September Pieces Of My Mind #1

Lost youth -try finding someone who recalls "Space 1999".
Let's not get started on the young Roger Moore in "The Saint".
Martin, I may have posted this before, but it explains the rise of populist movements.
"How Cognitive Effort Influences Our Beliefs http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2014/09/09/how-cognitive-effort-…
The less effort it takes to process a factual claim, the more accurate it *seems*.
.
(actually, all ideologies depend on much simplified assumptions of how society works, but some assumptions are worse than others)

For Eric:

http://multimedia.scmp.com/typhoons/

I hope the paywall doesn't block you - they usually let you have 4 freebies before blocking, so it should be OK.

For New Orleans (another of my daughter's finds, although she regards Lucinda Williams' voice as a bit of a train wreck - good song writer, though):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRMRWp4oiq8

Almost none of the students I teach right now had been born when I started making my living as an archaeologist.

A funny thing about universities: The students keep getting younger every year. In another decade or so, they'll all be your daughter's age :-o .

Don’t current graphic design programs have the ability to spot too-airy lines automatically and flag them for correction?

TeX (as well as its derivative LaTeX) has had this capability since the early 1980s. It has one of the best hyphenation dictionaries out there, superior to anything Redmond has ever created, even 30-odd years later. And should that prove insufficient, there are other steps you can take. If your word happens not to be handled correctly, you can add a command that will force TeX to divide it correctly. You can put in discretionary hyphens. You can even force TeX to handle cases that don't arise in 1980s English, like the German rule that words containing 'ck', if hyphenated at that point, should be rendered 'k-k', or the ability to divide a DOI at the forward slash without putting in the hyphen. If all else fails, you can manually increase the tolerance. And TeX and LaTeX are freeware. There is no excuse for people who collect money for such software to have not provided capabilities that are even almost as good.

Some interesting abstracts out lately:

http://dienekes.blogspot.hk/2014/09/ancient-mtdna-from-southern-africa…

http://dienekes.blogspot.hk/2014/08/ashg-2014-titles.html

By now it seems pretty well recognised that there was large scale population replacement in Europe during the Neolithic and that the invaders were Indo-European speaking herders.

I'm not up to date on the literature, but I haven't seen anybody in recent years supporting Lord Renfrew's idea that the original 7th millennium spread of agriculture into Northern Europe also carried a recognisable Indo-European language. Maybe the 3rd Millennium Corded Ware and Beaker cultures.

I'm not current on that literature either, but as I understand it, the consensus is that the speakers of Proto-Indo-European lived about 5000 years ago, somewhere in central or northwest Asia. It's not clear whether they were farmer/herder types or nomads of the steppes.

Under Lord Renfrew's hypothesis it is difficult to explain the pockets of non-Indo-European speakers that remained: the ancestors of the modern Basques, Estonians, Finns, and Magyars, as well as possibly some other peoples like the Etruscans who died out later. But if the Indo-European speakers came later, there could easily have been some populations they missed, or which were numerous enough to resist the invasion. In particular, the groups who made contact with the Finns must have also been in contact with a third party in contact with the Finns, since "Finn" is neither of Indo-European origin nor the term by which Finns call themselves.

Do the Magyar need to be accounted for as a remnant population? As I recall they are known to have migrated westward into their current location around 900 CE. They're relatively recent invaders like the Turks, not remnants like the Basque.

The Corded Ware people are looking like good candidates.

Magyars - not a remnant population in the genetic sense.

It's worth having a look at the R1b and R1a Y DNA haplogroups:

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml

They show the same star-like phylogenies in Europe that Genghis Khan showed in Central Asia and 3 Chinese men showed in China.

My Y DNA is R1b and my mtDNA is U5a1b. So the maternal line comes from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe via refugia during the last glacial maximum and then migration back into Europe, and the paternal line comes from Neolithic cattle herders migrating into Europe from northwest Asia c. 3rd millenium BC. That is a not an unlikely combination.

