ethnicity

Juniorette's best buddy Betty looks a lot like Juniorette and is almost like a second daughter to me. Her mom is Korean and her dad is Turkmen, great people both. The other day Betty got into a fight at school with another girl who started calling her names. (Betty, by the way, is a very well put together child and not overweight at all.) Other Girl: You fat Chinese! Betty: You can be a fat Chinese! Other Girl: But I'm not Chinese!? Betty: Me neither!
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SciCurious has written a review of an interesting paper suggesting a correlation between obesity and city vs. non-city life. As usual, the review by Sci is excellent, but I have a comment or two to add. Having read the review and then the paper, I had to ask if it might be possible to conclude based on the data presentation that "race" (and thus "genetics") underlies the observed effect. This is because of this graph: The results as depicted here divides the population into black vs white, making it appear that skin color is a major factor. The paper does not make that specific argument…
Dan MacArthur has a post, Genetics of complex traits in Europeans and East Asians: similarities and differences: With those goals in mind, you can expect to see many more GWAS of non-European populations over the next couple of years, and some explicit comparisons of the differing genetic architecture of complex traits between populations. Exciting times for those of us interested in the genetic and evolutionary basis of between-population differences... This reminds me of A variant of the gene encoding leukotriene A4 hydrolase confers ethnicity-specific risk of myocardial infarction:…
Since the post on anti-miscegenation laws got a lot of attention, I was curious about analogs in the World Values Survey. There are two such questions of interest: Important for succesful marriage: Same ethnic background(D042) and Important for succesful marriage: Religious beliefs(D031) These data are skewed toward European nations. Below the fold are data are % who assert that same ethnic background is NOT very important, or that same religious beliefs are NOT very important. I will admit that the international pattern is surprising to me. Same Religion Not Very Important…
It's been a big week. With a simple words, Barack Obama became the first black President of a country whose history has been so haunted by the spectre of racial prejudice. His election and inauguration are undoubtedly proud moments but they must not breed complacency. Things may be changing outwardly, but problems remain. For a start, it goes without saying that many people, even the most liberal and left-wing among us, still harbour unconscious prejudices against members of other races. These "implicit biases" may be hidden, but their effects are often not. For example, a study published…