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Afghanistan/Iraq/Israel/Palestine/India: Chanda mama

When I was growing up "world music" didn't exist as a genre and didn't exist for me in any form. Now it's just a keystroke away. This is a different world for the younger generation, not just musically. Despite all the wars and the problems in the headlines, I think it's a better one. Chanda Mama is a folk tune from Chennai, India. Like a lot of music, it's also from Argentina and Lisbon and Toulouse and South Africa and on and on. Here it is from Playing for Change via musicians from four continents:

Nature Network bloggers at ScienceOnline'09

Nature Network will be much better represented this year than last year, I am happy to report. This early in the game, we already have four registrants, coming from four different countries and making our meeting very international! Anna Kushnir came last year. This year, it is Dr.Anna Kushnir who is coming back. Martin Fenner is coming from Germany. Bob O'Hara will travel from Finland. And Richard Grant is coming all the way from Australia. See who else is registered so far. Then register yourself.

Emerging Disease and Zoonoses #16--the origins of HIV

It can't be said often enough that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Moving from physical characteristics--color, bone shape, the form of bacterial cells--to genetic characteristics in order to classify organisms--and infer phylogenies--was a giant advance. That the molecular characteristics confirmed what was known using physical characteristics was a breakthrough, and allowed for more sophisticated analyses of organisms that don't have bones or other easily-observable physical features that allow for simple classification into groups: microbes. I've…

A Dead Dog Lives On (Inside New Dogs)

Can a tumor become a new form of life? This is the freaky but serious question that arises from a new study in the journal Cell. Scientists from London and Chicago have studied a peculiar cancer that afflicts dogs, known as canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) or Sticker's sarcoma. It is a cancer of immune cells called histiocytes, and dogs typically develop grapefruit-sized tumors that disappear after a few months. Some scientists have suggested that Sticker's sarcoma can be transmitted from dog to dog, either by mating or by licking or touching a tumor. They noted that the tumor cells…

Another week of GW News, April 11, 2010

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News April 11, 2010 Chuckles, Bonn, COP 15, COP 16, MEF, Cochabamba, Krugman, Ecocide, Tremblor, Barometer, Eli's Expositions Bottom Line, Carbon Tariffs, Medupi, Corporate Coup, Weathermen, Science Bashing, FOI Abuse, CRU Kafuffle Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics of Arctic Resources Food Crisis, Neoliberal Food Policies, Food vs. Biofuel,…

The once mighty red panda empire

In the previous article we looked at the discovery of the Red panda Ailurus fulgens, and also at some aspects of its biology and distribution. There's so much I didn't cover: Red panda physiology is bizarrely interesting, for example. In this article we're going to look at the Red panda's fossil relatives. As I implied in the last article, the Red panda's friends and relations once roamed far and wide. And remember that the term 'panda' belongs to the Red panda and its kin, not to the giant pandas (which are bears, and not close kin of pandas proper). The Red panda and its close relatives…

The Mystery of the "Shovel-Tuskers"

A traditional restoration of Platybelodon as seen in H.F. Osborn's 1936 elephant monograph. From Lambert (1992). Whenever I visit the American Museum of Natural History in New York I make sure to at least pass through the fourth-floor fossil halls before I leave, and one of my favorite displays features the shovel-mouthed proboscidean Platybelodon. In a glass case in the shadow of a mammoth skeleton is a growth series showing the development of the Platybelodon jaw, from juvenile to adult. Like many AMNH displays, however, this series was not a product of the renovation of the fossil halls…

New, obscure, and nearly extinct rodents of South America, and... when fossils come alive

Another one from the archives, and another one from my rodent phase of 2006 (originally published here): despite efforts, I was simply unable to even scratch the surface of what is the largest extant mammalian 'Order'. Where appropriate I've added updates and have uploaded new images. Though new rodents are described from all over the place (yes, even from North America and Europe*), I had a recollection of the greatest percentage coming from South America. And indeed there are quite a few (note that some of the following don't have common names), with a randomly-selected list of my…

More political blogging....

