Science, genetics and technology
Population genetics, ancient DNA, health, technology and AI.
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Bengalis are all basically very similar (except for Brahmins)
Razib Khan reads a new genome study as showing West Bengalis and Bangladeshis are broadly similar, with more East Asian ancestry in Bangladeshis and more variance in West Bengal, probably…
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Fear of a Bihari nation
A note on diverging fertility in neighbouring regions: Bihar at about 3.0 against West Bengal at 1.6, suggesting West Bengal’s earlier population growth reflected the arrival of Hindus from East…
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Sri Lanka Genetics
A note quoting a study on the population history of Sinhalese, which finds excess sharing with Marathas and so supports a western Indian rather than eastern Indian origin for the…
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Iranic if by Land, Indic if by Sea – Explorations in R1a
Using YFull data on Y-DNA branch dates, the author argues that R1a-Z93 lineages in India formed around 2100-1800 BCE, consistent with a steppe clan moving into South Asia, beyond the…
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Book Review: Four Battlegrounds by Paul Scharre (AI Defense Applications)
Hamid Hussain reviews Paul Scharre’s Four Battlegrounds as a fascinating account of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies in warfare, describing how AI aids intelligence analysis and autonomous systems and…
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Population structure in South Asian – Genomes Asian 1K paper
A note on a new South Asian medical cohort paper on founder effects and homozygosity, which the author says confirms a west-to-east cline among Bengalis regardless of religion, though it…
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Midjourney v 5 and various Indian ethnicities
A short post about Midjourney v5 images of various Indian ethnicities, inviting readers to guess the ethnicity from the image names.
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The once and future India
The author compiled total fertility rates by administrative division across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, noting that India is a big country with, for example, Uttar Pradesh near 3.1 and West…
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Perhaps the Indus Valley Civilization did descend from Zagrosian farmers?
A note quoting a paper on the limits of fitting complex population-history models, which questions whether the Indus Periphery lineage really split from Iranian farmers before the Ganj Dareh Neolithic,…
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Cousin marriage in Bangladesh
Prompted by a Times argument to end cousin marriage in the UK, the author cites a PLOS One study of Bangladesh finding about 6.6% prevalence and three times higher mortality…
