Defining the role of common variation in the genomic and biological architecture of adult human height

Using genome-wide data from 253,288 individuals, we identified 697 variants at genome-wide significance that together explained one-fifth of the heritability for adult height. By testing different numbers of variants in independent studies, we show that the most strongly associated 1/42,000, 1/43,700 and 1/49,500 SNPs explained 1/421%, 1/424% and 1/429% of phenotypic variance. Furthermore, all common variants together captured 60% of heritability. The 697 variants clustered in 423 loci were enriched for genes, pathways and tissue types known to be involved in growth and together implicated genes and pathways not highlighted in earlier efforts, such as signaling by fibroblast growth factors, WNT/I 2-catenin and chondroitin sulfate-related genes. We identified several genes and pathways not previously connected with human skeletal growth, including mTOR, osteoglycin and binding of hyaluronic acid. Our results indicate a genetic architecture for human height that is characterized by a very large but finite number (thousands) of causal variants.

The Politics of Observation:Radical Psychiatry and Social Documentary

How did the counter-cultural aims of Radical Psychiatry coincide with those of documentary filmmaking in the 1960s? Where the forms and structures of new approaches to the documentary necessarily complicit in promoting the clinical and anti-clinical practices, and wider political agenda, of Radical Psychiatry? How did the documentary deal with the ethical, aesthetic, and audience-related issues associated with filming personalities and environments associated with Radical Psychiatry? How did Radical Psychiatry and the documentary shape postwar discourses on trauma, especially within conflict and post-conflict (PTSD) contexts? What is the legacy of Radical Pschiatry today, and how has it been explored by contemporary documentray film?

This article addresses these question by examining a range of documentaries dealing with the radical and 'anti-psychiatric' ideas and methods of figures such as R.D.Laing, David Cooper, Jan Bastiaans, Timothy Leary, and Franco Basaglia. Films analysed include Peter Robinson's Asylum (1972) and Psychiatry and Violence (1973); Ah, Sunflower (Klinkert and Sinclair, 1967); Anatomy of Violence (Davis, 1967); Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out (Robin Clarke, 1967), W. R. - Mysteries of the Organism (Makavejev, 1971); Raymond Depardon's San Clemente (1980) and Urgences (1988); and Louis van Gasteren's trilogy Now Do You Get it Why I am Crying (1969), The Price of Survival (2003), and There is No Plane to Zagreb (2012). 
The article concludes with a discussion of Nicolas Philibert's Every Little Thing (1997) within the context of the French documentary tradition and the film's more immediate subject - the famous clinic at La Borde established by Jean Oury, and associated with the methods and theories of figures such as Jacques
 Lacan, Francesc Tosquelles, Franz Fanon, and Félix Guattari.

Genetic studies of body mass index yield new insights for obesity biology

Obesity is heritable and predisposes to many diseases. To understand the genetic basis of obesity better, here we conduct a genome-wide association study and Metabochip meta-analysis of body mass index (BMI), a measure commonly used to define obesity and assess adiposity, in up to 339,224 individuals. This analysis identifies 97 BMI-associated loci (P < 5 × 10(-8)), 56 of which are novel. Five loci demonstrate clear evidence of several independent association signals, and many loci have significant effects on other metabolic phenotypes. The 97 loci account for ∼2.7% of BMI variation, and genome-wide estimates suggest that common variation accounts for >20% of BMI variation. Pathway analyses provide strong support for a role of the central nervous system in obesity susceptibility and implicate new genes and pathways, including those related to synaptic function, glutamate signalling, insulin secretion/action, energy metabolism, lipid biology and adipogenesis.