Weekly book recommendation, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium.
V. S. Naipaul has died. I never read his fiction. Perhaps I should. Suggestions? People always talk about A House for Mr. Biswas.
Genome-wide polygenic scores for common diseases identify individuals with risk equivalent to monogenic mutations. ” We propose that it is time to contemplate the inclusion of polygenic risk prediction in clinical care, and discuss relevant issues.” Totally honestly, this is happening way faster than I had assumed it would.
Relatedness disequilibrium regression estimates heritability without environmental bias. A blog post on the topic: Relatedness disequilibrium regression explained.
Large-scale whole-genome sequencing of three diverse Asian populations in Singapore. Han (Southern) Chinese, Malays, and Indians (mostly Tamil).
Can Amazon Maintain the Spirit of ‘The Lord of the Rings’? I doubt it. One thing to remember is that George R. R. Martin was a screenwriter in Hollywood for a period. His writing is a more natural translation to modern visual media.
Only the Truth Will Prevent Harm. Sarah Haider. Enough said.
Deep Reads: How I learnt to love population genetics.
Important preprint. Expected patterns of local ancestry in a hybrid zone.
Salt and heart disease: a second round of “bad science”?
Last year, The Witchwood Crown was published. Haven’t read it. Any good?
Re Naipaul fiction, I’d recommend A Bend in the River. Perhaps the only one I enjoyed as much as his nonfiction. Enigma of Arrival is, I think, lightly fictionalized memoir. While a bit slow in the middle, incredible on the whole.
The Enigma of Arrival is a fine contemplative novel. I think the early books get extra credit for Naipaul being a rare case of a person with an ‘exotic’ background writing about colonial/postcolonial societies. Not that I think they’re bad; I especially remember enjoying Miguel Street, a light, entertaining slice-of-life novelette.
I give Amazon a 10% chance of turning out an Aragon series that has even a whiff of that Tolkien feel. But adaptations that have no respect for the original author’s ideas and aesthetics can still be great!
“A House for Mr. Biswas” is my favorite novel, though part of that is for very personal reasons. It’s the best of early Naipaul. By the time of “Mimic Men” you already see the cynicism and misanthropy permiating the inner core of his personality. “A Bend in the River” is probably his novel where he is his most deft in portraying both socio-economic commentary with character studies, but like all mid to later Naipaul, there’s almost no light or hope permitted to shine through human folly and weakness. Late (post early 80s) Naipaul gets rather self-indulgent even if it is still sharp, incisive and witty.
I’m kind of a fanboy.
I also recommend “The Enigma of Arrival,” Naipaul’s slow moving and deep memoir. It resonated with me when I read it years ago.
“The American Heart Association (AHA) refuted the findings of the study”: ah, but did it refute or merely deny?
dearieme, why are you commenting on my blog when you trash me on other blogs? are you just an asshole?
Razib, Have you posted your thoughts on the Relatedness Disequilibrium Regression paper anywhere? Any other takes you like?
On the last Open Thread you speculated about whether anybody cared about them. I think they’re great, FWIW. Always interesting to see what you’re reading but probably won’t write a whole post about.
Got three fascinating articles from your twitter feed today. Just wanted to say thanks.