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29 Sep 09

Ancestral Populations Of India And Relationships To Modern Groups Revealed

www.sciencedaily.com/...090923143333.htm - Preview

india north south genetics populations disease ancestry origins DNA Harvard depopulation eugenics global caste

Ancestral Populations Of India And Relationships To Modern Groups Revealed
ScienceDaily (Sep. 24, 2009)
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- In a study published in the September 24th issue of Nature, an international team describes how they harnessed modern genomic technology to explore the ancient history of India, the world's second most populous nation.
- The new research reveals that nearly all Indians carry genomic contributions from two distinct ancestral populations.
- Following this ancient mixture, many groups experienced periods of genetic isolation from each other for thousands of years.
- The study, which has medical implications for people of Indian descent, was led by scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad, India together with US researchers at Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.
- "This work is an outstanding example of the power of international collaboration," said Lalji Singh, senior author of the Nature paper, who is a Bhatnagar Fellow and the former director of CCMB.
- "Scientists in India and the United States have together made discoveries that would have been impossible for either group working alone."
- Although the genome sequences of any two unrelated people differ by just 0.1%, that tiny slice of genetic material is a rich source of information.
- It provides clues that can help reconstruct the historical origins of modern populations.
- It also points to genetic variations that heighten the risk of certain diseases.
- In recent years, maps of human genetic variation have opened a window onto the diversity of populations across the world, yet India has been largely unrepresented until now.
- To shed light on genetic variability across the Indian subcontinent, the research team analyzed more than 500,000 genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 diverse groups, representing 13 states, all six language families, traditionally "upper" and "lower" castes, and tribal groups.
- These genomic analyses revealed two ancestral populations.
- "Different Indian groups have inherited forty to eighty percent of their ancestry from a population that we call the Ancestral North Indians who are related to western Eurasians, and the rest from the Ancestral South Indians, who are not related to any group outside India,"
- said co-author David Reich, an associate professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.
- The finding that nearly all Indian groups descend from mixtures of two ancestral populations applies to traditional "tribes" as well as "castes."
- Kumarasamy Thangaraj, a senior research scientist at CCMB in Hyderabad and a co-author said, "It is impossible to distinguish castes from tribes using the data.
- The genetics proves that they are not systematically different. This supports the view that castes grew directly out of tribal-like organizations during the formation of Indian society."
- The one exception to the finding that all Indian groups are mixed is the indigenous people of the Andaman Islands, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean with a census of only a few hundred today.
- The Andamanese appear to be related exclusively to the Ancestral South Indian lineage and therefore lack Ancestral North Indian ancestry.
- "The Andamanese are unique," said co-author Nick Patterson, a mathematician and researcher at the Broad Institute. "Understanding their origins provides a window onto the history of the Ancestral South Indians, and the period tens of thousands of years ago when they diverged from other Eurasians."
- Added Singh, "Our project to sample the disappearing tribes of the Andaman Islands has been more successful than we could have hoped, as the Andamanese are the only surviving remnant of the ancient colonizers of South Asia."
- The researchers' work also has surprising and important medical implications.
- They discovered that many groups in modern India descend from a small number of founding individuals, and have since been genetically isolated from other groups. In scientific parlance this is called a "founder event."
- "The finding that a large proportion of modern Indians descend from founder events means that India is genetically not a single large population, but instead is best described as many smaller isolated populations," said Singh.
- Thangaraj continued, "The widespread history of founder events helps explain why the incidence of genetic diseases among Indians is different from the rest of the world."
- Founder events in other groups, such as Finns and Ashkenazi Jews, are well known to increase the incidence of recessive genetic diseases, and the new study predicts that the same will be true for many groups in India.
- "It is important to carry out a systematic survey of Indian groups to identify which ones descend from the strongest founder events," said Reich.
- "Further studies of these groups should lead to the rapid discovery of genes that cause devastating diseases, and will help in the clinical care of individuals and their families who are at risk."
- "Just as important as these findings are the statistical approaches that led to them," said Alkes Price, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and a co-author of the Nature study.
- "In studying Indian genetic variation we also developed a novel toolkit for understanding the relationships among groups and the history of mixture. We believe that these tools can drive future studies not only of Indian history but of groups worldwide."

