Having seen Razib’s post below, I thought it would be interesting to look at the British Prison Statistics, which include a breakdown of the religious affiliation of people in prison. The bottom line is that atheists do seem to be a relatively wicked lot, but the religious can hardly claim to be above temptation. Some […]

Ron Gunhame has the goods.

What was up with the New Orleans Saints becoming a symbol of all that is good and right in this country? As far as I’m concerned, that’s reason enough to be satisfied that they got crushed.

“Why chicks don’t dig the singularity“. The interviewee mentions that Huey Newton (of the Black Panthers) was interested in sociobiology; it’s true, he actually published an article on self-deception with Robert Trivers–read it in Natural Selection and Social Theory. (via ALDaily)

Bob Trivers just won the Crafoord Prize in bioscience! For those who would like to become more familiar with Trivers’ work, I highly recommend Natural Selection and Social Theory. Genes in Conflict is also a good read if you want some molecular level evolutionary exposition. Finally, Trivers looms large in both Mother Nature and Defenders […]

If there is one trend in American life that most irks [group], it is probably [inconvenient truth]. It’s not the [inconvenient truth] itself that bothers them… It is the perception of [inconvenient truth] and, worse, the … discussion of [inconvenient truth] that is so irritating. It offends their view of [philosophy], helps justify all sorts […]

There is now a sign up page for A Week of Science. Basically I’ll take the feeds and load them up on Justscience.net with Feedpress the day before the 5th. You can see the current list here. You can insert the sign up page with this code into your own site (remove the styling if […]

Charles Murray has a three-piece series of op-eds in the WSJ. They describe education policy recommendations for three levels of the IQ distribution: Intelligence in the Classroom: Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them. What’s Wrong With Vocational School? Too many Americans are going to college.  […]

RPM and Chris have hit most of the points in regards to the Just Science project. To be short, what it’s not about is anti-science. Just one week, that’s all. It certainly isn’t about traffic or comment response. It isn’t about ease of posting, expressing a clever opinion, but rather a tight exposition of a […]

Martin has Four Stone Hearth up, go check it out!

A Week of Science. More later (We’re on board here @ GNXP)….

I started reading Daniel Larison because he is pretty clear headed about the Mitt Romney candidacy. But wow, I seem to have caught a blogger at his peak. I know whereof I speak, there is a time in one’s blogging “career” when the posts come fast and furious, unbidden, demanding release. The blog brooks no […]

Over at Genetics and Health Hsien-Hsien Lei tells the tale of a friend who can’t smell: The Anosmia Foundation says that approximately two to five million American adults have disorders of taste and smell, which is a serious problem because they’re not able to smell burning fires, poisonous fumes, leaking gas, or spoiled food. Not […]

Via Genetics and Health, I see Nature Genetics has posted answers to their “Question of the Year” from a number of notable geneticists: What would you do if it became possible to sequence the equivalent of a full human genome for only $1,000? Read it to see what the big shots in the genetics world […]

Nature Chemical Biology has a bunch of free content up in the form of an RNA Focus. There is, for instance, this review of some of the most recent advances in understanding RNA interference. Small interfering RNAs are cut out of larger precursors by an enzyme called Dicer. From there, they are loaded into the […]

One of the papers mentioned before on the lack of association between the derived haplotypes at ASPM and Microcephalin and intelligence is now out. Here’s the abstract: Recent studies have made great strides towards identifying putative genetic events underlying the evolution of the human brain and its emergent cognitive capacities. One of the most intriguing […]

Go see it here: a blog carnival devoted to the best ecology and environmental science posts from across the blogosphere. This might be a nice complement to Tangled Bank…

Speaking of race, literally on the heels of a separate study (by a separate lab) on variation in gene expression between European and East Asian populations, a new study in the AJHG quantifies within- and between-population variation in gene expression for Africans and Europeans, an open question at the end of Rik’s post on the […]

There has been surprisingly little outrage in the internets over Steve Hsu’s argument that the concept of “race” has a biological basis. But still, it might be worth going over in a bit more detail the evidence supporting him, so that’s what this post will aim to do; it will hopefully be worthwhile to have […]

Ruchira Paul points me to this article about the Alevis of Turkey. CIA factbook says of Turkey: “Muslim 99.8% (mostly Sunni).” The articles suggests that about 20% of Turkish citizens are Alevi (I say “Turkish citizens” because many Alevis are Kurds, not ethnic Turks). It goes on to describe their religion, which is hard to […]