In between those two events, farmers migrated into Europe from Anatolia. But it is unlikely they were Indo-European speakers, hence the Basques and Etruscans, and particularly the genetically distinctive Sardinians, who are the closest thing we've got now genetically to those Middle Eastern farmers. They lost their original language, the Basques didn't. But genetically Basques are not clearly distinguishable from other Europeans.

Swedes and Norwegians are genetically distinct from other Europeans (including Danes) in that they have a higher proportion of hunter-gatherer ancestry. Geographically that makes sense.

I want a new bicycle helmet. My helmet is old fashioned, uncool and clunky looking. The protective material inside is rotting and falling apart from being repeatedly soaked with sweat. When I wear the helmet in the lift, it frightens small children.

I want a new helmet that will frighten big children as well.

It could be that the development of lactase persistence drove the Indo-European expansion. It looks possible.

Your thought on tattoos reminded me - when my daughter was in early secondary school, she came under severe peer pressure to get her ears pierced, but steadfastly refused. Her famous declaration at the time still cracks me up: "I don't want any holes in me that I wasn't born with."

Great idea for a parable.

Thank you!

More on Indo-European incursion into northern Europe:

http://www.unz.com/gnxp/northern-europeans-as-children-of-the-corded-wa…

Anyway, according to Jean Manco, Corded Ware correlates to R1a and in at least one example, Beaker was R1b. So it is all looking like it is coming together - Corded Ware and Beaker were two related IE speaking groups who migrated into eastern and western Europe respectively; evidently nomadic cattle herders.

I should read Davidski's blog more often:

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/

but my brain just can't cope with a lot of the complexity written in words. I just want someone to draw me a 4 dimensional map of who migrated to where when. That's all I want. I suspect if I ever see it, it will look like a gigantic fireworks display. 'Homogeneous populations' HA!!! Nowhere.

What does homo copulation have to do with this?

John, after complexity overload I chill out with Brit satire sites:
The Onion: "Kate Bush to lead audience away like a pied piper" http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/kate-bush-to-lead…
.
Daily Mash: Brain op goldfish to become Tory candidate
Polish Jack the Ripper ‘probably had a free council house too’, claim UKIP
Public warned not to download naked photos of Steven Seagal
Cost of a three-bedroom house in London ‘causing extremist Jihadi mobilisation’
Falkland Islanders vote to become Caribbean

Since the influx of agriculture could have followed the migration of an ethnic group, then gone through a phase of culturall diffusion and then once again spread by migration, the possible complexity cannot be unravelled without a comprehensive map with DNA records and farming tools.
OT : Since certain politicians make a career of spreading contempt for science, here is a "payback is a bitch" story:
" You Want the Palin Brawl? Here it is". http://www.themudflats.net/archives/44433 BWAHAHAHA!

At last, someone gives me pictures to look at. The whole paper is available.

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2014/04/05/001552.full.pdf

"New branch added to European family tree" http://phys.org/news/2014-09-added-european-family-tree.html
Three groups contributed to the genetics of modern Europeans.

John, sorry for the doublet link.
(OT) Instead of Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter, we have governor Jindal, exorcist. Maybe you should take him along in Dungeonquest? His skills could be useful. http://blow.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/bobby-jindal-the-exorcist-pro-…

No problem, Birger - the news piece complements the paper nicely.

Chinese Premier orders Chinese overseas tourists to stop eating noodles. Bit harsh, that one, I thought.

My daughter has just taught me a new ethnic slur - Porridge Wog = a Scotsman. I laughed. I have 5/8 Scottish ancestry, and I still laughed.

It's even more complicated than that, though, Birger. Because the Palaeolithic hunter gatherers who occupied Europe also occupied north-western Asia, where they erm got friendly (OK, copulated) with Palaeolithic Siberians. Then when the Neolithic Near Eastern farmers migrated into Europe and marginalised (nice way of saying "killed or raped", etc) the H-Gs, and then the (presumed) Indo-European speaking herders migrated in and hacked into the farmers, the hackers were carrying some of the same haplogroups as the original H-G occupants of Europe.

