This fits what I heard in West Germany around 1982 - Hungarians make the best porn. OK, these figures say they're second to Czechs - but note that that was their reputation 7 years before the fall of Communism.

Based on the spread of agriculture to the coasts of the western Mediterranean, it looks like Mediterranean trade was in full swing by 5000 BC. I'd have assumed it got going much later.

In the old Scots and English ballads, there's often a very blurry distinction between seduction and rape (and prostitution, for that matter). One typical way of resolving the issue: 
 
If he be a married man, hangèd he shall be, 
And if he be a single man, he shall marry thee.

Looc: Sexual diversity => mental stress? In the case of males and females, I doubt it. In the case of gays and straights, I think you're on to something.

"English nationalism may finally wake up. [...] But the outcome would probably not be independence but just some arrangement within the UK Parliament for purely English matters to be reserved for English MPs to decide." 
 
How would that work in a case where Scottish and Welsh tipped the balance of power - that is (most likely), a Labour majority for British issues, but a Conservative majority for English issues? Looks like a kind of federalism to me, with a de facto English government.

Surely Beowulf is a remnant of a much larger literature - after all, it survived in a single, half-burnt manuscript. And what's this talk about Louis the Pious burning loads of Germanic literature that had been collected during the Carolingian renaissance?

razib, 
 
I find BG's comments informative; so don't go all medieval on him, OK?

Maybe aqueducts require less maintenance, not having to worry about leaky pipes? Otherwise it seems odd that the Romans - excellent hydrolic engineers - would keep building centuries after the discovery of the siphon principle.

If there's a large genetic influence here, I'm surprised the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. aren't closer together.

I don't think you need to invoke cuckoldry anxiety, just patterns of socializing. It's females who coo over the baby, compete for access to the baby and so on. The maternal grandmother is obviously more closely bonded to the mother than the paternal grandmother, so she acts as chief cheerleader and gatekeeper. (Actually this applies to a lesser degree to other females on each side of the family.) The paternal side is somewhat shut out, so they don't develop the same degree of connection.

That finally question wasn't a typo, just an example of Canadian uptalk?

26% of native-born Canadians are "highly religious", when only about 20% go to church regularly? What does "moderately religious" mean then? Not spitting when you pass a priest on the street? 
 
About Statistics Canada, yeah, we're one of the best. The Economist did a thing on national statistics bureaus a few years ago?

Sheesh, "carnival's" as a plural in this post; "principles" for "principals" in the previous one... Shape up, man.

Does any research indicate a genetic basis for alcohol dependence among North American native people?

Funny, yesterday I clearly prefered Lefty, but today I favour Righty. I'm feeling hornier today, so perhaps Michael Blowhard's (2blowhards.com) suggestion that Righty would be up for more adventurous sex (

Surely these "artificial wombs" are going to be female bodies, derived from human stock via genetic manipulation, with higher brain functions and unnecessary limbs etc. "zeroed out". What could be more like Mother? And who could possibly object except a few religious cranks and sentimentalists? Surely no principled objections exist?  
 
Still, I don't suppose you'll see to many pictures of these gestational units in the popular media.