--- title: July 2017 News description: July 2017 Gwern.net newsletter with links on intelligence, GANs, malaria, Borges's essays, 2 book reviews created: 2017-06-14 status: finished previous: /newsletter/2017/06 next: /newsletter/2017/08 confidence: log cssExtension: dropcaps-de-zs backlink: False ... This is the July 2017 edition of [the Gwern.net newsletter](https://gwern.substack.com/ "'Gwern.net newsletter (Substack subscription page)', Branwen 2013"); previous, [June 2017](/newsletter/2017/06 "'June 2017 News', Branwen 2017") ([archives](/doc/newsletter/index)). This is a collation of links and summary of major changes, overlapping with my [Changelog](/changelog); brought to you by my donors on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/gwern). # Writings - ["How Would You Prove You Are a Time-traveler From the Past?"](/note/note#how-would-you-prove-you-are-a-time-traveler-from-the-past "'Miscellaneous § How Would You Prove You Are a Time-traveler From the Past?', Branwen 2009") # Media ## Links **Genetics**: - [Everything Is Heritable]{.smallcaps}: - ["Multi-trait analysis of genome-wide association summary statistics using MTAG"](/doc/genetics/heritable/correlation/2018-turley.pdf), Turley et al 2018; ["A combined analysis of genetically correlated traits identifies 107 loci associated with intelligence"](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/160291.full), Hill et al 2017 (use of multiple [genetic correlations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_correlation) to overcome measurement error greatly boosts efficiency of IQ GWAS, and provides best public polygenic score to date: 7% of variance. This illustrates a good way to work around the shortage of high-quality IQ test scores by exploiting multiple more easily-measured phenotypes. Even better: like LD score regression, MTAG only requires public summary statistics; so it may also, like LD score regression, see an explosion in use---since it is usable by everyone & there are so many overlapping phenotypic measurements...) - ["A genome-wide association study for extremely high intelligence"](https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2017121), Zabaneh et al 2017 (see previously [Spain et al 2016](https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2015108 "A genome-wide analysis of putative functional and exonic variation associated with extremely high intelligence"); further confirmation that high intelligence is not genetically different from normal intelligence and is primarily a slightly better assortment of common additive variants) - ["Genome-wide genetic data on ~500,000 UK Biobank participants"](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/166298.full), Bycroft et al 2017 (The full UK Biobank _n_ = 500k genetics dataset is now available to researchers! UKBB is the gift that keeps on giving---and now it's going to give even more by tripling the sample size.) - ["Genetic Influence on Intergenerational Educational Attainment"](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617707270), Ayorech et al 2017 - ["116 independent genetic variants influence the neuroticism personality trait in over 329,000 UK Biobank individuals"](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/168906.full), Luciano et al 2017 - ["Genome-wide association analyses identify 44 risk variants and refine the genetic architecture of major depression"](/doc/genetics/heritable/2018-wray.pdf), Wray et al 2017 (MDDWG PGC) - [Engineering]{.smallcaps}: - ["First Human Embryos Edited With CRISPR in U.S."](https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/07/26/68093/first-human-embryos-edited-in-us/ "Researchers have demonstrated they can efficiently improve the DNA of human embryos") - ["F.D.A. Panel Recommends Approval for Gene-Altering Leukemia Treatment"](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/health/fda-novartis-leukemia-gene-medicine.html) - ["A complex multi-locus, multi-allelic genetic architecture underlying the long-term selection-response in the Virginia body weight line of chickens"](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/098160.full), Zan et al 2017 (soft selective sweeps) - ["DIY Diagnosis: How an Extreme Athlete Uncovered Her Genetic Flaw"](https://psmag.com/social-justice/diy-diagnosis-extreme-athlete-uncovered-genetic-flaw-88763 "When Kim Goodsell discovered that she had two extremely rare genetic diseases, she taught herself genetics to help find out why.") - ["One of a Kind: What do you do if your child has a condition that is new to science?"](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/21/one-of-a-kind-2) - [The USSR's Moose Domestication Projects Yielded Mixed Results](https://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/06/21/the_ussr_s_moose_domestication_projects_yield_mixed_results.html "Mooseback in the USSR: A Would-Be Communist Cavalry") - [Recent Evolution]{.smallcaps}: - ["Polygenic Adaptation has Impacted Multiple Anthropometric Traits"](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/167551.full), Berg et al 2017 (see [Berg & Coop 2014](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004412 "A Population Genetic Signal of Polygenic Adaptation") for