So it was like the revenge of the H-G's, except that they weren't the same folks making a come-back.

And no one has a clue who the Basal Eurasians were.

Ancient North Eurasians, Basal Eurasians - we've got ghost populations all over the place. But then, that's the way it happens. Until really very recently, there were people nominally called Tasmanians.

Shirley Yamaguchi is dead at 94, so she can stop apologising now.

My daughter has just taught me a new ethnic slur – Porridge Wog = a Scotsman.

I thought one had to be east of Calais to be a wog. Unless, of course, they mean the Calais in Maine rather than the one in France. Not that I would endorse either definition, but some Americans would--especially if you used the one in Maine.

(Calais is the town on the US side of the easternmost major highway crossing along the US-Canada border. It's not quite the easternmost town in the continental US, but close.)

Another well written news story on the origin of Europeans.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29213892

No one is actually coming out in print about it yet, but they are all saying it - the Third Wave were the Indo-European speakers.

'Wog' has totally disappeared as a racial epithet in Australia now, and is used to refer to an inlfuenza virus

Davidski has given us illiterates/brain-challeneged lots of pictures, like the good chap he is, but they contain such huge amounts of information, you need to download them and blow them up to read them.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/pca-of-loschbour-stuttgart-mot…

Skeptics, grab the popcorn: Satanist vs Satanist in Michigan http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2014/09/18/satanist-vs-satanist-…

(OT) Archaeologists Uncover Buried Gas Chambers At Sobibor Death Camp http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/archaeologists-sobibor_n_58438…
Photographer Risks Nuclear Radiation To Capture Haunting Post-Soviet Landscapes http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/nadav-kander-dust-photo-series…

Ig Nobel winners: Using pork to stop nosebleeds http://phys.org/news/2014-09-ig-nobel-winner-pork-nosebleeds.html
Also, Eigil Reimers and Sindre Eftestøl, of Norway, accept their arctic science award, for testing how reindeer react to seeing humans who are disguised as polar bears.

"A tattoo: it’s a fashion item that can never be upgraded."

We discussed the technological feasibility over coffe Friday afternoon at work, enjoying the very last warm autumn day when you can have coffe outdoors.
If you use modern metamaterials as tattooed pixels able to alter colour (and connected some way, maybe using wireless technology) you should be able to download the design of choice.
You cold get paid as walking adverts if the tattoos are kept visible. For longer texts, let it scroll down the skin. If you have sensors implanted in the skin you could use the arm as a keyboard.
(The discussion started over silicone; what is it good for? I argued that implants of varying volume could and should be used to store information or used as portable batteries)

John Massey #15: "It could be that the development of lactase persistence drove the Indo-European expansion. It looks possible."

On the other hand, the Finns have probably the highest rate of lactase persistence in Europe. It means a history of animal husbandry. The Indo-Europeans were probably the ones who brough land cultivation to northern Europe.

And for a biking helmet, try to get a Darth Vader version with the breathing apparatus.

Most herding cultures co-exist with agriculturalists with whom they trade. An exception is a herding people in central Africa, maybe the proto-Finns were also herding before agriculture arrived?
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Chinese are also honoured with Ig Noble awards this year:
NEUROSCIENCE: Jiangang Liu, Jun Li, Lu Feng, Ling Li, Jie Tian and Kang Lee, for their study "Seeing Jesus in Toast," and trying to understand what happens in the brains of people who see human faces in a piece of toast.

I'm not an expert, but AFAIK the proto-Finns were herders in addition to H&G. Maybe seminomadic, at least in the eastern parts (current northern Russia). The lactase persistence is hard to explain in any other way.

When the Indo-Europeans (i.e. the Slavs) started expanding to current Russia 2000 years ago, their advantage wasn't cattle, it was agriculture, which allowed them to maintain a high population density. One hypothesis is that some Finns learned farming from Slavs. That forced them to stay in one place, and they got assimilated because they were a minority. That would explain why Finns and Russians are so close on genetic maps - Russians are a hybrid of Finns and Slavs.

