razib
Posts by this author
September 17, 2009
I asked readers to fill out a survey a week and a half ago. Results are in.
September 17, 2009
Tyrannosaurid Skeletal Design First Evolved at Small Body Size:
Tyrannosaurid dinosaurs comprised nearly all large-bodied predators (>2.5 tons) on northern continents during the Late Cretaceous. We show that their most conspicuous functional specializations--a proportionately large skull,…
September 16, 2009
The Big Money has a profile of Felix Salmon up. Here is why I reckon that Salmon has some rank, every few weeks he shows up as a guest on Marketplace. And he consistently pronounces Kai Ryssdal's first name as if it is really the female name "Kay."
September 15, 2009
The origin of Neandertals:
Western Eurasia yielded a rich Middle (MP) and Late Pleistocene (LP) fossil record documenting the evolution of the Neandertals that can be analyzed in light of recently acquired paleogenetical data, an abundance of archeological evidence, and a well-known environmental…
September 15, 2009
One of the problems with human genetics where it resembles economics are the ethical issues involved in experimentation. Luckily for science, but unluckily for individuals, medicine offers many "natural experiments." But in the area of population genetics and history analyses of pedigrees or…
September 14, 2009
A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer:
"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of…
September 14, 2009
Nearly 50 years ago W. D. Hamilton published two papers, The genetical evolution of social behaviour - I & The genetical evolution of social behaviour - II, which helped revolutionize our conception of how social and genetic process might work in concert. It opened up a field of research which…
September 13, 2009
U.S. Is Finding Its Role in Business Hard to Unwind:
Between financial rescue missions and the economic stimulus program, government spending accounts for a bigger share of the nation's economy -- 26 percent -- than at any time since World War II. The government is financing 9 out of 10 new…
September 13, 2009
At my other weblog, two reviews of books on Eurasia. First, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Second, China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty.
September 13, 2009
I'm reading Justin Fox's The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street, which is on many "To Read" lists because of its topical relevance. I think it is especially illuminating when examined in light of another work, Toward Rational Exuberance: The…
September 12, 2009
Keep reading stuff like this, A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St.:
Simon Johnson, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said that the seeds of another collapse had…
September 12, 2009
The Evolutionary Origin of Man Can Be Traced in the Layers of Defunct Ancestral Alpha Satellites Flanking the Active Centromeres of Human Chromosomes. The authors are Russian, so I think the somewhat grand and archaic first portion of the title can be explained as a mater of translation. Here's the…
September 10, 2009
I don't usually say much about September 11th because I don't have much original to say. Bu I realized recently that to a great extent September 11th was one of the reasons I got into blogging in the spring of 2002. Obviously I don't talk much about foreign policy or politics in any substantive…
September 10, 2009
Disgraced California lawmaker denies affairs:
A pro-family values California lawmaker who resigned after being caught on tape boasting about his sexual conquests denied Thursday that he had extramarital affairs, saying "my offense was engaging in inappropriate storytelling.
Shaggy-It wasn't me
September 10, 2009
She seems to have liked it, with caveats and reservations. It's a narrative film, not a scientific biography, so appropriate shifts in emphases are to be expected.
September 9, 2009
Will Wilkinson points me to an interesting paper with some interesting figures, Income, Health and Wellbeing Around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll:
September 8, 2009
Creation, a biopic about Charles Darwin, premiers tomorrow at the Toronto International Film Festival. Trailer below....
September 8, 2009
Update: Author comments below.
PLoS ONE has an interesting paper out, Genetic Ancestry, Social Classification, and Racial Inequalities in Blood Pressure in Southeastern Puerto Rico. They're exploring the topic of African ancestry and hypertension, which seems to have a positive correlation, but…
September 8, 2009
If you have a minute, I'd appreciate it if you fill out this survey, the 6 questions should take 30 seconds (2 optional questions about where you came from to take the survey). This is for a friend's research project. The results will be posted next week.
September 8, 2009
There's been some buzz over a recent paper, mtDNA Data Indicates a Single Origin for Dogs South of Yangtze River, less than 16,300 Years Ago, from Numerous Wolves. This is tracing the maternal lineage, and suggests that that lineage is most diverse in southern China (just as human lineages tend to…
September 7, 2009
I stumbled onto some peculiar survey data of American Roman Catholic priests:
A somewhat larger percentage of participants (57 percent) believe that the sacraments of the Church are necessary for salvation, and relatively few (17 percent) agree that "all great religions are equally good and true."…
September 7, 2009
Religious Attendance Relates to Generosity Worldwide:
Gallup data reveal that adherents of all the major world religions who attended religious services (attenders) in the past week have higher rates of generosity than do their coreligionists who did not attend services (non-attenders). Even for…
September 7, 2009
His two primary reasons:
1) Robert Wright publicly said that this was foolish, apologized for the poor editorial oversight that led to it, and says they're going to try never to do this again. This looks sincere to me, and given that it's sincere, people really ought to be allowed more chance…
September 7, 2009
The story about the giant rat discovered in an isolated crater in Papua New Guinea is fascinating. It's kind of atypical in these days, but if you read through really old copies of National Geographic from the early 20th century it you observe that it occurred all the time back then. I would of…
September 7, 2009
Another study on obesity & Africans, with a slight twist, Admixture Mapping of Obesity-related Traits in African Americans: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study:
Obesity is an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In the United States, the prevalence of obesity…
September 6, 2009
At Cognition & Culture, a review of Sarah Blaffer Hrdry's new book, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. I really liked her previous work, Mother Nature, so I'm definitely going to check this out. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy was a prominent source in Ullica Segerstrale'…
September 6, 2009
Check it out. That's ~10% of the student body.
September 6, 2009
This article about Redbox is quaint and suggests some recent trends. First, other stuff I've read about Redbox pretty much indicates that it's a boon for downscale and techphobic consumers who aren't utilizing services like Netflix, and so pay a higher per unit price for rentals than otherwise…
September 6, 2009
I was doing some digging around on the genetics of Central Asia and stumbled upon the data that 7% of the mtDNA lineages of the Hui, Muslims who speak Chinese, are West Eurasian. This is opposed 0% for the Han, and 40-50% for the Uyghur. No surprises. But then I thought, what sort of exogamy rates…