23 Feb 09

VDARE.com: 02/21/09 - Saturday Forum: Immigration Reformer Invented "Hate Facts" Concept; etc.

www.vdare.com/...tl_022109.htm - Preview

don-reynolds v-dare letter pennsylvania-yankee yankees south southerners southern-bashing civil-war immigration reform nations confederacy union the-north the-south

A TX Reader Explains The "Southern Dimension" Of The "Patriotic Immigration Reform" Movement
From:

Don Reynolds (email
him)
13 more annotations...
- Re:
  
  "A
  Pennsylvania Reader Says Immigration Reform Patriots
  Have Better Things To Do Than Argue About The Civil War;
  etc."
- I have read and re-read this note several times and it
  is priceless.
- I must
  thank the writer for reminding me,
  and many other Southerners, of the fact that our Yankee
  cousins strongly disapprove of many things that we
  think, do, and believe.
- I cannot estimate the magnitude
  of misinformation that packed into this short note, but
  I am convinced that the writer actually believes every
  word.
- I certainly hope he will continue with his
  South-bashing, notably his disrespectful remarks about
  
  Robert E. Lee and other
  
  Confederate leaders. He’s the perfect example of why
  this Union of States cannot continue indefinitely.
- We
  are different people and our societies are incompatible.
- Is there a Southern dimension to the
  "Patriotic
  Immigration Reform" movement in this country?
  Undoubtedly the South is the most consistent and steady
  part of that movement.
- If you map the
  
  Senate votes in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens,,
  you will find that very few of those votes were from the
  eleven states of the former Confederacy.
- It is Yankee
  senators to see who is trying to force amnesty on this
  nation.
- Mr.
  Cleburne did not write his article to annoy
  anyone...nor should his article about the Civil War. He
  was rightly responding to the silly comparisons of
  
  Obama to Lincoln lately, which are at least
  premature and probably deliberately misleading.
- Let me be the first of what will likely be many
  Southerners who will encourage this writer to disrespect
  the South. It makes our job much, much easier.
- Reynolds is a city planner and economist. His previous
  letters about bias in journalism, the
  U.S.
  enemy identification problems, the folly of a third
  party and Ron Paul are
  
  here,
  
  here,
  
  here and
  
  here.
- Patrick Cleburne comments:
  Before his death, the South was well defended on
  
  VDARE.COM by
  Sam
  Francis. Subsequently, the task is often handled by
  Mike
  Scruggs (see
  
  here). This
  
  letter by Scruggs is also of interest.

05 Sep 08

Bigfoot not the first strange tale out of North Georgia’s hills (Archives)

www.gainesvilletimes.com/...8349 - Preview

big-foot-hoax hoax monster north-georgia hills woods gainesville brenau-university haunted agnes dare-stones roanoke-colony fake pearce-auditorium emory-university georgia south

