razib
Posts by this author
July 31, 2006
Apropos of our discussion of evolution and dogs, and introgression, here is a new paper I stumbled upon in Molecular Ecology, Detecting introgressive hybridization between free-ranging domestic dogs and wild wolves (Canis lupus) by admixture linkage disequilibrium analysis. Linkage disequilibrium…
July 31, 2006
Don't have time to read all the Science Blogs? Don't worry, Bora's put together a literal tapas of selections, part I, part II, part III and part IV.
July 31, 2006
Alex points me to this Rebecca Goldstein op-ed in The New York Times marking the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza. I am actually reading Goldstein's biography of Spinoza, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, and just finished Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic:…
July 27, 2006
I suspect the basic general process of introgression is clear to most of you, though I will get back to it soon. But here are some papers with candidate genes (click "related" for more references):
RRM2P4, dystrophin, xp21.1 and 17q21.31. Also, I should add in the amusing evidence that archaics…
July 27, 2006
Seed has a piece on the discoveries relating to menopause and its importance to the "Grandmother Hypothesis." Unlike male decline in fertility menopause is a specific and deliberate sequence of proactive processes by the female body to shut down reproductive capacity. Something like this is almost…
July 27, 2006
Below the fold, readers, this is what I mean by doing your technical homework.
July 26, 2006
Here is the definition from Wiki:
Introgression is a term used in genetics, particularly plant genetics, to describe the movement of a gene from one species into the gene pool of another by backcrossing an interspecific hybrid with one of its parents. Introgression of a transgene from a transgenic…
July 26, 2006
Since Jonah posted on the French IQ study profiled in The New York Times Magazine, I thought I'd point to an analysis of the data by a co-thug over at GNXP Classic. Warning, if 2 X 2 ANOVA bores you, prepare to be bored. Otherwise, enjoy.
Update: Alex has more analysis.
July 26, 2006
Update: It maybe that "idiot commenter" speaks English as a second language , and so was not expressing his skepticism with sufficient nuance for my taste. That being said, this post stands as a warning to those who would waste my time.
-God Bless, Razib
This commenter starts out by admitting that…
July 25, 2006
Jason says in a post which addresses the religion & science issue:
...Either the Bible is the holy and inerrant word of God, or it is an ancient document written by people with no more claim to authority than any other document that has survived from that time. It's hard to find a logically…
July 24, 2006
I am a little unsure whether this article in The Washington Post titled And the Evolutionary Beat Goes On . . ., beginning with the sentence "Stephen Jay Gould would have been pleased," is a subtle joke or not. The journalist has a science background, and has even covered the evolution "…
July 24, 2006
Over at GNXP Classic our resident virgin Matt McIntosh poses 10 questions for Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve.
July 23, 2006
Robert Skipper has an enormous post on R.A. Fisher & Sewall Wright's theories of dominance. I think Wright was more in the right on this issue, remember, it is easier to break (lose function) than make (gain function).
July 23, 2006
More unsolicited opinion on current events from me over at Nation Building.
July 22, 2006
I have mentioned a few times that I am re-reading The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection by R.A. Fisher. I read it a few years back when I didn't know anything about evolutionary theory, so I believe this run through will be more frutiful. For those of you who don't know, R.A. Fisher was…
July 21, 2006
Update: Update at the bottom....
In reference to the sequencing of the Neandertal genome, Kambiz at Anthropology.net states:
I have one little gripe with the New York Times article. Wade quotes a geneticist, Dr. Bruce Lahn saying there is, "evidence from the human genome suggests some…
July 20, 2006
Most of you probably know this, but the race is on to sequence the Neandertal genome. Nick Wade has a decent story on it. Important point:
The chimp and human genomes differ at just 1 percent of the sites on their DNA. At this 1 percent, Neanderthals resemble humans at 96 percent of the sites […
July 20, 2006
The post below on the genetics (and relaxation of constraint) of dogs has given rise to many good comments. I want to highlight one:
...Yet most feral dog populations quickly revert to a medium-sized, short-coated, yellowish dog - the so-called "Pariah Dog" that's found in so many places around…
July 19, 2006
Over at Darwin Catholic there has been some discussion of the human influenced evolution of dogs. Seed actually has it right, it is human influenced evolution. Some of the interpretation of the paper which showed an increase in the frequency of 'deleterious' alleles spin the results as suggesting…
July 18, 2006
While I'm engaged in a bit of "radio silence," check out RPM's blog, he's posting some good stuff.
Also, I have a short entry up on historical population genetics in the context of the British Isles at my ,other weblog.
July 17, 2006
Does anyone know the backstory to the child mummy in this Shakira video?
Update: A reader emails:
It's just a child with a mask, as sort of reference to the carnival inbarranquilla (http://www.carnavaldebarranquilla.com/), where she isfrom in Colombia. The video is full of references to colombia.…
July 17, 2006
A recent paper in Genome Research titled Relaxation of selective constraint on dog mitochondrial DNA following domestication concludes that domestication of wolves and their transformation into dogs were facilitated by relaxed selection and increased latent variation, from which subsequent…
July 16, 2006
After reading the comment below in response to my post on the Azeris in Iran I responded with some exasperation. Sometimes you have a "Eureka!" moment, and this is one of them. Even if I agree with John that a positivistic project is near impossible in history because of the nature of the topic,…
July 16, 2006
I know many of you are dying to hear my opinion on current events, well, your wish is granted. I post over at Nation Building about the current conflict in the Middle East (sort of). I am only tangentially interested in this topic because I'm not ignorant and I am of the opinion that most…
July 16, 2006
Over at GNXP Classic Agnostic has an extensive post up on the "women in science" controversy. I will admit to prodding him on this issue as I've been receiving emails (and comments) where people want me to "address" it. But time is finite...and I'm rereading Genetical Theory as well as hitting…
July 16, 2006
In my post below I engage with some commenters in my perceptions of "what religion is." To understand where I am coming from, I thought I would be explicit in some of my assumptions and models.
1) Modern religions often have some very specific beliefs about the nature of God. For example, the…