Round-up: Clan culture and the economy

The most interesting articles that came to our attention this week

Selection at the GSDMC locus in horses and its implications for human mobility. Xuexue Liu and colleagues look for signals of selection at 266 markers in the horse genome. They find a strong signal at the ZFPM1 locus, beginning around 5,000 years ago, and a strong signal at the GSDMC locus, beginning around 4,750 years ago. ZFPM1 is known to affect aggression, mood regulation and stress tolerance in mice, while GSDMC is known to affect anatomy.

Reevaluating the role of education on cognitive decline and brain aging in longitudinal cohorts across 33 Western countries. Anders Fjell and colleagues examine whether education protects against cognitive ageing. Analysing a large cross-national dataset of memory test scores, they find that while individuals with more education score higher at any given age, the rate at which scores decline does not vary by education.