linkfest – 02/18/13

A Genetic Code for Genius? – more on the bgi project.

Genetic components of political preference – “[I]ndividuals tend to have a broad, evolution-based orientation toward being more conservative or liberal about various elements, such as protecting their in-group. That in-group orientation can translate into preferences on political issues such as reproductive rights, immigration, and war, as well as political behaviors such as voting behavior and political participation.”

Baby-making among non-whites by political orientation over time – from the awesome epigone.

Higher Levels of Neanderthal Ancestry in East Asians Than in Europeans (Wall et al. 2013) – @dienekes’.

Gildea (1992): A lost IQ study of transracially adopted Koreans – from jason malloy.

Unchanging Essence – “Shea says that no anthropologist in his right mind would think that existing cultural variation among humans had anything to do with genetic differences between existing populations. It will be interesting to discover the alleles that made him say that.” – heh. – from greg cochran.

Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain – “The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics.” – via steve sailer.

Peter Turchin on the Big Picture – (on “cycles of inequality”) – from steve sailer.

Memory of chimps ‘far better than human’

Why Almost Everyone in Russia Has a Dash Cam – “The sheer size of the country, combined with lax — and often corrupt — law enforcement, and a legal system that rarely favors first-hand accounts of traffic collisions has made dash cams all but a requirement for motorists. ‘You can get into your car without your pants on, but never get into a car without a dash cam,’ Aleksei Dozorov, a motorists’ rights activist in Russia told Radio Free Europe last year.”

Why Children Must Inherit Their Last Names from Their Father, Not Their Mother – from kanazawa.

Bacteria boost fixes symptoms of autism in mice – “[I]nfecting pregnant mice with molecules from a flu virus caused autism-like symptoms in their offspring. The pups were less social, squeaked less and displayed repetitive behaviours. They also had a ‘leaky’ gastrointestinal tract that allowed bacteria to move in and out of the lining. In addition, the bacteria present in their gut were significantly different from that found in mice without autism-like behaviour. Studies in humans have also identified links between gut bacteria and autism. For example, a 2011 study identified a significant lack of Bacteroides in children with autism.”

How Napoleon Chagnon Became Our Most Controversial Anthropologist – “He spent much of the past decade working on a memoir instead’ ‘Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes — the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists,’ which comes out this month.” – heh.

The Weird Irony at the Heart of the Napoleon Chagnon Affair – definitely all very weird.

bonus: The Pilgrims as Illegal Aliens – “Letting in immigrants means letting in your future rulers.”

bonus bonus: Illegal Immigrations and Black Unemployment – “It’s peculiar … that those who can usually be counted on to highlight any disparity between blacks and whites — whatever the reason and no matter how slight the disparity – have said not a word about the effect of illegal immigration on blacks.”

bonus bonus bonus: Sea slug loses penis after sex but grows another the next day – “Invertebrate may discard organ like a dirty needle to avoid carrying competitors’ sperm.” – ouch!

bonus bonus bonus bonus: Bronze Age beads that are worth their weight in gold: 4,000-year-old burial chest unearthed on Dartmoor ‘one of most significant historical finds in a century’

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Could the sea be conscious? Research reveals how tiny plankton behave like a marine ‘megamind’

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Debate Continues: Did Your Seafood Feel Pain? – “Scientists disagree on whether your seafood suffered.”

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Norway jails Rwandan for 21 years over role in 1994 genocide — “Similar cases against Rwandans have been brought in neighbouring Sweden, Finland and Denmark.” — nordic countries’ jurisdictions extend globally (perhaps even throughout the entire solar system?) — just thought you should know.

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historic abortion rates in korea

on one of my posts about the gender imbalance issue in china and india (and other places), cinnamon asked about south korea. i replied that i didn’t know anything about gender imbalance in south korea — and i still don’t — but here’s a related story from back-in-the-day when everyone was worried about population control which, according to mara hvistendahl, is when sex selection abortions started to get out of hand. from hvistendahl in foreign policy:

“In South Korea, Western money enabled the creation of a fleet of mobile clinics — reconditioned U.S. Army ambulances donated by USAID and staffed by poorly trained workers and volunteers. Fieldworkers employed by the health ministry’s Bureau of Public Health were paid based on how many people they brought in for sterilizations and intrauterine device insertions, and some allege Korea’s mobile clinics later became the site of abortions as well. By the 1970s, recalls gynecologist Cho Young-youl, who was a medical student at the time, ‘there were agents going around the countryside to small towns and bringing women into the [mobile] clinics. That counted toward their pay. They brought the women regardless of whether they were pregnant.’ Non-pregnant women were sterilized. A pregnant woman met a worse fate, Cho says: ‘The agent would have her abort and then undergo tubal ligation.’ As Korea’s abortion rate skyrocketed, Sung-bong Hong and Christopher Tietze detailed its rise in the Population Council journal Studies in Family Planning. By 1977, they determined, doctors in Seoul were performing 2.75 abortions for every birth — the highest documented abortion rate in human history.”

east asians really like to do a thing thoroughly, don’t they?

