Loved hosting @essgn.bsky.social in Oxford including @dr-appie.bsky.social & family (& the rest of the ESSGN family as well) - read the post and links below to hear about this great event

The largest study on late life virginity, based on >400k individuals, out now in @pnas.org

Open access link: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Shoutout to shared first author @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social ❤️

Thread below 👇🏽

A Love Letter to Social Science Genetics Some people call social science genetics a minefield. Others call it dangerous, even irresponsible. I call it the most promising field in life sciences.

Some people call it a minefield. Others call it dangerous, even irresponsible. I call it the most promising field in life sciences.

My love letter to social science genetics: communities.springernature.com/posts/a-love...

A cartoon by the brilliant Tom Gauld. The first panel introduces us to Science Cat, a black feline, wearing a white lab coat and carrying a clipboard and pen. The next panels show a succession of events in close-up: a mug perched near the edge of a table as the end of the pen approaches; that same mug captured in mid-air as it heads downwards towards the floor; a big smash when it meets its destination. We then see Science Cat writing on the clipboard, and musing as follows: "Once again, the experiment confirmed my hypothesis, but further research in this area is required." In the final panel, Science Cat heads off, pen in the top-pocket of the lab coat, thinking "I love science!".

All cats are scientists, I will not be taking questions at this time.

MusicGens 2023 Playlist · Giacomo Bignardi · 20 items · 4 saves

Link to walk-up songs picked by attendees from the Musicality Genomics Consortium in 2023.

I won't release who's who. Only unlinked suspects @profsimonfisher.bsky.social @musiccognition.bsky.social @mehr.nz @dr-appie.bsky.social @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social ...

open.spotify.com/playlist/7rU...

Extremely excited to share the first effort of the Revived Genomics of Personality Consortium: A highly-powered, comprehensive GWAS of the Big Five personality traits in 1.14 million participants from 46 cohorts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

‘Natuurlijk ben je niet je genen! Maar wie ben je dan wel?’ Abdel Abdellaoui | geneticus: Tussen genen en samenleving is een voortdurende wisselwerking gaande. „Wij mensen hebben een veel te simpel idee over hoe we in elkaar zitten.”

Ik sprak lang met @dr-appie.bsky.social, over genen, over maatschappelijke ongelijkheid en zelfs over Dzjengis Khan... voor @nrcwetenschap.bsky.social www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Two women wearing headphones

🎵 Why do some people enjoy #music more than others? New findings published in @naturecomms.bsky.social show that our capacity to enjoy music is partly inherited, with 54% of music enjoyment variability linked to #DNA differences: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

@mpi-nl.bsky.social @ki.se #BehaviorGenetics

Does your music style preference say something about your well-being? Most likely not! We tested 19 music genres, of which only 4 were related to well-being, with genetic analyses showing no causality. Great work by master student Anastasiia Bratchenko! 🎶 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Side-by-side images of the front covers of two magazines, one called Nature, the other called Nurture.

Debunking “nature versus nurture”, a thread.
Different people in a population carry variations in their DNA; the science of genetics makes it possible to assess if/how that correlates with individual differences in any observable trait, from medical conditions to aspects of cognition/behaviour.🧪1/9

Music and Genetics The first part of this review provides a brief historical background of behavior genetic research and how twin and genotype data can be utilized to st…

Music science offers multiple examples of nature/nurture interplay. Here’s just one, from @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social. An enriched childhood environment is associated with higher music achievement in adulthood. But such effects are amplified in people who have a genetic predisposition. 8/9 [More 👇]

Did you get a chance to read the thread on our new @naturehumbehav.bsky.social paper on SES yet?

If not, don't worry, I have something better for you!

Check out this comic by the amazing @lizahaart.bsky.social

Complete comic: communities.springernature.com/posts/are-we...

Or in this thread 👇🏾

In every civilization, people end up sorted into levels of socio-economic status (SES). We explore the history, present, and future of scientific research on the complicated relationship between SES and DNA in @naturehumbehav.bsky.social💰🧬🎓

Link: rdcu.be/efacK

Thread below 👇🏽

Twin modelling reveals partly distinct genetic pathways to music enjoyment - Nature Communications Here, Bignardi et al. report on a study of over 9,000 Swedish twins that indicates the ability to enjoy music is influenced by multiple partly distinct genetic factors.

“What an odd thing“ wrote Oliver Sacks “to see an entire species playing with listening to meaningless tonal patterns, preoccupied for much of their time by what they call ‘music’...“. Our new paper, led by ace student @giacomobignardi.bsky.social, unpacks this puzzle from a genetic perspective. 🧪

The shared genetic architecture and evolution of human language and musical rhythm - Nature Human Behaviour Using a battery of statistical tools, Alagöz et al. examine the genetic overlap between dyslexia and rhythm impairment and shed light on how the genome influences the neural bases of human language an...

In the Feb 2025 issue of @naturehumbehav.bsky.social, we integrate data from largescale genome scans of dyslexia & rhythm skills, as a novel way to study biological overlaps between human traits related to language & musicality. Just one part of the excellent PhD work of @gokberkalagoz.bsky.social.🧪

🚨PLEASE SHARE: Senior reseach post: come and work at the IEU with Gib Hemani and @mendelrandom.bsky.social on Mendelian randomization, become my co-worker :) – research posts with closing date 5th February 2025.

Our musical rhythm and language skills share genomic underpinnings Our new study by Alagöz et al. in Nature Human Behaviour digs into shared biological underpinnings of musical rhythm and language skills through genomic, neural, and evolutionary perspectives.

Genomic advances offer a novel route for investigating biological overlaps between musicality- and language-related traits. Here's a nice blog by my fab co-author Reyna Gordon, not (yet) on Bluesky, in which she breaks down our recently published @naturehumbehav.bsky.social paper on this topic. 🧪

My contribution to the Christmas dinner: an almond paste puff pastry roll with one gluten-free DNA strand. It was delicious 🎅🏽

Research highlights 2024 The year 2024 saw Max Planck scientists publishing exceptional research across disciplines. We have selected twelve highlights to share.

The Max Planck Society @maxplanck.de shares 12 highlights of 2024 research across diverse fields, including first photo of a star beyond the Milky Way, sequences of oldest modern human genomes, a wild orangutan treating wounds with a medicinal plant, + our paper on genes, musicality & Beethoven: 🧪

Notes from Beethoven’s genome Wesseldijk et al. compare the genomic information collected from Ludwig van Beethoven with population-based datasets used to quantify musical achievement.

In a @currentbiology.bsky.social paper earlier this year, led by @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social, we analysed Beethoven’s genome with a polygenic index related to musicality, as a way to communicate limits of genetic predictions at the individual level & the complexity of links between DNA & behaviour: