Month: May 2017

Non-african mummies

We found the ancient Egyptian samples falling distinct from modern Egyptians, and closer towards Near Eastern and European samples (Fig. 4a, Supplementary Fig. 3, Supplementary Table 5). In contrast, modern Egyptians are shifted towards sub-Saharan African populations. Model-based clustering using ADMIXTURE37 (Fig. 4b, Supplementary Fig. 4) further supports these results and reveals that the 3 ancient Egyptians differ from modern Egyptians by a relatively larger Near Eastern genetic component, in particular a component found in Neolithic Levantine ancient individuals36 (Fig. 4b). In contrast, a substantially larger sub-Saharan African component, found primarily in West-African Yoruba, is seen in modern Egyptians compared to the ancient samples.

2021-11-05: Mummification is also older than previously thought:

The preserved body of a high-ranking nobleman called Khuwy, discovered in 2019, has been found to be far older than assumed and is, in fact, 1 of the oldest Egyptian mummies ever discovered. It has been dated to the Old Kingdom, proving that mummification techniques 4 ka BP were highly advanced. The sophistication of the body’s mummification process and the materials used – including its exceptionally fine linen dressing and high-quality resin – was not thought to have been achieved until 1 ka later.

Microdosing

Janet Lai Chang, a businesswoman, endurance athlete and psychedelics biohacker, reports on her year of psilocybin microdosing. “I’ll share data from my 12+ month experiment with sub-perceptual doses of psilocybin for the purposes of increasing social skills through decreased anxiety and elevated mood, empathy, and verbal fluidity.”

Thawing Diseases

In August 2016, in a remote corner of Siberian tundra called the Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic Circle, a 12-year-old boy died and at least 20 people were hospitalized after being infected by anthrax. The theory is that, over 75 years ago, a reindeer infected with anthrax died and it’s frozen carcass became trapped under a layer of frozen soil, known as permafrost. There it stayed until a heatwave in the summer of 2016, when the permafrost thawed.

Self-driving disruption

By 2030, 95% of US car km traveled will be in self‐driving, electric, shared vehicles. Shared self driving cars will be 4-10x cheaper / km than buying a new car, and 2-4x cheaper than operating an existing paid-off vehicle. Global oil demand will peak at 100M barrels / day by 2020, dropping to 70M barrels / day by 2030 (same as 1995). Productivity gains as a result of reclaimed driving hours will boost GDP by an additional $1 trillion. the number of passenger vehicles on American roads will drop from 247M to 44M, opening up vast tracts of land for other, more productive uses.

Child Psychopaths

At 11, Samantha has wavy black hair and a steady gaze. She flashes a smile when I ask about her favorite subject (history), and grimaces when I ask about her least favorite (math). She seems poised and cheerful, a normal preteen. But when we steer into uncomfortable territory—the events that led her to this juvenile-treatment facility 3000km from her family—Samantha hesitates and looks down at her hands. “I wanted the whole world to myself. So I made a whole entire book about how to hurt people.”

Starting at age 6, Samantha began drawing pictures of murder weapons: a knife, a bow and arrow, chemicals for poisoning, a plastic bag for suffocating. She tells me that she pretended to kill her stuffed animals. “You were practicing on your stuffed animals?,” I ask her. She nods. “How did you feel when you were doing that to your stuffed animals?” “Happy.” “Why did it make you feel happy?” “Because I thought that someday I was going to end up doing it on somebody.” “Did you ever try?” Silence. “I choked my little brother.”