Years of Education Influenced by Genetic Makeup, Enormous Study Finds

Posted on by Zimmer

The New York Times, July 23, 2018

Link

In the largest genetics study ever published in a scientific journal, an international team of scientists on Monday identified more than a thousand variations in human genes that influence how long people stay in school.

Educational attainment has attracted great interest from researchers in recent years, because it is linked to many other aspects of people’s lives, including their income as adults, overall health and even life span.

The newly discovered gene variants account for just a fraction of the differences in education observed between groups of people. Environmental influences, which may include family wealth or parental education, together play a bigger role.

Continue reading “Years of Education Influenced by Genetic Makeup, Enormous Study Finds” →

Friday’s Elk, July 20, 2018

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen
Tune In!

1. This afternoon, I’ll be on Science Friday starting about 3 pm ET. Ira Flatow and I will talk about She Has Her Mother’s Laugh. Catch us on the radio, or listen live online.

2. If you want to catch me in pixel form, I’ll be on BookTV on C-SPAN on Sunday at 5 pm ET. They’ll be broadcasting a recent conversation I had at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with anthropologist Chip Colwell in front of a live audience.

3. The Aspen Ideas Festival posted the audio of the book talk I gave for them last month. Listen here. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, July 20, 2018” →

Friday’s Elk, July 13, 2018

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen
When Did People Leave Africa?

We know that our ancestors diverged from other apes in Africa. And for millions of years that’s where they remained. But at some point hominins expanded to other continents, in a series of waves that included our own species roughly 70,000 years ago.

When was the first trip out? The clearest answer to that question would come from skeletons. The oldest skeletons of hominins yet found outside of Africa are about 1.7 million years old, found in the republic of Georgia. But this week, a team of researchers who have worked for years digging into a giant gulley in China, say they have found tools as old as 2.1 million years. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, July 13, 2018” →

Archaeologists in China Discover the Oldest Stone Tools Outside Africa

Posted on by Zimmer

The New York Times, July 11, 2018

Link

The oldest stone tools outside Africa have been discovered in western China, scientists reported on Wednesday. Made by ancient members of the human lineage, called hominins, the chipped rocks are estimated to be as much as 2.1 million years old.

The find may add a new chapter to the story of hominin evolution, suggesting that some of these species left Africa far earlier than once believed and managed to travel over 8,000 miles east of their evolutionary birthplace.

The age of the Chinese tools suggests that the hominins who made them were neither tall nor big-brained. Instead, they may have been small bipedal apes, with brains about the size of a chimpanzee’s.

Continue reading “Archaeologists in China Discover the Oldest Stone Tools Outside Africa” →

Friday’s Elk, June 29, 2018

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen
Wall Street Journal review and more

I’m back from the long journey west. Since I last wrote, there’s been more news about She Has Her Mother’s Laugh.

1. In the Wall Street Journal, William Saletan gets it—

“Nature’s laws are violated all the time, and the cardinal violator is nature itself. This is the paradox that Carl Zimmer explores in She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity. Mr. Zimmer, a New York Times science columnist and author, is careful and well-informed. So when he says that research is overturning things you were taught in biology classes, he’s worth heeding. Acquired traits can be inherited. Biological time can turn backward. And monsters are real.” Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, June 29, 2018” →