Ancient India, archaeology, etc.
I think I have asked before, but I’m soliciting suggestions about a book on Indian prehistory, with a focus on the period between 10 and 2 thousand years ago. India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Subcontinent from c. 7000 BCE to CE 1200 looks decent, but I don’t have an ability to … Continue reading “Ancient India, archaeology, etc.”
Open Thread
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
Bubba has the babies
Today Colin Woodward, author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, has an op-ed up, The Maps That Show That City vs. Country Is Not Our Political Fault Line: The key difference is among regional cultures tracing back to the nation’s colonization. Woodward’s thesis is basically that the […]
Open Thread
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
The HGDP in the post-ascertainment era
In the 1990s there was a huge debate around the “Human Genome Diversity Project” (HGDP). By the HGDP I don’t mean what you probably know as the HGDP panel, but a more ambitious attempt to genotype tens of thousands of individuals across the world. In the end activists “won”, and the grand plans came to […]
Open Thread, 07/29/2018
Reading Imperial China 900–1800 it is interesting how the Khitan seem to have chosen to develop a written script that was not based on that of the Chinese, to resist the cultural assimilation that would have inevitably occurred. Through that choice they reduced their short-term efficiency, but probably enabled their long-term persistence as a people. […]
On ethnicity
A really strange conversation on ethnicity broke out below. The primacy of lots of different variables was argued. My family arrived in the USA ~1980 when there were not too many South Asians compared to today. Additionally, they have lived in major urban areas, small towns, and medium-sized cities. My parents grew up in (East) … Continue reading “On ethnicity”
South Asian nationalism
Stranger: “You look Pakistani, are you?” Me: “No, I’m Indian.” Them: “OMG, I’m SO sorry.” Me: “Huh?” This has happened to me 5 times. Makes me uneasy that people think it’d be normal & ok to dislike people of another nationality so much I’d be offended to be mistaken for one. — Saloni (@salonium) July … Continue reading “South Asian nationalism”
Complex evolution of pigmentation in modern humans
Last fall Crawford et al., Loci associated with skin pigmentation identified in African populations, was published in Science and made a huge splash. As I’ve been saying recently, and most people agree, much of the remaining “low hanging fruit” in human evolutionary genomics, and to some extent, human medical genetics, is going to be in Africa on […]
Local ancestry deconvolution made simpler (?)
I’ve been waiting for a local ancestry deconvolution method to come out of Simon Myers’ group for a few years. Well, I think we’re there, Fine-scale Inference of Ancestry Segments without Prior Knowledge of Admixing Groups. Here’s the abstract: We present an algorithm for inferring ancestry segments and characterizing admixture events, which involve an arbitrary […]
Render unto Caesar worldly goods
At Tanner Greer’s recommendation, I purchased a copy of Imperial China 900-1800. Now that I’ve received it I realize that I read a few chapters of Imperial China 900-1800in 2008, before abandoning the project due to sloth. Older and wiser. As I’m reading this book, I’ve been giving thought how I would respond to this […]
East Bengal/Pakistan catches up to West Bengal/Pakistan
Today I was looking on the internet to get some more information on the Pakistan election. Honestly, I don’t have a strong opinion…. But by chance, I ended up stumbling on articles like this, When East overtakes West: …a recent article, “East overtakes West,” in The Economist has thrown a spanner in the works. … Continue reading “East Bengal/Pakistan catches up to West Bengal/Pakistan”
The Insight show notes: episode 30, Genetics and educational attainment
This week Razib and Spencer discussed the relationship between educational attainment and genetics on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play) with James Lee, lead author of Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide assoc…
Genetics of Educational Attainment
Razib and Spencer discuss the genetics of educational attainment and cognitive performance with behavioral geneticist James Lee. Episode 30 show notes.
Open Thread
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
The genetics of education
Yale UniversityIn the modern world, obtaining an education is a rite of passage. Not only does education provide one with skills useful for the modern economy, but it also helps to form one’s values and socializes one with peers who go through the same…
Open Thread, 07/23/2018
Doing a Summer Sale at DNAGeeks, 20% off with the GET20 code. I believe GNXP-helix themed stuff is still the most consistent/popular item. Reading T. N. Ninian’s Turn of the Tortoise: The Challenge and Promise of India’s Future. It’s a relatively dry book with an academic orientation. No complaint from me. So far the most […]
Why moderating this weblog has become more difficult
This is still a modest weblog. But engagement is high (average time on the website is 4+ minutes). And the proportion of Indian readers getting is higher and higher. At some point in 2019, conservatively, I think this weblog will have more Indian readers than American. That is a problem for me because I have … Continue reading “Why moderating this weblog has become more difficult”
Wolves out of Beringia!
Do Eurasian and North American wolves come from Beringia? That’s the conclusion of a new preprint, Modern wolves trace their origin to a late Pleistocene expansion from Beringia. The figure above is the main result, using ancient and modern mitochondrial genomes to construct a phylogeny. It’s not surprising that the ancient lineages are basal. Y […]