Born and Raised

What do we mean when we talk about "non-cognitive skills," and what does genetics tell us about them? In this episode, our hosts visited Perline Demange to talk about the genetic architecture of cognitive and non-cognitive skills — how they relate to educational attainment, where they overlap with personality and psychopathology, and what that could tell us about the genetics of doing well in school. And also - what on earth do Christmas Elves have to do with it? Perline also mentions work by: Vaishnavi Madhavan https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaishnavi-madhavan-8ba3641ab/ Sverre Ofstad https://www.linkedin.com/in/sverre-ofstad-a6207b279/ Rosa Cheesman https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-cheesman-6586ba93/  

Why did you pick your partner? Just right place at the right time, or deliberate process? Whatever the case, it turns out that your partner is likely to be more genetically similar to you than we would expect by random chance. Also turns out that this has a bunch of weird consequences for genetic research! In this episode, our hosts went to Oslo and had a chat with Hans Fredrik Sunde about all things assortative mating. What is it, why is it interesting, and how do we study it? And more importantly - what is the one weird item that Hans Fredrik has amassed a huge collection of?

Sven Oskarsson, a political scientist at Uppsala University who studies the genetics of political attitudes and behavior. He recounts finding twin-study research and explains heritability of turnout, ideology and trust. He contrasts twin methods with polygenic indices, discusses gene–environment interactions, cross-country similarities, and surprising links between personality PGIs and political participation.

Curious about epigenetics? Dive right in! In this episode, Laurel Raffington gets a visit from the Born and Raised crew in her beautiful office at the Max Planck institute in Berlin. We learn about all things epigenetics - clocks, scores, inheritance - and about their connections to things like socioeconomic deprivation. The ethics and history of doing sociogenomic research in a context like Germany is also discussed. And how does lifting weights fit into all of this? Stay tuned to find out!

In this episode, our hosts visit economist Sjoerd van Alten in his office at the Vrije Universiteit. Why would an economist be interested in genetics? How does one use molecular genetic data to study genetic effects on complex social and economic traits? What are genome-wide association studies, polygenic indexes, and how do we get from correlation to causation? These and many more questions are answered in this episode!

Abdel Abdellaoui, behavioral geneticist and associate professor at Amsterdam UMC, talks about how migration, mate choice and fertility shape genetic variation and social inequality. He explains the rise of social science genetics and how the field navigates criticism. There are also candid stories about media communication and a surprising past life as a hip-hop artist.

What is happening at the intersection between genetics and the social sciences? In this upcoming podcast series, hosts Rafael and Aysu talk to leading researchers in the exciting new field of social science genetics about their life and work. Born and Raised is produced by the European Social Science Genetics Network.