Child Behaviour: Not In Their Genes?

A paper just published reports that there are: No Genetic Influence for Childhood Behavior Problems From DNA Analysis

This is pretty big.

Using a powerful approach called GCTA, King’s College London researchers Maciej Trzaskowski and colleagues found no evidence that genetics can explain differences in children’s behavioural and conduct difficulties.

First some background. ‘Missing heritability‘ refers to the fact that genetics has mostly failed to find common genetic variants that are associated with ‘complex traits’ like personality, mental disorer and intelligence.

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Chasing the black holes of the ocean

Mathematically speaking, ocean eddies are counterparts to the black holes in space.(Illustration: G. Haller / ETH Zurich)

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Lack of quantitative training among early-career ecologists: a survey of the problem and potential solutions (guest post)

“Wilson’s Principle No. 2: For every scientist, there exists a discipline for which his or her level of mathematical competence is enough to achieve excellence.” EO Wilson

As some might recally, this quote stems from an essay by EO Wilson entitled “Great Scientist ≠ Good at Math “published half a year ago in the Wall Street Journal, which advocated the thesis that math skills are not essential to be a great scientist. The piece sparked a wide controversy across the blogoshere and beyond (see 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 9, 10, …), with a majority of commenters disagreeing (according to my perception), but also quite a few with supportive views, often along the line that we have too much technical research and not enough intuition / creativeness etc. We could leave it there, as an academic debate, but the related question of how much math we teach in ecology has obviously some very tangible implications, both for the career opportunities of our students and for the future development of our field.

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Hydrophobic Surfaces Will Improve Steam Condenser Efficiency

Fitting the 3D blading of a low pressure steam turbine at Muelheim plant in Germany. (Credit: Siemens AG, Munich/Berlin)

About 90% of all electricity is generated using steam as the working fluid, nearly all by steam turbines. In electric generation, steam is typically condensed at the end of its expansion cycle, and returned to the boiler for re-use. A technology that improves steam condenser efficiency could have a large impact on global electricity generation. Now a team of scientists from MIT has found a way to do this.

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Vaccines: what is the meaning of phase I, II and III?

I'm often asked, "How long will it take to finally have an HIV vaccine? Are we close? What about this study that published good results on an HIV vaccine?" 

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I’m So Hungry I Could Eat a Horse

Horse jerky imported from Scotland, via Huffington Post

“The horse is a noble animal. This opinion is widely shared in Anglo-Saxon countries where it is felt that it is an ignoble action to eat a noble animal, and one which is an intimate friend of man, on the same principle which forbade Alice, in ‘Through the Looking Glass,’ to sink her knife into a leg of mutton to which she had just been formally introduced.”Waverley Root, ‘Esquire’ January, 1974

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