Most of us think of Europe as the ancestral home of white people. But a new study shows that pale skin, as well as other traits such as tallness and the ability to digest milk as adults, arrived in most of the continent relatively recently. The work, presented here last week at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, offers dramatic evidence of recent evolution in Europe and shows that most modern Europeans don’t look much like those of 8000 years ago.

The origins of Europeans have come into sharp focus in the past year as researchers have sequenced the genomes of ancient populations, rather than only a few individuals. By comparing key parts of the DNA across the genomes of 83 ancient individuals from archaeological sites throughout Europe, the international team of researchers reported earlier this year that Europeans today are a mix of the blending of at least three ancient populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers who moved into Europe in separate migrations over the past 8000 years. The study revealed that a massive migration of Yamnaya herders from the steppes north of the Black Sea may have brought Indo-European languages to Europe about 4500 years ago.

Now, a new study from the same team drills down further into that remarkable data to search for genes that were under strong natural selection—including traits so favorable that they spread rapidly throughout Europe in the past 8000 years. By comparing the ancient European genomes with those of recent ones from the 1000 Genomes Project, population geneticist Iain Mathieson, a postdoc in the Harvard University lab of population geneticist David Reich, found five genes associated with changes in diet and skin pigmentation that underwent strong natural selection.

First, the scientists confirmed an earlier report that the hunter-gatherers in Europe could not digest the sugars in milk 8000 years ago, according to a poster. They also noted an interesting twist: The first farmers also couldn’t digest milk. The farmers who came from the Near East about 7800 years ago and the Yamnaya pastoralists who came from the steppes 4800 years ago lacked the version of the LCT gene that allows adults to digest sugars in milk. It wasn’t until about 4300 years ago that lactose tolerance swept through Europe.

When it comes to skin color, the team found a patchwork of evolution in different places, and three separate genes that produce light skin, telling a complex story for how European’s skin evolved to be much lighter during the past 8000 years. The modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today.

http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebook

 posted by f. sheikh

 A must read article in NYT, How my mom got hacked.

“MY mother received the ransom note on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It popped up on her computer screen soon after she’d discovered that all of her files had been locked. “Your files are encrypted,” it announced. “To get the key to decrypt files you have to pay 500 USD.” If my mother failed to pay within a week, the price would go up to $1,000. After that, her decryption key would be destroyed and any chance of accessing the 5,726 files on her PC — all of her data — would be lost forever.

Sincerely, CryptoWall.

CryptoWall 2.0 is the latest immunoresistant strain of a larger body of viruses known as ransomware. The virus is thought to infiltrate your computer when you click on a legitimate-looking attachment or through existing malware lurking on your hard drive, and once unleashed it instantly encrypts all your files, barring access to a single photo or tax receipt.

Everyone has the same questions when they first hear about CryptoWall:

Is there any other way to get rid of it besides paying the ransom? No — it appears to be technologically impossible for anyone to decrypt your files once CryptoWall 2.0 has locked them. (My mother had several I.T. professionals try.)”

“So what can we all do to protect ourselves? Keep our computers backed up on an independent drive or by using a cloud backup service like Carbonite, take those software update and “patch” alerts seriously and, most of all, Beware the Attachment. (Remember: Brand-name businesses like J. Crew or Bank of America will rarely send you an attachment.)”

Click link below for full article

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/opinion/sunday/how-my-mom-got-hacked.html?ref=international

Posted by F. Sheikh

( Dawn) An interesting commentary on messy politics of Pakistan.

It is a tale of two narratives. One of a popular leader sweeping to a capital overcome with sleaze and corruption to sweep out the old and bring in the naya. With him were masses whose votes were stolen, who were tired of being governed by the Lords of Misrule. With hope in their hearts and fervour in their eyes they followed a man of unimpeachable honesty and character; a man who, to them, embodies all that is good and in whom they vested all their hopes and dreams.

Those dreams vary from a wish for a Pakistan where merit triumphs over nepotism, to a desire for low fuel prices and a working education system. Fuelled by this passion, they reached the capital where, despite repression and brutality, they held the course. Sure, they may not have gotten the PM to resign, despite hundreds of twitter hashtags and internet memes, but they awakened the nation.

But here’s another story.

This is a tale of an Empire that, after seeing its power and privilege threatened by an emerging civilian disposition, struck back. They’d done it before, but this time a coup was impractical and a memo(gate) not devastating enough. Thus they chose an approach that they were all too familiar with; that of using proxies.

Chosen for the purpose were Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri, who willingly played the parts the hidden scriptwriter wrote for them. And why wouldn’t they? After all, the happy ending they were promised was one in which their common enemy floundered after being fingered by the Umpire, paving the way for them to gain the power and justice that they were respectively denied.

Luckily, reality is relative. One can believe, as one does, whatever one chooses to. And certainly there is plenty of evidence to support either narrative, or plenty of holes you can poke in each story provided you are willing to suspend credulity and disbelief.

But here’s the thing: both stories can be simultaneously true. This deepest of states does not use a proxy that is not capable of delivering, and our political classes have never been shy of seeking help from any quarter that offers it. For full article click link below.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1154440/2014-of-empire-and-umpire

 Posted by F. Sheikh