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May 31, 2006
Fewer people graduating with science & tech degrees permlink
Category: Science
Percentage of Students Earning Degrees in Science and Math Has Fallen, GAO Tells Lawmakers ($$$), but this is all you need to know: The GAO reported that 27 percent of students obtained degrees in those fields, which are known as...
Posted by Razib at 5:28 PM • 6 Comments
Open access the people say! permlink
Category: Science
Apropos of this week's Ask a Science Blogger, AMERICANS SUPPORT FREE ACCESS TO RESEARCH. Not that their opinion matters!...
Posted by Razib at 4:50 PM • 5 Comments
Global warming = biodiversity (in the future) permlink
Category: Evolution
The title is tongue in cheek, some researchers now are suggesting that speciation may be proportional to a particular energetic value. R.A. Fisher wanted an "ideal gas law" for evolutionary genetics, but this is ridiculous! In any case, one issue...
Posted by Razib at 3:35 PM • 5 Comments
Roaring out of Africa permlink
Category: Evolution
This lion research is just cool. Hey, I'm human, I'm a sucker for cats, and the bigger the better: Understanding the phylogeographic processes affecting endangered species is crucial both to interpreting their evolutionary history and to the establishment of conservation...
Posted by Razib at 12:00 PM • 0 Comments
Another model on human demographic expansion out of Africa permlink
Category: Evolution
The American Journal of Human Genetics has a paper in its pre-print section titled "A geographically explicit genetic model of worldwide human settlement history." I quickly skimmed it (and uploaded it into the GNXP forum). I have serious issues some...
Posted by Razib at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
May 30, 2006
Evolutionary genomics and the human brain permlink
Category: Genetics
PLOS Genetics has a nice review titled The Jewels of Our Genome: The Search for the Genomic Changes Underlying the Evolutionarily Unique Capacities of the Human Brain. It is short and pithy and hits the major points (e.g., SNPs vs....
Posted by Razib at 7:40 PM • 0 Comments
DRD4, sex and Jews permlink
Category: Genetics
I was pointed to this research (via David) that is just out about the correlation between variation on DRD4 and "sexual arousal." From the press release: Interestingly, some forms of variants in this gene were shown to have a depressing...
Posted by Razib at 3:20 AM • 3 Comments
May 26, 2006
Idol permlink
Category: Culture
I don't know what to think about this year's idol winner, but hey, perhaps he won't be a closeted gay man always in image control mode because of his "secret" (not that there's anything wrong with that!). As for the...
Posted by Razib at 4:35 AM • 4 Comments
May 25, 2006
Brown, itz not a bug, itz a feature permlink
Category: Culture
My friend Manish Vij just started a new brown themed weblog, aptly titled UltraBrown. Anyway, this entry is hilarious. Talk about seeing the world only through your own lens! When I was in San Francisco once someone came up to...
Posted by Razib at 8:37 PM • 2 Comments
Ask a Science Blogger - "Justify my funding" permlink
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week's "Ask a Science Blogger" is: Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies?...
Posted by Razib at 6:51 PM • 11 Comments
Looking inside the mind.... permlink
Category: Cognitive Science
I had a strange experience the other day. I was walking down a hallway, and all of a sudden the name of a local software company came to mind. I didn't understand why I was thinking about this, and I...
Posted by Razib at 4:50 PM • 7 Comments
May 24, 2006
Let's talk about sex.... permlink
Category: Genetics
PLOS has a new paper out which fleshes out how SRY might play a critical role in sex determination in mammals. Here is the press release. Below the fold I've taken figure 7 from their paper and cropped and reedited...
Posted by Razib at 2:36 AM • 4 Comments
May 23, 2006
God lives, deal with it! permlink
Category: Religion
I'm an atheist. Just like some people who are Christians but weren't always tell me that they "always believed in Christ," myself, I've never believed in God. Before the age of 7 I did avow a belief in God, but...
Posted by Razib at 7:52 PM • 21 Comments
Social life & genomic imprinting permlink
Category: Genetics
My post yesterday offered up a quick sketch of the phenomenon of genomic imprinting. In short, genomic imprinting is the selective expression of an allele conditional upon whether it is inherited from the father or mother. This selective expression is...
Posted by Razib at 10:01 AM • 4 Comments
May 22, 2006
Da Vinci & DNA - Jesus with the XX male syndrome? permlink
Category: Genetics
Since I'm on a Dumb Vinci Code kick today, check out this amusing article about the genetics of Jesus! Check it: In humans, females package some of their DNA in two matched X chromosomes, males in a single X and...
Posted by Razib at 11:14 PM • 10 Comments
