Autism and environment. A much talked about recent twin study from California finds a significantly lower heritability in autism than previously estimated, reducing the heritability estimate from >80% to less than 40% and attributing much of the liability of autism to shared, probably prenatal environment. At first, this study may seem to add to the growing pessimism in the genetics field given the lack of explanatory findings from exome sequencing studies. However, things are not that simple and you don’t have to put your exome sequencers on Ebay yet. Also, don’t mention vaccinations again. Let me explain… Continue reading →