In 2003, Avshalom Caspi and colleagues published an influential article (Google Scholar lists it as having almost 2000 citations in 6 years) claiming that genetic variation in the seratonin transposter gene influences how people respond to traumatic events–the particular, in terms of risk of depression. For years, this has been the poster-child example of gene-environment […]

PLoS Genetics has a nice paper identifying copy-number polymorphism in the transcription factor SOX5 as the causal mutation leading to the pea-comb phenotype (the bottom panels on the right) in chickens. The mutation leads to more widespread expression of the gene at a particular developmental time point, which presumably represses comb formation. Labels: Genetics

The World Values Survey Wave 5 has several questions about how much people trust others. In particular, one question asks about religion and another nationality. There are four responses: -Trust completely-Trust a little-Not trust very much-Not trust at all In the WVS there are proportions for each class for many nations. I took each proportion, […]

Slate has a good explanation for why stores might be cutting back on plus sizes despite the fact that Americans are getting fatter. In part it has to the do with the fact that the distribution of weights is skewed to the right. The costs of production result in a focus toward the modal body […]

When Young Men Are Scarce, They’re More Likely To Play The Field Than To Propose: In places where young women outnumber young men, research shows the hemlines rise but the marriage rates don’t because the young men feel less pressure to settle down as more women compete for their affections. But when those men reach […]

A study from Wicherts et al published online in the journal Intelligence today: On the basis of several reviews of the literature, Lynn… concluded that the average IQ of the Black population of sub-Saharan Africa lies below 70. In this paper, the authors systematically review published empirical data on the performance of Africans on the […]

Cool new paper about ancient DNA, Mobile DNA Elements In Woolly Mammoth Genome Give New Clues To Mammalian Evolution: The woolly mammoth died out several thousand years ago, but the genetic material they left behind is yielding new clues about the evolution of mammals. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have analyzed […]

Genetic Architecture of Tameness in a Rat Model of Animal Domestication: A common feature of domestic animals is tameness-i.e., they tolerate and are unafraid of human presence and handling. To gain insight into the genetic basis of tameness and aggression, we studied an intercross between two lines of rats (Rattus norvegicus) selected over >60 generations […]

Price of “Ahmadinejad to Win Iranian Election” on Intrade: Labels: politics

TGGP has a post up where he looks at attitudes toward polygyny in predominantly Muslim nations. The question is: To what extent do you agree or disagree with men having more than one wife? Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree? I decided to break-down by religion in those nations which had a […]

In this Darwin year many popular accounts of ‘Darwinism’ have appeared, but these seldom make a clear distinction among the different components of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Many popularisations are simplified to the point of caricature, and presented in an absurdly uncritical way. I yield to few in my admiration for Darwin, but I do […]

Is back.

Iceland has long been of some interest because of its peculiar demographic history and their genetic consequences. So a new paper in PLoS Genetics is of interest, The Impact of Divergence Time on the Nature of Population Structure: An Example from Iceland: The Icelandic population has been sampled in many disease association studies, providing a […]

Kung Fu star Carradine found dead.

Dan MacArthur reviews 50 Genetics Ideas You Really Need to Know. Gives it “3.5 nucleotides out of 4.” Labels: Genetics

A few years ago the Inductivist found that Protestant & Orthodox countries favored abortion to a greater degree than Roman Catholic ones. He did add though that many of the nations in the former category were nominally in the category (e.g., Sweden) I have always been curious about if Catholicism has any effect on attitudes […]

Asymmetric fMRI adaptation reveals no evidence for mirror neurons in humans: Neurons in macaque ventral premotor cortex and inferior parietal lobe discharge during both the observation and the execution of motor acts. It has been claimed that these so-called mirror neurons form the basis of action understanding by matching the visual input with the corresponding […]

Click the tab below the body of this post to read previous entries in the series about how previous generations were more depraved. One way to look at how civilized we are is to see how we behave in situations where our conduct can mean the difference between life and death for those around us […]

In light of p-ter’s post on KITLG and cancer risk, I stumbled onto this today, Earwax, osmidrosis, and breast cancer: why does one SNP (538G>A) in the human ABC transporter ABCC11 gene determine earwax type?: One single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), 538G>A (Gly180Arg), in the ABCC11 gene determines the type of earwax. The G/G and G/A genotypes […]

The World Values Survey has a question of the form: Some people believe that individuals can decide their own destiny, while others think that it is impossible to escape a predetermined fate. Please tell me which comes closest to your view on this scale on which 1 means “everything in life is determined by fate,” […]