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linkfest – 05/22/11

Gene responsible for the unique development of human brains is ‘discovered’ – LAGMC3. see also al fin.

Researchers uncover a new level of genetic diversity in human RNA sequences – rna-dna differences (RDDs).

A bad apple in Duckworth’s IQ-Motivation meta-analysis? – important review from statsquatch.

Hazy Recall as a Signal Foretelling Depression – “[R]esearchers at Oxford, Northwestern University in Illinois and other universities are conducting studies with thousands of teenagers to determine whether those with overgeneral memory are more likely to develop depression later on.”

Scientists find “master switch” gene for obesity

The £400 [$650] test that tells you how long you’ll live – telomere test.

Scientists find genetic link to depression

Happy people die younger than their more reserved peers, study finds

Q&A: Novel study suggests autism three times more prevalent than thought – in south korea.

Nicotine is less addictive for smokers who have a particular genetic quirk, study finds – via diversity is chaos.

Does Cupid play politics? That ‘something special’ might be your mate’s political ideology – “Researchers discover spouses select partners based on social and political attitudes.” via parapundit.

Proof heart disease is an ancient problem: Autopsy finds 3,500-year-old Egyptian princess had clogged arteries – “44 out of 52 mummies examined had clogged arteries”

Not-so-similar fate of identical twins infected with HIV-1

bonus: Military Social Influence in the Global Information Environment – A Civilian Primer

linkfest – 04/03/11

Ontogenetic De Novo Copy Number Variations (CNVs) as a Source of Genetic Individuality: Studies on Two Families with MZD Twins for Schizophrenia – identical twins don’t, necessarily, have identical genomes (see also: CNVs)

Religious Young Adults Become Obese by Middle Age: Cause May Be Unhealthy Food at Religious Activities – “Young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age as young adults with no religious involvement, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.”

Genes relate to level of alcohol consumption among Asians – 12 SNPs on chromosome 12q24

Europe and China have different Neandertal genes

Women more likely than men to obey a satellite navigation system – even when it gives wrong directions – heh.

Political regimes, political ideology, and self-rated health in Europe: a multilevel analysis – “Individuals with rightwing ideologies report better health than leftwing individuals…. This study shows that although both individual political ideology and contextual political regime are independently associated with individuals’ self-rated health, individual political ideology appears to be more strongly associated with self-rated health than political regime.”

Scripps Research scientists: Sensory wiring for smells varies among individuals – diversity in how the olfactory system is wired

Genes For Fast High Altitude Adjustment – from parapundit

Cultural Values and the Well-Being of Future Generations: A Cross-National Study – “[T]he more a nation prioritized Egalitarianism versus Hierarchy values and Harmony versus Mastery values, (a) the higher was children’s well-being in the nation, (b) the more generous were national laws regarding maternal leave, (c) the less advertising was directed at children, and (d) the less CO2 the nation emitted.” (behind a paywall)

Scientific literacy by race – from the audacious epigone

First-born children are ‘more likely to suffer from allergies’ – “Japanese scientists found that multiple births build up the immune system in the womb which is transferred to babies. It means second and third children are less likely to suffer from hay fever or develop food allergies.”

bonus – Raciology in Russia @altright

man created god in his own image…

“Was he happy? Cultural difference in conceptions of Jesus”

“In the present research, we examined (a) whether the conception of Jesus differs between Koreans and Americans, and (b) whether different conceptions of Jesus might account for national differences in self-reported personality and subjective well-being. In Study 1, using a free association task, we found that European Americans spontaneously associated Jesus with predominantly positive words such as ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing,’ but rarely associated Jesus with painful or sacrificial terms. In contrast, Koreans spontaneously associated Jesus with both positive (e.g., ‘love’) and painful and sacrificial words. In Study 2, we used personality and well-being scales to assess perceptions of Jesus, as well as participants’ perceptions of their own personalities and well-being. Consistent with Study 1, American participants rated Jesus to be more agreeable, conscientious, extraverted, open to experiences, and happier than Korean participants. As expected from the previous research, American participants also rated themselves to be more agreeable, conscientious, extraverted, open to experiences, happier, and more satisfied with their lives than did Koreans….

“Although we assumed in this study that conceptions of Jesus would affect one’s self-views, it is possible that self-views could color one’s image of Jesus. Indeed, when we examined the reverse direction of the mediation process, we found that national differences in conceptions of Jesus were predicted by national differences in self-reported personality and happiness. These findings show that the relationship between self-perception and the perception of Jesus is bidirectional. To some extent, people project their own personality and well-being onto the image of Jesus.“

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