A scientist drills a skull in search of ancient human DNA
Until now, scientists have identified only a few dozen variants that went through natural selection in humans in the past 10,000 years. A new study claims to find hundreds--maybe thousands. Here's my story on the provocative research, and the mixed reception it's getting. Gift link: nyti.ms/4tSJH9G
A landmark ancient DNA study by Ali Akbari from the Reich lab, showing 479 independent loci under recent (<10ky) directional selection, affecting a wide range of traits.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Scientists have identified a set of genetic variants that could help to explain why responses to obesity drugs vary markedly from person to person
go.nature.com/4ccK07M
Cargo bike seats family of four
Inaugural Donning of the Helmet
The Trump administration has prepared an order that would impose a 100% tariff on imports of patented medications and their active ingredients. www.statnews.com/2026/04/01/t...
ISO a large Bulgarian man who will strike me with a baton whenever I exceed my screen time limit
Pleased to present our new preprint on sleep and circadian rhythms among the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia.
This is a fascinating system for exploring sleep biology. Lots of variation in light exposure, housing type, and subsistence.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵 below.
rip
People often intuitively interpret genetic ancestry PCA plots as simple genetic distances, but this is not always the case. Below are random pairs of individuals that are far apart in PCA space (lines) but actually have fewer total variant differences (numbers).
Great news! Nashville buses just got even easier to use
From time to time, the large commuter bus is temporarily replaced by a small one
It’s more fun than the car seat
If this doesn’t change his mind, I don’t know what will
Collecting maple sap
An official language designation empowers the federal government to determine correct and acceptable speech. Regardless of who’s in power, the language of the American people should simply be the languages of the American people.
I've ridden the Star a few times and enjoyed it. Of course, the service is very limited. But if you live near any of the stations, it's decent for commuting.
youtu.be/OsgnpDzN7jQ?...
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out!
The main silver lining to the NIH F&A rate cut is that I now understand the grant process much better than before. Breaking things can help explain how they work--and how important they are.
Happy Trolley Tuesday, let's make it a good one
NO WAY
Homemade maple syrup is safe from tariffs
Just now: Arc Institute and NVIDIA release Evo 2, the largest AI model for biology. It is fully open-source.
Evo 2 can predict which mutations in a gene are likely to be pathogenic, or even design entire eukaryotic genomes.
We covered it in Asimov Press! Check it out 🔻
I know you've all been starved for bus and farm content