Monthly Archives: October 2015

Using CRISPR, Chinese researchers have produced overly-muscled beagles,  by knocking out myostatin.  They say their goal is to create dogs with mutations that mimic human diseases such as Parkinson’s and muscular dystrophy, for medical research, but I’m not 100% sure … Continue reading →

There was a nice study of pre-K in Tennessee.  People applied for pre-K , more than could be accommodated, so some were admitted (randomly) and some were not. Then the kids admitted were compared with the control group, those not … Continue reading →

There’s a new study out in Nature, claiming that economic productivity peaks at 13 degrees Centigrade and that global warming will therefore drastically decrease world GDP. Singapore.  Phoenix. Queensland.  Air-conditioners! Now that I’ve made my point, just how stupid are … Continue reading →

There was some noise at ASHG about someone (Tuck Ngun) claiming that he’d found evidence supporting that idea (published a couple of years ago) that homosexuality might be caused by epigenetic leakage. Which I doubted.  Everyone seems to have disbelieved … Continue reading →

I hear (tweets by Razib Khan ,  concerning Sankararaman’s talk at ASHG) that the Denisovans had substantially more genetic diversity than Neanderthals ( determined mainly by the variety seen in admixed segments). It makes sense that the Neanderthals should have … Continue reading →

Do women find high  intelligence attractive?  Apparently not (MALE GENERAL INTELLIGENCE (G) DOES NOT INCREASE FEMALE SEXUAL ATTRACTION), as discussed on James Thompson’s blog.  I think I already knew this, to the extent that I thought Geoffrey Miller’s book on … Continue reading →

The social sciences have developed in ways that are not necessarily to our advantage. How to fix? Jonathan Haidt thinks that social psychology has problems (I might put it a bit more strongly) that might be ameliorated by adding ideological … Continue reading →