The last few weeks have been pretty busy with traveling and such, so I haven’t had much time to blog. I’ll be putting up an ASHG post, where I note what I saw and insights from the sessions. But not right one. This post will be a quickie.

First, traveling lets me spend some quality time with books that are in my stack as I’m going through security and sitting around on a plane with really slow internet. I finished China: A History: From Neolithic Cultures through the Great Qing Empire, (10,000 BCE – 1799 CE) on the airplane. It’s a rather quick read, at least at the relatively general level it is written. I’d recommend it as an introduction to this topic. Though it is a broad survey, I am not tempted to do a deep dive into Song dynasty, which I’ve neglected since reading The Age of Confucian Rule. Next up is The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, which I’m quite enjoying.

Second, I was shooting the shit with some friends, and I’ve come to the conclusion that one way to characterize the state of genetics in this young century is that the 2000s were about learning to read. The 2010s were about learning to read well. The 2020s will be about learning to write. The last is a reference to CRISPR.

Third, it’s probably skewed by the nature of the conference goers, but it seems that I’m now more well known for my Twitter presence than my blog. It was a pleasure catching up with everyone though.

Finally, Larry Moran has a post up about me.