Gene Flow and Natural Selection in Oceanic Human Populations, Inferred from Genome-wide SNP Typing (H/T Dienekes): It is suggested that the major prehistoric human colonizations of Oceania occurred twice, namely, about 50,000 and 4,000 years ago. The first settlers are considered as ancestors of indigenous people in New Guinea and Australia. The second settlers are […]

In a previous post on current views on the human colonization of the world, I alluded two issues: whether modern humans displaced all archaics, and the precise demographic models under which that occurred. I placed more emphasis on the first, but was taken to task in the comments–apparently no one has issues with some version […]

Reihan has a post up, The Paskwotiz Family, where he praises the new documentary Surfwise. I first heard about this family a few weeks ago on the radio show On Point; the director of the documentary and a few of the sons were interviewed at length. Reihan finishes: I get the point. I sympathize! But […]

Carl Zimmer tells a fascinating story about the role of chance in E. coli evolution. The paper isn’t available yet, of course, since it’s PNAS, but it certainly sounds like it’s worth a look. Update from Razib: Also see Ed Yong’s post. Labels: Genetics

If you have’t stumbled on it.

Since so many comments lead off with some variant of “I would guess,” why not try to corrall them all into one post where they could serve a purpose? Each week I’ll find some area of the human genome that shows signs of recent selection, see what phenotypes the gene affects, and although I’ll likely […]