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Regular readers of Genotopia will be familiar with Dick Dorkins, a genomicist, faculty member of Kashkow University, and founding President of the Society for the Prevention of Intelligent design, Theology, Or Other Nonsense (SPITOON).

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History, by Nicholas Wade (New York: Penguin) 2014, 288 pp.
It really is a bloody shame that India just had yet another free and fair election, because Nicholas Wade's new book is so bally good it makes me want to dig out the old pith helmet and mustache wax and jolly well troop off and colonize her again. Since I can't conquer India, I itch to conquer Mrs. Dorkins and spread my genes, via more little Dorkinses. Alas, Wendy says she has a headache (again!), so the next best thing is to dab my favorite plume into grandfather Dorkins's inkpot and, in my best public-school hand, pen this little squib on behalf of Wade's latest. Perhaps I can prompt the some of you lot to do your Darwinian duty and either have or not have more children, depending on your race.

http://genotopia.scienceblog.com/441/hail-britannia-review-of-wades-a-troublesome-inheritance/

Admitting our faults: When does self-acceptance trump self-destruction ?

When face-to-face with our failures, it's hard not to deny the consequences of our shortcomings- and sometimes we make problems worse by engaging in the behaviors we have been trying so hard to avoid. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, practicing self-acceptance may be the best way to boost our self-worth and avoid self-deprecating behaviors and consequences. "Consider the person who has just realized that they are poorly prepared financially for retirement," write authors Soo Kim and David Gal (both Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University). "They might either go out and buy something expensive or start binge eating or drinking as a way to avoid dealing with their problems. We introduce the idea that practicing self-acceptance is a more effective alternative to this type of self-destructive behavior."

http://healthmedicinet.com/news/admitting-our-faults-when-does-self-acceptance-trump-self-destruction/

http://www.jcr-admin.org/files/pressreleases/052114082603_May2014Release5.pdf

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/journals/journal/jcr.html

It's hard to explain to regular people how much technology barely works, how much the infrastructure of our lives is held together by the IT equivalent of baling wire. Computers, and computing, are broken. Software is so bad because it's so complex, and because it's trying to talk to other programs on the same computer, or over connections to other computers. Even your computer is kind of more than one computer, boxes within boxes, and each one of those computers is full of little programs trying to coordinate their actions and talk to each other. Computers have gotten incredibly complex, while people have remained the same gray mud with pretensions of godhood. Your average piece-of-shit Windows desktop is so complex that no one person on Earth really knows what all of it is doing, or how.

https://medium.com/message/81e5f33a24e1

Environmentally friendly solar cell pushes forward the "next big thing in photovoltaics"

Northwestern University researchers are the first to develop a new solar cell with good efficiency that uses tin instead of lead perovskite as the harvester of light. The low-cost, environmentally friendly solar cell can be made easily using "bench" chemistry -- no fancy equipment or hazardous materials. "This is a breakthrough in taking the lead out of a very promising type of solar cell, called a perovskite," said Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, an inorganic chemist with expertise in dealing with tin. "Tin is a very viable material, and we have shown the material does work as an efficient solar cell."

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2014/05/taking-the-lead-out-of-a-promising-solar-cell.html

A Vision of the Future From Those Likely to Invent It.

From employment to leisure and transportation to education, tech is changing the world at a faster pace than ever before. Already, people wear computers on their faces, robots scurry through factories and battlefields and driverless cars dot the highway that cuts through Silicon Valley. Almost two-thirds of Americans think technological change will lead to a better future, while about one-third think people's lives will be worse as a result, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center. Regardless, expect more change. In a series of interviews, which have been condensed and edited, seven people who are driving this transformation provided a glimpse into the not-too-distant future.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/02/upshot/FUTURE.html?_r=0

So what was the secret? "Yeast!"
"Active yeast. Like you get at the grocery store."
Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann's dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable. "One teaspoon per beer, right before you start drinking."

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/how-not-to-get-drunk

FROM LIABILITY TO VIABILITY: GENES ON THE Y CHROMOSOME PROVE ESSENTIAL FOR MALE SURVIVAL

According to new research published by Whitehead Director David Page, the Y chromosome is not just important in the reproductive tract. Instead, approximately a dozen genes conserved on the Y are expressed in cells and tissue types throughout the body and are involved in decoding and interpreting the entirety of the genome.

http://wi.mit.edu/news/archive/2014/liability-viability-genes-y-chromosome-prove-essential-male-survival

Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of our best telescopes. All this, of course, was just theory. Researchers from the BICEP2 collaboration today announced the first direct evidence for this cosmic inflation. Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang." Finally, the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity. "Detecting this signal is one of the most important goals in cosmology today. A lot of work by a lot of people has led up to this point," said John Kovac (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), leader of the BICEP2 collaboration.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2014-05

India set to challenge U.S. for election-spending record.

Indian politicians are expected to spend around $5 billion on campaigning for elections next month - a sum second only to the most expensive U.S. presidential campaign of all time - in a splurge that could give India's floundering economy a temporary boost. India's campaign spend, which can include cash stuffed in envelopes as well as multi-million-dollar ad campaigns, has been estimated at 300 billion rupees ($4.9 billion) by the Centre for Media Studies, which tracks spending. That is triple the expenditure the centre said was spent on electioneering in the last national poll in 2009 - partly a reflection of a high-octane campaign by pro-business opposition candidate for prime minister, Narendra Modi, who started nationwide rallies and advertising last year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/us-india-election-spending-idUSBREA280AR20140309

PowerPointless:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/03/powerpoint_in_higher_education_is_ruining_teaching.html