Category Archives: Uncategorized

Brotherhood of warmblood

Posted on February 28, 2015 by

All mammals are more closely related to each other than they are to any bird. That’s why an otter or a porcupine will instinctively help a rabbit that’s being chased by a hawk. Except that they don’t.  Why not?  

Posted in Uncategorized | 198 Comments

Genetic Convection

Posted on February 22, 2015 by

Advantageous gene variants certainly spread by people marrying someone from the next village, but they can also be spread by population movements – settling virgin lands, farmers pushing aside foragers, and of course conquest, our old friend. If a Fisher … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 46 Comments

Various crap

Posted on February 13, 2015 by

The world is infested by various nutty ideas, and mostly you just have to ignore them, at least until you become King and release the hounds. But someone needs to oppose them, else the young and naive may fall victim. … Continue reading →

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Origins

Posted on February 12, 2015 by

It looks as if the people that founded the Corded Ware culture, largely eliminating the previous LBK-like farmers, were the Yamnaya, themselves a mixed population, approximately half some kind of eastern hunter-gatherer and half some farming populations genetically similar to … Continue reading →

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Massive Migration

Posted on February 11, 2015 by

The big new paper on European origins is out (by Wolfgang Haak, Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, David Reich, etc) . The Corded Ware population is quite different from the preceding Neolithic farmers: it is about 75% descended from a Yamnaya-like … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 78 Comments

Deuterium as a trace isotope?

Posted on February 8, 2015 by

Most of the elements in the first four rows of the periodic (other than the noble gases) have some biological role – which means that you need at least a little. In many cases, we know something about the specific … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Don’t Drink The Water

Posted on February 5, 2015 by

About 1 in every 6400 hydrogen atoms is deuterium, with a proton and a neutron in the nucleus, not just a proton. It’s not exactly like regular hydrogen: the bond energies are slightly different (different reduced mass). Since living things … Continue reading →

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