"missing heritability" of height

This is a nice little news snippet summarizing the search for common (via GWAS) vs rare variants underlying phenotypic variation, such as height.

comfort food makes you dumb

I like these Nature Journal Clubs, and here is one from Nicky Clayton on recent studies that indicate: "consuming an excessively high-calorie diet can result in marked decreases in cognitive abilities, especially in spatial memory"

"For love and money"

Interesting article in Nature on academic career satisfaction and salaries, with comparisons between men and women across regions. An especially interesting graph demonstrating why all women should read "Women Don't Ask" before negotiating a new job offer...

Human uniqueness and, ehem, "tool use"

Just what makes us such an exceptional ape?

According to Jesse Bering at Scientific America:

"One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot"

(thanks for the tip, Karthik)

"Big Man"

How chimp-like was afarensis? New fossil (pub in PNAS, don't have link on hand), old debate... Here is the Ann Gibbons' science news tidbit complete with Lovejoy vs Jungers quotes.

Sanger Center 10k genomes project

The Sanger center is now doing a (UK) 10,000 genomes projects -- about half of these will be exomes of people with "extreme phenotypes" (obesity, autism, heart disease...). The other half will be full genomes (so should include indels, copy variation) of family pairs/twins in on-going longitudinal studies.

some useful basics on epigenetics

Ah, I'm such a fan of U of Utah's Learn.Genetics site. Their tidbits on epigenetics are especially useful. I'm thinking we should do a special-topic lab meeting on epigenetics...