A Game of Thrones in Indo-European: proto-languages in Westeros and Essos, and population genomics

I think proto-languages can be applied to basically any appropriate prehistoric setting, and especially to science fiction and fantasy settings. I often viewed the lack of interest for them as based on the idea that they are not fantastic enough, that they would render a fantastic world too realistic to allow for an adequate immersion of the reader (or viewer) into a new world.

With time, I have become more and more convinced that most authors don’t use proto-languages (or tweaked versions of them) simply because they can’t, and resort to the easier way: inventing some rules … Read the rest “A Game of Thrones in Indo-European: proto-languages in Westeros and Essos, and population genomics”

Close inbreeding and low genetic diversity in Inner Asian human populations despite geographical exogamy

Open access Close inbreeding and low genetic diversity in Inner Asian human populations despite geographical exogamy, by Marchi et al. Scientific Reports (2018) 8:9397.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

When closely related individuals mate, they produce inbred offspring, which often have lower fitness than outbred ones. Geographical exogamy, by favouring matings between distant individuals, is thought to be an inbreeding avoidance mechanism; however, no data has clearly tested this prediction. Here, we took advantage of the diversity of matrimonial systems in humans to explore the impact of geographical exogamy on genetic diversity and inbreeding. We collected ethno-demographic data for 1,344 individuals

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Quantitative analysis of population-scale family trees with millions of relatives

The paper Quantitative analysis of population-scale family trees with millions of relatives, by Kaplanis, Gordon, Shor, et al. Science (2018) 359(6379), based on a study of genealogical information at Geni, is today news worldwide.

Abstract:

Family trees have vast applications in multiple fields from genetics to anthropology and economics. However, the collection of extended family trees is tedious and usually relies on resources with limited geographical scope and complex data usage restrictions. Here, we collected 86 million profiles from publicly-available online data shared by genealogy enthusiasts. After extensive cleaning and validation, we obtained population-scale family trees, including

… Read the rest

We are all special, which also means that none of us is

Adam Rutherford writes You’re Descended from Royalty and So Is Everybody Else – Anybody you can name from ancient history is in your family tree, which I discovered via John Hawks’ new post The surprising connectedness of human genealogies over centuries.

Excerpt:

One way to think of it is to accept that everyone of European descent should have billions of ancestors at a time in the 10th century, but there weren’t billions of people around then, so try to cram them into the number of people that actually were. The math that falls out of that apparent impasse

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Genetic vs. genealogical ancestors and actual geographical constraints

Interesting post from Graham Coop, Where did your genetic ancestors come from?

An excerpt:

A thousand years back I’m descended from nearly everyone everywhere in Europe. I’m related to these individuals via millions of lines of descent back through my vast family tree. Yet the majority of the lines back through my pedigree trace to people living in the UK and Western Europe. Many lines trace back to more distant locations, but these are relatively few in number compared to those tracing back to closer to home. Ancestors along each of these lines are (roughly) equally likely to contribute to

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How to Fix a MySQL Character Encoding Mismatch in WordPress

An upgrade to a newer WordPress version, or (as in my case) to a newer version of MySQL, might trigger a problem which has been described since version 2.2: old UTF-8 characters are then represented by strange characters, say “Ã©” will appear instead of “é”.

After reading some posts (e.g. this or this one) about how to fix it, I decided to solve it using one of the simple plugins out there. I tried both, UTF-8 Database converter and WP Sanitize Plugin.

But they just converted the database encoding the simple way. Which was fine, since I … Read the rest “How to Fix a MySQL Character Encoding Mismatch in WordPress”

Freedom of expression in a digital world: how fear over “cease and desist” threats can be used by individuals to restrict basic human rights

This is the story of how an unethical individual, who regards fundamental rights differently as applied to him and to others, can manage to frighten a company to the extent of making them think about limiting his clients’ freedom of expression, with a simple home-made “cease and desist” email threat. No China, no Cuba, no Iran involved. Just Spain in 2009. Too sad to be true.

I wrote it in Spanish because it is interesting for my group of study of Spanish and European Information Technology Law. I’ve translated it here for anyone interested in Spanish law, jurisprudence and international … Read the rest “Freedom of expression in a digital world: how fear over “cease and desist” threats can be used by individuals to restrict basic human rights”

A FAQ about Atheism on Darwin’s anniversary: “The Atheist Is Not Arrogant; The ‘Believer’ Is”

Apparently Darwin’s anniversary is giving more fuel to the Brights & co. to ignite still more flames, like the latest digged (and meneado) “Atheism Is Not Arrogant“. Here is a quick criticism of that concept of “Atheism” from a non-atheist and non-religious point of view:

As a statement of non-belief, ‘atheism’ is not inherently arrogant

That is true for Atheism “as a statement of non-belief”. However, Atheism – even if defined differently in all languages -, conveys a general meaning (see Wikipedia) of either:
1. The affirmation of the nonexistence of a god or gods;
2. or the

… Read the rest

About the Extremaduran Wikipedia and possible Copyleft violations – La “Güiquipeya” en “estremeñu” y la falta de la más mínima etiqueta

I’m studying right now, so I’ll make the shortest comment possible, trying not to waste more time on this question. The story is more or less as follows:

1898 – José María Gabriel y Galán publishes his first work in Extremaduran, an Astur-Leonese dialect, a text called El Cristu Benditu, “The Blessed Christ”, written with a Spanish-like orthography. To simplify the orthographical proposals of Gabriel y Galán, we can say he wrote words like “jadel”, “zarzas”, “casas”, “arrejuntal”, “vientus”, “rosas”, “bajal”, “cabus” o “abogáu”. This is the style preferred by some regional poets, like Antonio Garrido Correas and … Read the rest “About the Extremaduran Wikipedia and possible Copyleft violations – La “Güiquipeya” en “estremeñu” y la falta de la más mínima etiqueta”