The Insight

Razib discusses the new book Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity with one of the authors. https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07ZC6XGGX/geneexpressio-20

Razib talks to evolutionary anthropologist Joe Henrich about his new book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07RZFCPMD/geneexpressio-20

Razib talks to Stuart Ritchie about his new book, Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250222699/geneexpressio-20

Razib and Spencer discuss the geography, prehistory, and genetics, of Siberia. Also, the time Spencer experienced a Siberian winter!

Razib and Spencer discuss why the geology and biogeography of Southeast Asia may explain why it is so important in the history of human evolution. Show notes: https://blog.insito.me/humanitys-second-cradle-in-southeast-asia-cbb26244f08a

Razib discusses revolutionary new work published in Nature that tells us that modern humans were present in the Americas 32,000 years ago with one of the authors, Lorena Becerra-Valdivia. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02190-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0

Spencer and Razib talk about what we mean when we say "ghost population" in human genetics, and why it's so important to understand our origins. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842210/ https://www.genetics.org/content/192/3/1065.short

Razib talks to Alex Ioannidis on the new paper which he is a first author of which argues that there is pre-Columbian Native American ancestry in Eastern Polynesia. Did the Polynesians bring them back from the mainland? Or did they voyage themselves? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2

Razib and Spencer talk about what a new ancient DNA paper from Neolithic Ireland suggests about radical inequality and power differentials in early agricultural societies, and what that says about the transition from hunting and gathering more generally https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2378-6 (also, coronavirus update!)

Spencer and Razib discuss what the humanities can offer to science with Kerim Yasar, professor of East Asian literature https://twitter.com/nihonkyo

Razib talks to Dr. Emily Deans on what's like to work in psychiatry today in a world with personal genomics. https://twitter.com/evolutionarypsy

Spencer and Razib discuss current events in the context of cultural evolution. The history of decline, the American "Empire", and Peter Turchin's thoughts on social disorder http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/the_2020/

This week Razib talks to Dan Crouch about what we know about the genetics of the variation shape and features. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/4/E676.short

Spencer and Razib discuss the latest ancient DNA work that sheds light on East Asian prehistory (and also some coronavirus status update) https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/YangSciecne2020.pdf (excuse the "sound effects" early in the podcast!)

Razib catches up with Chris Stinger on the state of paleoanthropology in 2020 and the ramifications of what genetics has taught us about the diversity in Denisovans in the past few years!

Razib talks to Chad Niederhuth at Michigan State on the promise of GMO agriculture! http://niederhuthlab.com/

Spencer and Razib discuss the state of the pandemic, why Spencer is skeptical of rapid vaccine development, and the political and cultural fallout of COVID-19. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/29/847755751/compared-to-china-u-s-stay-at-home-has-been-a-giant-garden-party-journalist-says https://medium.com/@spwells

Spencer describes Wallace's encounter with Indonesia and his insight into evolution by natural selection.

Razib talks to Libby Copeland about her new book, The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/lost-family_9781419743009/

Spencer and Razib discuss the updates to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 as of mid-April. Spencer delves into the possible social and cultural ramifications, and they both discuss the trajectory internationally and into the future.

This week Spencer and Razib discuss the latest discoveries about the paleogenetic history of East Asia. Where did the Tibetans, Han, and Japanese come from? https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.004606v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.008078v1

Razib and Spencer discuss the state-of-the-pandemic at the end of March 2020. https://blog.insito.me/the-insight-show-notes-season-3-episode-13-pandemic-c6640de64d6b

Razib talks to Austin Reynolds about what he's discovered about adaptation in indigenous peoples of the New World. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/19/9312.short

An excerpt from Spencer's book Pandora's Seed about the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815.

