razib | November 10, 2006This week's selection from Islam Online is pretty strange, and involves transexuality and its relationship to Islamic law. Enjoy below the fold....
Question:
I have a very strange question. I'am 5 months ago turned to Islam alhamdulillah, I was a non-believer. Now I have a question about my past. There are some answers but they are for a person who is already Muslim. This is the question: I am a female woman in Holland but I was born as a boy, I have the mind and the feelings of a woman here in the Netherlands and also in outer countries they have operations to make this possible. I know…
razib | November 10, 2006Yesterday Michael Blowhard enthusiastically linked to the recent Neandertal introgression story, and a reader commented:
Don't bet on it, Michael. Paleoarchaeology postdoc. and regular Querencia reader Laura wrote to me off- blog:
"Saw your blog and the mention of the neanderthal interbreeding article last week...it's all fluff, published by one of the two main proponents of the PC theory that neanderthals were just like us, blah blah blah....I don't exclude the possibility that they did interbreed, but so far there isn't any convincing evidence. And if they did, it would have been on such a…
razib | November 9, 2006SEED hits the major points, and Paabo confirms:
At last, anthropology and genetics have a point of agreement in terms of the fate of Neanderthals. Henry Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah who edited Lahn's paper, described the analysis supporting its conclusions as "quite bulletproof."Pääbo, made famous for his mtDNA evidence against interbreeding, hailed it as "the most compelling case to date showing a genetic contribution of Neanderthals to modern humans," and said he plans to to seek confirmation of Lahn's findings in his own work on the Neanderthal genome.
razib | November 9, 2006From John Hawks:
I heard from a long-time correspondent this morning concerning introgression of microcephalin from archaic humans. I'm not sharing the whole message, but I thought it would be worth paraphrasing a key point for some thought.
The basic point is this: Why are we talking about "introgression"? Why isn't this just gene flow?
He answers lucidly, but I would like to offer something that I think is important, and is behind why I do not use the term "gene flow," and prefer "introgression" even though it is more jargonistic. Gene flow is a generic term, and can correctly…
razib | November 9, 2006Since I will be writing a great deal about Neandertals, please keep this image in your mind. I know that most readers of this blog don't view Neandertals as chimps, but I check google news for evolution and genetics related topics and the recent spate of articles on archaic genomics did spawn a few "Neandertals closer to chimpanzees" pieces. Those of you versed in cladistics, or any sort of taxonomy, are likely outraged, but that's just how it is. The photo to the left is of a child, and perhaps "humanized" a bit too much, but Neandertals were clearly humans. The child has light skin, hair…
razib | November 8, 2006Two articles, here and here ($) on the Paabo group's sequencing attempt. Seems rather well timed. I strongly suspect that all the morphological papers that came out in the last few months anticipated Lahn's work, it isn't like stuff doesn't float around as pre-prints.
razib | November 8, 2006Chris Lydon quoted me again on Radio Open Source on the post election episode. It's in the last 10 minutes of the podcast. He read this whole section from my post last night:
The Democrats do not bring a smile to my face. They are lovers of big government and righteous paternalism. It seems entirely likely than in the next 2 years they'll collude with our president in throwing the borders open to masses of future potential voters, a helot caste who will feed the flames of identity politics and class warfare. The multicultural managerial elite and the corporate oligarchs will be smile as the…
razib | November 8, 2006Slashdot now has a post on Neandertal introgression:
While modern day eugenicists might all too eagerly read into these findings to draw their own politically biased conclusions, people such as myself, who happen to be of northern European ancestry, may find it fascinating that somewhere in our lineage ancient humans and Neanderthals decided to make love and not war on the ancient plains of Eurasia."
There's a problem with this: sex is not always a gentle act, and can occur via force. Neandertals were a robust people, powerfully built. Am I the only one who has watched or read The Clan of…
razib | November 8, 2006The paper of record reports on introgression. Here is a tantalizing tidbit:
Two other reports of DNA studies of possible mixing of human and related genes are expected to be published in the next few weeks.
