July 2016 Media Thread

ArisKatsaris

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

Short Online Texts Thread

Following insects around: tools and techniques of eighteenth-century natural history - how a Postmaster General of France promoted the shipping of live insects, a retired military man scoured countryside for cicadas, and M. Reaumur and M. Bazin kept in touch (for science! and chocolate).

7gwern10y

Everything is heritable: * "Assortative mating and differential fertility by phenotype and genotype across the 20th century", Conley et al 2016 (Dysgenics found in the USA, 1920-1955.) * "The Genetics of Success: How Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated With Educational Attainment Relate to Life-Course Development", Belsky et al 2016 (excerpts) * "The Genome Project-Write", Boeke et al 2016 (media; commentary) * "Why We're Different: A Conversation with Robert Plomin" (Plomin takes a victory lap: "It might be hard for people to believe this, but forty years ago it was dangerous to talk about genetic influence in psychology.") * "Demonstrating the validity of twin research in criminology", Barnes et al 2014 * "Pleiotropy across academic subjects at the end of compulsory education", Rimfeld et al 2015 * "Genetics affects choice of academic subjects as well as achievement", Rimfeld et al 2016 * "The Genetic Basis of Mendelian Phenotypes: Discoveries, Challenges, and Opportunities"00245-1), Chong et al 2015 (But enough about common variants & complex traits - how have we been doing in finding the causes of genetic diseases like severe Mendelian diseases? Very well.) * "A Prospective Study of Sudden Cardiac Death among Children and Young Adults", Bagnall et al 2016 (Rare genetic mutations implicated in >13% of unexplained cardiac deaths. Makes one wonder how much of the long tail of deaths are due to rare variants, and how much of a benefit there would be to erasing the ~80k mutations everyone carries... (Population genetics rule: rare variants are more harmful than common variants; and 1 harmful mutation, 1 reproductive death to purge it from the population.) Very cool application of genetics.) * genetics of breast size (commentary): * Wade et al 2010 "Body mass index and breast size in women: same or different genes?" * "Genetic variants associated with breast size also influence breast cancer risk", Eriksson et al 2012 * "Large-scale gen