]

Tara at Aetiology has a post about pictures of hot chicks making masculine guys less prone to be hard-asses. This might fall into the “and someone funded this research???” category. Nevertheless, I have two stories to recount about “hot” chicks which readers might find amusing. First, a few years ago a friend of mine was […]

I was skimming through Glenn Conroy’s Reconstructing Human Origins today, and it was like I was reading John Hawks’ weblog. Conroy spends a good chapter ripping into simplistic conflations of gene genealogies with the evolutionary history of a species. He hits points like the likely non-neutrality of mtDNA & Y lineages, the affect that different […]

Liza Gross has an essay in PLoS Biology, “Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Biology”, about Jon D. Miller’s work on scientific literacy. The good news:Only 17% of adults in the U.S. are “scientifically literate,” but that’s higher than in Canada, Japan, and Europe. The bad news: in a 2005 survey measuring the proportion […]

Via Dienekes, Study explores how accurately men gauge paternity. The paper itself, How well does paternity confidence match actual paternity? Evidence from worldwide nonpaternity rates, has been available in preprint form for a while now. I mention it here in part because it can sometimes be difficult to track down the reference in our archives. […]

You want evidence that Finnish people are freaks? Watch this video (very not work safe). Hat tip, Josh, Evil-Baby-Photographer. P.S. Jaakkeli && GNXP = top two hits on google for “Jaakkeli.” P.P.S. Is this Jaakkeli???

From Nature, Independent evolution of bitter-taste sensitivity in humans and chimpanzees: It was reported over 65 years ago that chimpanzees, like humans, vary in taste sensitivity to the bitter compound phenylthiocarbamide (PTC)1. This was suggested to be the result of a shared balanced polymorphism…In humans, variable PTC sensitivity is largely controlled by the segregation of […]

No shot will go unanswered! Anyway, here is a response from Judith Rich Harris to Agnostic’s review of No Two Alike: I have some comments on Agnostic’s interesting and thought-provoking review of my book No Two Alike. According to Agnostic, my theory is simply a “macro” version of developmental noise. In other words, he claims […]

Last fall when I read a spate of books on Catholicism in the United States I noted that many scholars perceive 1960 to be the “high point” of organized American Roman Catholicism. John Kennedy was elected, and Roman Catholics were no longer viewed as the papist “Other,” but neither were they embroiled in the culture […]

…according to Pandagon.

As some of you may know I quite enjoy going to blogs in which my comments are classed as contrarion. Unfortunately, like the fervent Marxists of old, today’s zealous defenders of the faith are just as intolerant of having dissenting opinions appear in their midst. Here’s how the feminist version of a Communist show trail […]

Over at my other blog I offer opinions as to the reality that physicists are more intelligent than biologists when it comes to g (I wouldn’t be surprised if theoretical physicists weren’t the best when it comes to eye-hand coordination, but I won’t hold that against them). My rough conclusion is that if you had […]

I. Introduction Almost ten years ago, Judith Rich Harris (The Nurture Assumption) reviewed the literature on the tiny role played by the “shared environment” — i.e., anything two people growing up in the same household share — in shaping adult personality and intelligence, a central finding of behavior genetics. Depending on the particular trait measured, […]