GWASs and polygenic scores inherit all the old problems of heritability estimates.

Polygenic score (PGS) computations assume an additive model of gene action because associations between phenotypes and alleles at different loci are compounded, ignoring interactions between alleles or loci let alone between genotype and environment. Consequently, PGSs are subject to the same objections that invalidated traditional heritability analyses in the 1970s. Thus, PGSs should not be used in the social sciences.

Phylogenetic diversity of two common Trypanosoma cruzi lineages in the Southwestern United States.

Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas disease, a devastating parasitic disease endemic to Central and South America, Mexico, and the USA. We characterized the genetic diversity of Trypanosoma cruzi circulating in five triatomine species (Triatoma gerstaeckeri, T. lecticularia, T.

Modeling the relative role of human mobility, land-use and climate factors on dengue outbreak emergence in Sri Lanka.

Background: More than 80,000 dengue cases including 215 deaths were reported nationally in less than 7 months between 2016 and 2017, a fourfold increase in the number of reported cases compared to the average number over 2010-2016. The region of Negombo, located in the Western province, experienced the greatest number of dengue cases in the country and is the focus area of our study, where we aim to capture the spatial-temporal dynamics of dengue transmission.

Methods: We present a statistical modeling framework to evaluate the spatial-temporal dynamics of the 2016-2017 dengue outbreak in the Negombo region of Sri Lanka as a function of human mobility, land-use, and climate patterns.

Correction: A Global Airport-Based Risk Model for the Spread of Dengue Infection via the Air Transport Network.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Haldane's The causes of evolution and the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary biology.

This paper argues that Haldane's The causes of evolution was the most important founding document in the emergence of the received view of evolutionary theory which is typically referred to as the Modern Synthesis. Whether or not this historical development is characterized as a synthesis (which remains controversial), this paper argues the most important component of the emergence of the received view consisted of showing how the formal rules of Mendelian inheritance are based on (or emerge from) the material basis of heredity established by classical genetics primarily through the experimental work on Drosophila genetics of the Morgan school in the 1910s and 1920s. This is one of the most important achievements of Haldane's book.

Correction: Influenza A H5N1 and H7N9 in China: A spatial risk analysis.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Influenza A H5N1 and H7N9 in China: A spatial risk analysis.

Background: Zoonotic avian influenza poses a major risk to China, and other parts of the world. H5N1 has remained endemic in China and globally for nearly two decades, and in 2013, a novel zoonotic influenza A subtype H7N9 emerged in China. This study aimed to improve upon our current understanding of the spreading mechanisms of H7N9 and H5N1 by generating spatial risk profiles for each of the two virus subtypes across mainland China.

Vector status of Aedes species determines geographical risk of autochthonous Zika virus establishment.

Background: The 2015-16 Zika virus pandemic originating in Latin America led to predictions of a catastrophic global spread of the disease. Since the current outbreak began in Brazil in May 2015 local transmission of Zika has been reported in over 60 countries and territories, with over 750 thousand confirmed and suspected cases. As a result of its range expansion attention has focused on possible modes of transmission, of which the arthropod vector-based disease spread cycle involving Aedes species is believed to be the most important.

Haldane and Mayr: a response to Rao and Nanjundiah.

The discussion with Rao and Nanjundiah about the history of interactions between J. B. S.

Hazards inherent in interdisciplinary behavioral research.

Many, if not all, questions in biology and psychology today were formulated and considered in depth, though typically in a different language, from the 1700's to the early 1900's. However, because of politics or fashion, some topics fell out of favor or failed to recruit new scientists and hence languished. Despite greatly expanded scholarship in the history of the life sciences in the twentieth century, many such topics have had to be rediscovered in recent years, while much of the wisdom already accrued stays in the older literature and not in active minds.

R. A. FISHER, LANCELOT HOGBEN, AND THE 'COMPETITION' FOR THE CHAIR OF SOCIAL BIOLOGY AT THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS IN 1930: CORRECTING THE LEGEND.

From 1930 to 1937 Lancelot Hogben FRS occupied the Chair of Social Biology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. According to standard histories of this appointment, he and R. A.

Nagel on reduction.

This paper attempts a critical reappraisal of Nagel's (1961, 1970) model of reduction taking into account both traditional criticisms and recent defenses. This model treats reduction as a type of explanation in which a reduced theory is explained by a reducing theory after their relevant representational items have been suitably connected. In accordance with the deductive-nomological model, the explanation is supposed to consist of a logical deduction.

The Biology of the Triatomine Bugs Native to South Central Texas and Assessment of the Risk They Pose for Autochthonous Chagas Disease Exposure.

Triatomine bugs are a group of hematophagous arthropods that can serve as biological vectors for Trypanosoma cruzi , the etiological agent of American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease). Because of differences in the biology and feeding habits among triatomine species, some are more likely than others to be involved in zoonotic and/or human-to-human transmission cycles of T. cruzi .

A determination of the spatial concordance between Lyme disease incidence and habitat probability of its primary vector Ixodes scapularis (black-legged tick).

The spatial distribution of Ixodes scapularis, the most common tick vector of the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease in humans, has not been studied previously in Texas, United States of America. It has only rarely been reported in this state, so its local, spatial relationship to the distribution of this disease is unknown. From an epidemiological perspective, one would tend to hypothesise that there should be a high degree of spatial concordance between habitat suitability for the tick and incidence of the disease.

Lederberg on bacterial recombination, Haldane, and cold war genetics: an interview.

Joshua Lederberg (1925-2008), was one of the pioneers of molecular genetics perhaps best known for his discovery of genetic recombination in bacteria which earned him a Nobel Prize in 1958 (shared with George Beadle and Edward Tatum). Lederberg's interests were broad including the origin of life, exobiology (a term that he coined) and emerging diseases and artificial intelligence in his, later years. This article contains the transcription of an interview in excerpts, docu- menting the interactions between Lederberg and fellow biologist J.

The inevitability of normative analysis.

Wilson et al. make the case for taking control of our future using evolutionary analysis. However, they are entirely silent on the ethical questions that must be addressed.

Projected future distributions of vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi in North America under climate change scenarios.

Background: Chagas disease kills approximately 45 thousand people annually and affects 10 million people in Latin America and the southern United States. The parasite that causes the disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, can be transmitted by insects of the family Reduviidae, subfamily Triatominae. Any study that attempts to evaluate risk for Chagas disease must focus on the ecology and biogeography of these vectors.

Woese on the received view of evolution.

As part of his attempt to reconstruct the earliest phase of the evolution of life on Earth, Woese produced a compelling critique of the received view of evolution from the 20th century. This paper explicitly articulates two related features of that critique that are fundamental but the first of which has not been sufficiently clearly recognized in the context of evolutionary theorizing: (1) according to Woese's scenario of communal evolution during life's earliest phase (roughly, the first billion years of life on Earth), well-defined biological individuals (and, thus, individual lineages) did not exist; and (2) during that phase, evolutionary change took place through ubiquitous horizontal gene transfer (HGT) rather than through vertical transmission of features (including genes) and the combinatorics of HGT was the dominant mechanism of evolutionary change. Both factors present serious challenges to the received view of evolution and that framework would have to be radically altered to incorporate these factors.