A little lighter than usual as I’ve been away for much of this month.

• Many parties have been sounding the alarm over the possibility of screening human embryos using polygenic scores, thus ushering in a new era of eugenics. The idea is that while we have established that it is nigh impossible to select for specific genes for desirable characteristics like height or intelligence, it is possible to use large-scale genome-wide association studies to score an individual’s genome for various characteristics. This paper explains the details of what is involved but also lays out the limits of the method in that gains are small and hide wide variances. Nevertheless it is expected that gains can be compounded over multiple generations and that would have critical implications for the future of the human species.
• I’m sure that no one who reads this blog is an anti-vaxxer but this article gives yet more reason to vaccinate against measles. Apart from the causing the disease itself which can kill, being infected by the virus has the effect of wiping your immune system’s memory. As everyone knows, once your body beats an infection, your immune system remembers it so as to better fight it if the same virus is encountered later. This memory is stored in the lymphoid tissues but the measles virus seems to specifically target them and wipe out that memory, causing you to be vulnerable once again to old diseases.
• Next we have a paper that is only semi-serious and is to be taken with a grain of salt as it is from an investment firm and not a scientific journal. Nevertheless it is very interesting as it examines dating trends of the 21st century. The key driver is that most couples now meet online instead of being introduced by friends or meeting at work or in school etc. and that has profound implications for society. In particular it gives women much more power in the dating market as it is easier to decline a date online whereas in person a woman may be under pressure to accept one out of politeness. Online matchmaking also means that looks are all important, meaning that other factors such as smell for example is less important, leading to a decline in perfume sales.
• Finally in lighter news, here’s this bit about Google’s DeepMind AI beating the top human players at Starcraft 2. This isn’t all that new but this time the researchers have deliberately restricted the AI’s reflexes to human-level in order to simulate a competition of pure strategy.