Category Archives: Genetics

Live Not By Lies

Posted on April 8, 2018 by gcochran9

The Genomics of Race and Identity Reich starts out strong, telling the story of his work on identifying African-origin alleles that drive increased prostate cancer risk in African-Americans – and the dumbshit responses he got from his colleagues. He mentions … Continue reading →

Posted in Ashkenazi Jews, Book Reviews, Genetics | 188 Comments

mtDNA capers

Posted on August 17, 2017 by gcochran9

There’s an interesting pattern in the mtDNA of archaic humans. Neanderthals have mtDNA that’s a lot closer to that of anatomically modern humans than to Denisovans, although Neanderthals and Denisovans are close if you look at nuclear DNA. While really … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaic humans, Denisovans, Genetics, Neanderthals | 6 Comments

Economists and biology

Posted on May 16, 2016 by gcochran9

Naturally, economists know a lot about human biology and evolution, just as civil engineers have to know about the properties of timber, concrete and steel. They have a good grounding in psychometrics, behavioral genetics, and quantitative genetics – how else … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Genetics | 134 Comments

Something else

Posted on August 17, 2015 by gcochran9

Razib has talked about this – here’s what I think. The various sweeping alleles that have made Europeans and North Asians have light skin  were not favored because they helped you garner extra vitamin D, at least not mostly. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Genetics, Skin color | 101 Comments

A common variant linked to chromosomal errors

Posted on April 9, 2015 by gcochran9

A new paper in Science (Rajiv McCoy as main author) says that there’s a genetic variant, probably in the gene PLK4, that substantially increases the fraction of embryos with screwed-up chromosomes.  Mothers with the high-risk genotypes apparently have fewer embryos … Continue reading →

Posted in Genetics | 23 Comments

Familial Mediterranean fever

Posted on January 9, 2015 by gcochran9

FMF is a recessive hereditary disorder caused by mutations in MEFV, the gene for the protein pyrin. Pyrin, produced in white blood cells,  inhibits inflammation, and the FMF mutations unleash inflammation to varying degrees. The disease manifests in painful inflammatory … Continue reading →

Posted in Ashkenazi Jews, Evolutionary Medicine, Genetics, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Faster than Fisher

Posted on November 22, 2014 by gcochran9

There’s a simple model of the spread of an advantageous allele:  You take σ, the typical  distance people move in one generation, and s,  the selective advantage: the advantageous allele spreads as a nonlinear wave at speed  σ * √(2s).  … Continue reading →

Posted in Denisovans, Dietary adaptations, European Prehistory, Evolutionary Medicine, Genetics, Indo-European, Linguistics, Neanderthals, Skin color | Tagged | 77 Comments

The Greatest Generation

Posted on November 19, 2014 by gcochran9

When you compare our trifling selves with the generation that landed in Normandy, invented the atomic bomb, and wrote The Big Sleep, it doesn’t look good. You could easily get the impression that the United States went straight from a … Continue reading →

Posted in Genetics | 109 Comments

Centum and Satem

Posted on October 27, 2014 by gcochran9

I may well be wrong, but there’s no point in waiting until they dig up and sequence every last body in Eurasia. Time to stick my neck out. Here’s my current best guess concerning the Indo-European expansion: It all started … Continue reading →

Posted in Dietary adaptations, European Prehistory, Genetics, Indo-European, Linguistics | Tagged , , , | 100 Comments

Yamna and Corded Ware

Posted on October 26, 2014 by gcochran9

I hear some interesting things from the recent ASHG conference, mostly from Razib Khan. It seems that the dead have spoken again: it turns out that the genetic transition in northern Europe  coincides with the advent of the Corded Ware/Battleaxe … Continue reading →

Posted in European Prehistory, Genetics, Genghis -Khan effect, Indo-European | 45 Comments