Science, genetics and technology
Population genetics, ancient DNA, health, technology and AI.
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India’s sugar was bitter, until her first female scientist made it sweet
X.T.M retells the story of E.K. Janaki Ammal, born in Kerala in 1897 to a Thiyya family, the first Indian woman with a doctorate in botanical science, who crossbred sugarcane…
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Southasia Is One Word
Zachary L. Zavidé reports on Pervez Hoodbhoy’s MIT talk, in which the Pakistani physicist set out the logic of nuclear annihilation in an India–Pakistan exchange and promoted his Black Hole…
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Artificial Intelligence? A comment.
Shares a friend’s tweet on whether machines can be intelligent and adds a reply. It argues reasoning models and agents are advancing fast, but that machine intelligence will be fundamentally…
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H/acc — Towards a Hindu Reading of Accelerationism
A long essay, first published in March 2023, offering a Hindu reading of accelerationism. It treats technocapital and AI as an inhuman process, draws on Nick Land, invokes Narasimha, and…
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Bengalis are not totally Burmese in their East Asian ancestry
Razib Khan reports that, with Tibetan samples, Bangladeshi samples look more Tibetan-skewed than Burmese ones, and that Austro-Asiatic groups have a different, more southern East Asian source.
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The Gut-Brain Detox: Preparing for 40 with Ozone Therapy in Chennai
Ahead of turning 40, X.T.M describes ozone-bath and detox therapies at a Chennai wellness centre, inspired by Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint, and a doctor’s point that stress is the missing link…
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Tibeto-Burman admixture into Bengalis
Razib Khan, looking at Tibetan genotypes for a Substack piece, says it is clear that the East Asian ancestry in Bengalis comes from Tibeto-Burman rather than Austro-Asiatic sources.
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MS Swaminathan: architect of Green Revolution; the greatest Indian since Gandhi
The author argues that M. S. Swaminathan, architect of the Green Revolution, is the greatest Indian since Independence, having built institutions and helped 800 million people escape hunger, and says…
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Elamo-Dravidian and the Koraga
Razib Khan quotes the abstract of a study that finds a 4,400-year-old Proto-Dravidian ancestry component in the Koraga, adding that it is not definitive but shows the value of wider…
