Spielke profile
The New York Times has a long profile of developmental psychologist Elizabeth Spielke, whose work with babies has opened a window on early cognition ("Insights from the youngest minds"). The article is...
View ArticleBlond as a window to ancient pigmentation variation
Synopsis: Pigmentation genetics in the Solomon Islands gives some perspective on the process of phenotype evolutionBlond hair is relatively common in island Melanesia, even though the skin pigmentation...
View ArticleSex, steroids and sport
The Guardian is giving us some pre-London-Olympic buildup, including an interesting article about the impact of strategies to make female athletes more like males: "The rise of performance-enhancing...
View ArticlePolytypism and complexity
Adam Van Arsdale considers whether a "bushy", speciose phylogeny is actually evidence of evolutionary "complexity": "Linearity and simplicity in the fossil record". As he points out, there's nothing...
View Article"The print edition of any article is little more than a trophy version"
Jack Hitt writing in the NY TImes writes some thoughts on the way that online post-publication commentary and review are changing the authority of scientific statements: "Science and Truth - We're All...
View ArticleTelling stories
Are narrative stories the glue that holds society together? That's the thesis of literature professor Jonathan Gottschall, who has written for the Boston Globe, "Why fiction is good for you". It's a...
View ArticleThe H preparation
Razib Khan comments on the current round of Henry Louis Gates ancestry programming: "Finding fake roots", and "Reification is alright by me! Razib notes that the criteria that tell many subjects that...
View ArticleSit down and shut up
Carole McGranahan describes a memorable case where academics shut down public discussion of their work: "Dialogue with the Public: Adam Yauch and Academic Snobbery". The subject of the story is the...
View ArticleHuman population history makes a difference
Synopsis: Human genetics has reached the point where population history is essential to further progressAlon Keinan and Andrew Clark have a short report in the current Science examining the effects of...
View Article"Bones of Turkana" to air
On Wednesday, May 16, PBS here in the U.S. is broadcasting a film called "Bones of Turkana". The astonishing life of Richard Leakey — paleoanthropologist, conservationist, statesman, provocateur —will...
View ArticleThis is totally serial
Michael B. Eisen: "The solution to the ‘serials crisis’ on campus" The solution is obvious: universities must stop outsourcing vital functions to publishers. They need to shift the currency of academic...
View ArticlePopulation gut metagenomics
The new research by Tanya Yatsunenko and colleagues examining gut microbiomes in different human populations is just incredibly cool work [1]. I don't have time to write much about it this morning, but...
View ArticleHard-core caveman wiring
A story on NPR examines "social jet lag", an obscure phenomenon in which people stay up late and sleep in late on the weekends ("Jet-Lagged By Your Social Calendar? Better Check Your Waistline")....
View ArticleMaking Big Data work in genetics
Laura Clarke and colleagues report on the data access and management practices of the 1000 Genomes Project [1]. The larger data volumes and shorter read lengths of high-throughput sequencing...
View ArticleNeuron theory
Ferris Jabr has begun a series called "Know your neurons", which will be a tour of the types of neurons. The first installment ("Know Your Neurons: The Discovery and Naming of the Neuron") covers the...
View ArticleQuantum of solace
I just want to point out, on the "six generations of daughters" story... The family has an astonishing six generations of daughters still living. The matriarch of the family, Mollie Wood, was born in...
View ArticleButterfly genetic theft
The Heliconius butterfly genome paper [1] is supercool for many reasons. Most important from my point of view is the attention to introgression among the different species of these South American...
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Non-consensual replication
Yes, it is a star! Ed Yong has a long article in Nature about the recurrent problems with non-replication of "Replication studies: Bad copy". The piece begins with the flap over Daryl Bem's work on...
View ArticleDynamics of violence
This week's Science is a special issue focusing on human conflict. As you might expect, the issue includes an article focusing on Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has...
View ArticleSynthetic science
Wired reporter Thomas Goetz interviews Craig Venter on his synthetic biology projects and the public perception of science "Craig Venter wants to solve the world's energy crisis". Goetz: Just to touch...
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