"Myths and stories give us meanings and answers to things that scare or fascinate us that we can’t otherwise explain," John O’Sullivan, a Gainesville State College professor, said in an e-mail. "And even with the expanse of science and empirical explanation, there will always be a realm of existence that we cannot answer as human beings.
"We are drawn to the supernatural in part because we do not have a choice; the universe is filled with unknown features and myths, and stories help us explain, cope and provide meaning."
The Bigfoot hoax is only one of the most recent strange tales to filter down from the mountains; there have been many others.
48 more annotations...
- The monster of Billy Hollow
- In the summer of 1975, Bimbo Brewer was working for The Times when he was sent to cover a very unusual story.
  He and a staff artist went out near Blackburn State Park, located near Cleveland, to investigate what one family said was a monster lurking by their home.
- Brewer, who is now the director of the Victim-Witness Assistance Program for the Hall County Sheriff’s Office, said the family described the monster as a "humanoid" that would run naked through the woods, making strange noises at night.
- But Brewer thinks this monster, like the latest Bigfoot incarnation, may have been hoax.
- Brewer said the artist’s rendering of the monster was eerily similar to a portrait of a relative hanging on a wall of the trailer.
- "I happened to look past him on the wall and there was a very close resemblance to what he was drawing. We’ll never know for sure, but the monster of Billy Hollow that would run naked through the woods at night making strange sounds looked very much like one of the relatives living there," Brewer said.
- After he met the man, who he remembers as a nephew of the family that owned the mobile home, he sensed there was something creepy about him.
- "He was strange within his own right. We met him that day," Brewer said. "He didn’t have a lot of social skills but looked like the kind that might run naked through the campground screaming at night.
- Jerry (the artist) and I left there, as rapidly as we could by the way, feeling almost certain that the monster of Billy Hollow was a guy named Cecil. But we’ll never know for sure. That’s just our spin on it."
- A Times article from 1980 recounted the monster as a three-toed, ape-like critter rather than a humanoid, as Brewer heard it. But Brewer believes people may have had time to embellish the creature by the time the second article ran.
- "I suspect that may be one of those legends that may be more fun to let it grow on its own," Brewer said.
- The Dare Stones
- In the heart of Gainesville at Brenau University lies what some believe is the key to a mystery that is older than the United States itself — the lost colony of Roanoke — and what others consider one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.
- Around 50 rocks, some weighing upwards of 60 pounds and collectively known as the Dare Stones, were brought to Brenau in the 1930s by then-Vice President Haywood Pearce Jr.
- They are said to be messages from America’s first colonists, who settled on Roanoke Island near present-day North Carolina in the 1580s.
- The governor of the colony, John White, returned to Roanoke from a voyage to England, only to find the colony completely deserted.
- To this day, no one is sure exactly what happened, but in the 1930s, people found what was believed to be evidence pointing to some possible answers.
- The story goes that Eleanor Dare, the daughter of John White, inscribed messages in the stones, hoping to fill her father in on what had happened during his long voyage to England and back.
  And a lot had happened.
- Eleanor’s husband, Ananais, and daughter, Virginia, died, and the colony of more than 100 people was abandoned.
- "This is a message chiseled in the stone purportedly from Eleanor Dare to her father saying if you find this, tell Gov. Dare this is what happened to us," said David Morrison, a spokesman for Brenau University.
- The man who found the stone brought it to Emory University in Atlanta, where Pearce was also a professor.
- When Emory did not express interest in the stone, Pearce purchased it for $1,000 to keep at Brenau University, thinking "this is just the thing to put us (Brenau) on the map," Morrison said.
- After Brenau acquired the original Dare Stone, nearly 50 others were discovered and subsequently purchased by the university.
- And all was well until the stones were debunked as a hoax in a Saturday Evening Post article.
- "The Saturday Evening Post article kind of shot holes in everything," Morrison said. "Pearce Jr. was a historian of some repute himself and was very highly respected. He was pretty well convinced they were accurate. The Post just barely stopped short of accusing him of participating in the fakery," Morrison said.
- And though the validity of the stones has been largely disproved, Morrison said Brenau is not ashamed of the stones at all.
  "People are interested in them, they’re oddities for sure," Morrison said. "It’s not anything the University’s embarrassed about. The Pearces brought people in to look at them and they thought they were pretty good."
- The stones still rest at Brenau today, kept underground in a broiler room beneath the amphitheater.
- The Ghost of Agnes