More political blogging from me over at Neo-neo-centrist weblog Nation Building on political & foreign policy issues. The short form is this: I am fast becoming convinced that many "hawks" are coming to resemble the child who beats up the nearest warm human body after being hurt from falling off a bike. From the Left every citizen born at home is equally capable of being a college graduate, while from the Right every enemy abroad is the potential seed for Götterdämmerung. I am haunted by the specter of looming potentialities never realized....

My Picks From ScienceDaily

Reproductive Speed Protects Large Animals From Being Hunted To Extinction: The slower their reproductive cycle, the higher the risk of extinction for large grazing animals such as deer and antelope that are hunted by humans. Bites From Mosquitoes Not Infected With Malaria May Protect Against Future Infection: A new study suggests that bites from mosquitoes not infected with malaria may trigger an immune response limiting parasite development following bites from infected mosquitoes. Molecular Biologists Convert Protein Sequences Into Classical Music: UCLA molecular biologists have turned…

F-18 vs Eyjafjallajökull

The Finnish Air Force got some F-18s into an ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull. Far, far from the source, somewhere over Europe. They then checked the engines with a boroscope. This is why you don't fly turbojets through volcanic ash plumes. Glassy pumice flakes meet metal turbine at 900 km/h. From an F-18 part of a flight of five on training mission April 15th, just before air space closure. click to enlarge from ilmavoimat.fi view of melted volcanic ash on the korkeapaineturbiinin ;-) more images here and here h/t flightglobal.com and RUV

Gooseff on the Ice

PSU Prof. Mike Gooseff liveblogs from the Antarctic... Gooseff on the Ice liveblog from an antarctic expedition, primary audience is a Kindegarten and 2nd grade class in State College. It is very cool... Apparently the McMurdo station just held "Icestock", with headline funk band "Porn Spill" leading the lineup, starring Stix Dickson on the drums. From Icestock 2008. Porn Spill 2007 - Play that funky music boys. Icestock 2006 and the Make Out Party of '06. Hm, better than the morose folk songs we used to get from the foreman in working camps up in Iceland...

The Neanderthal Genome Project Begins

The BBC has a short article on the first DNA isolated from a Neanderthal's nucleus. (Previous efforts have gotten DNA from their mitochondria, which are small energy-generating organelles.) The results, announced at a meeting, are the fruits of a new method for extracting genetic information from fossils. Theoretically it should be possible to pull together a lot of pieces of Neanderthal DNA into something approaching a genome. We'll have to wait for the big paper for the details, but these early clues suggest it will be worth the wait. Update: More from John Hawks here.

Anti-Caturday post

Cats are so undignified, yowling and screeching and spraying urine all over the place. They should take a lesson from the noble sea cucumber, rising erect, proud and firm from the sea floor, and quietly, affirmatively ejaculating long voluminous streams of gametes that gaily wave from the tip, like a pennon in the breeze. There's more at Echinoblog, if this sample of priapic holothurians is inadequate for you. Strangely, most of these videos come from Japan. I'm really beginning to wonder about what goes on in Japanese bedrooms. (Also on FtB)

The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz

Plate XVIII, 2002 Selena Kimball From The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz More disquieting collage art - this time from Selena Kimball. Her collage illustrations from The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz by Agniezka Taborska depict the surreal, sinister visions of a fictional 18th century Carmelite nun. I feel like I should make a creepy sound effect of some kind, but the collages are so lovely, it seems disrespectful. . . check out the subtle use of biological imagery throughout. Plate II, 2000 Selena Kimball From The Dreaming Life of Leonora de la Cruz

That's A Lot of Microbes

From USA Today... Hot vents deep in the ocean harbor thousands of previously unknown microorganisms, scientists report. By examining the DNA of microbes taken from two hydrothermal vents [Axial Seamount] off the coast of Oregon, researchers identified as many as 37,000 different kinds of bacteria and 3,000 archaea, a type of microorganism distinct from bacteria, according to researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. and the University of Washington. Their findings are reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science." This is sure to make Christine's weekend.

Astonishingly, Sarah Palin does Not Believe in Evolution ...

