Timeline of recent research into positive selection

Experimented with a timeline format to summarise key developments in the debate regarding the importance of positive selection, particularly in human evolution, and how to detect it. If anyone wants to add entries to help the timeline grow (which would be great) I believe you can do so by creating a free Dipity account and viewing the timeline through their website. A work in progress...

Studying Selection on Dipity.

The bits that we are missing

Here's a little bit about a new article in Nature:

http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p1059453001&d=What_we_left_behind.pages

The authors looked for regulatory regions of the genome that are conserved across several species (and therefore likely to be functionaly important) but which appear to be missing in all humans. By studying what these regions do in other species they try to figure out if any of these deletions might have been important during human evolution. I won't spoil it encase you haven't read it, I'll just say brain growth and penile vibrissae...

The original paper (it's only a couple of pages):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7337/full/nature09774.html

Another commentary on the paper, with some good critical discussion at the end:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/03/09/control-altered-by-deletion-%E2%80%93-is-lost-dna-behind-our-bigger-brains-and-spineless-penises/