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July 31, 2007
Google news no like permlink
Category: Blog
As Kevin Beck points out Google News dropped ScienceBlogs.com, but kept the Discovery Institute's blog. If you have issues this with particular pair of decisions, tell Google....
Posted by Razib at 8:13 PM • 5 Comments
Copy number variation & being human permlink
Category: Genetics
Gene Duplications Give Clues to Humanness: All told, the researchers found more than 4000 genes that showed lineage-specific changes in copy number, with the numbers steadily increasing over evolutionary time. Humans, for example, only had 84 genes with increased copy...
Posted by Razib at 2:28 PM • 3 Comments
Dell Hell permlink
Category: Blog
Zack talks about his personal Dell Hell. I took had a Inspiron 5100, and it exhibited all the issues he has noted....
Posted by Razib at 3:29 AM • 0 Comments
Martin Nowak, man of God permlink
Category: Genetics
Carl Zimmer has a fascinating profile of Martin Nowak, whose work I have talked about before. Carl saves the best for last: Dr. Nowak sometimes finds his scientific colleagues astonished when he defends religion. But he believes the astonishment comes...
Posted by Razib at 12:19 AM • 39 Comments
July 30, 2007
Neandertals & humans gettin' along permlink
Category: Evolution
Were Neanderthals our enemies or lovers?: One difficulty in working out how these ancient humans rubbed along is that there is a lack of clear evidence of close encounters. That changed two years ago when a paper was published...
Posted by Razib at 11:07 PM • 32 Comments
Steven Pinker on scientific genealogy permlink
Category: Genetics
Steven Pinker explores The Genealogy Craze in America in TNR. He covers most of the angles, and expands a bit out from a laser-like focus on scientific genealogy toward the relevance of relatedness in the evolution of social behavior....
Posted by Razib at 7:28 PM • 1 Comments
Foreskin doesn't add "value"? permlink
Category: Biology
Circumcision doesn't reduce sensation: study: The study, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, looked at a group of 40 men, half of them circumcised. Using sensory testing, the men were monitored at two points on the penis and the...
Posted by Razib at 9:48 AM • 15 Comments
July 28, 2007
Genetic conflict in fish permlink
Category: Genetics
Ancient and continuing Darwinian selection on insulin-like growth factor II in placental fishes: ...We found that IGF2 is subject to positive Darwinian selection coincident with the evolution of placentation in fishes, with particularly strong selection among lineages that have evolved...
Posted by Razib at 2:59 PM • 2 Comments
Paleontology & microevolution? permlink
Category: Genetics
Rapid evolution in early trilobites fueled by high variation: Webster compiled morphological data for nearly 1,000 of the 17,000 different species of trilobites, a class of marine arthropods that died out by 250 million years ago, from 49 previously published...
Posted by Razib at 3:41 PM • 2 Comments
Evolutionary parameters - migration matters! permlink
Category: Genetics
How bacteria evolve into superbugs: "Bacteria that can mutate fast will quickly adapt to harsh environments containing antibiotics. Our study showed that a high rate of immigration significantly augments the regular process of genetic mutation commonly used to explain the...
Posted by Razib at 3:22 PM • 1 Comments
July 26, 2007
Apostasy on apostasy? permlink
Category: Culture
Looks like there might be a recantation of the argument against death for apostasy by the Grand Mufti of Egypt. Abu Aardvark has the details....
Posted by Razib at 10:49 PM • 4 Comments
Naked Mole rats are inbred permlink
Category: Genetics
Viral Epizootic reveals inbreeding depression in a habitually inbreeding mammal: Inbreeding is typically detrimental to fitness. However, some animal populations are reported to inbreed without incurring inbreeding depression, ostensibly due to past "purging" of deleterious alleles. Challenging this is the...
Posted by Razib at 3:44 PM • 3 Comments
July 25, 2007
Evolution, genetics & human nature feed permlink
Category: Blog
If you find the material on this blog of interest, I highly recommend that you subscribe to Jason Malloy's de facto clipping service: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/gnxpforum/. A far number of the articles I blog about I find via that entry on my...
Posted by Razib at 2:54 PM • 0 Comments
Bonobos, the "gentle ape"? permlink
Category: Genetics
Check out a long piece on bonobos in The New Yorker. Now, I've read a fair amount of Frans de Waal's work, and I think the piece is making him out to be a little more PC than he is....
Posted by Razib at 1:47 PM • 4 Comments
A reflected light from the nations permlink
Category: Religion
I was putting off commenting on this, and wondering whether I had any value to add. But a reader pointed me to Noah Feldman's Orthodox paradox, a piece in The New York Times Magazine where the author, a young Harvard...
Posted by Razib at 10:13 AM • 30 Comments
