Answer to troublesome question of why some genetic assoc. studies have failed replication attempts

A team of researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), and elsewhere have described a possible reason why some studies have been unable to replicate associations between genes and traits -- namely that the strength of a gene/trait association might vary with age and that current study designs typically fail to take that into account. The paper was selected for early publication online on the American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) web site on April 3, 2008, and will appear in the April 11 print issue of the journal.