This week the Autumnal Equinox occurs and marks the point where the scales tip in the direction of night over day.\u00a0 It\u2019s subtle.\u00a0 We still are enjoying days that have 80-degree temperatures, bright sun and the sound of cicadas and crickets.\u00a0 But all the summer flowers are dead or dying.\u00a0 The butterflies are almost all gone as are the hummingbirds.\u00a0 The frogs still croak at night but their rhythm has slowed to a crawl and their hearts aren\u2019t in it.<\/p>\n
In a couple of weeks, the wolfbane will bloom and the short days will give way to frosty nights and the windows will close and the meals will feature oatmeal for lunch and soups for dinner.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll have to send for the guy who tunes up the heating system (may the Fire god Agni protect our dear furnace).<\/p>\n
So indoor activities become more important.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been reading another book on the ancient DNA results.\u00a0 It is very trendily named, \u201cWho We Are and How We Got Here\u201d by David Reich.\u00a0 It has many of the results I have previously read but it made some further clarifications or conclusions.\u00a0 I also watched a YouTube video that Reich was in.\u00a0 In this video he made a very interesting assertion.\u00a0 He said words to the effect that it probably isn\u2019t the case that the Neanderthals and Denisovans went extinct.\u00a0 Basically, they were reabsorbed in the various successive waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East northward after the last Ice Age.\u00a0 He is of the opinion that the 2-4% Neanderthal genetic content of non-African humans is probably much higher, more like 10-20%.\u00a0 And a similar case exists for the Denisovans.\u00a0 And there may even be other intermediate species or races that we haven\u2019t identified especially where DNA doesn\u2019t survive as well.<\/p>\n
Also, he clearly stated that Native Americans are a combination of about 1\/3 ancient Siberian (sort of a proto-European group) and two thirds East Asian (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) ancestry that crossed the Bering Land Bridge in three waves.\u00a0 There is a hint that a small relict population that includes some Australasian traits (e.g., Australian aborigine, New Guinean) exists in the Amazon rainforest but when and how they got there is unknown.<\/p>\n
So, there is all this amazing information including the clarification of how the Yamnaya people from the space between the Black and Caspian Seas used the domestication of the horse and invention of the wagon to expand out and replace most of the inhabitants of Europe and Iran and half the inhabitants of India while spreading their language (Prot-Indo-European) to half of Eurasia and subsequently the world.<\/p>\n
But the discouraging part of the book is how much hand-wringing Reich does about the fact that these ancient people weren\u2019t feminists and how the conquerors managed to spread their DNA by having children with the lion\u2019s share of the women of the conquered people.\u00a0 And then we get the genetics of slavery.\u00a0 Which is a similar story.\u00a0 In fact, there is a whole chapter called Genomics of Inequality.\u00a0 And then there is one called The Genomics of Race and Identity.\u00a0 So, there is a whole lot of hand-wringing.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 There is a lot of interesting results.\u00a0 You just have to read between the whines.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also reading Hans G. Schantz\u2019s book \u201cThe Wise of Heart.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a reimagining of the Scopes\u2019 Monkey Trial with biological sexuality standing in for Darwinian evolution in an environment where transgender activists have passed laws against stating biological reality.\u00a0 I\u2019m about a third of the way through and I can see he has carefully studied the courtroom nuances that such a legal confrontation would involve.\u00a0 I\u2019ll provide a full review when I finish.<\/p>\n
And finally, now that the summer has ended, I hope to begin watching and reviewing the classic 39 episodes of \u201cThe Honeymooners,\u201d the 1950\u2019s sit-com that Jackie Gleason created.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this show.\u00a0 I believe it is the greatest contribution that Brooklyn ever made to western civilization (well, except for, maybe, ringalevio).<\/p>\n
And of course, I\u2019m continuing with my outlining of the universe for my epic sf series (WHATEVERITSCALLED).\u00a0 Believe it or not musing over it actually provides measurable progress in making the choices I need, in order to provide scope and direction to the plot choices I want built into the \u201cworld.\u201d\u00a0 One thing\u2019s for sure.\u00a0 No xenomorphs in my universe.\u00a0 Ridley Scott stole that monster from \u201cVoyage of the Space Beagle\u201d but even though that book was terrible it still gave the xenomorph a better showcase.<\/p>\n
So, lots of good stuff going on.\u00a0 Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week the Autumnal Equinox occurs and marks the point where the scales tip in the direction of night over day.\u00a0 It\u2019s subtle.\u00a0 We still<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,5,1289,818,1263,237,4,242,4601,240],"tags":[1148,1150,1363,38,1355,265,4484],"class_list":["post-30425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-current-events","category-fiction-by-me","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","category-the-honeymooners","category-tv-reviews","tag-ancient-dna","tag-david-reich","tag-hans-g-schantz","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-american-archipelago-book-1-the-sniper"],"yoast_head":"\n