Notes & links - December 9th, 2010

Of arsenic and aliens: What the critics said. Carl Zimmer's correspondence dump is gold. Linear Population Model: Explores a linear model to examine genetic population admixture results and human prehistory. I read every post on this weblog after I stumbled upon it yesterday. The major focus seems to be to use ADMIXTURE results along with formal diffusion models to construct a plausible scenario of the spread of Neolithic populations from Southwest Asia to Europe. I think the author probably needs to be a bit careful about the noise in the data, but still very interesting. Anticipated some of my own thoughts which I was too cowardly to post online! You may not know it from the links on the front page, but Wired does have some awesome science blogs. I often mention the enfant terrible of the cognitive neuroscience blogosphere, Jonah R. Lehrer, but be sure to check out Laelaps & Neuron Culture. Now reading War in Human Civilization. Quite the page turner. Thanks for the recommendation. Introduction to Quantitative Genetics. A useful book. I wish more people were familiar with it. WikiLeaks cables: Saudi princes throw parties boasting drink, drugs and sex. The West may be decadent, but it is not hypocritical in this fashion. King Saud of Saudi Arabia was an alcoholic. Denim & Tweed. Another excellent weblog.