Tag Archives: biology

Maybe Your Zoloft Stopped Working Because A Liver Fluke Tried To Turn Your Nth-Great-Grandmother Into A Zombie

Or at least this is the theory proposed in Brain Evolution Through The Lens Of Parasite Manipulation by Marco del Giudice. The paper starts with an overview of parasite manipulation of host behavior. These are the stories you hear about … Continue reading

[PARTIALLY RETRACTED] Cortical Neuron Number Matches Intuitive Perceptions Of Moral Value Across Animals

[EDIT: No longer confident in this post, see here.] Yesterday’s post reviewed research showing that animals’ intelligence seemed correlated with their number of cortical neurons. If this is true, we could use it to create an absolute scale that puts … Continue reading

Myers’ Race Car Versus The General Fitness Factor

[Epistemic status: I am not a geneticist, and even the geneticists I know aren’t sure about a lot of this. Take as speculation only.] I. PZ Myers argues against Stephen Hsu’s genetic engineering proposal here – a disappointing attitude toward … Continue reading

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Non-Shared Environment Doesn’t Just Mean Schools And Peers

[Epistemic status: uncertain. Everything in here seems right, but I haven’t heard other people/experts in the field talk about this nearly as much as I would expect them to if it were true. Obviously amount of variability attributable to environment … Continue reading

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2016 Nootropics Survey Results

[Disclaimer: Nothing here should be taken to endorse using illegal or dangerous substances. This was a quick informal survey and you should not make any important health decisions based on it. Talk to your doctor before trying anything.] Nootropics are … Continue reading

Did Falling Testosterone Affect Falling Crime?

There are already too many proposed causes for the secular decline in crime, but I can’t resist suggesting one more. A couple of months ago Nydwracu asked me whether it could be related to the secular decline in testosterone. The … Continue reading

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How To Use 23andMe Irresponsibly

As you might remember, the FDA stomped on 23andMe for using too many irresponsible genetic tests that purported to tell you things about yourself and your health with limited support. They eventually worked out a deal where the FDA allowed … Continue reading

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Why No Science Of Nerds?

Different groups navel-gaze in different ways. Broadway musical writers write a bunch of musicals about what it’s like to be on Broadway. Poets write a bunch of poems about writing poetry. Philosophers speculate on how philosophy may be the most … Continue reading

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Society Is Fixed, Biology Is Mutable

Today during an otherwise terrible lecture on ADHD I realized something important we get sort of backwards. There’s this stereotype that the Left believes that human characteristics are socially determined, and therefore mutable. And social problems are easy to fix, … Continue reading

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God Bless Longecity

I am inordinately pleased by the existence of Longecity. This is a forum where people discuss supplements and nootropics. I started looking at it when I was conducting the nootropics forum, assumed it was similar to every other forum that … Continue reading

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