Links

Genetics:

• Everything Is Heritable:

  • “A combined analysis of genetically correlated traits identifies 187 loci and a role for neurogenesis and myelination in intelligence”, Hill et al 2018 (MTAG strikes again: I estimate the PGS to be ~10%, not 7% as reported, due to severe measurement error in the replication sample.)

    • “The new genetics of intelligence”, Plomin & von Stumm 2018 (Mentions upcoming PGS of 10%, uncorrected. Remember: attacks only get better.)

  • “Genomic risk prediction of coronary artery disease in nearly 500,000 adults: implications for early screening and primary prevention”, Inouye et al 2018 (Risk prediction graph; as sample sizes increase, the PGSes become increasingly meaningful predictors…)

  • “Making new genetic diagnoses with old data: iterative reanalysis and reporting from genome-wide data in 1,133 families with developmental disorders”, Wright et al 2018 (Progress in genetically diagnosing developmental disorders & retardation: the DDD Study has gone from 27% to 40% diagnosis rate over the past 3 years due to general genetic progress, and expects further improvements); “Rapid Whole Genome Sequencing Decreases Morbidity and Healthcare Cost of Hospitalized Infants”, Farnaes et al 2018

  • “Genome-wide association analysis of lifetime cannabis use (n=184,765) identifies new risk loci, genetic overlap with mental health, and a causal influence of schizophrenia on cannabis use”, Pasman et al 2018 (Correlation≠causation: more evidence that schizophrenia/cannabis is confounded)

  • “GWAS of Insomnia (n=1,331,010) Identifies Novel Loci and Functional Pathways”, Jansen et al 2018

  • “Fine-mapping of an expanded set of type 2 diabetes loci to single-variant resolution using high-density imputation and islet-specific epigenome maps”, Mahajan et al 2018 (this illustrates the continuing benefits of sample size, and also the benefit of using better imputation to squeeze a lot more out of existing SNP-only datasets—imputation reduces the need for whole-genomes.)

  • “The Shared Genetic Basis of Human Fluid Intelligence and Brain Morphology”, Ge et al 2018

  • “How MyHeritage found a new business in DNA” (>1m SNP tests sold in 2017; the GWAS betas will continue until morale improves)

• Recent Evolution:

  • “Human local adaptation of the TRPM8 cold receptor along a latitudinal cline”, Key et al 2018 (European racial tendency to migraines due to a cold adaptation?)

  • Dysgenics:

    • “Evidence of directional and stabilizing selection in contemporary humans”, Sanjak et al 2017 (graphs; directional selection against education/intelligence in the UK for women but slight selection for education/intelligence in men)
    • “Elevated proportions of deleterious genetic variation in domestic animals and plants”, Makino et al 2018 (Evidence of dysgenics in domesticated species, primarily due to population bottlenecks in the original domestication rather than selective breeding.)

• Engineering:

  • “China, Unhampered by Rules, Races Ahead in Gene-Editing Trials”
  • “Researchers clone the first primates from monkey tissue cells” (progress towards IES)

AI:

• “Unsupervised Cipher Cracking Using Discrete GANs”, Gomez et al 2018
• “Eat Your VGGtables, or, Why Does Neural Style Transfer Work Best With Old VGG CNNs’ Features?”

Politics/religion:

• “The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence”, Wood & Porter 2017 (Big failed replication: n=10100/k=52.)
• What Went Wrong at Target Canada (business disaster case story: groupthink/sunk-cost, unfamiliar technology, perverse internal incentives, etc.)

Psychology/biology:

• “New Evidence on the Impacts of Birth Order” (More Scandinavian population registry goodness: so birth order effects may exist after all and be quite large)
• “Psychology’s Favorite Tool [the IAT] for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job: Almost two decades after its introduction, the implicit association test has failed to deliver on its lofty promises”
• “Body weight homeostat that regulates fat mass independently of leptin in rats and mice”, Jansson et al 2018 (weird)
• “Interest in the Ketogenic Diet Grows for Weight Loss and Type 2 Diabetes”, Abbasi 2018
• “Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age”, Ruby et al 2018
• “Changing tides: ecological and historical perspectives on fish cognition”, Patton & Braithwaite 2015 (on surprisingly capable fish)
• “Clusters of Individual Experiences form a Continuum of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences in Adults”, Martin 2013 (Enlightenment appears to have surprisingly minimal and mostly negative effects on cognition & daily life; it is unfortunate Martin engages in explicit publication bias in choice of metrics, though, undermining his results & interpretations.)

Technology:

• “A Personal View of Average-Case Complexity”, Impagliazzo 1995 (the 5 possible worlds of cryptography)
• “Coding Machines” (Reflections on “Reflections on Trusting Trust”)
• “Revisiting the Risks of Bitcoin Currency Exchange Closure”, Moore et al 2016
• Could we solve blockchain scaling with terabyte-sized blocks?
• “A LessWrong Cryptocurrency Autopsy”

Philosophy:

• “Loyal to the Group of Seventeen’s Story: ‘The Just Man’”, Gene Wolfe

Fiction:

• The Ern Malley poetic hoax

Misc:

• Touhou lossless music collection (TLMC): version 19 released (first release since June 2015; up to 1.7TB)

Books

Nonfiction:

• Recollections of Wittgenstein

Film/TV

Animated:

• Kurozuka (one of the most unusual fictional treatments of Minamoto no Yoshitsune & Benkei to date, and a further unusual integration of Noh drama & twisting of the Kurozuka legend into a vampire story. The animation is nice, something of a throwback to Basilisk and Ninja Scroll and ‘80s–’90s OVA styles. The repetition of the rather MacGuffin-esque plot is unfortunate but necessary for the viewer to identify with the protagonist and experience the full horror—I would definitely say this benefits from lack of spoilers, so the suspicions can gradually dawn on one and one can enjoy some of the deliciously weird sequences. Some reviewers are confused by the end, but I think it’s clear enough what is going on, who is the mastermind, what their ’twisted love’ is about, and how Kurozuka falls into the immortality/time-dilation subgenre of horror.)
• Flip Flappers (a colorful take on yuri-esque mahou shoujo, Flip Flappers starts off with a strong visual imagination and fun animation, but the pieces never gel. If I had watched only episode 6, an unusually hard-hitting depiction of senile dementia, and episode 8, a colorful and fun ‘80s cyberpunk Tron-esque confection homaging classic robot anime, I would have thought Flip Flappers was an excellent anime; but—alas—I watched the others too. The various worlds never form as interesting a commentary as the witch-domains in Madoka did and come off as largely random, and the ’fetch of the week’ format fails to make the two protagonists interesting or convincing friends: Cocona remains a boring stick-in-the-mud while Papika never rises above ‘manic pixie dream girl’ stereotypes. The backstory is dumped at the end, and I have never seen a more shameless, comprehensive, or boringly unoriginal ripoff of Nadia/Neon Genesis Evangelion/End of Evangelion—I did think Kill la Kill went a bit far in homaging EoE, but KlK brought a lot to the table & was still its own anime. The predictable fighting-means-friendship ending is based on too much sketchy nonsense for me to even bother trying to understand it or appreciate its half-hearted gestures at having an emotional impact.)