Razib talks to Dr. Jessica Chong of the University of Washington about how genomics has changed how we view and understand rare disorders https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929719302745

Razib talks to Dr. Sohini Ramachandran of Brown about her classical paper from 2005 which showed decreasing genetic diversity as a function of distance from Africa https://www.pnas.org/content/102/44/15942

Razib and Spencer talk about the history of ancient Egypt, and the insights genetics can shed on the origins of the ancient Egyptians https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694

Razib and Spencer talk all things genetic and prehistorical Southeast Asia! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6476732/ https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02185511/file/Science%20paper%20ORI.pdf https://insitome.libsyn.com/paradise-lost

Spencer and Razib discuss the evolutionary and historical context of zoonotic diseases, and their relevance to current events.

Razib talks to Melinda Mills about the intersection of demographics and genetics. https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/rsfjss/4/4/122.full.pdf

Razib talks to Anders Bergstrom of the Crick Institute about the genetic history of New Guinea https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5802383/

This week Spencer and Razib discuss the ramifications of a new paper which reports on the ancient DNA of West Africans who lived 8,000 and 3,000 years ago. https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/Shum_Laka_published_online_0.pdf

This week Razib discusses the genetics and history of the Levant with Dr. Marc Haber. https://blog.insito.me/3-000-years-in-the-levant-8aba846b18ae

Spencer and Razib offer up 10 predictions for what genetics will bring in the 2020s, from free sequencing to going beyond "Out of Africa." https://blog.insito.me/top-10-human-genetics-evolution-predictions-for-the-2020s-c93f3ef74b4f

What was big in human evolution and genetics over the last 10 years? https://blog.insito.me/top-10-human-genetics-evolution-developments-of-the-2010s-1a8c5c213d35?

Talking the genetic history of Scandinavians with Torsten Günther. Show notes https://blog.insito.me/the-insight-show-notes-season-2-episode-33-scandinavian-genetics-d4e6e4deeaaf

Razib talks about a Denisovan finding from Tibet with Dr. Frido Welker. Show notes: https://pxlme.me/jcQr2gSy

Razib talks to a researcher who developed a method to predict extreme obesity looking at genetic profiles. Show notes: https://pxlme.me/76367O2I

Razib discusses the evolutionary and ecological context of human families with Dr. Rebecca Sear. https://blog.insito.me/the-insight-show-notes-season-2-episode-30-evolution-of-family-5f8db79194d9

Evolutionary biology and computer science don't seem to have much in common. But this week Razib talks to a geneticist who brings both together in his research. https://blog.insito.me/the-insight-show-notes-season-2-episode-29-deep-learning-and-population-genetics-ffebb7278bc8

Razib talks to Emilia Huerta-Sanchez about her finding that altitude adaptation in Tibetans is due to Denisovan admixture. https://pxlme.me/RECg03af

This week Razib talks to two researchers who have published a paper that reconstructs the relationships between a group of people who seem to have been killed in a conflict during the Neolithic in Poland. Show notes https://pxlme.me/Iy2T9T_T  

This week Razib talks to Dr. John Greally on what epigenetics really is, and why it is important. Show notes https://pxlme.me/ZoXCz98p

Razib talks to Rodrigo Martinez of Veritas Genetics about what the age of "social genomics" will mean to us. https://pxlme.me/uWk0IqrZ

Spencer and Razib discuss who the Denisovans were, where they lived, and what it means for us as humans. https://pxlme.me/UPzHwYX6

Razib talks to evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams about how the origins of our mind can inform how we interact with the world around us. Show notes: https://pxlme.me/cxm84D_0

Razib talks to Alexander Young on whether the missing heritability is solved, and what it is in the first place https://pxlme.me/LgByOD37

Razib discusses the genetics of Pleistocene Europeans with Cosimo Posth. https://pxlme.me/Rxv09mQ2

David Sloan Wilson talks about the application of evolutionary theory to policy and people, and his book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution. https://pxlme.me/PqJs9Qy6

Asya Pereltsvaig joins us to talk about historical linguistics, how language evolution relates to genetic evolution (or not), and what sorts of features are important in creating a phylogenetic tree of languages. https://pxlme.me/S7aXK2Bf

This week Razib talks to Dr. Lara Cassidy about what genetics can tell us about Ireland's history. https://pxlme.me/mUUwq7u9