> denisovamixture may be insusceptible to this sort of explanation (???) Or maybe just significantly less susceptible.

The two propositions highlighted by DK are consistent with one another - even if one is quantitatively much 'more' true than the other. And if they are both true, as seems to be the case, the implication is that Papuans have significantly more archaic derivation than other Eurasians (most likely) have. The upshot is that the latter truth was already implied by neandertable S48, lo these many months ago. I'm not certain, but I suspect it was also clear, at that time, that this additional Papuan archaicness (over and above the probable archaicness of other Eurasians) was non-neanderthal in nature. If so, I'm sure Mr. Cochran probably realized it, and the only news for him today, then, is the source of the 'just'-discovered admixture: denisovan. Although knowing him he may have also somehow figured out some time ago that it was probably denisovan. Also, while the apparent neandermixture in Eurasians may also be somewhat susceptible to being alternatively explained by ancient population structure within Africa, the denisovamixture may be insusceptible to this sort of explanation (???). I am unsure about that.

I've heard also that Muslims way out East average rather non-'Puritanical' as well. Like, more apt to have a syncretic admixture of pre-Islamic beliefs.

Willis Eschenbach does it for birds (because they are so visible) and concludes that only 129 species have gone extinct in the last 100 years or so. Well, that's over 1% of the ~9,500 full species. How much extinction is acceptable? Admittedly, a lot of those extinguished ones are flightless rails and other flightless birds of small islands that had never had predators before contact with feral animals, but a lot aren't. Also, I might round up the 129 by five or ten, because birds are still being discovered today. It's true that hunting, or being treated as a pest, took out the 7 or 8 full species of US/Canada birds that are gone outside Hawaii. In Hawaii it is certainly higher.

As far as I know, few or no studies treat disease phenotypes quantitatively. So a variant simply correlates with a disease trait, or doesn't. It cannot correlate linearly or non-linearly. As for height, which is obviously a quantitative trait, I don't know how they do the math up.

Albatross, what dude wants a mate who's indifferent to sleeping with him. Some dude may wind up stuck with her anyway - but it won't be a superior specimen of a man, it will be an inferior one. That makes all the difference.

Occam's hair extensions, the finest in improbably lush, attractive hair customized so it's right for you.

Any plans to set up the old open thread here on the new carrier? Here's an off-topic find. The renowned fieldwork evolutionist, Moller, has a new paper on the behavioral psychometrics, loosely speaking, of barn swallows. He says it is an almost completely novel kind of work. I read only the abstract: [...] Brain mass of the barn swallow Hirundo rustica was strongly predicted by external head volume, explaining 99.5% of the variance, allowing for repeatable estimates of head volume as a reflection of brain size. [...] In a 2 years study of 501 individual adult barn swallows, I showed that head volume differed between sexes and age classes, with yearlings having smaller and more variable heads than older individuals, and females having smaller and more variable heads than males. Large head volume was not a consequence of large body size, which was a poor predictor of head volume. Birds with large heads arrived early from spring migration, independent of sex and age, indicating that migratory performance may have an important cognitive component. Head volume significantly predicted capture date and recapture probability, suggesting that head volume is related to learning ability, although morphological traits such as wing length, aspect ratio and wing area were unimportant predictors. Intensity of defence of offspring increased with head volume in females, but not in males. Barn swallows with large heads aggregated in large colonies, suggesting that individuals with large heads were more common in socially complex environments. [...]

Amazing that a 75% griz is so white. I guess the white allele must be dominant-negative.

This is a nugatory observation, but Reich is a co-author on an extremely visible paper making an empirical claim of admixture. So, why would he "round up" his prior probability of admixture? It's more than plausible that he has in fact rounded down. I mean, we don't exactly expect an author on a visible and somewhat-controversial result to say in print, "I have always really known deep down that it was true; it is almost an article of faith with me, and bitter would be my remaining years on this earth if it were ever disproven. Yet I was able to be ruthlessly objective despite that."

I truly loathe comment threading. How often, with threading, is it worth it to make sure youve seen every comment on a given post? Rarely. So, you miss some of what youd like to see.

Your blog doesnt suck

This is despite conscious attempts to shift it youngward. Thats the case recently, at least.

Actually, its true that there are some ill homeless people dying in the streets, but thats kind of a special exception to what I meant. After all the bulk of the ill ones probably includes only about two syndromes, namely major depression or light psychosis. And maybe PTSD. The other 5 zillion diseases in the world arent really much overrepresented on the mean streets.

I am pretty sure the same trope (tripe?) is used in the healthcare debate. But I am not certain, because I am not certain the real situation makes the tripe quite as tripe-ish. 
 
