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COVID-19 update
A dying man, stoned on suspicion of spreading the plague - Felix Jenewein, 1899 (Wikicommons)SARS-CoV-2, though novel, belongs to a long-existing group of respiratory pathogens: coronaviruses. Until...
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A second look at ASPM
Worldwide frequency of the new ASPM variant (Mekel-Bobrov et al. 2007)Fifteen years ago, Science published a major finding: the human brain was still evolving well after the dawn of history. This could...
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British hipsters
Why have British women become broader-hipped over the past three thousand years? (Wikicommons: Niek Sprakel)British women have become broader-hipped over the past three thousand years or so. That's the...
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Does a commensal relationship exist between coronaviruses and some human...
Nanjing Road, Shanghai (Wikicommons - Stephen Codrington). Populations with a long history of social crowding may have become more susceptible to coronavirus infection.I've published a paper on...
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This is where the virus is least deadly
Patterson Town Hall, (Wikicommons - Anthony22). Putnam County NY has the lowest IFR for COVID-19 in the United States.SARS-CoV-2 is more virulent in southern Europe than in northern Europe. The reason,...
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Cleansing the scientific literature ... again
J. Philippe Rushton (Wikicommons). Eight years later, one of his studies is being “removed” from the scientific literature.Seven years ago I wrote about Danish psychologist Helmuth Nyborg and the...
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When the mob decides truth
The Film Mercury, 1926 (Wikicommons) – When the mob decides truth.Until recently, it was almost impossible to remove an article from the published scientific literature. You would have to ask each...
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Recent evolution of the British population
Frederick Morgan – Off for the Honeymoon (Wikicommons) Over the past 2,000 years, the British gene pool has shifted toward alleles that favor lighter hair, sunburn, and educational attainment. Was this...
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Did women jumpstart recent cognitive evolution?
Scatter plots of frequencies of CASC5 variants by sex (Shi et al. 2017). During the last ice age, natural selection favored an increase in the gray matter of ancestral East Asians ... primarily in...
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Religion as a force for natural selection
Buddhist temple, Singapore (Wikicommons – Cattan2011). In Buddhism, family is valued over self, but not strangers over family. Christianity goes farther: strangers are valued over self and...
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Selection for slow life history?
One of several posters to promote family formation in the dwindling Parsi community (Jiyo Parsi)In India, and overseas, the Parsis are renowned for their achievements, particularly in business but also...
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Declining intelligence in the 20th century: the case of Estonia
Soviet-era stamp. In Estonia, cranial volume shrank between the cohort of girls born in 1937 and those born in 1962, apparently because the intellectually gifted were more likely to pursue higher...
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The large society problem in Northwest Europe and East Asia
Allegory of Justice punishing Injustice – Jean-Marc Nattier (Wikicommons). Initially, economic and social activity was organized among closely related individuals, a limitation that kept societies...
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The genetics of susceptibility to COVID-19
Left: Frequency of an rs2258666 allele in Indian populations (TT-plus strand or AA-minus strand). Right: COVID-19 case-fatality rate (August 2020). ACE2 is a cell receptor that mediates the infection...
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Large differences at a few genes?
By equalizing the environment, socialist regimes made genetic influences more noticeable (Wikicommons). Current thinking is that cognitive ability differs from one person to the next through small...
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Brain size and family structure in Estonia
Estonian schoolchildren (Wikicommons). Estonian children have smaller brains if raised by a biological parent and a step-parent. Therefore, two committed parents are better than one, right? Well, not...
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Frank Salter and the National Question
When did the interests of our elites begin to diverge from ours? (Wikicommons) Kinship ties have historically been weak among Europeans north and west of a line running from Trieste to St. Petersburg....
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The mental qualities that make a society workable
A questionnaire survey found very low levels of altruism in Czechs and very high levels in Moroccans, Egyptians, and Bangladeshis. Do these results show differences in actual behavior or differences...
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Are fungal pathogens manipulating human behavior?
Fungal infection of brain tissue (Wikicommons, CDC). Some fungi persist in the human brain for years and begin to harm their host only in old age. What were they doing previously? I've published a...
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Are identical twins really identical?
Sibling similarity in personality for monozygotic twins, dizygotic twins, and adoptees (Wikicommons) Monozygotic and dizygotic twins who were separated early in life and reared apart (MZA and DZA...
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