Monthly Archives: August 2012

John Hawks has found that Oetzi has more Neanderthal ancestry than people in Europe today, while Dienekes has found that Oetzi’s extra dose of archaic seems to come from the non-Near-Eastern fraction of his ancestry.  So it looks as if … Continue reading →

Here is another foray into simple quantitative analysis. My record with quick and dirty models like this is like my experience doing algebra on the blackboard in front of a class: miserable. I will proof this one and I certainly … Continue reading →

Significant differences in paternal age can make a big difference in the mutation rate.  If maintained for a long time, thousands of years, this would also cause significant differences in total mutational load.  For example, the average paternal age in … Continue reading →

I have reason to believe that few people understand genetic load very well, probably for self-referential reasons,  but better explanations are possible. One key point is that the amount of neutral variation is determined by the long-term mutational rate and … Continue reading →

Decode Genetics has a new report out in Nature that shows how mutations increase with age, by sequencing family trios.  They found that women contribute about 15 de novo mutations, independent of age. Men contribute more (55 on average) , … Continue reading →

Generally, a given nuclear allele has a 50% chance of showing up in an offspring.  But sometimes this is not the case -  some cut in line, and having a >50% of  transmission. Such an allele tends to increase, even … Continue reading →

New Mexico is the only state in the US where a noticeable mestizo (part European, part Amerindian)  population has been around for a long time.  If you’re interested in whether that population converges over time with the general white population … Continue reading →

I often post about Herero, southern African Bantu-speaking ranchers.  I plan to continue because they are prosperous people with strong families and little crime or disorder.  They also defy western definitions of things like marriage, family, male investment, and so … Continue reading →

In the Cities in Flight science fiction novels, the US develops the spindizzy, a faster-than-light drive that relies upon an obscure (and, unfortunately, nonexistent) connection between electromagnetic and gravitational forces. The drive had the nice property of working more and … Continue reading →