In Going Rogue: An American Life Sarah Palin make sthe claim that she does not believe in evolution. She has not been so straightfoward in the past on this topic, according to think progress. ...she talks about creationism, saying she "didn't believe in the theory that human beings -- thinking, loving beings -- originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea" or from "monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees." This is a flip flop from what she said during the campaign. Sara Palin is a flip flopper. Spread it around.

Current Cerro Azul eruption over

The latest reports from Cerro Azul in the Galapagos indicate that the current eruption that started last week is over. The volcano erupted from Thursday to Sunday and produced lava flows that travelled 10 km from the vent, but little damage was reported. It is hard to tell from the report if this is the believed to represent all the activity to be expected at Cerro Azul, but more likely than not we'll see more eruptions if this is a new stage of activity at the volcano (in spanish).

You can't blog on Christmas day!

Said my wife, appalled. But I can, you know. Let's hope this doesn't happen: In Essexshire it happened so A man went out all for to plough, As he was ploughing along so fast Up came sweet Jesus himself at last. "Oh man, oh man, why dost thou plough So hard upon the Lord's birthday?" The farmer answered him with great speed, "To plough this day I have great need." His arms did tremble through and through, Until that he could no longer plough. The ground did open and he fell in Before he could repent his sin. His wife and children are out of place, His beasts and cattle now all are lost. His…

Cuttlefish learn from watching potential prey even before they are born

For humans, sight is the most important of senses but only after we are born. Within the womb, surrounded by fluid, muscle and darkness, vision is of limited use and our eyes remain closed. But not all animals are similarly kept in the dark. Cuttlefish develop inside eggs that are initially stained black with ink, but as the embryo grows and the egg swells, the outer layer slowly becomes transparent. By this time, the developing cuttlefish's eyes are fully formed and we now know that even before they are born, they can use visual information from the outside world to shape their adult…

The Difference Between Lasers and Colorful Lights

Grad school and a major (good) event in my personal life have been gobbling huge swaths of time, hence the comparative silence around here. I'm afraid we may be down to a few times a week for the next few months. I hope y'all'll bear with me. ("Y'all'll" is of course the standard contraction for "you all will", is it not?) Still, there's always time for some physics now and then. Say you're presented with a box with two holes in the side. From one opening, a laser beam - say, HeNe red - from a laser in the box emerges. From the other, the light from a red hot object in the box emerges…

The Autobiographical Blur Between Fantasy and Reality

Children have often been claimed to blend reality and fantasy, but according to some this is a wild exaggeration of the truth. For example, renowned child researchers have written that "even the very youngest children already are perfectly able to discriminate between the imaginary and the real" and certainly a lot of recent research tentatively supports that idea. Still, it seems intuitively surprising that children should be so good at knowing the real from the imagined. Nearly everyone - even grown adults - has had the experience of saying (or thinking) something, and afterwards…

A scientific visualization of the importance of race

The image below is a phylogram, illustrating the degree of variation in a sequence of mitochondrial DNA. The concept is fairly simple: if two DNA samples are from individuals that are evolutionarily distant from one another, they'll have accumulated more differences in their mitochondrial DNA, and will be drawn farther apart from one another. If the two individuals are closely related, their DNA will be more similar, and they'll be drawn closer together. That's the key thing you need to know to understand what's going on. There are other, more complicated analyses going on in the figure, too…

Brine Pools

Laser line scan mosaic of a pool of brine surrounded by mussels at a depth of 700 meters in the Gulf of Mexico. From here.   What is a brine pool? A brine pool is a volume of hypersaline (~4-5x) water that is denser than the surrounding water forming anywhere from a puddle to a lake on the seafloor with a distinctive shoreline and surface. They are common in the Gulf of Mexico. At the shore of the brine pool, the mussels form dense 'reefs'.  In this picture you can see a float marking one of [the] study sites.From here. How do brine pools form?…

Threat of Icelandic ash closes airspace over Europe

The ash from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption as it spreads over Europe on April 15, 2010. The newly-subglacial Eyjafjallajökull eruption of 2010 has now begun to be felt outside of Iceland. The ash being thrown into the atmosphere from this explosive phase of the eruption has prompted officials in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway to close the airspace above their nations due to the threat that ash poses to jet aircraft. Remember, the silica glass shards that make up most ash can melt inside jet engines, causing them to stall - which could lead to crashing. Luckily, so far we have not…

Preliminary Injunction Issued in ACORN Bill of Attainder Case.

