Non-deep thought
We’ll never have utopia. A world in which in many nations it is normal for the poor to be fat is, is a utopia by any measure from the perspective of someone who lived in 1900. Prompted to think about this after listening to part of this diavlog between a transhumanist and Massimo Pigluicci. Sometimes […]
How the outsider looks
Heartthrob’s Barbed Blog Challenges China’s Leaders:
Since he began blogging in 2006, Mr. Han has been delivering increasingly caustic attacks on China’s leadership and the policies he contends are creating misery for those unlucky enough to lack a powerful government post. With more than 300 million hits to his blog, he may be the most popular […]
Tickling
Did not know this:
Still, these platonic tickle sessions appear to be rare. Based on a survey he conducted for his fascinating book Laughter, neuroscientist Robert Provine notes that adults and adolescents are seven times more likely to be tickled by members of the opposite sex. When asked whom they would most like to be tickled […]
The Oscillator, synthetic species
I’ve already linked to this blog on ScienceBlogs, but I thought I might as well point to it from here. Check out The Oscillator, every entry is dense with science. The focus in synthetic biology. I wanted to see if there’d been a mention of Craig Venter’s synthetic bacteria project, but the the search box […]
Only a minority of Iranian Americans are Muslims
According to this survey done by Zogby International. The numbers:
42% Muslim
9% Christian
6% Jews
5% Zoroastrian
7% Bahai
31% “Other” (the pollsters presume this is mostly those with “No religion”)
The sample size was small, only around 400. And it seems really strange that there was a religious option for “Other” but not “No Religion,” but perhaps the pollsters simply […]
Culture & genomics
Interesting post, Culture and the human genome: a synthesis of genetics and the human sciences, at Replicated Typo. Looks like an interesting blog, not updated that often, but the posts have value-add. Definitely adding to my RSS reader. My main complaint about the weblog are the annoying little Snap div pops. Is there anyone […]
Heterozygote advantage in resistance to tuberculosis
The lta4h Locus Modulates Susceptibility to Mycobacterial Infection in Zebrafish and Humans:
Exposure to Mycobacterium tuberculosis produces varied early outcomes, ranging from resistance to infection to progressive disease. Here we report results from a forward genetic screen in zebrafish larvae that identify multiple mutant classes with distinct patterns of innate susceptibility to Mycobacterium marinum. A hypersusceptible […]
Creative destruction in the personal genomics industry?
I’m hearing about rumblings at 23andMe, and not in a good way. The company made a big splash a few years ago, and came highly recommended by friends (e.g., “They know their science, and have a bottomless pool of money”). This story at BNET got my attention though, and confirmed what many have been […]
The temple that time forget
Aziz points me to a Newsweek article, History in the Remaking, on the Göbekli Tepe temple complex. The piece is a bit breathless:
Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has […]
Eating like your ancestors
The ideas of gene-culture coevolution have percolated all the way to the foodie-sphere, over at Epi-Log at Epicurious, The Health Trend of the Future: The Ethnic-Group Diet?:
So, maybe at some point in the future, a visit to the doctor will involve a full genetic workup followed by a prescribed diet tailored to our individual makeup. […]
Alcoholism, genes, and genetic background
PNAS has a new study out on the “modest” association between GABRA2 and “alcohol dependence.” The odds ratios pretty weak. But what struck me is that the populations they looked at was mostly European and African American. I wonder why these research programs just don’t focus on Native Ameicans; who are operationally an admixed population […]
The cultural animal as an evolving animal
Nicholas Wade has an article in The New York Times, Human Culture, an Evolutionary Force. One point to highlight:
By this criterion, many of the genes under selection seem to be responding to conventional pressures. Some are involved in the immune system, and presumably became more common because of the protection they provided against disease. Genes […]
Ostrich shell art in South Africa 60,000 years ago
There’s a new paper in PNAS reviewing the tradition of etching on ostrich shells. Since it’s PNAS, the paper isn’t on the website, but Edward Edmund Yong is able to cover the major points thanks to his access. This stuff is of interest because there was a long time lag between the emergence of anatomically […]
Singularity Institute Research Challenge
Ends today. Last Chance to Contribute to 2010 Singularity Research Challenge!:
Thanks to generous contributions by our donors, we are only $11,840 away from fulfilling our $100,000 goal for the 2010 Singularity Research Challenge. For every dollar you contribute to SIAI, another dollar is contributed by our matching donors, who have pledged to match all contributions […]
Graphs lack mass appeal?
Andrew Gelman, Red State, Blue State sales are a factor of 2^100 lower than they should’ve been:
In his forthcoming book, Albert-László Barabási writes, “There is a theorem in publishing that each graph halves a book’s audience.” If only someone had told me this two years ago!
More seriously, this tongue-in-cheek theorem, if true, defines an upsetting […]
The Hobbits Six Years On
The Guardian has a long piece about the hobbits of Flores, and how they may have split from from the lineage which led to H. sapiens further back in time than had previously been assumed. In other words, where the hobbits had been theorized to have been a local adaptation of H. erectus, now the […]
Methodists are still Baptists who can read
Income by Religions:
Good has a rather unwieldy graph showing religion by income. No surprises, with Jews first and Hindus second in percent with six figure incomes, and Jehovah’s Witnesses and black Protestant churches last. It would be interesting to know whether there are still affluence distinctions mainline white Protestants, such as Episcopalian v. Methodist.
On a […]
Why What Darwin Got Wrong is wrong
Misunderstanding Darwin: Natural selection’s secular critics get it wrong:
Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini take the role of philosophy to consist in part in minding other people’s business. We agree with the spirit behind this self-conception. Philosophy can sometimes help other areas of inquiry. Yet those who wish to help their neighbors are well advised to spend a […]
Gene Expression moves to WP
For various reasons it was no longer feasible to run this website on Blogger. So I’ve switched over to WP. So please update your RSS feeds:
http://www.gnxp.com/wp/feed
Update: If you’re subscribed via the Feedburner feed, http://feeds.feedburner.com/GeneExpression, you don’t need to change anything. Just changed its feed address
Historical contingencies of civilizational ideologies
Reading An Introduction to Confucianism, which is not the typical historically linear treatment (i.e., Confucius → Han dynasty State Confucianism → Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism, etc.), and is also more comprehensive than most introductions (it’s over 350 pages). In case, the author notes that before the Han dynasty Confucianism was simply one of many contesting schools. […]