What do all these places share? Spitalfriedhof Basel, Roopkund Lake, Catacombes de Paris and Central Yakuts are all examples where remains are available for genetic studies (even Tutankhamun was undergoing a paternity test recently).
More relevant will certainly be an empirical investigation if reduced selection is leading now to immune disease.

Here is another paper that supports my long-standing view that the hygiene hypothesis may be wrong

We identified 3626 participants of the European Community Respiratory Health Survey II in 10 countries who did the cleaning in their homes and for whom data on specific serum IgE to 4 environmental allergens were available …The use of bleach was associated with less atopic sensitization (odds ratio [OR], 0.75; 95% CI, 0.63-0.89).

yea, it says less not more! And there is another paper that ask about the hygiene hypothesis “Do we still believe in it?”

This has little relationship with ‘hygiene’ in the usual meaning of the word. The term ‘hygiene hypothesis’ is unfortunate, as it is misleading. A better term would be ‘microbial deprivation hypothesis’.

I even think that microbial deprivation is questionable.

None of us, I think, in the mid-’70s, when “The Selfish Gene” was published, would have thought we’d be devoting so much mental space now to confront religion. We thought that matter had long been closed

is a commentary from Edge 294. Although even more British colleagues were dedicating chapters to that Dawkins meme I always found it stupid difficult to materialize a DNA regulatory unit by a personality trait – introducing another “Darwinian fairytale” (Stove). (Show me more…)

I have never heard a formal lecture answering this question even after many years in epidemiology. It should be parsimonious of course to avoid too many missings but seems largely a subjective approach to keep or drop a variable. It was therefore quite helpful to find now an online lecture that exemplifies a sound approach – check out unc.edu/courses/2006spring. I already used anova to compare models (at least since my move from SAS to R) while using AIC is something that I am adding now to my toolbox. (Show me more…)

NYT reports that Knome plans to offer its personal gene-sequencing service to the highest bidder in an eBay auction set to begin on Friday and continue for 10 days. This will include also a private dinner (Show me more…)