By that time the western Finns (at the shores of the Baltic Sea) had already learned agriculture from Balts.

A few points on this topic that tend to make the whole discussion kind of moot but brings it more in line with current thinking in academia.

* Tech travels unfettered by genes.

* Languages travel unfettered by genes.

* Ethnicity is neither the same as genes, nor as tech, nor as language.

* Ethnic groups such as Finns and Russians are not timeless entities. They are born, they live and they die. In these two particular cases, the births are very recent.

Lassi - You read my mind.

Birger: "Most herding cultures co-exist with agriculturalists with whom they trade." You mean like the Mongols and the Chinese? Yeah, right.

Then explain large scale population replacement in Europe. Possibilities: 1. Death. 2. Errrrm...

'* Tech travels unfettered by genes." No, this is the old cultural diffusion model.

The genetic studies show unequivocally that technical change was far more by population replacement than by cultural diffusion.

Women's tennis just became a lot less fun.

http://online.thatsmags.com/post/chinese-tennis-icon-li-na-announces-re…

Of all the things people might have expected of a Chinese athlete, I doubt that her sense of humour would be at the top of the list.

I hope they hire her as a commentator - her commentaries would be hilarious.

Cultural diffusion is a new model. The 19th century model was migration.

In Sweden, many scholars are open to the idea that agriculture and the TRB culture arrived with a migration. But nobody believes that bronze casting or ironworking did.

Sweden is a bit special, because agriculture arrived pretty late, and it looks like farmers and hunter-gatherers lived peacefully side by side for at least a couple of thousand years, no doubt occupying different areas and different niches, and very likely trading with one another.

That is not the pattern we see in other areas.

No, it's the same pattern all over northern Europe. Agriculture may to some extent have been borne by a migration wave, bronze and iron tech not so much. Which speaks against your blanket dismissal of cultural diffusion.

Swedens biggest Bronze age burial mound. Kviksgraven, reveals new previously unknown picures.: http://www.kiviksgraven.se/new-documentation-2014/

I am told that the spread of agriculture once it reached central Europe travelled rapidly west along the loess earth belt and then stopped for centuries approximately in central Germany. This might be because the primitive agriculture practices were not all that well suited to replace a hunter-gatherer or herding lifestyle in the region. Maybe it had to wait until a more competitive form of agricultural practices -better suited to the colder north with its poor topsoils- had emerged. The time span would favor a slow cultural diffusion but all this is an educated guess on my part.

(OT) Human faces are so variable because we evolved to look unique http://phys.org/news/2014-09-human-variable-evolved-unique.html
-This is a much better way to identify each other than sniffing each other's butts!

Agriculture's northward expansion actually halted in Germany for all of the 5th millennium before crossing into Denmark. We know that there was cultural contact, for instance though the spread of Central European Schuhleistenkeil polished axes across southern Scandinavia. Current thinking has it that the Ertebølle culture's semi-sedentary fishing-gathering economy made for such a high quality of life that agriculture didn't seem worthwhile.

Thanks for the details. BTW has Juniorette discovered the Beatles yet? I thought of it when I read this:
"Swede's homemade submarine nets fortune" http://www.thelocal.se/20140920/swedes-homemade-submarine-fetches-fortu…
BTW is "I am the Walrus" originally the Beatles song, or was it originally the code phrase in the wossname film?

No, I've been sadly remiss in her musical education because I always use headphones.

Dunno about "I Am The Walrus". It was recorded in September 1967. The animated movie premièred in July of the following year.

I have found some cultural references to “I Am The Walrus” being used in a film (thriller?) , bad guy strolling up, saying 'I am the "Walrus" (BLAM!).
Election; it may be that most of SD;s voters simply feel marginalised and abandoned by mainstream estasblishment parties* and vote SD as a protest (those on the left would vote V for the same purpose). *That many SD voters live in small towns with negative demographic growth and high unemployment seems to support this idea.