Earlier this evening, Judge Nina Gershon issued a preliminary injunction barring the government from enforcing a law that bars any Federal money from going to the controversial community group ACORN, or any of ACORN's "affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations". Gershon's ruling will remain in effect while ACORN's lawsuit challenging the law is active. Predictably enough, the decision has sparked an epidemic of exploding Conservative heads, with Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) leading the charge: âOn the same day that ACORNâs violation of Delaware state lobbying laws was…

Another Week of GW News, January 20, 2013

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another Week of Global Warming News Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom January 20, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Mercury, Bond, Australian, The Holmes, Attributions Bottom Line, Thermodynamics, Cook, Fukushima Note, Fukushima News Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes, Monsoon…

Looking at the Universe with PLANCK

"To exist in this vast universe for a speck of time is the great gift of life. Our tiny sliver of time is our gift of life. It is our only life. The universe will go on, indifferent to our brief existence, but while we are here we touch not just part of that vastness, but also the lives around us." -Terry Goodkind Our view of the Universe changed forever in the 1960s with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, known today to be the leftover glow from the Big Bang. This microwave-wavelength radiation, coming uniformly from all directions in the sky, was discovered with this…

Publishing Original Research on Blogs - Part 4

Previous entries: Part 1 - Introduction Part 2 - The Backstory Part 3 - Obtaining Sequences This post is part of a series exploring the evolution of a duplicated gene in the genus Drosophila. Links to the previous posts are above. Part 4 of this series (Obtaining More Sequences) can be found below. Obtaining More Sequences Last time we downloaded sequences for both aldolase genes from Drosophila melanogaster (see here). But, if we want to study the evolution of these genes, we need sequences from a few more species. There are now complete genome sequences available for 12 Drosophila…

Increasing genetic diversity in H5N1

WHO has taken note (.pdf) of the increasing genetic diversity of the H5N1 influenza/A viral isolates as the disease spreads geographically. Clades are genetically related viruses with common ancestors. Since 2003, two such clades have appeared (clades 1 and 2), distinct from the original H5N1 viruses from the 1997 Hong Kong outbreak (now called clade 3). Clade 1 viruses have been isolated in southeast asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos), sandwiched between clade 2 viruses from southern China and Indonesia and Malaysia. Until now, the experimental human vaccines have been made with seed…

Is most bird flu from poultry?

A new fatality from H5N1 infection in Indonesia has been confirmed by the WHO reference lab in Hong Kong. So what's new? Nothing in particular except it gives me an opportunity to point out something that has been bothering me about how health officials are characterizing the risk of getting infected from this virus. First the report (via Reuters): The victim died on 16 Jun 2006 in Tulungagung in East Java province after being admitted to hospital on 8 Jun 2006, I Nyoman Kandun, director general for communicable disease control at the health ministry, told Reuters. The infection was confirmed…

Faustian Frankenpoodles Sighted

In the recent debate on sustainable agriculture, I noted that "The likelihood of pollen from GE cotton causing harm to the environment is about as likely as a poodle escaping into the wild." Amidst the avalanche of comments, noone rebutted the peer-reviewed data indicating that biotechnology has already contributed to enhancing the sustainability of our farms as measured by environmental and socio-economic benefits. But there were several people who were concerned about the poodle. Let me explain. The farms here in the great Central Valley of California supply 50% of the nation's fruits and…

Deep corals of Washington State

It stands to reason that a place blessed with the mountains, beaches, and emerald forests along the Olympic Coast of Washington State in Pacific Northwest should be equally beautiful, productive, rich, and wonderful on the continental shelf just offshore- 200m or 300m below the tideline. The Olympic Coast is a highly productive temperate marine environment with shelf waters along the continental margin reaching depths from 100- 600m. The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS) rests on the continental shelf mostly, but runs all the way from the shelf break to the intertidal zone, with…

