A new method for estimating heritability and selection, Evaluating and improving heritability models using summary statistics:

There is currently much debate regarding the best way to model how heritability varies across the genome. The authors of GCTA recommend the GCTA-LDMS-I Model, the authors of LD Score Regression recommend the Baseline LD Model, while we have instead recommended the LDAK Model. Here we provide a statistical framework for assessing heritability models using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies. Using data from studies of 31 complex human traits (average sample size 136,000), we show that the Baseline LD Model is the most realistic of the existing heritability models, but that it can be significantly improved by incorporating features from the LDAK Model. Our framework also provides a method for estimating the selection-related parameter α from summary statistics, finding strong evidence (P<1e-6) of negative selection for traits including height, systolic blood pressure and college education.

The preprint jumped out at me for what they detected selection in (or against). If you look at the details, they actually show selection against “Preference for Evenings.” I don’t know if this is a spurious finding (they talk a bit about population structure in the preprint), but this is really funny to me.