Monthly Archives: November 2018

Kumārajīva was one of the early translators of the Buddhist canon into Chinese. His father’s lineage was reputedly Indian, while his mother was from the elite of the city of Kucha, on the northern edge of the Tarim basin. It was one of the cities where a form of Tocharian was spoken. This enigmatic Indo-European […]

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Sometimes you know something is going to happen. But you don’t know when it’s going to happen. It’s inevitable, but you don’t know when that inevitability is going to realize itself. In a way, death is like that for most of us.And so it is with genetic…

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There is more in heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in any human philosophy. This is why science is not philosophy. Those who map the skies, observe the…View Post

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From my 10 questions for Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza I asked him about the reaction of anthropologists to Cultural Evolution and Transmission, a book written in the late 1970s with Marcus Feldman: I entirely agree that the average quality of anthropological research, especially of the cultural type, is kept extremely low by lack of statistical knowledge […]

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u mean english. the scottish are british as . are the welsh

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So Spencer and I talked to Antonio Regalado today for the podcast (Apple and Stitcher, should be live soon as I just pushed it). We talked way more about Brave New World than I was expecting. The engineering is moved further than I had realized. Here are the show notes for the episode. NASA Probe […]

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Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.

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This week, Spencer and Razib talk about “CRISPR babies” in China with Antonio Regalado. Show notes: https://pxlme.me/w385xwhK

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Netflix now has Arjun: The Warrior Prince on its stream. I watched most of it to get a feel for some of the details of the story. I know the general outline of the Mahabharata, but I know the Bible or the Iliad far better (in case you can’t be bothered to follow the link, … Continue reading “When myth becomes reality”

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I am probably biased because of my professional focus, but this may be the biggest story of 2018, Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies: According to Chinese medical documents posted online this month (here and here), a team at the Southern University of Science and Technology, in Shenzhen, has been recruiting couples in an effort […]

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Zach, Omar, and myself will do a podcast on Indian genetics next week. I already did one on this topic for my main podcast, so I’m curious what readers of this weblog want to hear about. We can’t guarantee we’ll use the questions, but it’s possible. I think the format will mostly involve Zach and … Continue reading “Questions for the genetics of India podcast….”

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Today on this date Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species was published. If you haven’t, you should read it. I’m not sure if it’s the most influential book of the last few centuries, but it’s definitely up there. That being said, sometimes people want to read something different that’s more recent. I would highly […]

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The sad story of John Allen Chau, the young self-styled missionary who was killed on North Sentinel Island, has some really strange elements that are coming to the surface. The New York Times has published a piece which reports on extracts of a letter he wrote to his parents describing his motivations and observations when […]

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So this is in the news, Police: American adventurer John Allen Chau killed by isolated Sentinelese tribe on Indian island. There is some talk about whether the guy was a Christian missionary or not, but that’s not really too relevant. Whether he believes in evolution or not (he was a graduate of a very conservative […]

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This week, Spencer and Razib talk about the genetics of taste. Show notes: https://pxlme.me/oB4DsDaI

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The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 8: the genetics of tasteThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts and Stitcher) Razib Khan and Spencer Wells discuss the genetics of taste. Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and of course, umami!We talked about PTC p…

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The holiday season is upon us. This means food, family, and fun. And when it comes to food and drink it often means excess. People gain weight during the holidays, and that’s a function of our calorie budget. There are some surpluses you don’t want.But…

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Below I mentioned the preprint, Genomic analysis of dingoes identifies genomic regions under reversible selection during domestication and feralization. I do think that readers will be quite interested in reading it, and it’s not too technical. As the authors note, the dingo is interesting because of the longest lasting “feral” lineage that is known. Additionally, […]

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One of the problems with looking up pictures of the Kalash people of Pakistan is that photographers have a bias toward highlighting the most European-looking villagers. Let’s call this “Rudyard Kipling Lost White Races” syndrome. Therefore for your edification, I post the YouTube above which is probably more representative of what the Kalash look like. … Continue reading “Have we seen the face of Rama?”

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Razib Khan