Re: Xenophobic movements. Film actress Birgitte Bardot sadly support Fronte National, but this actress does not: Happy 80th Birthday Sophia Loren! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/20/sophia-loren_n_5842876.html

Current thinking has it that the Ertebølle culture’s semi-sedentary fishing-gathering economy made for such a high quality of live that agriculture didn’t seem worthwhile.

That is not a unique occurrence either. The Yayoy of Japan, who are thought to be the ancestors of the modern Ainu, had such an economy, and I have heard the claim that the Yayoy are the only culture to have developed pottery without developing agriculture. They were eventually displaced by the Jomon, farmers crossing over from the Korean peninsula who are presumed to be the ancestors of the modern Japanese. The linguists eventually concluded, after many decades of debate, that Japanese and Korean belong in the same language family--at one time there was a school of thought that Korean was either Turkic or Uralic (the latter being the same language family as Finnish and Hungarian).

Nowhere did I say blanket dismissal.

Pre-Neolithic maternal haplogroup subgroups are now rare everywhere, except among the Sami, where they occur at 50%, and at much lower frequency among Basques and Berbers. Pre-Neolithic paternal haogroup subgroups exist nowhere. Seems like pretty effective marginisation.

Nowhere did I mention iron or copper. Whatever you think I said, I didn't say it.

I was speaking generally when I said "Tech travels unfettered by genes”, so I got the impression that you were arguing against this on the general level too. Good to know that we're mostly in agreement.

No, cultural diffusion must have happened many times over.

The interesting thing about the third wave of migration into northern Europe was that it was pre-Bronze Age, or maybe right at the start of the Bronze Age. They might have had a few bronze weapons, but that would be about it. So no - Bronze casting or iron working definitely did not arrive with this third wave.

They had carts pulled by oxen, though.

And they did not have domesticated horses, something often erroneously claimed as the 'Indo-European' advantage. Didn't have 'em.

The language thing is tricky - I can understand why linguists distance themselves from genetics. I don't think they should, but I understand why they do.

Ethnicity means...what, exactly? Latterly it tends to be used as a euphemism for race, but then 'race' is starting to look pretty ragged around the edges too. There are no homogeneous 'races'.

Which makes the US Census look even more quaint and vaguely offensive than it already is.

Sorry for the time lag - I was at work before. After 2.5 years working for the same company on contract, they have just asked me to join the permanent staff.

I'm going to have to think about this - there are advantages and disadvantages; lack of freedom being the obvious disadvantage. Currently I can tell the big boss to go and get fucked, and do so on a fairly regular basis. That is going to become a bit more difficult. Not my immediate boss, he's a real sweetheart, but his boss.

Maybe I should demand that it be written into my terms of employment: "Permitted to tell the big boss he is a slime ball and to go and get fucked whenever he feels like it." So far I have tried to resign 3 times and they won't let me (my immediate boss is really big ugly guy, and he just stands in the way and says ""No, I cannot permit you to leave, I need you", so who knows, it might work.

Eric Lund #56: I think you got the Jomon and the Yayoi mixed up. The Ainu are (mostly) decended from the Jomon. The Yayoi arrived later, during Iron Age. By that time the Jomon were already part-time farmers (e.g. dry rice), but the Yayoi knew the more productive wet rice method (paddies). Modern Japanese are a mix of Jomon and Yayoi.

As a useless bit of trivia, the origin of the name Mt Fuji is obscure. One suggested source is the Ainu word for fire.

John, good luck.
Lassi, the Japanese have treated the Ainu very badly, their language is now practically extinct.
.
(OT) Elk (moose) hunters risk injury in Sweden’s woods http://www.thelocal.se/20140923/elk-hunters-risk-injury-in-swedens-woods

2300-year-old nerds with icosahedral dies! http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/22/nerds/ icosahedral dies 300 BC !“You’ll have to roll a θ to hit that lemure, dude.”

