Whenever I read something like this, I wonder if similar phenomena take place on other scales or in other guises. Like within bacterial colonies, or among different cell types within the human body. Like for instance, what ("optimization-ally" speaking) drives the relative rates of synaptic growth vs. mitosis in other cell types that merely provide body mass or metabolic capacity? Maybe this kind of economic model, when translated to multicellular organisms, could explain the correlations in risk between certain mental conditions and metabolic disorders.

5-HT2B is not the primary target of MDMA, which is in fact the serotonin transporter. However, it is possible that activation of 5-HT2B in conjunction with this, either by the serotonin released through SERT or by MDMA having weak agonist activity by itself, contributes to the effects of blocking serotonin uptake. Also, wasn't 5-HT2B the one blamed for fenfluramine-induced heart valve defects? I wonder if there is any valvular phenotype to this SNP.

Hmm, I found this, which supports my thinking... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12761331

The hypothesis about the L1 elements being activated is interesting to me. What if the problem is that each neuron acquires a different pattern of function due to unique transposon insertion, such that they are effectively speaking slightly different "languages" in terms of how their firing encodes information and cannot form a coherent representation?

Any clue (or maybe just opinion) what the relative contributions of protein coding sequence, regulatory DNA elements (e.g. transcription factor binding sites), and noncoding RNA play in phenotypic diversity in the typical eukaryote? In other words, if you combine the relative susceptbility of these to mutation (if they are in fact differentially susceptible), and the likelihood that such a mutation will lead to a functional change.

Why does it matter whether the term "dove" was influenced by Christianity? The suggestion was clearly not that the *concept* of the two behavior types is a result of Christianity, otherwise "hawk" would have to go too. I don't see how the name "dove" is any worse than if someone called a cone-shaped, bristly polymer a "Christmas tree molecule". There is nothing Christian about either case.

I wonder how long before "epigenetics", "gene methylation" and similar become household words. They will probably mean something more like "ways in which your ancestors' bad habits can make you sick too" than what they really mean. I bet there are already quacks devising potions that supposedly "cleanse the methylation markings off your genes" to give you a clean start at life. Though if there really were a way to do that, it might make a good cult religious practice, sort of like high-tech baptism. And I'm waiting for the first epigenetic thriller. "Mike is just your everyday man. A suburban house, a wife and two kids. Yet in the center of every one of his cells is a deep, dark family secret. Who knew that the memory of his axe-murdering, alcoholic grandfather was kept alive in a group of just four tiny atoms? Join him in his quest to hunt them down!"

John Emerson's classification with the Ax and Bx made me think of something that I've spent considerable time thinking about. There's a difference between being unresponsive to/not caring much about other people's feelings in a "neutral" way, and actively disregarding other people's feelings. The latter is what people usually refer to when they speak of "not caring about others' feelings", but in the extreme it amounts to caring about them a lot, just not in a positive way. A lot of nerdy or just really intellectual people seem to have their greatest passions for things other than the world of humans, which tends to create a certain lack of caring toward that human world. I know I sometimes wonder how clueless I am about what it means to really love someone. I think the difference is, I realize that dealing with people is better left to those who really care about working with people, in a positive way, and so I seek to avoid being put in situations where I have to show emotional connection--rather than treating people like I would treat a computer and going "tough luck", which seems to be what psychopaths do.

What is “invasive placentation”? I would think it refers to the depth to which the fetal vascular system grows into the maternal tissue of the uterus. The non-invasive type would have a relatively sharp, flat boundary between the two, whereas the invasive type would have many fetal cells among maternal cells and vice versa, giving a much greater contact area. Though if someone knows better, feel free to correct me.

I agree that most psychiatric disorders are unlikely due to single mutations, due to the fact that heritability is too low for that to be the case. At the very minimum, such a mutation would need to be highly dependent on the genetic background and/or environmental influences. However, even this seems unlikely, as most of these disorders are extremes of distributions, not total outliers. ADHD, for instance, is one end of a distribution of attentiveness. Schizophrenia, when it involves frank hallucinations, is one of the exceptions, as I cannot see how you could "half-hallucinate". Oh, and the "mercury hypothesis", without any reproducible support, should not be considered the next runner-up after the single mutation model...

i'm making a reference to *the mating mind*. it was something called a joke :-) 
 
OK, that explains it.

I'd say the tag "evolutionary psychology" applies only in your stretched mind, Razib. Gum disease is not exactly a psychological condition.  
 
I wouldn't be surprised if many forms of infection and inflammation induce a similar change in gene expression.

correspondingly, we show that rates of female mortality accelerate as their offspring terminate reproduction. 
 
This seems like something that is begging for a non-biological explanation. I mean, how would a woman's body "know" when her children (who presumably at that point have long since moved away from her) are no longer able to reproduce?

And the point is, what exactly? All of these genes are well known to be involved in steroid metabolism.

Reminds me of this archaeology project I did in middle school, where we split into two groups and buried "artifacts" for the other group to find.  
 
We were each assigned a particular part of our virtual civilization's culture to create an artifact for, and I got chosen to do religion. At first I was really disappointed--why would I want to have to make up a religion when I could care less about the ones already in existence? Then I remember having a moment of joy when I realized I could come up with virtually anything and it would still make sense.

To Eric: I've heard that about protein-protein interactions, but I just assumed people wouldn't write off the possibility here, because many GPCRs bind peptides yet are still "druggable". 
 
And about Duesberg--I have had a chance to speak with him in person, and what I noticed was his tendency to use analogies that weren't based on any real conceptual similarity. For instance, he compares the genome to a book, with the chromosomes as chapters whose pages, or genes, are organized in a particular order that determines physiology on a big-picture level. He gives no evidence from studies of gene expression to suggest that they are actually ever read in this order, though, most likely because there isn't any.

This is kind of off-topic, but I had this question ever since I first heard about Duffy, and given the number of knowledgeable readers here I thought I'd see if anyone would know. 
 
Despite the well-recognized role of Duffy as an obligatory, or near obligatory, receptor for malaria, and given the immense public expenditure on research related to this disease, I cannot manage to find one single high-throughput (or even "low"-throughput) screen for small molecule Duffy antagonists in the literature.  
 
This is all the more surprising given that Duffy is related to the GPCR superfamily that is well-known for containing excellent drug targets, and also that a similar strategy with the HIV receptor CCR5 is widely considered viable. I'm wondering if it's been tried and no hits have turned up.

To me the most amusing thing was how the children's names were chosen in such a way that they reinforce the racial appearances--and will likely further add to people's thinking those children are from different families. 
 
Just think if the girl were named Catherine and the younger boy were named Terrell or something.

I'm going to have to try them someday. I'm quite a fan of seafood.

Those small, shriveled combs look really weird!