I’ve criticized economists for being a bit cavalier about nutritional basics before. A comment below points me to this working paper, Agricultural Specialization and Health in Ancient and Medieval Europe: It has been argued that protein-rich milk and beef are major determinants of the biological standard of living for societies of the late 18th and […]

Check out this story about scientists who use drugs like Ritalin to get an extra edge. I’m not too interested in the problems with the methodology of the survey. Rather, I wonder, what do you take? And why?

Update: Added a chart. One of the major themes of the past few decades has been the perception that greater cultural homogenization is occurring because of globalization, which is enabled by the changes in technological and institutional parameters. Shared material culture & values may piggyback along the cresting wave of economic integration and growth. An […]

PULITZER WINNER: Harmon of ‘NYT‘ Studied DNA After Birth of Child . Recall that Harmon interviewed a contributor to this weblog as well as Half Sigma for a recent article. Via Jonathan Eisen. Labels: human biodiversity

When it comes to association studies population substructure is something you have to keep in mind, but what about age? On the Replication of Genetic Associations: Timing Can Be Everything!: The failure of researchers to replicate genetic-association findings is most commonly attributed to insufficient statistical power, population stratification, or various forms of between-study heterogeneity or […]

Identification of ten loci associated with height highlights new biological pathways in human growth & Genome-wide association analysis identifies 20 loci that influence adult height. ScienceDaily has a long review. Update: I was pretty sure Genetic Future would hit this, so I didn’t say much. Well, here’s what he notes: ScienceDaily puts a positive spin […]

Since I know there are some nerds in the audience, I thought I would point to this radio interview with Richard Stallman. Every response Stallman is going to make to any substantive question can be derived from his ideology, but it’s always funny to see him interacting with normals. The dynamic reminds me a lot […]

The American Conservative now has a group weblog. Via Steve.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to read The Prehistoric Origins of European Economic Integration and throw up a post on the topic. I’ve read it, but I don’t have anything intelligent to say on it right now. Unfortunately, when it comes to economic history I’m at the left edge of […]

DNA from Pre-Clovis Human Coprolites in Imbler, North America: The timing of the first human migration into the Americas and its relation to the appearance of the Clovis technological complex in North America ca. 11-10.8 thousand radiocarbon years before present (14C ka B.P.) remains contentious. We establish that humans were present at Paisley 5 Mile […]

Just got a note from someone I trust that a massive QTL for IQ has been discovered, on the order of 10 points in effect for a substitution of the the major allele for the minor (it’s additive and independent, so homozygote minor allele ~ 20 points greater than homozygote major allele). The novel variant […]