[untenured]

He said of his latest findings that populations in the colder, more challenging environments of Northern Europe had developed larger brains than those in warmer climates further south.

Maybe. But I remember reading that in recent years northern Europeans have been getting taller much faster than Americans. (The latter might even be getting shorter.) These could be due to a lot of causes - the distribution of health resources, family structure (in the IQ case, which might lead to different investments in IQ formation), and many other things. To reflexively attribute it to evolution and genes (without even knowing the genes in question) is sort of weak, it seems to me.

[miliantnutcase]

Better nutrition has a lot to do with that. Americans with northern European ancestry are taller than people in the old country. Being of scandinavian descent my family is just genetically "tall" though; I'm 6'-8", my dad is 6'-10", and my cousins vary between 6'-4"-6'-6". And my great grand father from Sweden was 7ft tall with bright red hair lol! go figure.

[rfp1234]

"northern Europeans have been getting taller much faster than Americans. (The latter might even be getting shorter.) These could be due to a lot of causes - "

The "average American" is getting shorter due to the large influx of non-European immigrants (not that there's anything wrong with that).