THEY DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NYU Women's Basketball WINS the Division III National Championship with a 51-41 victory over Smith!!! They finish the season with a picture perfect record of 31-0.

And they have us all feeling some serious #VioletPride . 🏀

A recent National Academies report explores why race is problematic for #genetics research.

Hear one of the report's authors — Ann Morning — discuss why race is a poor but persistent shorthand in genetics studies in an Issues in Science and Technology interview: ow.ly/VZ6N50QJWBR

Huge congratulations to NYU Women's Basketball for the NCAA Division III Championship!!! Amazing, amazing athletes

for our sampling choices to be sound, and because otherwise we run the risk of conveying the false impression that human biology somehow works differently in different socially defined ancestry categories. 8/n

The appropriate study design obviously depends on the question. For some questions, studying a wide range of ancestries will be important. For others, it will not. Understanding, and spelling out, when population designators matter to science and medicine is important: 7/n

But it is a small effect (because Fst is small) and, as we continue to sequence humans, no allele will be restricted to a single ancestry grouping, as Graham Coop notes (x.com/Graham_Coop/st…). 6/n

One might argue that for a fixed number of genomes, we identify more variants by sampling individuals with more diverse sets of ancestries (because the ancestral recombination graph in which everyone is embedded becomes somewhat larger). 5/n

We have known for over half a century that most of the genetic diversity found in humans is found within any ancestry grouping, and have confirmed it many, many times over. 4/n

However, it is not the case that we need to diversify study participants because there is some big reservoir of genetic variants out there that we would miss if we did not sequence every socially defined ancestry grouping. 3/n

Most of us agree that we need more diversity of scientists & study participants in genetic research: science would benefit from a greater diversity of questions & priorities; we’d learn about genetic effects in a broader range of environmental contexts; & it is simply fairer. 2/n

I have been following the discussion around how best to represent and label human genetic variation, and thought it might also be worth discussing an aspect of the broader context. 1/n

The use of the phrase “ancestry-specific variant” is increasing, particularly to describe rare Single-nucleotide variants (SNVs). But these alleles are not ancestry-specific. They have not yet been found elsewhere, but they will be. 1/n

Debate over figure connecting genes, race and ethnicity reignites concerns among geneticists about how to represent human diversity go.nature.com/4bNqPR6

Humane genomics education can reduce racism | Science science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Check out this article by Seth Simons in the Los Angeles Times looking at comedian Shane Gillis hosting Saturday Night Live - SNL, the same dude it fired in 2019 for anti-Asian racism. Now more clips emerge of Gillis using n-word, more racism, and homophobia. Oh and I get quoted too. latimes.com/entertainment-…

To understand how conflation occurs, see our recent Human Genetics and Genomics Advances paper that traces scientific practice on the use of # #race , ethnicity, and #genetic ancestry in #precisionmedicine research here: cell.com/hgg-advances/p… ELSIhub | CERA Columbia Ethics

Are you interested in qualitative research and the ethics of emerging biotechnologies? Join our Columbia University #ELSI and #bioethics research team! Columbia UniversityMed #ethics

Safe to say this will be my first time on stage with a rapper! Check out 'Colors of Italy: Exploring Race and Identities Through Music' on Feb 8 at the Italian Consulate General in NY, performance by Amir Issaa. To register: fienta.com/colors-of-ital…

Ann Morning We have published an #ERSSymposium on Ann Morning and Marcello Maneri's recent book An Ugly Word, which will be part of a forthcoming REVIEW issue.

Read the authors' rejoinder here: doi.org/10.1080/014198…

Final thoughts on Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss’s exceptional talk today: The book she is writing on gender and hate groups is going to be amazing and will (I suspect) transform the conversation in the US on this topic. 1/