- Many of the women studying at Brenau University have likely been told the story of Agnes, the ghost of a former student who haunts Pearce Auditorium.
- And though some may pass it off as a story meant to scare incoming freshman, Kathy Amos, the director of the Center for Lifetime Study at the university and a professional storyteller, believes that the ghost exits.
- There are a few different versions of what actually happened to Agnes, but it is generally believed that she committed suicide by hanging herself in Pearce Auditorium.
- Amos has done extensive research into the story of Agnes, and has debunked a few of the rumors and come up with some theories of her own.
  "Do I believe there’s something in Pearce Auditorium? Absolutely," Amos said. "And I’m a big skeptic in a lot of ways."
- Amos said she thinks the best known version of the ghost story is that as a student at Brenau, Agnes fell in love with a music instructor, who later jilted her. She was so heartbroken that she hung herself from the diving board of a pool that was under the auditorium.
- However, Amos said her research proves that there never was a swimming pool at that location.
- In another version of the story, Agnes is a ballet dancer was so distraught over not getting the lead role in a performance that she hangs herself from the president’s box in the auditorium. Yet another version is that Agnes kills herself after being rejected from the sorority of her choice.
  But Amos doesn’t think any of those are very likely.
- "There’s too much I’ve disproved, I know there was no pool," Amos said.
- Amos’ findings have even shown that there likely never was an Agnes at the school during the 1930s that committed suicide at Brenau.
- The most likely possibility was a woman named Agnes Galloway, who only attended the university for one year before her death. But Amos said this Agnes died and was buried in her home state of North Carolina, not at Brenau.
- Amos strongly believes there is a ghost in Pearce Auditorium, and has come up with some ideas that she thinks are more likely.
  The Dare Stones showed up at Brenau right about the same time the Agnes story started, and Amos thinks that is no coincidence.
- "I believe the name Agnes actually probably came from the Dare Stones," Amos said.
- Eleanor Dare, whose husband, Ananais, and daughter, Virginia, died on Roanoke Island, is said to have married an Indian chief after the colony was mysteriously deserted.
- Dare and the chief had a child together, who was named Agnes, according to legend.
- After exploring the auditorium with ghost hunters, Amos also collected new information that led her to a radically different idea of who the ghost of Agnes might be.
  "I don’t think it’s a woman," Amos said. "I also believe there’s a possibility there’s more than one ghost."
- Amos said ghost hunters use recording devices to try to hear ghosts’ voices, because they cannot be picked up by the human ear. This process, known as Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP, allowed Amos to hear a man’s voice in the auditorium.
  "We’ve heard two different voices," Amos said. "One is a man’s voice and one is a woman’s."
- She said she has an idea of who the male ghost may be, but wants to do more research before she can say definitively.
- And Amos said she has done everything she can to insure the sounds are legitimate, including listening to the tape before they start recording and checking to see if anyone is in the auditorium.
- "Am I being hoaxed? Possibly. The ghost hunters fully believe in what they believe in," Amos said. "And I keep trying to disprove what they’re saying. So far I’ve not been able to disprove it."
  Brewer said while he enjoys legends and ghost stories, he doesn’t think any of the mythical beings exist.
- "I’m afraid we’re alone," Brewer said. "I don’t think there’s a Yeti and I don’t think there’s a Nessi. I wish all these things would be there because the world be so much more interesting and so much more fun. It’d give us something to jump at when things go bump in the night."

17 Aug 08

Tornado kills three people in Poland - Yahoo! News UK

Some are reporting this strange weather pattern developed the day after Russia's warning threat to Poland not to cooperate with the U.S. for a missile shield...??? Is, indeed, someone controlling the weather as an arm of military weaponry?

uk.news.yahoo.com/...-people-in-poland-41f21e0.html - Preview

poland weather strange tornado rain south southern-poland czestochowa deaths injuries

Tornado kills three people in Poland
Saturday, August 16 05:50 pm
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- A tornado that struck southern Poland on Friday has killed at least three people and injured 34 more.
- Villages in southern Poland were devastated by the heavy storms, with roofs torn off homes, trees knocked down and vehicles overturned.
- The worst damage came in the southern province of Silesia, where two people were killed.
- One man near Czestochowa died after a tree crashed into his home, while a woman was crushed by the ceiling of her house in Rusinowice.
- In a separate incident one woman in the central city of Lodz was electrocuted by wires ripped off by heavy winds.
- Strong winds also swept through section of the A4 highway section near Opole, overturning cars and trucks, and blocking it for several hours.