What I mean is that people (David Brooks) write about the "terror" of possibly getting some severe illness when you are uninsured. I'm pretty sure you have to come down to a certain threshold of wealth and income before you can receive Medicaid in the USA, but I'm sure the threshold in question would be *extremely* non-grueling by any halfway-thoughtful standard. 
 
Can anyone confirm or deny that my picture is correct? I definitely havent noticed sick people dying in the streets, but is there any odd, rare way that you would really get a raw deal -- in a sense where having to live on some amount like 35k a year "just because you happened to get sick" does *not* qualify as raw?

> Social-service agencies and quasi-Marxist politicians require "hunger" to exist in America. Therefore it will be found. 
 
What we *really* need is some interminable marxist guerrillas like the FARC, then we would have a level of squalor that would need no exaggeration.

This just seems nutty. Is the brit tradition staving off some sort of nastiness that we are experiencing here in the states -- is there an actual trade-off here, and not just in theory but in reality? 
 
What could be more fundamentally arguable than just this sort of topic? Everyone knows that disagreeing MDs and PhDs quite typically aim some serious invective at each other when their research disagrees, though usually in their own odd style. I just cant imagine carefully mincing words before daring to publish about this -- or wringing my hands for a year afterward. The sociology and psychology of this sort of bunk medicine -- why it still persists without evidence -- are essential topics in the market of ideas. I would expect that you would need to take on every facet of the the thing polemically if you actually wanted to change the minds of some of these alt-med patients who have, in logical rigor, as little instinct as training.

I find this argument difficult.  
 
Anyway, there has also been question about why very large animals dont suffer more from cancer. Armand Leroi considers this a serious paradox and in commented in Nature News about someone's theoretic paper on the subject. I'm not sure I believe the theory. I wonder if whales dont just form fewer significant tumors in the first place, by just spending more energy day by day on antitumor defense. But its hard to see how you would find out; youre not going to MRI a blue whale.

Yup. I usually admire (or envy) what you write toto, but TGGP is right. Hanson's got sack, and knows biases. He also seems like he has successfully programmed himself to actually enjoy changing his mind when warranted.

> Swedes work shorter hours but are more productive per hour, and as a result earn less. I regard this as good. 
 
Not in these data, at least, which I happened to be looking at last week. From wikipedia -- however these data are poorly sourced, there, from what I can tell. They are expressed at purchasing power parity.  
 
Note that Norway is a semi oil state. Remove it and the USA beats the next-best, France, by ~5%.  
 
Rank ? Country ? GDP (PPP) per hour 2008 ? 
1 United States 36.88 
2 Norway 36.38 
3 France 35.01 
4 Luxembourg 34.84 
5 Belgium 34.22 
6 Netherlands 33.69 
7 Trinidad and Tobago 32.43 
8 United Kingdom 32.10 
9 Austria 31.78 
10 Ireland 30.28 
11 Sweden 30.13 
12 Germany 29.74 
13 Finland 29.27 
14 Denmark 29.25 
15 Italy 29.14 
16 Australia 28.55 
17 Canada 27.85 
18 Switzerland 27.13 
19 Hong Kong 25.63 
20 Japan 25.56 
21 Iceland 25.29 
22 Spain 23.24 
23 Estonia 21.70 
24 Taiwan 21.53 
25 New Zealand 20.77 
26 Singapore 19.85 
27 Greece 19.69 
28 Slovenia 19.31 
29 Cyprus 18.52 
30 South Korea 18.50

Thorfinn's point seems formidable.  
 
One thing about Berlin is that it has 50-100+ times less homeless per capita than Washington DC or Frisco/Berkeley, or even Missoula Montana. This is by my own observations. London seemed to have a lot too, but I only dropped in there for 20 hours. 
 
In Berlin I had a month U-bahn pass, and walked and rode all around all day, west and east, suburbs, everywhere, for two weeks -- I only saw one homeless or begger, an old lady.  
 
I think I have heard that this difference may be due partly to the semi-PC, also rather Szasz-ish "de-institutionalization" which I have heard was done under Reagan. It was not hard to find claims about this on google, including claims that there were 5x more people institutionalized c 1950 then there are now (with near 2x as many adults here in the USA today). But I had a hard time finding people that would point at this as the cause of the difference from Berlin. Also, it seems only a minority of USA homeless are mentally ill, at least officially, which may make it harder for de-institutionalization to explain most of our difference from Berlin.  
 
NB, Berlin doesnt seem to have high cost of living, a puacity of rich people that might give away cahs, or other characteristics that might cause homeless to flee it. Far as I can tell.