About 5 years ago William Gunn was about to start blogging at Gene Expression; but life intervened and it never happened. Well, he’s started posting at his own blog regularly, Synthesis, and I recommend it for anyone’s RSS feed (you already have it if you are subscribed to The DNA Network, a really great way […]

Over the past few days I’ve heard some coverage of the horrible earthquake in China, and the anguish of the parents whose children were lost as schools collapsed. I was struck when one reporter noted that for many of the parents this was their only child…. That got me thinking about the implications of the […]

Via Luis, Genetic variant in the glucose transporter type 2 is associated with higher intakes of sugars in two distinct populations: Glucose sensing in the brain has been proposed to be involved in regulating food intake, but the mechanism is not known. Glucose transporter type 2 (GLUT2)-null mice fail to control their food intake in […]

A study on the correlation between IL1RAPL1 and human cognitive ability: This study aimed to investigate the effects of IL1RAPL1 on the human cognitive ability…Results indicated that genotypes of DXS1218, DXS9896 and rs12847959 were associated with memory/concentration factor intelligence quotient (IQ)…DXS1218 also associated with full IQ, verbal IQ, and performance IQ…rs12847959 were related to verbal […]

99% Genetic? Individual Differences in Executive Function Are Almost Perfectly Heritable: The results from this approach are jaw-dropping: variance shared among each variety of executive function (inhibition, updating, and shifting) is nearly perfectly heritable: the contribution of the “A” component to those correlations is 99%. This heritable variance in the common executive function predicts nearly […]

Here. The embed is the best bet if you can view it; the download often fails (server has been slammed?). Only a moderate amount of discussion about religion; Dawkins talks a fair bit about an obscure field, evolutionary biology. Well done. Via Accidental Blogger.

Edward Luttwak has a column (via The Corner) up pointing out that by Muslim measures Barack Obama is an apostate; so it is permissible that he should be killed. This is true, and I think if you asked most Muslims they would accede to the principle here. But as a matter of practicality these sorts […]

Last year p-ter put up a post pointing to useful online tools such as Haplotter. One of the great things about biology today is that so much of the data from genomics is being thrown out there within reach of the plebs. And a lot of value is being added through user interfaces which smooth […]

Gender Differences in the Mu Rhythm of the Human Mirror-Neuron System: The present findings indirectly lend support to the extreme male brain theory put forward by Baron-Cohen (2005), and may cast some light on the mirror-neuron dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders. The mu rhythm in the human mirror-neuron system can be a potential biomarker of […]

Sandy has two posts over at Anthropology.net worth checking out; The sexiness of facial symmetry across cultures and species and Earliest known archaeological evidence of Americans found in Monte Verde, Chile.

Over at The Corner they are discussing an interview series with Tom Wolfe. Wolfe claimed that Charles Darwin was a plagiarist. Derb pushed back. Since they keep talking about the interview, I decided to watch. A few notes….Wolfe says that Darwin was an obscure man who had a famous grandfather (Erasmus I’m assuming, not Josiah […]

Continuing my series of notes on the work of Sewall Wright, this one deals with the subject of genetic drift. I had originally planned to call this note ‘Inbreeding and the decline of genetic variance’, but anyone interested in the matters covered here, and searching for them on the internet, is far more likely to […]

In the comments here, rosko points me to a study on the effects on MC4R, a gene implicated in natural variation in human weight, on pathways involved in sexual function. It’s well known, of course, that genetic pathways can be involved in multiple physiological processes–in particular, signaling pathway can generate many different phenotypes depending on […]

Having already motivated this series, I’ll provide the first example of how to put your time to more productive use than participating in the WikiProject G.I. Joe or the still more urgent WikiProject Transformers. If you get interesting results, post them on your blog and provide a link in the comments here. I’ll gather up […]

I was recently directed to this panegyric on Wikipedia, which claims that editing Wikipedia is a better use of the cognitive surplus that might otherwise be spent watching TV. Like 99% of technology pundits, the author is so out of touch with reality that it is not worth taking him to task in depth. Instead, […]

For many years, Grey Squirrels (an introduced North American species) has been driving out the indigenous Red Squirrel over most of mainland Britain. But now it is reported that a mutant black variety of the Grey Squirrel is threatening to displace the Greys. Apparently, the black ones have higher testosterone levels, are more aggressive, and […]

Two studies report this week on the association of variation near MC4R with body mass. This is the second convincingly replicated locus to be implicated in natural variation in weight, the first being FTO. There are a couple reasons I find this association interesting. 1. Coding mutations in MC4R are known to cause severe obesity. […]

For general amusement, see this report from the BBC. (Via John Hawks.)