We've a new paper, in which we investigated how educational attainment is transmitted from parents to their children using genetics. Thoughts and comments welcome, a brief thread... medrxiv.org/content/10.110… Four possible explanations for the correlation of parents' and childrens' educational outcomes are 1) direct genetic inheritance, 2) dynastic effects and genetic nurture, 3) assortative mating, and 4) demographic factors are illustrated in the DAG below.

Delighted to see our sibling GWAS published in @NatureGenet. We used almost 180,000 siblings across 19 studies from around the world. Why are siblings interesting for GWAS? A thread 🧵.... 1/14 nature.com/articles/s4158… GWAS have identified 10ks of SNPs related to phenotypes - using samples of unrelated individuals. However, correlation!=causation. Increasing evidence suggests these associations can be driven by more than individual-level biological effects. 2/14

Tweetorial: Do early life non-cognitive skills affect academic, psychosocial, cognitive and health outcomes? 1/16 @Lisa_Smithers @chittles74 @mendel_random nature.com/articles/s4156… It is often claimed that non-cognitive skills such as character traits like grit and personality are critically important for child development. These traits are thought to be more malleable than intelligence. However, it's not clear what evidence supports these claims. 2/16