Diary of an ex-Muslim

A friend of mine pointed me to an interesting weblog, Here in Glitner. From the "About" page: Reflections from my life as a Muslim, perspectives on Islam in my true life as a non-Muslim. I was a Muslim woman, a Muslim wife, a Muslim mother, a Muslim sister. I wore hijab, abstained from pork, obeyed my husband, studied quran and sunnah, and avoided all forbidden and doubtful things as much as I could. And then, slowly, from the blip of one thought to a full-blown realization more than five years later, I emerged into my true life, into reality, and realized my atheism. As you will read,…

Eruption at Eyjafjallajökull becomes "more explosive"

A shot of the strombolian activity at the vent of Eyjafjallajökull, taken on May 4, 2010. Image courtesy of the Iceland Met Office. The latest news from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption has the volcano erupting more explosively again (see above), possibly due to an increased influx of water into the vent area - in any case, the ash has become denser (by volume in the air) and the plume is higher (see below) than in the last couple of weeks. The rate of lava flow extrusion has also gone down in the last few days. The latest update from the Iceland Met Office has a lot of details on the current…

Ask a Scienceblogger: Sensation and Perception Basics

There are some great questions coming in to Ask a Scienceblogger! If you (or your kids?) have a question you want answered by a scienceblogger drop by Page 3.14 (the blog of the SB overlordz) and leave your question in the comments on this post. Tyler asked: It's said that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right half of the body and vice versa. Does this apply to the processing of audio and visual stimulus of the ears and eyes as well? Does the left half of the brain process what the right eye sees and vice versa? There's actual a few questions in here, so let's break this apart…

When GREY WHALES - you know, from the PACIFIC OCEAN - crossed the Atlantic

It's just too good not to mention. Yesterday I re-posted an old article about manatee dispersal across the Atlantic. And on the same day came news that a living Grey whale Eschrichtius robustus has been seen off Herzliya Marina, Israel, meaning that at least one living, breathing Grey whale is currently swimming around in the Mediterranean (in order to make sure that Americans pick up this article while googling: Gray whale Gray whale Gray whale). A team of experts were sent out to look at it: they verified the identification and got great photos, like this one... As has been mentioned by…

Weekend Diversion: Happy Earth Day, No Matter Where You Are

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us." -Carl Sagan Here on our planet, this is the one day that we take out of the year to stop and appreciate just how amazing the natural world really is, and how fortunate we are to have the Earth that we have. A wonderful but sad reminder of how fragile it is, and how quickly and easily we can affect it, comes through John Prine's great song, Paradise.Here on our planet, there are countless…

Gene Genie #42 - focus on personalised genetics

Welcome to the 42nd edition of Gene Genie, the blog carnival of clinical genetics and personalised medicine. Most of the entries in this edition fall under the broad umbrella of personalised genetics, with posts emphasising both the pros and cons of the emerging consumer genetic testing industry. The promise and perils of personalised genetics Hsien-Hsien Li from Eye on DNA warned about the potential dangers of pressuring kids to compete in athletic events based on genetic testing results, citing the suicide of a 15-year-old Singaporean boy. Alberto from Medical Pills used Hsien's post as a…

Ray has a change in plans

Apparently, because people had plans to counter some of Ray Comfort's Origin giveaway — which was announced to occur on the 19th — Comfort is giving them away today. I've been getting reports from various universities that his minions are at work right now, as in this photo from Oxford. Get out and grab yours now! I'm going to stroll over to the UMM campus, although I'll be very surprised if any were sent to our very small school. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron showed up at UCLA. It sounds like they flopped hard. I also got this email account from a UCLA student: They showed up at UCLA today…

First Greenlanders left no descendents?