method & previous findings of selection) - between-group genetic differences: ["The genomic landscape of African populations in health and disease"](/doc/genetics/selection/2017-rotimi.pdf), Rotimi et al 2017 - ["Genetic loci associated with coronary artery disease harbor evidence of selection and antagonistic pleiotropy"](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006328), Byars et al 2017 (The much bally-hooed antagonistic pleiotropy theory makes a rare appearance.) **AI**: - [reinforcement learning](https://www.reddit.com/r/reinforcementlearning/): - *"deep learning can't do planning"*: ["Learning model-based planning from scratch"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.06170), Pascanu et al 2017; ["Imagination-Augmented Agents for Deep Reinforcement Learning"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.06203#deepmind), Weber et al 2017 ([blog](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/agents-that-imagine-and-plan/ "Agents that imagine and plan")); ["Path Integral Networks: End-to-End Differentiable Optimal Control"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.09597), Okada et al 2017; ["Value Prediction Network"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03497#deepmind), Oh et al 2017; ["Prediction and Control with Temporal Segment Models"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04070), Mishra et al 2017; ["Neural Network Dynamics for Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning with Model-Free Fine-Tuning"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.02596), Nagabandi et al 2017; ["Model-based Adversarial Imitation Learning"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.02179), Baram et al 2016; ["Learning Generalized Reactive Policies using Deep Neural Networks"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.07280), Groshev et al 2017; ["Deep Visual Foresight for Planning Robot Motion"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.00696), Finn & Levine 2016 - ["Trial without Error: Towards Safe Reinforcement Learning via Human Intervention"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.05173), Saunders et al 2017 ([blog](https://owainevans.github.io/blog/hirl_blog.html); the Road Runner problem is an interesting example of reward hacking.) - ["Learning Transferable Architectures for Scalable Image Recognition"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07012#google), Zoph et al 2017 (more NNs-designing-NNs, in this case beating the best human-designed CNNs for ImageNet!); ["Reinforcement Learning for Architecture Search by Network Transformation"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.04873 "'Efficient Architecture Search by Network Transformation', Cai et al 2017"), Cai et al 2017 (a great use of [Net2Net](https://arxiv.org/abs/1511.05641 "'Net2Net: Accelerating Learning via Knowledge Transfer', Chen et al 2015") to speed things up. I've said before that Net2Net is a criminally underused way to save training from scratch, especially in the RL CNN architecture search problem where you are training hundreds of slightly-different CNNs.) - ["Noisy Networks for Exploration"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.10295#deepmind), Fortunato et al 2017; ["The Intentional Unintentional Agent: Learning to Solve Many Continuous Control Tasks Simultaneously"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03300), Cabi et al 2017; ["Distral: Robust Multitask Reinforcement Learning"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.04175#deepmind), Teh et al 2017 - ["Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning (GAIL)"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.03476 "'Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning', Ho & Ermon 2016"), Ho & Ermon 2016; ["Learning human behaviors from motion capture by adversarial imitation"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.02201), Merel et al 2017 (an unusual applied use of GANs); ["Learning from Demonstrations for Real World Reinforcement Learning"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.03732 "'Deep Q-learning from Demonstrations', Hester et al 2017"), Hester et al 2017 - ["Neuroscience-Inspired Artificial Intelligence"](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273\(17\)30509-3), Hassabis et al 2017 - ["Robust Physical-World Attacks on Machine Learning Models"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.08945 "'Robust Physical-World Attacks on Deep Learning Models', Eykholt et al 2017"), Evtimov et al 2017 (adversarial instances are getting scary) - ["Meta-Learning with Temporal Convolutions"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03141 "'A Simple Neural Attentive Meta-Learner', Mishra et al 2017"), Mishra et al 2017a (Impressively simple & effective; is there anything causal/temporal/dilated convolutions *can't* do?) **Statistics/Meta-Science**: - ["Bayesian probability theory as extended logic---a new propositional logic result"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T7aQqNm6m8pTXZYnd/bayesian-probability-theory-as-extended-logic-a-new-result) - ["Preprint Déjà Vu: an FAQ"](https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.04188), Ginsparg 2017 (retrospective on [Arxiv's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArXiv) success by its founder) - ["Determining Cat Chirality": Sequential testing for estimating cat sleeping preference](https://blog.dimview.org/math/2017/07/28/cat-chirality.html) ([results](https://blog.dimview.org/math/2017/10/15/cat-chirality.html "No Cat Chirality")) **Politics/religion**: - ["Growing Numbers: For 40 years, the General Social Survey (GSS) has cultivated a vast body of open knowledge about Americans' personal attitudes and opinions"](https://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/growing-numbers) - ["Radical Book Club: the Decentralized Left": _Hegemony How-To_, _Direct Action_, _Rules For Revolutionaries_, & _Beautiful Trouble_](https://status451.com/2017/07/11/radical-book-club-the-decentralized-left/) (Right-wing review of left-wing organizing & political tricks manuals.) **Psychology/biology**: - ["The US President’s Malaria Initiative and under-5 child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa: A difference-in-differences analysis"](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002319), Jakubowski et al 2017 - ["Lithium in drinking water and the incidence of bipolar disorder: A nation-wide population-based study"](/doc/psychiatry/bipolar/lithium/2017-kessing.pdf), Kessing et al 2017 (Another major blow to the lithium/drinking-water hypothesis, hard on the heels of [Knudsen et al 2017](https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/6/627 "Lithium in Drinking Water and Incidence of Suicide: A Nationwide Individual-Level Cohort Study with 22 Years of Follow-Up").) - ["Metformin alters the gut microbiome of individuals with treatment-naive type 2 diabetes, contributing to the therapeutic effects of the drug"](https://agingfree.org/Portals/0/xBlog/uploads/2017/5/24/Metformin%20alters%20the%20gut%20microbiome%20of%20individuals.pdf), Wu et al 2017 - ["Childhood intelligence in relation to major causes of death in 68 year follow-up: prospective population study"](https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2708), Deary et al 2017 (note these relationships are at least partially confounded by all the genetic correlations with intelligence) - ["Book Review: _Barriers to Bioweapons_"](https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2017/06/30/book-review-barriers/) (are would-be bioterrorists just... too lazy?) - ["The Power and the Gory"](http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/2013/10/01/the-power-and-the-gory/), Solotaroff 1990 (Gonzo journalism on steroids & bodybuilding; multiple waves in bodybuilding track scientific/technological/economic progress in hormone/drug development); ["Sam Fussell: an interview with the author of Muscle"](https://www.drmichaeljoyner.com/sam-fussell-an-interview-with-the-author-of-muscle/) - ["How long does it take to research and develop a new vaccine?"](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8qMDseJTE3vCFiYec/how-long-does-it-take-to-research-and-develop-a-new-vaccine) - ["Computational Analysis of Lifespan Experiment Reproducibility"](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2017.00092/full), Petrascheck & Miller 2017 ([Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_a_test) analysis of [Gompertz curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompertz%E2%80%93Makeham_law_of_mortality) mortality data: as expected, most animal studies of possible life-extension drugs are severely underpowered, which has the usual implications for replication, exaggerated effect sizes, & publication bias.) **Technology**: - [Hoare's classic 1980 Turing Award Lecture on complexity & failure in software design: "The Emperor's Old Clothes"](https://www.cs.fsu.edu/~engelen/courses/COP4610/hoare.pdf) - [Falsehoods Programmers Believe About X](https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood) - ["How the Oil Pipeline Began"](https://nautil.us/how-the-oil-pipeline-began-236686/) - ["8 Lessons from Reviewing 20 Years of Technology Hype Cycles"](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-lessons-from-20-years-hype-cycles-michael-mullany) - ["Hard Drive Cost Per Gigabyte" as of July 2017: price trends](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-cost-per-gigabyte/) (Backblaze) - [Single-letter second-level domains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain) (why are almost all the alphabetic domains like `a.com` not used? Because [Jon Postel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel) bought them up back in 1992 and IANA/ICANN have squatted them ever since.) **Economics**: - ["Amazon's Antitrust Paradox"](https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox), Khan 2017 - ["Amazon Prime does more for northern food security than federal subsidies, say Iqaluit residents"](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-amazon-prime-1.4193665 "Parcel shipping via Canada Post to Iqaluit increasing at 2 to 3 times the national rate") **Philosophy**: - [[Borges]{.smallcaps}](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges), [_Selected Nonfictions_](https://web.archive.org/web/20150404091306/https://libraryofbabel.info/Borges/Borges-SelectedNonFictions.pdf):