...I have suspicions, but I'm in the dark, so I'll be checking in on John Hawks regularly via my rss feed just like you. I am a little disappointed that Nick Wade didn't tackle this, but perhaps he is busy writing copy for the other "Big Idea" that Hawks and Cochran have brewing....
Related: I'm starting to be convinced by readers that the "Living Neandertals" that Hawks and Cochran have…
razib | November 8, 2006John Hawks says:
UPDATE (11/8/2006): My colleague, Greg Cochran, has a post at GNXP discussing introgression and microcephalin further:
If this pans out the way we think it will, introgression from Neanderthals (and maybe with other archaics) may have been one of the two fundamental patterns underlying recent human evolution.
One of the two. [my emphasis -Razib]
What could John Hawks mean??? 1) Look at the category I placed this post under 2) Oh yes...a new round of teasing starts. But you won't have to wait that long this time....
razib | November 8, 2006I've been talking about introgression for a year right now. I've been waiting for the papers on this topic to come out, and the first has. If you haven't, please read the posts from Greg and John Hawks. Another paper is on the way, and Hawks promises something within this week. I strongly suspect that the Paabo group also has something up their sleeves. As I noted earlier the paper from Lahn et. al. is open access, free to the public. Read it, it's an elegant and compact piece of work, and I think they make a compelling case for introgression of an allele implicated in brain development…
razib | November 7, 2006It's past midnight here on the West coast, and I'm about go to sleep, so, I'm going to say something really quickly about the election. Wow. Really wow. Myself, I'm not super excited about the Democrats winning the House, and quite likely the Senate (it'll come down to the Virginia recount and Tester holding on to the lead in Montana). I'm not particularly aligned with either party, but at this point I'm mildly happy because I'm aiming for gridlock. I don't think our country is going in the right direction, or, more precisely, in any genuine direction. George W. Bush came into office in…
razib | November 7, 2006Update II: Follow up post. You really should read Greg and John Hawks, seeing as how they have a paper in the pipeline on this topic which is stepping off from where Lahn et. al. left off.
Update: Greg and John Hawks have much more must read stuff!
Read about it here. Here is the paper, Evidence that the adaptive allele of the brain size gene microcephalin introgressed into Homo sapiens from an archaic Homo lineage:
At the center of the debate on the emergence of modern humans and their spread throughout the globe is the question of whether archaic Homo lineages contributed to the modern…
razib | November 7, 2006Bangladesh is no longer the most corrupt country in the world!!!. Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Guinea, Iraq, Myanmar and Haiti are tops. Boy, and I am proud to be an American, after all, we helped Iraq attain the status of being the 3rd most corrupt nation in the world! Seeing as how millions have died in the Congo since 1996, methinks we need another intervention, and perhaps we help Congo ascend the ranks a bit? Who knows, can't you imagine a scenario 5 years down the road when Americans troops have to stand down and call off a search for their cannibalized…
razib | November 7, 2006Previously I discussed the probability of extinction across one generation for a new mutant allele. To review, there is ~1/3 chance that a new mutant will go extinct within one generation of its origination (i.e., a de novo mutation is not replicated and transmitted to the next generation of organisms). If there is positive selection on the mutant allele there is a reduction in the probability of extinction, but only a mild one. Consider that if s is 0.10, a 10% increase in fitness vis-a-vis population median fitness, that is likely to be swamped out in many cases by the stochasticity…
razib | November 7, 2006Here is a radio documentary about the "prayer warriors" of Pastor Ted from 1997. I recall listening to this and finding it a bit peculiar at the time (and being disgusted by the documentarian's attraction to what seems like a cult, but hey, sheep are sheep, without them Ubermensch would have no raw material).
razib | November 6, 2006Via Sepia Mutiny a hilarious brown rendition of "12 days of Christmas"....
Also, check out The Office, Diwali (abridged). Slay the pagans when they congregate under their lights!