Here's another example of how genetic methods can shed light on archaeological questions, Paleo-Eskimo mtDNA Genome Reveals Matrilineal Discontinuity in Greenland: The Paleo-Eskimo Saqqaq and Independence I cultures, documented from archaeological remains in Northern Canada and Greenland, represent the earliest human expansion into the New World's northern extremes. However, their origin and genetic relationship to later cultures is unknown. We sequenced a mitochondrial genome from a Paleo-Eskimo human, using 3400- to 4500-year-old frozen hair excavated from an early Greenlandic Saqqaq…

The Return of dlamming

Guess who's back? Back again. lamming's back...tell a friend. You have to see this amusing bit of stupidity from dlamming, the little brain pimple who got so obsessed with calling me an elitist a few weeks ago: Last but not least, what weekend wouldn't be complete without another ridiculous post from Ed Brayton? This time he's taking on Cynthia McKinney, the representative who was grabbed while going into the House and hit a police officer. Apparently he's never heard of racism... or this thing called the U.S. Constitution, which specifies that members of Congress be privileged from…

Mostly Mute Monday: New Map Of The Milky Way Is Complete (Synopsis)

"True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing." -Jean Cocteau Each time you look at a photograph of the Universe, you aren't just seeing it as it was at a particular moment in time, but also in a particular wavelength (or set of wavelengths) of light! Different wavelengths can reveal different phenomena and components of the Universe, from dust and gas to starlight, plasma, black holes and beyond. The view of the galactic center in four different wavelength bands. Atop, from the ATLASGAL survey at 870 microns; below that, from…

The Largest Arthropod Ever!

Caption below under next figure: Image from "Giant claw reveals the largest ever arthropod" (2007), Biology Letters The arthropods we are familiar with today tend toward the small side compared to the some of the giants found in the fossil record. From the Late Palaeozoic, 2m long millipedes and dragonflies with 75cm wingspans are known. Even marine arthropods obtained large sizes with examples including Ordovician trilobites and Siluro-Devonian eurypterids (sea scorpions). In part the Late Paleozioc pattern might be explained by increased atmospheric oxygen levels. Work on extant groups…

Umbilical Cord Yields Brain Cells using a Stressor!

A "holy grail" in spinal injury research is to repair the spinal cord with newly minted nerve cells. This study published in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience takes us a major leap forward, with the first evidence that cells from an umbilical cord -- not from a fetus -- can be transformed into active nerve cells. This eliminates any ethical concerns about using a fetus for medical applications. From the Abstract: Umbilical cord stem cells would be a favorable alternative to embryonic stem cells for therapeutic applications. In this study, human multipotent progenitor cells (MLPCs)…

Two X ray images of chopsticks lodged inside the skull of living patients

A couple of surprising images from the medical literature - two patients with chopsticks buried deep in their skulls.  The first belongs to a 38-year-old woman who was dancing at a wedding while eating with chopsticks. Someone accidentally pushed into her from behind, causing the woman to fall forward onto one of the chopsticks. The wooden skewer went straight through the back of her mouth, into the skull and snapped against the back of it, coming so close to the carotid artery that a separate image shows the major vessel pushed to one side(!).  Despite some length of it still jutting out of…

Don't be fooled ... this is just more robots, and other matters

Before I sign on to this, I want to know what happens when the vehicles become self aware and take over the planet: Vehicles That Talk to Each Other Know What Lanes They're In from PhysOrg.com A standard GPS receiver has an average 2D-positioning accuracy of about 13 meters. While this precision is high enough to direct you to your hotel, it's quite a bit lower than the accuracy required to determine which lane your car is in while driving down the highway. [...] But wait, this could also be robots. Robots fighting in outer space: Intergalactic 'shot in the dark' shocks astronomers from…

Eruption started at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland

A shot from the Hekla webcam showing the glow from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull that started March 20, 2010. Quick note, but for those of you who have been following the seismicity at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, there is news from Iceland that an eruption has started. I will post more details as I can find them, but so far, evacuations have commenced near the volcano. It sounds like the eruption can be seen coming through the glacier on the volcano, but any real details of the style of volcanism are unknown. This is the first known eruption of Eyjafjallajökull since 1823. UPDATE 9:40…

Eugenics and involuntary euthanasia

While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…

Are Chinese subsets of Southeast Asians?

That's probably the big takeaway of a new paper on the genetics of Asians, a set which includes South Asians, but in the new research mostly focuses on the people of East Asia. In a global context this work is important. The backstory is that there are disagreements about the exact process of the "Out of Africa" migration. Most researchers would agree that the vast majority, perhaps all, of the distinctive genetic content of the human species derives from a migration from the African continent between 50 and 100 thousand years ago (closer to the former date than the latter likely). Note that…