The NY Times reports on a new paper calling into question the theory that the dog was first domesticated in East Asia. The evidence for an East Asian origin of dogs came from a study of mitochondrial DNA, which showed that dog populations in East Asia harbored more diversity than their counterparts in other parts […]

Those are the first three articles that I’ve posted to a new blog of mine, Patterns in science and culture, where all of my data-rich posts will go from now on. I’ll still review existing work or throw out “what if?” posts here, but if it requires looking up and analyzing data, you’ll only be […]

This research report suggests that some genes in human sperms can be ‘read’ by the cytoplasm of the egg immediately after fertilisation. Some interesting implications for hybridism, infertility, and other issues.

My post below alluded to the fact that there seems to be a non-trivial between region difference in male life expectancy, even controlling for race, in the United States. From what I can tell Americans seem to have a somewhat schizophrenic attitude toward the reality of regionalism. On the one hand we are a relatively […]