Skeptic aler! Here is a TV ad by a particular political group, not condescending at all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JNwCDIGuMK4
Excerpt:” In 2008, I fell in love. His online profile made him seem so perfect: smart, handsome, charming, articulate, all the right values. I trusted him. But by 2012, our relationship was in trouble, but I stuck with it, because he promised he'd be better. He's great at promises.”
-So, women choose to vote on people the way they pick dates, because that is how their fluffy pink brains work? Any neurologist here who wants to comment on that?

Birger @64: I'm not a neurologist, but I see what they are doing here. They are making the analogy to an abusive relationship. Which, if my guess as to which party made the ad is correct (I haven't watched), is pure projection: that party does nothing but abuse the trust of the majority of its voters. (As well as almost everybody in states where this party sometimes wins electoral majorities.) It's a cynical ploy: note that the party in question is well-served if people who might agree with that spokeswoman stay home.

http://polishgenes.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/corded-ware-people-more-vers…

Air-chaeological drones search for ancient treasures http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329883.900-airchaeological-dron…

China: I want this job! (but I might face stiff competition from cats) http://satwcomic.com/office-pet

(OT) Not yet snow, but freezing rain arrived in the afternoon. The night before Thursday saw the coldest September day since the start of temperature records in Umeå, -8.5 C.
http://www.thelocal.se/20140921/northern-swedes-wake-up-to-september-sn…

More abstracts for anyone who is feeling deglected on that front. Personally, I am feeling somewhat over-abstracted at the moment: http://dienekes.blogspot.hk/2014/09/eshe-2014-abstracts.html

On a personal front, I have a badly infected lower leg from a cycling accident a week ago - I got a little too close to a lump of jagged concrete on a tight turn while travelling a little too fast, which ripped hell out of my lower leg at the front. I cleaned and disinfected it in situ, and then forget about it. Stuck some of those big Band-Aids on it Mistake - a week later, my leg is swollen and yellow,and my foot has turned black (suprisingly painless).

The good news is that a cute young female Chinese doctor has made it her mission in life to get me uninfected again. I threw the pain killers she gave me in the rubbish bin. I need antibiotics, I need to clean,disinfect and dress the wound twice very day. The one thing I don't need is pain killers.

Of course, none of this is preventing me from cycling or weight training. That would be. like, sensible behaviour. Life is not meant to be sensible, it is meant to be fun. Besides, the increased blood circulation is likely to clear out the crap faster.

Oh poor John! Get well soon!

Seconded.
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Uri Geller’s Back, Now With Twice the Bullsh*t http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2014/09/27/uri-gellers-back-now-…

Chinese companies export tools of torture http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/chinese-companies-…
(vomits)

Ancient human genome from southern Africa throws light on our origins http://phys.org/news/2014-09-ancient-human-genome-southern-africa.html An extinct lineage in South Africa is closest to "mitochondrial Eve"

For some reason, some political discourse in USA is inspired by Ayn Rand. Skeptics interested in destruct-testing her beliefs can get a brief summary below, see link:

John Oliver presents: The enduring influence of Ayn Rand, ‘selfish *sshole’
On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver presented an informational segment on the enduring influence of libertarian writer Ayn Rand on politicians and captains of industry, asking, ‘Ayn Rand: How is she still a thing?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9mJpVf4dkc&feature=player_embedded
Rand is noted for her two novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Foutainhead, “Stories about rapey heroes complaining about how no one appreciates their true genius.”

The definitive quote about Ayn Rand is from John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves Orcs.

Of course, the likelihood that both the Basque language (super-careful specifying here) and Etruscans (more or less lockstock'nbarrel, the Top People that is, just ignore those indigenous italoceltic peasants over there) were early/middle bronze age intrusions from TransCaucasia>Anatolia>The East Med in general, on a continent already transformed (by indo european speakers and their attendant R-(chaps) and is it H? or T? (gels) haplogroups, who'd as mentioned, rolled over and mopped up the (G and I and whatever) earlier neolithic and native groups) is not very popular for some reason.
Looks good to me. Nothing indigenous or aboriginal about either of these puzzling isolates. Late to the party, if anything.

Hm. Too many brackets possibly?